Zeb Blog - CG News

Coraline : 3 sneak peak videos

Zeb — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:20:00 -0700

Coraline is the next stop motion animated movie from Henry Selick, following "James and the giant peach" and "Nightmare before Christmas". The movie is based on a success novel from Neil Gaiman. I feel I'll always love this "genre" of animated movies, despite many constraints they always end up being way more interesting graphically than most of the animated CG feature films.

Here is a quick resume of the synopsis:
"A young girl (Fanning) walks through a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life. On the surface, this parallel reality is eerily similar to her real life – only much better. But when her adventure turns dangerous, and her counterfeit parents (including Other Mother [Hatcher]) try to keep her forever, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home – and save her family." (Source IMDB)

Movie release date is febuary 2009 in the States The whole production took place at the Laika studio

Academy Awards Nominations

Zeb — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 08:00:00 -0800

Once again this is academy time, here is the list of nominees for the 3 categories related to the animation and special effects.
Best Animated Feature film , Best Animated Short Film and Achievements in visual effects.

Continue reading the post to get my forecasts about those awards and watch avideos about the short movies in list.
Place your bets ladies and gentlemen

Best Animated Feature Film:

Surf's Up by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud (Sony Pictures Classics)
Ratatouille by Brad Bird (Pixar/Walt Disney)

I am very happy with this selection, Hourra to Persepolis and the entire team of the film as well as a Marjane Satrapi (For comics too).
So far Ratatouille is the huge favorite, and I am delighted because I totally loved the movie. But I won't mind either if Persepolis make the surprise by getting the award.

Best Animated Short Movie:

I Met the Walrus
Production : A Kids Explosions
Directed by Josh Raskin

More on that movie there http://wbff.org/films/detail.asp?fid=707

Madame Tutli-Putli
Production : National Film Board of Canada
Directed by Chris Lavis et Maciek Szczerbowski

Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis
Production : Premium Films / BUF Compagnie
Directed by Samuel Tourneux

Peter and the wolf
Production : BreakThru Films/Se-ma-for Studios
Directed by : Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman

My Love (Moya Lyubov)
Production : Dago-Film Studio, Channel One Russia et Dentsu Tec
Directed by : Alexander Petrov

you can see the first part of the short below :

I'll cross my fingers for Samuel ( come on a French movie nominated for the shorts doesn't happen quite often) , but I have to tell that I really like Petrov short and Madame Tutli-Putli
Those two look incredibly nice and have great emotional content.

Achievement in visual effects:

Golden Compass(New Line and Ingenious Film Partners)
Pirates of the Carribeans: At World’s End (Walt Disney)
Transformers (DreamWorks and Paramount with Hasbro)

Well this is simple I have seen only the Golden compass yet so I cannot tell.
Which one of those three did you like the most ?

What are your bets for the short and the feature ?

Update !! in a totally different manner here is a nice post from Veronica Romm about the Oscars
The Academy Awards : a love story

Brazil 2.0, official release

Zeb — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:10:00 -0800

Finally Splutterish is coming back in the news headlines with the release of Brazil 2. I've been working on Brazil 1.2x at Blur Studio for more than 4 years and I'm really happy of this new version.

Click on the logo to see the official release page

Here is a small and condensed list of the new features :
Overall Speed Improvement
3D Motion Blur Support
Displacement Support
Brazil r/s V2 Materials: New Features and Improvements

New Brazil r/s V2 Texture Maps (occlusion and SSS)
New Brazil r/s V2 Objects
Brazil r/s V2 Camera Improvements
Brazil r/s V2 Light Improvements
Improvements and Additions to Photon Map rendering and workflow
New Brazil r/s V2 Shadow Map

Brazil 2 blog : If you're interested to see a little bit about what's inside, how this second version works, take a look at the official tutorial page which is awesome.

I've been able to play a lot with the different beta version as I'm currently working on a DVD for the Gnomon Workshop focusing on Brazil 2 materials. My only regret is that volumetric shaders are not yet implemented ( unless I haven't found them yet , sic) . Beside that this new version is a lot greater than the previous one, the speed improvement is really noticeable. I know that many are a little bit sarcastic about it releasing so late compare to the outstanding competitors, and with no revolutionary features. Well I have to say you shouldn't choose a software only for features but also because you like the workflow coming with it , the flexibility of the tool.

Once I will be done with the DVD I will publish a really in depth review of this new version of Brazil.