Trip to the Met

Check out this opportunity to visit the Metropolitan Museum in New York City

Will there be a wave of blue at the Met?

Images generated by Stability Diffusion

The Woods @ MU

I am excited to bring two multi media artists to campus late November, the event has just been posted on the University's website

ArtNOW: The Woods – A mixed-reality, two-player cooperative game

AI: Diffusion Goes 3D

You probably heard about AI image generating tools like Dall-E, which is now available for all (but be carefull of the fine print: they might own everything created with the software) or Midjourney. You may even have played with the free version of Dall-E, Craiyon (formerly Dall-E mini) or the new Stable Diffusion.

Stable Diffusion created this on the prompt "Animation student working themselves into a sweat trying to complete their projects"

Now there is also a similar tool that creates 3D objects: DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion

But wait, there is more. How about AI generated Human Motion: MDM: Human Motion Diffusion Model

Or AI generated video? Meta has that: Make-A-Video

So what do you think, what will be left for us humans to do, to excell at?

Four images generated from the same prompt

Update

Google also has a video generation tool:Imagen Video

Anime Rock Opera

This one got a pretty good review in The Guarian (four stars): Inu-oh review – medieval anime rock opera rips Noh theatre a new one

Actual Glass Animation

Through BoingBoing, who incorreectly daated this as from 1984, I came across Inspirace (Inspiration) by Karel Zeman, from 1948. Somehow I had never heard of him, Wikipedia describes him as a Czech film director, artist, production designer and animator, best known for directing fantasy films combining live-action footage with animation.Because of his creative use of special effects and animation in his films, he has often been called the "Czech Méliès".

RIP Douglas Trumbull

Visual Effects legend Douglas Trumbull passed away. One of the things he if famous for is "Stargate" sequence from Stanley Kurbik's "2001: A Space Odyssey" using slit-scan photography process
 

 
I was alerted to his passing via twitter through this post by Adam Rackoff, and that is how I found out he was a second generation Visual Effectsartist: Douglas Trumbull's father, Donald Trumbull, created visual effects for THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939).

Paint on Walls Animation

And nt just the walls, all srufaces in the room are fair game. I had seen this one before, but enjoyed it again when it was redently posted to Boing Boing
 

 
Now you might think that was a lot of work. There is more where that came from: blublu.org. The above is actually just a small part of this much longer animation:
 

Not Stop Motion

This reached me through multiple channels. It was made in Blender

Reel Maker 2020

DEMO REEL 2020 // Mònica Eggert from Mònica Eggert on Vimeo.

Via Cartoonbrew - Link to Pepe School Land

The Horror of Gekimation

For all of you who love Japanese animation, or who enjoy painstakingly painted cutout animation, the first ever Gekimation feature length movie has been released. On Blu-Ray.

Read more in today's The Guardian: 'Gekimation': Japan takes a post-Ghibli leap into another dimension

Chinatown 3D

The New York Times posted an interactive piece on the History of Chinatown, with a virtual walk through: Chinatown: Resilient and Proud

A street in Chinatown was created in 3D using Photogrammetry, something we looked at in class today. Unfortunately one gets stuck in the interface unless one is using a trackpad with two finger scroll, it probably also works well on tablets.

MetroCAF 2020 Tomorrow!

This is your chance to see the best computer animations created last year by students in our area, and this year it is free and you do not need to come into the city.

MetroCAF 2020 will premiere this Thursday at 7:30 PM as an on-line presentation at https://metrocaf.org/metrocaf/2020/show/

Simplicity Rules

Acid

This animation is playing at the Ottowa International Animation Festival.

Rick and Morty Exquisite Corpse from Matt Taylor on Vimeo.

Kaboom on-line

The Kaboom Animation Festival is the successor to two other Dutch animation festivals: Holland Animation Film Festival and KliK!

Like many other festivals, they have moved on-line, and team members have been posting their favorite animations to Vimeo, including some hard to find gems!

• These are a few of Maarten’s favorite films
• Dario’s favorite films
• Luuk takes a trip down memory lane with his fav films
• Titillating Treasures by Tünde

Animal AniDoodle

For those of you taking 2D Animation

From Geoffs Doodles Blog

In Cuteness and Shadiness We Trust

Hey guys, Alyssa here to share with you guys something for the detective ideas we're throwing around.

So we've seen the inspector himself, we've seen the femme fatale, now let me introduce you to the sidekick, which, for easier writing purposes, I'll call Junior (working name).

Fun fact, this little guy was who I've been doodling while I was thinking about an idea of a robot noir concept. Just a cute little bot who looks like they'd be named "Jeeves". Who'll also be the villain for the evening.

With this concept in mind, I strove to have a character who's aesthetic can work in both a cute and a shady sort of way. When you see the oversized trench coat, for instance, one may think of two different things:

A cute little kid in an adult-sized piece of clothing and also...

a shady individual cloaked by his own clothing to reflect a hidden nature of sorts. 

Either way, this drawing has been long overdue, and I hope to share more of Junior here in the future! 

(Also for those curious, this is his design under the trench-coat. Muahaha.)

Alyssa out!

Loving Vincent

This is not about Dimattio, but Van Gogh. Loving Vincent is a feature length animation created with oil paintings. Free in the Pollak Theatre on February 27 at 7:30pm

Image created using deepdreamgenerator

Metropolis Maria Robot

Femme Fatal designs made me think of this robot from Fritz Lang's 1927 movie Metropolis.

Not that is looks anything like the design. Great movie though.

The Blissful Accidental Death

Well received, shortlisted for Oscar Nominations 2019. Very Eastern European.