Tag Archives: animated

Merging 3D and 2D Animation: “Three-dimensional Proxies for Hand-Drawn Characters”

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I’m surprised I didn’t see this research before, but I’m glad I have now, and wanted to quickly tell you about it.

Hand-drawn (traditional) animation and 3D (computer) animation have been separate forms for a long time. The over-abundance of computer animation has caused some people to mutter, but computer animation is easier and more effective in many ways, so some animators have tried to merge the benefits of both mediums. Oscar-winning Disney short “Paperman” is one such example of how such a style might work (still not able to replace hand-drawn in my opinion, but it comes very close and captures the general heart and soul very well).

But on this webpage, you can find a research paper by Eakta Jain (and Yaser Sheikh, Moshe Mahler, Jessica Hodgins) at Carnegie Mellon titled “Three-dimensional Proxies for Hand-Drawn Characters,” just one of several efforts made by Jain to somehow use traditional animation with modern technology. The included video shows the potential of combining 3D computer models for physics (with environments and cloth effects) with hand-drawn characters. It looks great, and was partially funded by Autodesk (creators of 3D software “Maya”) and Disney Research. Love or hate Disney, their research division really does catch on to some fantastic work.

Of course, it appears additional technical input is required on the artist’s part to make the two artworks mesh together properly, and I assume this is all pre-rendered and may have little to do with the potential in games or real time tech demos, but it looks good nonetheless.

The website I’m talking about is here: http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/threeDproxy/ . Give it a look, it might inspire you.

Hayao Miyazaki: The Anime Industry is Full Of “Otaku”

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The great Japanese animator and famed director of Studio Ghibli: Hayao Miyazaki is said to be retired now, leaving his latest film “The Wind Rises” as his last piece of art. I haven’t seen it yet, but I certainly look forward to seeing it later this month.

Recently, he said in a interview that the anime industry is filled with staff who are “otaku.”

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48 Until End of Kickstarter… Plus New Art For “James – Journey of Existence”

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My Kickstarter for “James – Journey of Existence” (http://kck.st/19wTNSh) has only 25 backers so close to the end, which is a little embarrassing, when the beginning had so much promise. On the other hand, the new IndieDB page for “James – Journey of Existence” (http://www.indiedb.com/games/james-journey-of-existence) already has 4 followers after about 24 hours of being up, so it seems an easy and safe simulation of how a Kickstarter would play, given the growth in community rises at almost the same rate.

There were several things wrong with the Kickstarter campaign. One major one was the current quality of the game itself: the environments were bland, the animations were crude, and the character designs were lacking. Art is in the eye of the beholder and some have truly loved the game’s style so far, but I can’t argue with the masses. And here’s my first step in fixing that: new character designs for James!

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“James – Journey of Existence” Demo Exclusive to Kickstarter Backers

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My Kickstarter for hand-drawn 3D adventure indie game “James – Journey of Existence” (http://kck.st/19wTNSh) got a couple pledges this week, one of which nearly doubled the pledge count (not difficult, given how low it was a few days ago). Promising.

From the beginning of this Kickstarter, I promised that backers would receive an exclusive demo before the end of the Kickstarter campaign. There were a few reasons behind this: it was a very nice incentive for the $1 tier, and it was like a last-minute demo that might convince backers to increase their pledges a bit (or remove their pledges completely, if they so felt that way). And in the likelihood that the Kickstarter campaign fails, backers would still get something as a sign of thanks for their early support.

After a couple stressful weeks actually making the extra content for the demo, I can say it is completed, and the demo will be made available today to Kickstarter backers.

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Project James – Hand Drawn 3D Game (level update)

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No matter how hard I try, I find it hard to stay away from working on this…

Those of you who read my blog know I am working on a 3D game where the characters are entirely hand-drawn. Previously, the background was kind of unfinished, but here’s some screenshots of the new introduction level (still not entirely finished, but that’s mostly what I’m going for):

 

Hand-Drawn 3d game update

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