Minivegas Does It In Realtime

London-based directing collective, Mini Vegas, not only works on animation projects; they also do computer programming and run their own art gallery. To bring all this together, they took the programming experience they gained from working on experimental projects, such as advanced beauty, combined it with their design and animation skills and forged it into a real-time virtual version of a physical gallery space.

In this installation-like piece, the user can interact with sound driven sculptures of several forms. There are old friends like metaballs, particle systems, simulations and more. Those generative 3D elements make up the nice, rainbow-coloured, neo-futuristic shapes we all love so much.

This is all based on a custom made software architecture with quite some nice technical specs such as 60fps playback, dualcore, GPU based, OpenGL and FFT to drive the graphics from the audio — all the nerdy acronyms you want.

With computer hardware becoming increasingly faster, the final conclusion would be to completely scrap the traditional workflow of rendering in passes and just do everything in real time. Computer games already go that route, with impressing results. It will be very interesting to see this technology merging into the animation sector.

Fido’s Energy Giant

Swedish Animation Studio Fido flexes their muscles to animate this story about building the sustainable future for RWE. Together with German agency Jung von Matt, they developed the main character and and the story of being big and proud of it.

“The challenge was to create a character that is not a creature that people fear nor a human being” says Jens Pfau from JVM. The biggest challenges in the four-month production time were the facial expessions, skin and hair of the character and to define that “special edge that makes the world magical.”

Originally conceived as an in-house corporate video, the clip will premier in German cinemas to mark the launch of the new Harry Potter film. “If people like him, he might have a long future, doing some good deeds.”

(Here’s the video in english language.)

McBess Wood [NSFW]

Superstar Illustrator McBess teamed up with Simon, their mates and the Mill to churn out this gorgeous music video for their own band, The Dead Pirates.

The characters featured are drawn in his signature style and animated flawlessly. They might remind you a bit of the Gorillaz Feel Good Inc. video, which I must say is about the best company to be in. The whole piece is visually beautiful in its reduced colour palette and soft shadows, and at the same time it tells a cool story that ties in with the music perfectly.

Editor’s note: Bits at the end of this video might be deemed not safe for work.

Anchored

Lindsey Olivares disembarks the Ringling College of Art + Design with her gorgeous movie Anchored. A beautiful piece of love and longing in a painterly style.

Peugeot 3008 vs Zamak

The french team of directors Stéphane Leloutre & Tim Miltat worked with the 3D shop Sabotage Studio in Paris to bring the characters of Olivier Bucheron aka Zamak to live.

His characters chase a Peugeot 3008 until there is a scene in the end with boxes which feels a bit like being from a different spot. Two Left Hands threw in some Stop Motion Goodness for that part. Overall the animation is really nice, the 3D work is up to the job.

The real treat in the spot is seeing Zamak’s characters moving and interacting. The original designs are apparently made with ZSpheres. Very cool.

He has a little making of of the spot on his blog.

Credits