Flow

Mathijs Demaeght's graduation film "Flow" was released over four months ago, though for some reason it seems to have re-entered into the orbit of the blogosphere after detouring in the space in which all hidden treasures reside.

A beautiful and near-seamless combination of 2D and 3D animation, Flow depicts the story of a young girl who, in the depths of mourning a lost loved-one, follows a white wolf into a mysterious realm of forests and spirits.

"Go then; there are other worlds than these."

The animation here inspires favorable comparisons to the aesthetics of such works as Journey, Sword & Sworcery, and the Gobelins student film Myosis. With the exception of backgrounds, storyboards and score, everything was created and animated by Mathijs himself. If this film is any indication, I'd say he's got a quite the promising future ahead of him.

Inside Me Is An Ambient Electronic 3D Trip

Using a 3D-scan and a photo of his body, Dmitry Zakharov has created an incredibly hypnotic and soothing piece of art. Using the surface of his 3D body, Zakharov takes a familiar piece and turns it into an incredible explosions of patterns and colors. Accompanied by the soft electronic ambience of Nils Frahm, Inside Me is a relaxing experience that takes you to the insides of Zakharov's body in an awesomely unique way.

The quick zooms, and the odd shapes created by inverting the 3D-scans create an interesting feeling of nostalgia, reminding me of the awesome, Beyond The Mind's Eye shorts from the early to mid 90's. Pop culture always seems to find a way to remix itself back into art, and the emergence of more abstract 3D animation like this makes me excited for the coming years. 

"Camera Sim 3D" - A Clever DSLR Simulator

Surprised I haven't heard of this before, but I think it's absolutely genius. A first person exploration title with an emphasis on teaching users how to use a DSLR prior to dropping the money on one. The Unity based simulator is releasing relatively soon, and will serve as a really helpful too to demystify the incredible amount of features that come with most cameras of that caliber- Exposure, focal length, shutter speed, aperture, ISO..I remember feeling overwhelmed when I went in blind, and it took me months to figure out all the settings on my Canon.

While the creator of the sim, Jon Arnold emphasizes that this will never replace the experience of having your own camera and testing it in the wild, it's not hard to see that this will be an intuitive way of experimenting when the conditions aren't fit for venturing out. Look forward to taking this for a spin when it comes out. You can check out more details about Camera Sim on the official website.

Pedro Conti's Pirate Sculpting Timelapse

We really need to feature more 3D work on AwesomeRobo. Between the explosion of the 3D printing scene and the massive strides with sculpting and rendering packages, it's as accessible as it'll ever be in this day and age. Pedro Conti, a Brazilian based 3D generalist who brought us the amazingly colorful One More Beer short last year returns with a multi-hour timelapse of a pirate sculpt in Pixologic's Zbrush.

The final result was an incredibly high quality render done in what I'm guessing looks like Marmoset, which allows artists to create cinematic renders of their work for just over $100. Just a few years ago software like this would have cost a casual user a few thousand dollars for a license. That's the best kind of progress.

Metal Bum

Directed by Daniel Kim, Metal Bum is a heartfelt short about a turf war between a street musician and an unlikely pan handler- An obsolete robot model trying to survive in a cold urban setting (Assuming he has thermal sensors). When things come to a head, the robot is faced with a daunting decision.

Filmed using a mixture of live action and a composited 3D robot, Metal Bum is really taken to the next level thanks to the prowess of Black Rapid Media's excellent work on the sound design aspect, providing a silent film style score to this monochrome short. Loved it from start to finish.

Urbanologie

Since its first publication in the early 80's The Obscure Cities, the co-creation of childhood friends and collaborators Franscoise Schuiten and Benoit Petters, has won praise and award equally for Schuiten's breathtaking architecture and Petter's labyrinthine stories.

Obscure Cities takes place on an alternate "counter-Earth", where isolated city-states of hyper-advanced technology vie for power not only between themselves but the otherworldly forces that underlie the surface of their reality. To celebrate securing the rights to re-publish the entire series into English, including some works that have never seen publication outside of France, Alaxis Press commissioned a beautifully animated short that's frankly been sitting around unappreciated for way too long.

The video reenacts scenes and locations from one of the series' most famous volumes, A Fever in Urbicand. If you love fantastically surreal stories set in beautifully intricate cityscapes, I can't recommend this series highly enough.

Pterois

Created by motion designer Neekoe as a  chance to get out of his comfort zone and attempt something new, Pterois is a purely visual piece showing off some truly amazing work with layering materials on a robotic specimen of a Spotfin Lionfish (Pterosis antennata). While swimming through the murky depths, it's surface evolves into a series of intricate, moving patterns before resetting to nothing.

The making of Pterois is a really insightful, well documented look at every stage of the process of creating the short, including the initial inspiration, reference, gathering, modeling, rigging, dynamic and material research and more. Check it out for a step by step look at the incredible amount of work that went into creating this beautiful one minute short after the break.

Spotted

The latest short from the folks at Les Gobelins is a pleasant stylistic departure from the wor  we've seen as of late, emulating the visual stylings of a dark noir. Excellent presentation down to the excellent sound design and moody lighting bring this rather silly premise to life. The team also chose to bring in 2D FX elements to accent the 3D, which melds seamlessly with the already pushed style of the short.

A fugitive is intercepted by two customs officers as he tries to escape his fate. During a violent interrogation, Big Mike and his sidekick attempt to dismantle his secret network and to put an end to his dreams of liberty.

End Trip (NSFW)

Using a mixture of live action and CGI, End Trip is a mind bending trip through the mind of a girl overdosing on drugs. If you're familiar with Gaspar Noe's equally incredible Enter The Void movie, you'll have some idea of what to expect, especially in terms of the long, seamless one take shots and thematic similarities. Best enjoyed in full screen, as it's one heck of a trip. With plans to adapt this into a 3D stereoscopic format soon as well, I think it's truly going to wow audiences if it hits the festival circuit soon. Directed by Koen de Mol, Olivier Ballast and Rick Franssen.

Endtrip is an animation short film in which we experience a breathtaking trip through the bizarre and fantastical unconsciousness of a drug overdosed girl. This visually stunning journey offers a glimpse into the extraordinary and strange workings of the mind.

Majin Station Trailer By Level 5

Hideaki Anno teamed up with Level 5 to create this pretty amazing trailer for Majin (Demon God) Station, an upcoming title for iOS and Android platforms. While it appears to be a typical anime style on first glance, I called it amazing after learning that the entire trailer was executed using Anno's Studio Khara digital team in 3D instead of hand animation, showing off the progress made in advanced cel shading pipelines for animation.

The last time we say anime styled 3D this impressive was back in May with the announcement of Guilty Gear XRD - Sign, which features some of the most seamless 2D style 3D running in an actual real time engine. That aside, Majin Station probably won't be making the jump overseas but I'll find any excuse to post work by the man who directed Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The Olympians

The Olympains is a stylized short animation featuring the Gods of Olympus as they reign their fury down upon the city of London. It's a fast and frantic animation that uses a low-poly count to great effect, offering a unique display of action. I really dig the geometric quality, it adds an interesting level of simplicity to the frantic action on screens and adds an interesting spin on the God design, which holds a similar feel to the style used in God of War.

Why Not Hand Over A Shelter To Hermit Crabs?

One of the coolest uses of 3d printing I've seen so far, artist Aki Inomata was inspired by her pet hermit crab to embark on a journey to take advantage of the crustaceans built in competitive side to claim ever larger shells. The minimalist video (Including having no audio) chronicles the creation of a 'Kingdom Shell,' in 3D to placing the finished, translucent product in the crabs tank, and the inevitable take over.

Considering all the previous applications we've seen for 3D printing technology, this idea was truly born from Inomata's whimsical love for her unlikely pet, and her need to indulge it's primal instincts. Now we need a proper sequel to Shadow Of The Colossus to see this moving city in action.

Fortune Elephant Dream

Sometimes when you have no direction in your life, putting all your eggs in one basket is the most adventurous thing you can do. Fortune Elephant Dream is a short animation about a man with seemingly nothing to look forward to, in order to fill a hole in his life he bets it away. Trust me though, it's really not a s horribly depressing as it sounds, in fact it's a pretty damn fun animation. Directors Oliver Lourry, the folks from Noidentities, and their entire animation team have an incredible knack for character animation, giving both a realistic yet slapstick approach to the character's movements. 

The visual quality is topnotch, approaching some of the top animation studios with it's own identity. Mixed with an entertaining set of 2D art by Frederic Mace and Yue Wu, Fortune Elephant Dream gets an A+ in my book of animations for both sheer quality and entertainment. 

Tumbleweed Tango

A truly fun animated short from the folks at Humble TV, Tumbleweed Tango follows a balloon dog pup venturing through a treacherous desert overflowing with sharp perils. Upon meeting an unlikely stranger in the midst of his journey though, he embarks on a tango of life and death to escape his hostile environment.

Aside from the fun concept, the team did an awesome job capturing the way a balloon animal would move and look if it were alive, with plenty of secondary animation and some awesome sound treatment to boot. Awesome from start to finish.

Carn

Created at the Emile Cohl Academy in Lyon by Jeff Le Bars, Carn tells the story of a lost boy and his encounter with a desperate, dying wolf who offers him a choice: Either perish in the unforgiving cold of a harsh winter, or sacrifice the wolf for warmth in exchange of taking care of her cubs and raising them as his own, or else.

The 3D art style used in Carn is absolutely stunning, emulating a truly unique look which comes off as a cross of Zelda's Windwaker style and classical storybook. Following the darker story of the short, Jeff Le Bars incorporated plenty of highly stylized play between lights and darks to visually match the tone. One of the best self contained stories I've seen this year so far.

Back in the Day

The plot concept is super simple: This slice-of-life shows us the day of an 80's era regular, middle class family. Nothing too crazy: Dad wakes the kids up, Mom makes breakfast, then school, dinner and so on and so forth. I think that's what drew me to this 3D animated short: the simplicity of everyday life and routine (not that I'd want that every day, but you know what I mean). The art direction is pretty whimsical, employing a style for the characters reminiscent of a bizarre cross between Mr. Potato Head and Fisher Price's Little People. Back In The Day was created by animator Rok Predin, in collaboration with the UK-based Trunk Animation.

Evil Octopus

Created by CGI artist Rafael Vallaperde and produced by the studio he works at (Lightfarm), Evil Octopus is both a creative endeavor and a talent showcase for the outsourcing studio, capturing the genesis of an idea, it's production and completion by one artist. Using a mixture of Modo (An increasingly popular 3D software suite) for block in modeling, Zbrush for detailing the octopus and rough textures followed by rendering and finishing in Modo again, the final image is pretty stunning.

Going back to that earlier point, outsourcing studios typically put out videos like these to attract potential clients, a series of high end demo pieces unrelated to actual projects on their plate to show off their versatility and talent level. From the studios I've had a chance to talk to as well, these projects also help boost artist morale by giving them a chance to flex their own creative muscle, be it with a multi-discipline project like a short film or something like Evil Octopus above, a beauty shot.

Trois Petit Chats

Quite possibly one of the saddest shorts I've seen in a while, Trois Petit Chats (Three Little Cats) is a dramatic short about a little cat witnessing the death of his entire family over time, and one father's sacrifice to comfort his ailing child. After watching the short I found the style to be incredibly interesting, with the entire family and their world having a doll like quality to it, down to the way the clothing is styled to the way the mysterious ailment in portrayed in the protagonists, with a porcelain-like cracking represented as a symptom.

After some research it turns out that the Supinfocom team behind the short drew their design inspiration from Pipos Dolls, a Korean company specializing in high end, highly poseable dolls with an anthropomorphic nature to them, as well as normal dolls too. The aesthetic that they drew from ultimately gave Trois Petit Chats a very exotic visual flavor to go along with the rather sad story of this unfortunate family. The short is currently being toured around the international festival circuit.

The Art Of Real Sonke

(Via)

Real Sonke (Aka Ivan) is a Russian concept artist and illustrator, who uses a really cool hybrid 2D/3D workflow to create some rather stunning pieces. Over the last few years 3D has become an essential component of concepting, with tools like Google's Sketchup and Pixologic's Zbrush allowing artists to become ever more efficient and higher the quality bar with their work.

Mixed with Ivan's incredibly painterly style, the result of  the heavy traditional emphasis in most Russian curriculum's for art students, this hybrid style is pretty innovative, especially considering that we initially couldn't tell if 3D was used. You can check out his Youtube channel for a 3 part making of his pirate composition, which you can check out after the break!

Shave It

Animated or not, I don't think I'd ever think I'd get to watch a monkey shave itself, but it happened. The amazing team at 3DAR Studios created this incredible 3D animated short featuring four-minutes of visually stimulating art, animation and colors. The overall style holds a similar feel to the work of Jamie Hewlett and his Gorillaz work, but still manages to find a niche of it's own to create something goofy and original.

The pure goofiness of the monkey's facial expressions throughout the short had me giggling all the way through and I would expect them to do the same for you. Giggle dammit, giggle.