Good news for the modellers, btw, is that we’ve been tuning/tightening our modelling pipeline. I intend to post on that in a week or two once I’ve formalized the last details, so it should be easier and smoother to get your modelling chops into final shots.

I promise my next post won’t have an exclamation point on the end

This blog has been a little quiet of late but the project is quite healthy. We’ve been working hard on animation and refining our modelling pipeline to allow modellers an easier time contributing to the project. Tal and I have nailed down most of our technical hurdles in the autowalker/crowd side, which is a huge relief (those shots were always a bit of a scary looming task) and we think we can finish these shots with a great deal of fun.

stay tuned for more posts, where we share our current progress… and some news!

Producers/project management/website/writing: Fateh Slavitsky and Ellizabeth Ellis powering along.

Animators:

• Chris Bishop is our animation supervisor, an amazing animator and teacher- well suited to the role of supervisor.
• Jarred de Beer (previously an intern) is still animating like mad, working on 2/3 of the most difficult shots in the first act.
• Virgillio Vasconcelos Animator, professor and author from Brazil- really great, and great to work with.
• Tal Hershkovich is doing lots of roach sim and animation.
• Carlo Serra Summer intern who’s working on a nice action-y shot.
• Sarah Laufer Mad talented animator! She’s tackling a very challenging shot.
• Francesco Siddi (previously a modeller/intern) and recent blenderwiki developer.
• Luciano A. Muñoz Sessarego who I met at TOSMI and is a great animator and all around fun guy.

Modellers:

• Dimetrii Kalinin (One of the nastiest modellers I’ve seen) – he’s backed up by his brother Michael, great concept/2D artist and animator.

Sound:

• Thomas Vecchione is currently doing temp sound for the animatic;
• Jan Morgenstern will then evaluate the result, looking for music opportunities – the two will collaborate on the final sound mix (Thomas = SFX, Jan = Music)

Fall interns:

• Samantha Luo : Samantha is a UMASS student with good Blender chops: 3D Generalist
• Andreu Cabre: Another Blenderhead, Andreu is trained in graphic design, and self taught in 3D: 3D Generalist with a focus on pipeline issues.
• Roberto Roch: Our other nasty sculptor/modeller, Roberto will be working on polishing assets to get final models in shots.
• Karen Webb: Our only animation intern, she’s new (ish) to Blender but a fast learner
• Samah Majadla: Smith College student and lighter from Caldera,  3D Generalist on Tube
• Christine Stuckart: recent grad, recent Caldera intern, like Samah she is starting as 3D Generalist with no prior Blender experience.

I’m holding a two intro to Blender training session in ASH (Adele Simmons Hall, Hampshire College) 126 on Tuesday and Thursday ( Oct 4th and 6th) 5ish to 7ish. plans are for a small group  (there’s a projector and computers, but also students working on projects at the same time). If you’re in the area and wish to attend, please let me know via email or comments so I can gauge space requirements.

We can also do a sneak, spoilery peek at Tube afterwards.

But if you’re not around, don’t despair! I’ll be giving an animation masterclass (fancy!) at the Blender conference in Amsterdam. It’ll cover production workflow tips from Tube and other projects, both riggingish and animationish. No spoilers, but I’ll probably be using Tube production rigs.

Hi folks, looks like I have some news! first of all, I’ll be teaching two Blender workshops at the always excellent Tosmi ( Training in Open Source Multimedia Instruments) The first Course (Oct 31st-Nov 5th)  will be co-taught by the excellent Miroslav Brozovic (freelancer, instructor and Croatian Blender community organizer) , while the second (Nov 7-12)will be co-taught by the well known Sebastian Koenig, well known for his many tutorials and work with camera tracking. Going from past experience, it will be an extremely intensive and fun. For more information, or to sign up for the courses, head over to tosmi.org .

  The second bit of news is that I will be attending Blender conference Oct 28-30! This was a little bit of a last minute final decision (I changed my mind a few times) but I’ll be there. Looking forward to meeting Tube artists ( Tal Hershkovitch will be giving a talk about using the G.E. for crowd shots) and all the other Blenderfriends

Been making some extra crumpled paper for one of the trickier shots in the movie, and thought the method was amusing enough to post here.

• create a rectangular paper grid, and triangulate it.
• make a slightly bent shape and pin it.
• create a ground plane, with collisions turned on
• add a softbody modifier, rotate the grid, position it above the ground
• hit alt-a, let softbody do it’s magic
• apply the modifier as shape
• create new, successively folded shapes by repeating the previous 3 steps
• sculpt your softbody shapes to perfection
• uv unwrap
• split out each shape into a mesh of it’s own
• create edge creases, merge quads, etc.
• add subsurf/other modifiers as needed

Calling all students (18+), recent graduates, and professionals wanting to ply their 3D skills in libre software:

It’s that time again, internships open at the very cool Bit Films Animation Incubator at Hampshire College, Massachusetts. (Now semi officially known as the ‘Nerdodrome’)

Helmed by Chris Perry, formerly of Pixar and Rhythm & Hues, the program draws together a number of interesting projects and a lot of talent, so although the internships are unpaid, it promises to be a very stimulating and fruitful space.

The official internship period runs from Monday October 3rd, 2011 through Friday December 16, 2011. Applications are due (via email) no later than Friday Sepember 23rd, 2011 at 5pm (EDT). We understand that this is short lead time for those needing to make visa and travel arrangements. Because the project is ongoing, the internship period is flexible; if in doubt, apply!

Although it may not provide as immersive an experience, we are open to considering applicants to a remote internship. Remote interns would join the already global team using our web-based project management software, SVN, and IRC.

Please read *carefully* the open positions announcement and FAQ! Have more questions? Email fateh [at] freefac [dot] org.

A bit of history: My old blender rigs used controls that spanned each finger, that scaled up or down to curl it, and rotated to rotate it. I used IK, which meant the tip of the control always aligned with the tip of the finger- but it had limited reverse-curl, and no tweaks. For Big Buck Bunny, Nathan Vegdahl took the idea, but changed the implementation to action-constraints, solving both problems but creating another ( controls no longer align with the fingers – hard to select). I’ve taken that same setup for Gilga, and animators instantly complained about the difficult selection.
My solution was to color each finger uniquely (duh!) and to make the controls themselves deform matching the fingers, that way, they stay completely aligned with them. Short Demo video below: