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Post by Leifgreen on Jun 15, 2008 17:24:25 GMT -5
Wow, that's Awesome! ^_^ I know how excited you are! ^_^ I REALLY want to know what he has to say, too! Have an Awesome time conversing with such an Awesome Animator, as everyone at Disney is! ^_^ (Oh, and Director too!)
- Little preacher man.
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Post by Koedi on Jun 26, 2008 7:26:51 GMT -5
Here is what he's said to me so far =D Hey David! Here’s the first set of answers. 2-d animation lives! At Disney anyway. John Lasseter and Ed Catmull (my bosses) are committed to keeping traditional hand-drawn animation alive at this studio. It’s funny because the people who were most upset at the apparent demise of 2-d were the folks up at Pixar! They love traditional Disney animation and swore that they would not let it die. John is looking at ideas for the next 2-d feature and we will begin animation on it right after Princess and the Frog finishes up. One of the big things they are working on now is developing a software system that will do some of the more tedious inbetweening on the shots automatically, freeing animators up to work on the more creative, fun parts of the scenes. Many of the 3-d animators will scribble out a rough pass on their Cintiq tablet to give them a roadmap to follow before diving into actually moving the 3-d model around. Many of these came came from 2-d and I think it helps them to visualize the flow and acting in each shot. If you have the opportunity as you get your education, I think it would be great for you to learn at least the fundamentals of 2-d, because the more versed you are in traditional animation, the better your understanding of 3-d work will be. Take figure drawing classes, carry a sketchbook around and doodle people’s attitudes as you’re walking around...try sculpting and painting. All types of artistic experience will make you more versatile and ultimately, a better animator. Disney, along with many other large studios, use Maya, which is a very large, very expensive program, on top of which Disney has written lots of little plug-in scripts to make it easier for the animators to handle. Maya is such a large, all-encompassing program (it includes modeling, rendering, and lighting abilities as well as others) that it can be less than user-friendly... so it would be ideal to take a class somewhere to get off on the right foot. As a student, I would think your school might make a student priced version of Maya available to you. Eventually we will be switching to the software that Pixar uses, but that is many years off. Again, the traditional animation training would be a great base which will help you no matter what program you use. I use Photoshop a LOT. I do all of my storyboarding and much of my visual development work with the program. I also use Corel Painter (10), which does a much better job of imitating natural art media, like paint and chalk. The best part about working digitally for us is that it’s very easy to make changes fast, and to experiment with color and composition, which is more difficult with real media. And I’d love to see anything you’ve done! E-mail away. A Brother Bear 3? I don't know! They don’t really keep me informed about the sequels. I do think they’re trying to stay more towards original stories for the direct-to dvd stuff, but never say never. I’m glad you enjoyed the film so much. ___________ That's all I have time to post right now, I have to leave lol... He has around another page of information on the other email I sent him =x
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Post by Epesi on Jun 27, 2008 16:50:32 GMT -5
Thanks so much for sharing this! ;D And, of course, thanks to Byron Howard for his informative answers! I'm thrilled to hear they're already planning future 2D projects after Princess and the Frog; it's great to have further confirmation that 2D is alive. I have plenty to look forward to. It's also fascinating to know what software and equipment the professionals use. I wonder if there are student discounts for those Cintiq tablets, too. I've been dying to try one, but it's definitely too pricey for me at the moment. Anyway, my old tablet still works beautifully, so I'm not too eager to replace it yet.
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Post by Koedi on Jun 27, 2008 17:30:26 GMT -5
Here are his other response: (There will be more!) We did go and study real grizzlies at Silver Springs in Florida. They have several bears up there in the thousand-pound range... HUGE!!!!!! They are beautiful animals and seemed well taken care of. The directors and art director went to Alaska to study bears in the wild and returned with hours of video and thousands of photographs that we studied as we were designing the bears for the film. We also brought in Timothy Treadwell, an amateur bear expert to give lectures on the time he had spent in the Alaskan wilderness among wild bears (where he was later killed by an elderly grizzly- pretty tragic). On the lighter side, they also brought in two grizzly cubs for us to draw. They were AWESOME. So cute. Little fluffy balls of energy. And they make really cute noises that make you want to adopt them. All of this is pretty typical of what we do to prepare for one of these films. We study real life animals, people, settings, stories and merge them all into the final film. It’s like going to school for a living. In a really good way. I will look around to see if I can find some of the artwork I did early on. It’s buried away somewhere. I went to the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. Not a school strong in art or animation, but it’s unique independent studies structure let me custmize my education so that it would prepare me for a career in film. I did a lot of scribbling to find what Kenai would look like. The directors, Aaron and Bob, wanted a very naturalistic feeling to the film, so the designs were kept on the realistic side (Bambi-ish). Also Rune Bennicke, an amazing animator and character designer brought his very strong draftsmanship and design sense to the characters. Here’s his website: have a look! www.runebennicke.com/Originally, there was a Raven character in the film that I was dying to do, but the character got cut, and Aaron and Bob asked me to do Kenai, which made me very happy as well.
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Post by Epesi on Jun 27, 2008 18:04:52 GMT -5
Oooh, Rune Bennicke's site is great! I'm giddy with excitement here. At a glance I can see loads of stuff that wasn't in A Transformation Tale or on the DVD, but even more exciting to me, he has stuff from Brother Bear 2! I had no idea he was involed. It's more exciting to me because there's generally so little shown of the production art in sequels. Check it out -- raccoons, yay! XD Tanana's pet, Loki, right? EP made a character out of him in the Darkness roleplay. And I'm guessing that's him in one of the drawings on Bennicke's website. If it's possible, could you ask what the character would have been like? ^^
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Post by Koedi on Jun 27, 2008 18:46:33 GMT -5
Sure thing, Epesi
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Post by Leifgreen on Jul 16, 2008 10:46:54 GMT -5
Ooh, really Awesome information! I really love reading this! He sounds like an incredibly awesome man, loving his job, of course! ^_^ And it was quite shocking to hear the bear expert get mauled by an elderly grizzly. Thanks for sharing, BBK! ^_^ - Little preacher man.
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Post by Ken'ichi on Jul 16, 2008 20:10:14 GMT -5
Very nice information, such a unique opportunity this is. That site is great too, the artwork look very good and colorful.
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lyrica
New Character
Posts: 41
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Post by lyrica on Aug 26, 2008 13:10:12 GMT -5
awesome stuff! doesn't he have a blog or something so we can see his development work? as an animation student I'd REALLY be loving to see that! even so the information he allready gave is incredebly helpful!love it!
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Post by FurryBall on Jul 15, 2009 13:21:08 GMT -5
Nice information there Koedi. You haven't been in touch with Byron Howard lately or something?
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mock
Recognized Mortal
OMg A BEAR ._.
Posts: 89
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Post by mock on Sept 10, 2009 19:09:19 GMT -5
GREAT! when I saw the second filme i think the end is verry empyt. i hope to create bb3!
wathever xP koedi you are a lucky guy!
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Post by czarine on Nov 10, 2009 10:49:23 GMT -5
I will definitely share with you everything tells me once I'm actually able to get to talk to him >< He's called me once already, but I had to tell him to call back because I was in the middle of piano lessons and he happened to call at the most inconvenient time!!! ARG!!! When I know something, you'll know something, as the saying goes. =3 "Excuse me, Byron Howard speaking, I'd- ..." "I'm sorry, I'm kind of busy right now. Could you call me back later? Thanks, bye!" "Bu- ..." *beep beep beep beep* Sorry, the mental image made me laugh out loud! This is awesome! Also, you said they're using Maya at the moment, but they'll be switching to Pixar's software in the future (Renderman). Renderman will become publicly available soon, so I'll be able to post my share and experience of it on here or somewhere else. But as far as I know, Renderman is for 3D animation. Are they going to do 2D animation using Renderman, or will they use Renderman for 3D projects and use Maya for 2D? ~Czarine
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jasper
Recognized Mortal
The Bear of "Love"?? ZOMGWTFBBQ
Posts: 81
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Post by jasper on Nov 11, 2009 4:51:59 GMT -5
I believe Maya and Renderman are both designed for and used primarily for 3D animation. Pixar uses their own private hand-crafted program called Marionette for the modeling and animation, while Renderman covers the more technical parts of rendering (creating the final image), like textures and shadowing. Renderman is able to achieve more realistic and versitile renders. That's such an awesome experience to talk with someone who played such a integral part in the film, Koedi! He did such an amazing job with Kenai. You must have asked good questions, because I learned a lot! That's so cool that they got to bring in bear cubs. I remember watching a behind the scenes for Lion King, where they brought a lion into the studio, and I thought to myself "that has got to be the best job in the world." I'm glad Lasseter and Catmull want to keep 2D alive. I'm a big fan of the 2D myself. I will look around to see if I can find some of the artwork I did early on. It’s buried away somewhere. Did Bryon ever send you any of his work? Because I'd REALLY like to see it! =3
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Post by czarine on Nov 11, 2009 7:11:25 GMT -5
Yeah, I knew Pixar develops it's own software. I've never heard of Marionette before though, I thought they just worked with Renderman! ^^; Maybe I did know, but it got burried somewhere in my mind... This bear tends to get confused easily. Thanks for the info!
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