The ‘Die Konferenz der Tiere’ (’Animals United’) teaser trailer hit German theatres recently on December 18th and can be seen before James Cameron’s latest action-scifi epos ‘Avatar’ (even in 3d if you are visiting a stereoscopic screening).
Naturely I was very proud to see it on the big screen in our Cinemaxx theatre here in Hanover. Maybe it’s a little bit self-centred but it feels great to know, that pieces of your latest work will be seen by millions of people during the next weeks and hopefully entertain and ‘tease’ them a little bit.
If you like you can find the teaser trailer online on the official ‘Die Konferenz der Tiere’ facebook page in high definition quality. HD requires flash player 10 or better so make sure that you have the latest version installed on your computer.
This Tuesday the new corporate website of 5 PRIME was launched. Why do I tell you that? Because I did the graphic design for this website and created a short animation intro that welcomes you as you enter the website. Tons of credit goes to Felix who I believe must have been planning and hacking code together till his fingers bled and his brain started twisting especially during the last few weeks. :)
Personally I found it quite challenging to meet all the requirements (where to place all the different kinds of content) and still to deliver a usable and legible design, but it all worked out pretty well I think. Furthermore I learned a lot about visual conception, usability, and typography & web layout during this project.
So feel free to click HERE and visit the relaunched 5 PRIME website. Any comment or critic on the web design and the intro animation is of course appreciated. I’ll probably add a few making off pictures from the intro animation to my portfolio in the near future. As you can tell, I’m quite lazy regarding constant updates of my own website. To be honest the animation, which is showing a cute little frog trying to climb on top of a 5 PRIME box to reach another box fitting his small size, was already created about a year ago as an assignment at UTS (where it received a mark of 98%).
Anyway… as I’m talking about jobs and projects right now I may as well polish the image of my current job at Ambient Entertainment as one of my last posts on this topic seemed to be almost depressive (at least from my current perspective).
Actually I was given some very nice tasks since that last post about my work on ‘Animals United’ (which is now almost a year old). After the end of my internship I was offered a contract for a 20hours/week job so I could work alongside my studies at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Hanover. Although this did leave almost no spare time at all for me, it was (to my surprise) actually doable. Of course all the movie content is still top secret but I can tell you that I got the opportunity to work on some really gorgeous sets and environments like the home burrow of one of the main characters. It’s sad that for obvious reasons I’m not allowed to give away any further details.
To withdraw the last remaining minutes from my spare time I also worked as a ‘Hiwi’ (student assistant) at uni during the last semester teaching other students character modelling and sculpting using Maya and Mudbox. It’s amazing how much you learn when you teach others. ;)
As you can probably guess some projects for uni did therefore suffer under all the different workloads. This is why I am still busy finishing some projects from the last semester… like the crab thing for example. I don’t want to give away too much right now but it involved the setup of a character rig far more complex than any rig I’ve ever created before. The good thing is: I can do MEL scripting now.
The bad thing is: I see funny little crabs everywhere. No, just kidding. ;)
Here is a screenshot showing the self written user interface on the right side:
I just rendered a quick playblast showing parts of a dynamic walk cycle.
Whoohoo. Right before the end of the year I managed to add my demoreel for 2008 (which is actually my only demoreel so far) to my internet portfolio. Just klick on ‘portfolio’ or take the shortcut through the sidebar to find the download link and breakdown. Note that it was compiled last May and therefore lacks some recent content.
Phew, this is becoming kind of an exhausting week! Although… currently I’m doing what I’m best at: creating digital garbage! ;)
Ok seriously: There will be a presentation of a few shots of Ambient’s current project ‘Animals United’ (German: ‘Konferenz der Tiere’) based on a short novel by the famous German author Erich Kästner at the ‘American Film Market’ in November. Last Friday I was told that in one of those shots there’s a garbage can. This garbage can is not intended to contain any beverage packagings. Unfortunately until last friday this garbage can was filled with nothing else but beverage cans, beverage bottles and beverage boxes. So my supervisor and I had to model a whole bunch of garbage items which I also have to texture now. All within a week. Actually this is a nice opportunity for me to get a little into texturing and away from all the tree trunks and branches I’ve been modelling before.
I also managed to complete the report on my semester abroad at UTS which I mentioned in my last entry. It’s just a short and sketchy summary and it’s mainly written for future exchange students of the German Academic Exchange Service. You can download it here in German Language if you’re interested in reading it.
There are not too many fancy things happening in my life at the moment. The work at Ambient is quite interesting and yet a little bit disenchanting from time to time. First of all because I have to admit how little I know about Maya. This program opens up a hell lot of possibilities! On the other hand it’s kind of wired to feel like you’re building up your future career on a single program… Second it is becoming obvious to me how difficult it is to produce a 3d animation feature film in Germany. Compared to America, Australia or New Zeeland the industry over here still seems to be in its infancy which of course is mostly a matter of size. In other words: Ambient does not employ a few hundred 3d artists like Pixar does – but the ticket price at your local cinema is the same for movies from both companies. Assuming that the German average consumer goes to the movies 1.5 times a year you can clearly tell what the problem is.
Apropos cinema and Pixar: I did what Woody, the cowboy from Toy Story, recommends in this awesome trailer:
I met WALL•E who finally arrived in German theatres on September 25th. Kind of a good idea because this movie kicks ass! Although Ratatouille stays my favourite movie from Pixar, I highly recommend watching this masterpiece (definitely to everybody, not only to my fellow 3d animation students!) The only thing that bothers me a little bit is the implementation of live action characters during a few video messages on the human space ship. It’s not like it’s ruining the movie in any way but I just don’t understand the reason and from my point of view it simply does not fit in.
During the next few days I’m going to finish my report on the semester abroad in Sydney that I have to write for the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service). That’s the support organisation that payed my scholarship. If I’m confident with the result I might upload it to this site (in German language). While writing this report I really feel like my German vocabulary and writing skills have degenerated rapidly in the past few years. Or maybe I’m just getting older. At least I am not 20 anymore, am I? ;)
Hi everybody. I didn’t write too much since I’m back in Germany. I know. At least I managed to upload a gallery about ‘States of Convergence’ to my internet portfolio, as you can see on the sidebar.
Well, to be honest I was pretty lazy and was having a good time with friends, enjoying my holidays until my internship starts on September 1rst. This internship will last six months and will take place at Ambient Entertainment, a 3d animation studio from Hanover that is currently working on its 4th feature film. I’m not sure if I am allowed to talk about the project that I am going to be working on there… so to shrink responsibility I’ll simply provide you with this link to a blog entry of one of Ambient’s art department guys. ;)
In my opinion this seems to be a great project and I’m really looking forward to be a part of it. Now I am a little bit busy with moving to Hanover…
Well, and since 3d animation is quite addictive, I was not able to stay away from Maya for too long. So I modelled these two objects, which are intended to appear as background objects in the latest project of my fellow students Dennis and Patrick from FH Hannover (University of Applied Science and Arts, Hanover).
Smooth surfaces on both objects are simply achieved by changing the angle of the normals to 180° to save render time instead of using polygon smooth. So they’re both basically ‘low poly objects’. You clearly can see this on the slightly edgy wheels or the saddle but as I said: they’re not created for close ups.
Oh… and the bicycle is completely ‘riggable’, which I might take care of for my next demo reel. ;)
This is a project from Hyungkoo Lee, a South Korean artist who analysed the anatomic structure of famous cartoon characters like Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny and so on and created skeletons which seem to be believable from a biomechanical point of view. Here is the official German website about his exhibition at the ‘Naturhistorisches Museum Basel’. Since there were several seminars dealing with biomechanics in the multimedia class at FH Hannover during the past two semesters, this might be of particular interest for my fellow students. ;)
Today I got an email from my fellow student Patrick Kayser saying that our short film ‘Catwalk - Black Cat Crossing’ from the second semester won the second price (endowned with 500€) at the Movies & Stills Award in the category Stills.
Therefore the priced stills will be part of an exhibition at basis in Frankfurt and a presentation in Rödermark.
Catwalk is currently also nominated for the Bitfilm Award 2008 in the category 3D Space. Due to the fact, that the winner is selected through a public vote, we would appreciate any support we can get. So if you have not voted yet, please follow this link! ;)
A highres version of Catwalk can be downloaded here. I’ll upload it to my webspace as soon as I have faster internet access again.
