Machinarium

This is just a great game so be sure to not miss it. The designs, characters, puzzles, all are combined very creatively and artisticly which is very hard to find in games nowadays.

A very talented animator classmate, Bjarki introduced me with this studio's (Amanita) previous game: Samarost, which I loved at first sight. The puzzles were a little bit easy and the adventure was short comparing to Machinarium but the visuals and animations were just brilliant as well. This was the point I got interested in this studio's work. Machinarium is their first full-length game so be sure to support their effort if you liked the demo.



Buy it on steam or from their web site: amanita.

Spirituality & Now

A very meaningful speech from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Buddhist meditation master. Video is from the documentary movie: Zeitgeist.
The speech is quite powerful if you think deeply about it and try to get the real message. And I am not talking about fashionized and emptied "carpe diem" approach. I think, in this approach, people tried to be "seemed" as they were living the the moment fully (seemingly energized about everything, getting into different costumes, styles, trying to be different from the guy next door, getting -so called- personalized with the help of the goods they buy). Because they were doing it for the sake of doing it, in contrast, they were more like cloning themselves: creating people who use same set of behaviours, same looks, same way of thinking. People who care about packaging instead of actual important content. This was/is just not right.



Text:

Spirituality is a particular term which actually means dealing with intuition.
In the theistic tradition there is a notion of clinging into a word. A certain act is regarded as displeasing to a divine principles. A certain act is regarded as pleasing for the divine … whatever.
In the tradition of non-theoism, however, it is very direct — that the case history are not particularly important. What is actually important is here and now. Now is definitely now. we try to experience what is available there, on the spot. There is no point in thinking that a past did exist that we could have now.
This is now. This very moment. Nothing mystical, just now, very simple, straight forward. and from that nowness, however, arises a sense of intelligence always that you are constantly interacting with reality one by one. Spot by spot. Constantly. We actually experience fantastic precision, always.But we are threatened by the now so we jump to the past or the future. Paying attention to the materials that exist in our life — such rich life that we lead — all these choices takes place all the time, but none of them regarded as bad or good per say — everything we experience are unconditional experience. They don’t come along with a label saying ‘this is regarded as bad’, ‘this is good’. But we experience them but we don’t actually pay heed to them properly. we don’t actually regard that we are going somewhere. We regard that as a hassle. waiting to be dead. That is a problem. That is not trusting the nowness properly, that what is the actual experience now possesses a lot of powerful things. It is so powerful that we can’t face it. Therefore, we have to borrow from the past and invite the future all the time.
Maybe that’s why we seek religion.
Maybe that’s why we march in the street.
Maybe that’s why we complain to society.
Maybe that’s why we vote for the presidents.
It is quite ironic. Very funny indeed.

Theo Jansen

This is pure genius. Theo Jansen, who defines himself as a kinetic sculptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_sculpture) creates robots or mechanisms that run on only wind power! No pollution, limitless energy and of course, looks amazing!



You can find more videos on youtube.

Summer 2009 Showcase

And here is the latest one:

Summer 2008 Showcase

Fall 2007 Showcase

Winter 2007 Showcase

Summer 2006 Showcase

Here are all animationmentor student showcases in order. Enjoy!

Drawing for Animation

I know some beginning 3d animators are not comfortable with drawing so I have decided to put this link, in case it helps anyone:
Ten Minute Drawing
Of course it does not include everything about drawing for animation planning but it may give you a very good starting point.
I have been drawing caricatures and stuff since my childhood, but because I didn't have any formal training and didn't know anything about the concepts like posing, shapes, line-o-action, force, appeal, loose and simple drawing etc during that time, my drawings weren't effective and eye pleasing as they were meant to be. So I strongly encourage anyone who is starting animation, to check out these videos or lots of materials you can find on the web, to go through the books I gave link to (I carefully selected those), to attend some drawing lectures etc. Also, for an extensive learning resource, you may visit Jason Ryan's website:
Jason Ryan's website

You may think it is unnecessary since you are going to be 3d animator but what I've observed during my animation learning is, the better you are at drawing (remember even a stick figure can work if it is thoughtfully drawn) and the more you put those concepts into your planning drawings, the better, original and creative your animations will be. Otherwise, it will probably lead to live action like (rotoscope) animation, cliche animation or bad animation unless you are a 3d animation pro for lots of years, which is probably the hardest route to become an animator.

2d or 3d?

Street painting: done by Manfred Stader and Edgar Muller.



Imagination, artistry and effort... And the illusion in the end. Just brilliant!



More can be found here!



By the way, two posts in the same day. I think I'm getting in form.

Double Fine

Ok, let's keep this thing going and alive! I have recently visited Stephen Gregory's blog . He has some nice tutorials and stuff, check it out. He is a former pixar animator, now working at Double Fine Studio with Tim Schafer. And who is Tim Schafer? Double Fine's head and one of the makers of superb old adventure titles like Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, Full Throttle. Double Fine is also the producer of Psychonauts, a great adventure/rpg game! I didn't have the time to finish the game but it was one of the games that you genuinely feel that you are in a different world. There are very few titles that have this kind of effect on me. Anyways, I visited their site:

Double Fine
and that led me to a good laugh (amazing posts) and this:
Images
where you can download very high-res images of the titles I mentioned above so that you can have them on your wall as posters.