Monday 5 March 2012

Assassin's Creed 3 - reveal trailer

Since this is a great expectation I decided to write about this trailer. However it is really short and somewhat mysterious and foggy. In concise: we leave Ezio back and join to Conor, a halfblood Native American-British assassin and participate in the War of Independence of the XVIII. century colonial America.



The choice of the character is a nice one, he is half British and half Native American. This symbolizes the change itself between the two worlds. The change which carries both but neither but the essence of them both making the two identical. This is not only derived from the character and background only. The tomahawk and the bow clearly represents his Native American roots while his coat resembles to European uniforms. Actually I think his blue collar is closer to the French than to the English army. Or maybe he already has the connection to the revolutionary army. 
The land of America is represented as a cruel and dangerous place where only the strongest survives. The wolves at 0.30 indicate that this is the only law here. The switch between the night scenes and the daylight scene with the wolves is a nice idea to emphasize the metaphor. In the one hand, we see how the wolves tear apart slowly a dead body while in the night we see how only one assassin kills all of the soldiers. First this is a nice full contrast: for the daylight it seems that a pack of wolves tear apart one body while we see in the night scenes that its only one assassin (wolf) who kills the many soldiers.
On an other level it shows that history happens on various layers or reality. The facts on the surface do not always explain everything that happens. Since the switching makes a psychological parallel between night and day, surface and reality, it has a major significance that the revolution takes place at daylight.
This indicates that the revolution is just the surface as many other things in history, and underneath a lot of hidden or forgotten individual effort made these things possible. 

Now some words on its look. Well this is a release trailer but apparently the basis of the later marketing project, not just some slideshow or some an ingame footage. 
At the beginning there are some nice lightnings indicating that the picture is computer-generated (1.18 on the big branch lying on the ground). This is a nice little detail. The dust-snow particle systems are very nice, this is a huge snow, and it is very cold. The continuous snowing lets the author not to bother with the traces. However if you watch closely at 0.31 they do not really want to do that anyway. This is clear from the fact that the arriving wolf almost does not leave any traces in the snow. I am not a ranger but I am sure that one can follow much deeper traces in the snow. And since you can see that it is moving under its feet, it should not be frozen yet. I think the general problem with snow here is that it has a little bit confused behavior. At 0.38 we see that there is some snow leaving the rock with the assassin. But such a little amount entails that the snowing is just started. Now this is a very difficult issue. Because it needed to start for a while to cover everything. Let suppose that it is very cold there. Then the redcoats should be semi-frozen out there as well as our assassin. No matter why they do not have proper winter clothes or at least blankets with them by the beginning of the scene they should have been covered by snow (when they meet Connor). At 0.33 you clearly see that there is no such thing as snow on their clothes. Not even on the one who is surprised on the back of his horse (this rules out the possibility that they just took off their blankets). 
Now for the tarzan-parkour scene. The trees could have had a little bit more movement but never mind let assume that they are frozen. Well I think they should have moved at least that amount to be released the supposedly just fallen snow. I mean Connor has the weight of an adult man. This is a great disturbance in the balance of any tree. But it is clearly enough to get some snow to fall. And remember at least some of the snow just has fallen. 
This makes it look like as if the trees were purely painted white. And this is supported at 0.58 where we have this side-cover for the trees. If the snow is just that deep, there cannot be such a big storm (especially not in a forest) just before the snowfall during the night.
But enough of snow. In general there is a beautiful forest shown in the trailer. Forests are very hard to make because their organic system is difficult to mimic. You cannot just throw some logs onto each other. And here we have this. This is covered by beautiful northern dawn lighting which makes it very realistic. The parkour scene has great animation. I feel the flow of the movement a little bit hooked up sometimes but this gives the impression as if in the air he could change direction by muscle movement. You can change your movement in the air if you are trained enough so maybe it is just too strong to see from the outside because you do not often see it done.
I think one point could have been considered for correction at 1.02. The bow on the back is ready for shoot. If you check the string on his chest it is not that stiff. It should cut into his coat with much more tension in this state. However if they have moved the end of the strings a little bit towards the middle of the bow it would not be prepared for shooting. This would let them to have the somewhat loose string.
Now the face of the army leader was a real surprise. It lacks most of the details as if it was burnt. His mouth synchronization is perfect though.

I really liked the overall idea of this trailer however I miss some minor details and consistency from the final product. The concept I think is very nice. This time we need to ask the director about the snow for example. 
Story: 10/10 (I think the story for a launch trailer has a lot in it. Not too intense but still quite complex to let us feel the character of the situation. It opens up a nice perspective.)
Director: 9/10 (This snow thing is a really hard task. It is only important because unconsciously it builds up or decreases our feeling of reality).
Modelling: 7/10 (That face at the end is really disturbing.)
Animation: 7/10 (Few movements I did not understand, like the one when he pulls the tomahawk out of the officers head. Or the wolf stepping onto the snow. Or the arm movement of the general.)
Render and lights: 8/10 (Nice dawn-lights. However the night scene is a little bit too bright. It makes some cartoonish effect. Very classic in from the '60 to the '90 but not realistic. A forest when it is snowing is really dark. After the snowing it becomes lighter when the clouds are gone.)
Material/textures: 8/10 (Again I miss some dirt from the clothes and some blood. Blood on the red coat is not just additional red dye. And if you face-shoot someone with an old gun, the head is covered with black gunpowder. I miss that too.)
Photography: 10/10 (Nice compositions. Smooth ambiance for the colonial forest.)
Editing/effects: 10/10 (Intensive switching between very different scenes without the feel of disturbance. Classic idea delivered perfectly.)
Music: 10/10 (Classic Assassin's creed soundtrack. Nice and smooth adaptation for the revolution.)
Visual concept: 10/10 (Great concept concerning all of the little details about clothes, scenes, the forest. Well done.)


Overall:8.9/10

Mass Effect Take Earth Back - extended trailer


This trailer from Bioware and DigicPictures appears to be very intense both intellectually and emotionally. The story is somewhat simple: aliens attack the earth and destroy everything. Even an innocent little girl. Now its humanities turn to strike back and it is apparently going well or at least has good odds.
On a second thought the trailer is somehow playing around games and reality, humanity and inhuman aggression. I think it suggests that the conflict is about regaining our innocence in gaming.



Let see how far this reading can go. The initial twist from the patrolling fighters and the toy plane connects games with war. There is a trick of illusion as well when we listen to the patrol's radio while we see the toy plane. Some may notice that the illusion is cheated since the toy plane has automatic pads. But I think this level of automation for toys is perfectly conceivable in the near future. Therefore according to the first few seconds it is hard to distinguish between game and reality. But reality is cruel and aggressive while games are peaceful and quite. For the next few seconds we see what does reality do with people. Since it is an aggressive struggle for survival like in a war, it transforms humans to aggressive aliens. Sometimes we do not recognize the people around us when they meet the job market or found their own company, they just become merciless predators.
The emphasis on the transition is clear at 0.54 where a human being transforms to the alien life form. Until this point we have the following narrative. There is an innocent human girl in her natural environment. This scene is bound to playing, suggesting that playing is the natural human behavior. The game is flying a fighter jet. To fly is the archetype of freedom (even in the standard interpretation of dreams). This freedom is bound to playing by following the same type of jets from the game to reality. And there they come, the aliens who destroy this freedom, our toys. And when the transition at 0.54 happens we realize that these aliens are former human beings. 
And now we arrive to the classical crisis of growing up. But these grown-ups who come to destroy our playground (basically our innocence and freedom) are savage predators. This is supported by the next picture (1.03) when the sniper kills one of them who is chasing a child who is defended by her mother. Note that here we have a small family picture: the child and her mother running and the man who is defending them (the father-like person in this picture). Then we see some war scenes before we get a full view on the destroyed city first then the whole globe.
The second part starts very slowly giving us time to think about the scene. For now it should be clear that children are very important in this piece of video. Actually if you watch closely we have four occasions when aliens attack humans (1.03, 1.14, 1.23, 2.00) and two of them (the first and the last) are moments when they attack children (not counting the one when they shoot the jet). I think this ratio speaks loudly for children and innocence. In this part we see that this monstrous alien machine enters to the most natural environment for humans, the natural playground of a child. This moment has a very sensitive sense of violence. This machine breaks into this very intimate dreamy place which represents (according to our initial interpretation) the beauty of the innocent human nature. 
At 2.11 we see a very strong picture a man and a woman in arms find the little toy jet in the dust. Behind them there is a real working jet and the little girl is missing, the whole environment is ruined.
This conclusion can be understood as another family picture but without a child. In this interpretation daddy and mommy arrives to look for their daughter and they are prepared to save her. The jet behind them means that they still can fly, they are still free. However they are armed which means that they are strong and they fight. This together suggests that our heroes are those adults who preserved their freedom and fought for their survival without becoming similar to those alien predators.

Considering the look of the video primarily note the mimic of the girl. I am not sure whether it is captured with motion/face cap or made manually. I think it is more likely to be made manually and it works really well. You see on her face that she feels enthusiastic for playing with the little ladybird. I like the animation of the ladybird as it lands onto the sunflower then flies away. And that sunflower, that is really realistic. I freeze it after the ladybird left and it could be on a postcard anytime. The changing focus between the girl and the bug gives a great deal of dynamism to the scene. This correlates nicely with the music. 
The human-alien transition is not that smooth, but it is really fast. This flashlight method for transition is risky since it can look very odd, however here you only notice it when you watch closely. We see some very beautiful collapses and explosions in the devastation view. However I don't understand how with so much explosion can some soldiers just wonder around with no fire in the background. Of course one could say that this is just "anywhere" but from the wide perspective shots you see that literally everything is on fire in that city. Another thing: the street lights are on. But this is still daytime. And they are on while the whole city is in fire, so I suppose there is no electricity in the city. 
But the particle systems are great there. They elevate smoothly and they are very logically follow the environment. Flying blood, emerging dust, smoke of various kinds they are all in their proper place. Really nice variation of such things. 
On the next scene the switch from sunshine to shade is a nice example of lighting. The change is so sensitive you cannot really name the shadows or the colors. But they together do the job. You almost feel how much colder the air became. And the best thing it it I think that it does not follow the camera conventions. I am not sure one could make such pictures with a real camera but it illustrates how do we feel ourselves in such sun-shade transitions. You cannot do them because light measurement cannot let you do them. For such effects you would have some highlights or deep shades for sure. At least for the transition time while the light-measure system adapts to the new environment. 
I was thinking a lot on the images when we see the little girl's eye reflecting the space ship. Somehow I feel that her skin is too sterile at that moment. I know nowadays I arrived to this but here as well I see it unnaturally clean. She is playing on the ground at a farmland maybe, there should be some dirt on her face and clothes as well. But nothing. I think some dust could fly off the ground for the beginning as well. The anatomy is very nice, but somehow the skin does not fit well. It still has some rubbery feeling. 
The eye on the other hand is beautiful. I think the reflection in it is great as well, maybe a little bit too strong but I think it is hard to decide. Look at the corner of her eye, it even has some redness from maybe the dust which drys it out. 
Now again something which is beautiful but totally unrealistic. We see the stars on blue sky. Now from the sunflowers it should be late summer and the sun is setting down, but still is very high. I think it is very hard to see the stars on the sky in such a sunshine. No matter how big the shadow of the spaceship is. Assume it is a very big spaceship. Still even when you see a total eclipse you only start to see the stars when the moon shades the full circle of the sun. And with so much clouds on the sky humidity should be very high. So visual range is decreased as well. 
But anyway if it could happen it would look like this I am sure. And it looks nice.
For the next scene we have great motion capture for the soldiers. Somehow the faces are too dry they have no shine on them at all. I think this could have been avoided with some dust on them, or at least on the hair of the characters. I like that the guy has some stubble on his jaw.
Look when the vehicles launch their offence how they create a mist of ash by the turbulence. This is a great detail.
A nice little detail when one sunflower falls in the turbulence. Its nicely done, and strongly supports our general psychology to create what happens.
For the action part at the end we have a lot of blurs, actually we have more blurred pictures then normal ones. But since they are too fast for human eye we only notice the the sharp ones. This makes the whole action very intense and very realistic.


Story: 10/10 (The background idea of the whole is very nice. It fits well with the invasion concept of the whole project.)
Director: 9/10 (Great transition of the scenes and great dynamism for the whole. The ratio of motion and rest or action and stills is a very delicate matter and it is handled well in this video. However there are some major mistakes but they are not that important like wet ash - dry ash at the end scene, working street lights in an invasion, clean clothes on a playing girl in the countryside. These mistakes are somewhat shared with other members of the team)
Modelling: 10/10 (Perfect details of anatomy and nice overall modelling.)
Animation: 10/10 (Some minor strangeness in very uncommon scenes, but great sensitive details elsewhere)
Render and lights: 9/10 (Beautiful and brave lighting I miss some reflection on the skyscrapers though when the laser beams cut the buildings into pieces. This buildings should affect as giant mirrors.)
Material/textures: 9/10 (Skin is still a hard issue to handle. I really miss some dirt from the faces, hairs and clothes somewhere)
Photography: 10/10 (Very good compositions. I love the UV effect in the transition from the sunflower scene to the city scene. The change of focus is brilliant as well.)
Editing/effects: 10/10 (Really properly done. A great repertoire of different types of switches from slow transition to fast chopping.)
Music: 10/10 (It is a really nice track. The great thing about this trailer is that it uses the track and classic movie soundtrack as well. In such a short video I think it is very hard to include all this. And they all fit together and with the images well)
Visual concept: 9/10 (It is really hard to judge here. Some of the mistakes however minor they are, are shared with the mistakes of the direction, like wet ash - dry ash, working street lights in an invasion, clean clothes on a playing girl in the countryside.)
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Still very great job with an
Overall: 9.6

Copyright Notice: The video is made available by http://www.youtube.com/user/biowaremasseffect youtube channel by leaving the embed option open for everyone. All intellectual rights for the video are reserved for Bioware and DigicPictures. I only claim the copyright for its interpretation and evaluation.

Sunday 4 March 2012

Breakdown of the Witcher2 trailer

Great video from Platige Image the makers of the intro to Witcher 2.
This is a breakdown of the video which lets you see the different layers of the video.

Enjoy!
I guess you love this.

If you do check out the following interview at CG society with Maciej Jackiewicz (CG Supervisor Platige Image) by Paul Hellard

Rest in Peace - Ralph McQuarrie



Ralph McQuarrie: June 13, 1929 - March 3, 2012


From: www.ralphmcquarrie.com

Great lines from the memorial page:
"His influence on design will be felt forever. There's no doubt in our hearts that centuries from now amazing spaceships will soar, future cities will rise and someone, somewhere will say... "that looks like something Ralph McQuarrie painted.""

Ralph McQuarrie was a technical illustrator at Boeing in his early 30s while he was part of the company Reel Three. During the 60s he had made some illustration for movies when he met George Lucas who several years later (1975) asked him to illustrate the first Star Wars script. He enjoyed the work very much saying that he has got the best job for an artist. However he refused the offer from Rick McCallum to design the prequel trilogies saying he has "run out of steam". He dies in his 82nd in Berkeley, California. 

To honor his memory I present here some of his works. Please spend a few minutes and visit his page and if you feel that you share the sad feeling of loss please comment on his facebook page as well.
Just for those who do not know him some pictures to remember and estimate the loss:





Some inspirational remembrance from George Lucas


Thursday 1 March 2012

Siggraph 2012 - Call for submissions



I announce here the Submission advertisement of the 2012 Siggraph

Submit all you have. Follow the link under the image for details.

Submission Deadline

Monday, 9 April 2012
22:00 UTC/GMT


Submission Categories
The festival accepts submissions in 10 distinct categories:
1. Computer Animation Shorts
All forms of animated short pieces that contain a significant percentage of computer-generated imagery and/or digital production and are not specifically suited to one of the other nine submission categories. This includes independent shorts, character animation, sponsored creative explorations, narrative and experimental works, opening sequences, game cinematics, selections and/or montages of animated television series, machinima, and new-media formats. Shorts of any length may be submitted, but the Computer Animation Festival reserves the right to show only excerpts of selected works at the jury's discretion.
2. Music Videos
Commissioned and/or independent works that use any combination of computer animation, digital effects, and live action to illustrate, enhance, and/or complement a musical creation.
3. TV and Web Commercials
Advertisements created entirely or partially with computer animation and/or digital effects. Also promotional spots, broadcast bumpers and graphics, and public service announcements.
4. Visualizations and Simulations
Computer animations created to explain, analyze, or visualize information for applications including scientific research, architecture, engineering, systems simulations, education, and documentary projects.
5. Student Projects
Computer-animated works of all kinds produced to satisfy a school, coursework, and/or graduation requirement. Entries in this category qualify for Best Student Project Award consideration. The Computer Animation Festival requests that all student works be submitted under this category, regardless of genre.
6. Animated Feature Films
Selections and/or montages of computer animation created for animated feature films.
7. Visual Effects for Short Films and TV Programs
Selections and/or montages of visual effects created for short live-action films and/or for television programs.
8. Visual Effects for Live-Action Feature Films
Selections and/or montages of visual effects created for live-action feature films.
9. Real-Time Animation
Game, web, and mobile animations that are rendered in the same amount of time that it takes to play them back. Real-time technology demos are also encouraged! Real-time technology demos should be submitted to Real-Time Live!
10. Miscellaneous
Computer animations that do not fit in any of the above categories, including technology showcases, previz, and other cool stuff that hasn't been invented yet.
The Computer Animation Festival reserves the right to place entries in the category that is most appropriate. Stereo 3D work will be considered and can be entered in any of the above categories.


See you there!!!