animation
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Funimation launches its all-in-one anime destination site
Funimation Entertainment announced today that its FunimationNow platform is now live. The site, which we first saw back at CES, will make the studio's expansive archive of shows -- including DBZ, Attack on Titan and Assassination Classroom -- available to subscribers without ads or viewing restrictions. The new service will initially be available on iOS, Android, Kindle and Windows 10 devices while support for PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Roku devices is expected by May.
Fur technology makes Zootopia's bunnies believable
Zootopia is a world where humans don't exist. It's a big, crowded metropolis where anthropomorphic animals drive cars, fight crime, eat ice cream and ride trains. Prey and predators of varying shapes and sizes coexist in harmony until their prejudices get in the way.
Homer Simpson will broadcast live, with some motion-capture help
The Simpsons, live! Well, at least partially. In a new episode set to broadcast on Sunday May 15, Homer Simpson will speak live to viewers, commenting on the day's news as well as answering fans' questions. (You can can tweet your queries to him starting in early May, using the #homerlive hashtag.) How is that even possible? According to The Wrap, it apparently involves a "first for animation", tying together motion capture, real-time animation and some all-important improvisation.
Netflix kids series 'Beat Bugs' features music of The Beatles
Amazon and Netflix are cranking out original series at a rapid pace. The content isn't just for adults, though, as both streaming libraries feature a smattering of original kids stuff, too. Netflix is expanding its lineup with Beat Bugs: an animated series that follows the adventures of five friends. What's more, the show is inspired by songs from The Beatles, because, you know... bugs. As you might expect, the tunes are a big part of the show and there's some well-known artists who cover the tracks for the series.
Sonic to star in a 'live-action and animation hybrid' movie
If you've played the most recent Sonic the Hedgehog games, you might be wondering how life can get any worse for the blue blur. Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric was universally panned by the press, and previous efforts such as Lost World and Unleashed didn't fare much better. How could his reputation be dragged any lower? Well, perhaps with a film. Not just any film though -- a worrying "live-action and animation hybrid." The project, which is currently still in the planning stages, was revealed by Sega president and CEO Hajime Satomi in an interview with The Worldfolio.
See what every star system Kepler's found looks like compared to ours
Since its launch in 2009, the Kepler spacecraft has discovered more than 1700 planets in some 685 star systems. This slick animation from YouTuber Ethan Kruse shows every one of them with their orbits synchronized and drawn to scale. The planets themselves aren't exactly to spec -- I mean, just look at how small Jupiter is -- but that's only so that the smaller exoplanets aren't completely crowded out. Kruse reportedly employed the open source Kepler Orrery code to create the animation.
Animated code art uses all of its colors just once
You probably know that the screen on your computer or phone can display millions of colors, if not more. However, have you wondered what it would look like if you tried to represent all of those colors in a single piece of art? Well, you're looking at it. Qubit researcher and math guru Mike Swarbrick Jones has posted a code-driven animation that shows all the colors in a 24-bit RGB palette exactly once. The technique (which relies on mapping colors to voxels, or 3D pixels) produces a kind of "rainbow smoke" that, as you can see in the clip below, is rather hypnotic -- it's tempting to watch it on a loop and meditate. While this won't produce a masterpiece, it's proof that a good idea and the right calculations can lead to some truly eye-catching (not to mention mind-bending) visuals.
Pixar will open-source the code for a key movie-making tool
Fancy that you could create the next Inside Out if you only had the right tools? Pixar just made that dream a little more realistic. Mere months after giving away Renderman, the studio has announced plans to open the source code for its Universal Scene Description software, which gives multiple computer animation apps a common "scene graph" to work from. It should help movie makers streamline the production process (particularly if there's more than one company involved), but it'll also be a boon to animation app designers who want their various programs to play together.
Disney explains why its 3D animation looks so realistic
Have you watched 3D-animated Disney flicks like Big Hero 6 and wondered how some of its scenes manage to look surprisingly realistic? Today's your lucky day: Disney has posted a top-level explanation of how its image rendering engine, Hyperion, works its movie magic. The software revolves around "path tracing," an advanced ray tracing technique that calculates light's path as it bounces off objects in a scene. It takes into account materials (like Baymax's translucent skin), and saves valuable time by bundling light rays that are headed in the same direction -- important when Hyperion is tracking millions of rays at once. The technology is efficient enough that animators don't have to 'cheat' when drawing very large scenes, like BH6's picturesque views of San Fransokyo. Although Disney's tech still isn't perfectly true to life, it's close enough that the studio might just fool you in those moments when it strives for absolute accuracy.
South Park is staying on the air and on Hulu through 2019
Looks like the kids from everybody's favorite quiet mountain town will be continuing their shenanigans for at least another three years -- huzzah! Comedy Central announced that South Park creators Matt Smith and Trey Parker have reached a deal to extend the cultural touchstone series by another three years and 30 episodes (that's in addition to the two remaining years on the shows current contract). Additionally, South Park Digital Studios (Parker and Smith's joint venture with Viacom) announced a separate deal with Hulu that will see the series remain on the streaming service until 2020.
Celebrities get digital puppets made from paparazzi photos
Typically, recreating a celebrity as an animated 3D character requires painstaking modeling based on motion capture and laser scans. In the future, though, all you'll need is a few limo-chasing photographers. University of Washington researchers have developed a system that creates digital face "puppets" by running a collection of photos -- in this case, paparazzi shots -- through special face tracking software. The digital dopplegangers (such as Kevin Spacey and Arnold Schwarzenegger) bear an uncanny resemblance to their real-world counterparts, but are sophisticated enough to mimic the expressions of virtually anyone else. Want the Japanese Prime Minister saying Daniel Craig's lines? You can make it happen.
Watch these artists 3D print animation into reality
Why 3D print a computer animation? 'Art' is a good enough reason for us, and that's exactly what drove Dutch artists to put a hundred frames into a single mind-bending installation. Using an Ultimaker 2 3D printer and liberal amounts of glue and string, artists Job, Joris and Marieke squeezed all the cells from a short animation (below) into a single mise-en-scene. At a glance, you can see the fate of the teal-hued hero as he vaults off a cup and into a vase, with each detail (including a bouncing ball and shattered cup) faithfully reproduced in PVC. If you want to feel like you're inside a computer where time has lost all meaning, it'll be exhibited at Amersfoort's Kunsthal museum on March 29th.
Oculus Story Studio is the Pixar of virtual reality
Moments before Oculus Story Studio's new virtual reality short Lost reached its satisfying climax, I found myself in a compromised position. Sequestered in a private demo booth, I was involuntarily crouched down, covering my head in a defensive position and, I should add, squealing with delight. Lost, the first computer-animated work to come from Oculus VR's new film-innovation lab, is unlike any form of interactive entertainment I've ever experienced. And it succeeds in one very crucial respect: It's endearing. "I want to create emotions that are very appealing," says Story Studio's Supervising Technical Director Max Planck. "I want you to come out of virtual reality and have a smile. Or [experience] something very touching emotionally, just like Pixar films do."
Here's a teaser of The Crew's cinematic story
Ubisoft has been hyping The Crew as an MMO for a while now, and, like many modern MMOs, the game incorporates some sort of single-player story. An outfit called Puppetworks Animation Studio created 13 minutes worth of CG cutscenes to flesh this story out and has released a teaser drawing from those cutscenes. There's not a lot here in terms of The Crew's action driving gameplay, but there are plenty of sketchy characters and revving engine noises. See for yourself after the break.
H1Z1 talks about the details of animations in new video
You probably don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about the animations of your favorite game, but they're still important. H1Z1's latest dev spotlight video highlights senior artist Dave Carter, the man behind motion captures and animations in the game, and he talks at length about what is in the game and how much influence animation has upon elements in the game. For example, adding zombies who can climb over vehicles and through windows is a balance issue, but it's also an animation issue; the developers can't add one without the other. Carter also discusses the existing animations in the game and some of the flow between them in the video. Although the animations aren't completely finished, the motion capture sessions have taken place and the team is fairly far along in bringing the game into motion. Check out the full video just past the break.
Stick Nodes: Bringing stick figures to life
Crazy stick figure dances, a stick figure ninja battle, and insane animations are just a few of the fun things users can create in Stick Nodes. Animated gifs can be made from piecing together individual frames featuring stick figure characters. Stick Nodes is compatible with iOS devices running iOS 6.0 or later but looks best on larger screens. Stick Nodes is an extensive animation program that includes the ability to create almost any stick figure shape. There is the option to customize each stick figure's shape, color, and segment thickness. This means users can create a team of robot dinosaurs attacking a miniature city if they want to, all from their phone or tablet. This makes creating silly gifs to share with friends easy and accessible. Stick Nodes performs very well for a mobile animation program. Users can add as many stick figures and objects as they want with hardly any performance loss, even when exporting a gif. Depending on the amount of objects users are animating and how long the gif will be, the exporting process takes less than a minute in most cases. There is a lot of attention to detail in the creation of this app, especially with the inclusion of frame-tweening. This helps smooth out animations by creating an intermediate animation to link different actions together. This feature improves the quality of most of the animations users create and makes Stick Nodes feel more like a tool that is fun to use and less like a toy. One downside to Stick Nodes is that it has an ad pop up when users launch the app. While this is a little annoying, this is the only ad you will see in the app. When trying to animate on a smaller screen, the buttons can be hard to tap, however, this problem goes away when animating on a larger screen. Stick Nodes is free on the App Store and recommended for anyone looking for a fun and creative way to share gifs with their friends.
Check out the first holiday widget for iOS
I guess it had to happen -- a widget with a holiday theme, and one that gives you some useful information. I'm talking about SNOWidget, from developer Johnny Ixe who gave us the handy and useful DataMan app. Download the free SNOWidget app, and then load it from your pull-down Today notifications. You'll see a nice animated snowfall, and a quick reminder of how many days are remaining until Christmas. The app allows you to set the size of the widget, the font, and it can measure days or hours until Christmas. What more could you want? SNOWidget requires iOS 8 or later. It's optimized for both the iPhone 5 and 6 series. It's whimsical. It's free. Go get it.
Behold the beauty of the Macintosh Programmer's Workshop "About" animation
Macintosh Programmer's Workshop, or MPW to most people who remember it, was a software development tool for the classic Mac OS. It was invaluable for developers looking to build applications for System 1-7.6 and Mac OS 8 and 9, but it had charms beyond being the forefather of everything from Project Builder to Xcode. It also had featured a beautiful animation hidden within its "About" screen. The animation shows the imaginary building blocks of a 3 1/2" floppy disc flying together one-by-one from out of a box. When the pieces have finishing compiling an airbrush machine comes and paints the surface of the disc. It's a wonderful piece of animation, lovingly put together and hidden in a menu most users would never see. If you weren't around for the original Mac OS, or just weren't programing during those days, here's your chance to see it. Enjoy.
Engadget Daily: Kindle Voyage review, Disney's 'Big Hero 6' and more!
If you're a germophobe, Kindle user or Disney fan, this issue of the Engadget Daily is for you -- and really, everyone else is invited too. Read on for all our news highlights from the last 24 hours, including Dyson's germ-zapping humidifier, Disney's Big Hero 6, real-life tractor beam technology and more.
Disney rendered its new animated film on a 55,000-core supercomputer
Disney's upcoming animated film Big Hero 6, about a boy and his soft robot (and a gang of super-powered friends), is perhaps the largest big-budget mash-up you'll ever see. Every aspect of the film's production represents a virtual collision of worlds. The story, something co-director Don Hall calls "one of the more obscure titles in the Marvel universe," has been completely re-imagined for parent company Disney. Then, there's the city of San Fransokyo it's set in -- an obvious marriage of two of the most tech-centric cities in the world. And, of course, there's the real-world technology that not only takes center stage as the basis for characters in the film, but also powered the onscreen visuals. It's undoubtedly a herculean effort from Walt Disney Animation Studios, and one that's likely to go unnoticed by audiences.
