"Why Do Practical Effects Get Replaced With CGI?" - An Appeal From The Practical VFX Industry

If you haven't heard of Amalgamated Dynamics (ADI), you ought to get educated - An offshoot of Stan Winston Studios that was born in 1989, the studio has specialized in delivering the highest quality practical effects to at least a few dozen movies you've probably watched, including this year's Godzilla, Xmen - First Class, the Aliens Franchise and many more over the years.

Celebrating their 25th year in business, they've created a new video to explain some of the challenges that practical effects studios are facing in this day and age, when producers and studio execs seek to up the visual ante by over relying on CGI. The most famous example of this is probably 2011's The Thing prequel, which was supposed to be entirely shot with practical effects as a throwback to John Carpenter's original 1982 feature. In a move that soured many fans, studio execs opted to apply a CGI treatment towards the end of production, overriding even the directors wishes.

In the case of that movie, what made the original The Thing so frightening was the fact that the practical effects were so grounded, and 'real' that it instilled a deeper fear in audiences than what a computer could accomplish. That choice had quite the opposite effect, drawing audiences out of the movie when the afflicted researchers turned into rubbery, overly motion blurred CGI monsters that had a loose grounding in that reality. As one artist we heard from put it best, the best VFX is a balanced marriage of practical and CGI - There's a reason movies like Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers still look so good today. Think about it.

The founders of ADI offer a compelling case as to how things have gone a little too slanted in the favor of CGI as of late, and I kind of have to agree...An overabundance of CGI in any film, no matter how well it's done has a nasty tendency to distract rather than immerse. For an idea of just how far animatronic technology has come since the 80's, I'd like to invite you guys to check out the mind blowing work that Gustav Hoegen did for Prometheus's engineers. 100% Practical.

CGHub Is Gone - An Industry Standard For Concept Art Disappears Overnight

The entire concept art community has been shocked to learn that CGHub, a website born out of necessity following the downfall of Conceptart.org a few years ago is now gone forever. Following a DDOS attack and a hack that redirected the website to Cghugs.com, the website made the announcement that it would be closing it's doors for good yesterday.

The entire mess spawned from a subset of users who were incredibly vocal and unhappy with the website announcing that it would roll out premium accounts to raise funds for the website, which had never charged it's users for their service. I actually paid for an account willingly as they've allowed us to discover many talented artists to feature over the years, so giving something back was warranted.

What surprised us was that the roll out of a premium feature prompted some serious backlash that we witnessed on social media by high profile artists, accusing CGhub of having 'sold out' among some truly negative language pointed their way. Could the premium featured have been better though out? Sure. Was the reaction completely blown out of proportion? Absolutely.

A few days ago we received an unexpected refund for the premium account, around the same time the website went down in an apparent hacker attack. While people were initially confused at first, rumors started to circle about the fate of the website following rumors of financial difficulties and the founders being fed up with the attitudes some users had taken towards them making money off the website. If anything this entire experience just saddened me, as the discussions I saw on social media just showed off how self entitled some artists I really admired were. I won't give out names but we've featured quite a few of them on AwesomeRobo in the last few years.

What now? We're left with a complete void in the concept art website scene that needs to be filled. A once amazing treasure trove of networking and beautiful art gone. While I wish they'd taken another approach other than just unexpectedly pulling the plug, I can understand why they did after having their hands bit by a community that unfortunately expected a website to fund itself with money that appeared from thin air. The failure of users to acknowledge that these websites have staff and hosting costs to pay was a truly unfortunate one.

Even after the closure of CGhub, users took to attacking the team that supported the website, which was an absolute catch 22 moment. It kind of reminded me of the childish response that users had to Wikipedia shutting down for a day in support of an anti-SOPA protest last year. This is why we can't have nice things.

Black Desert Online - A Korean MMO That Has The West's Attention

I've had a chance to play a wide range of MMO's over the years, never fully delving into them but limiting myself to 2-3 week playtests to get a feel for what each game had to offer. And during this time I really got a chance to develop an appreciation for Korean MMO's especially, which time and time again seemed to be a few steps ahead of their western developed counterparts in regards to gameplay ideas and innovations.

One of my most memorable experiences was playing Granado Espada a few years back, which allowed a player to control three characters simultaneously in a baroque styled setting (The awesome character concepts by Limha Lekan drew me in). My only frustration was that there was a generalized stigma against any Korean MMO for being 'too grindy,' a reputation that a few games managed to cast on that entire scene as a whole.

In the last few years it seems like developers have taken note of this reputation and have been trying to address it with newer games, including NC Soft's upcoming Blade and Soul and Black Desert Online. The latter recently caught the interest of the western gaming community for it's efforts to truly evolve online combat with a more dynamic action oriented approach rather than the rather outdated 'roll' based systems featured in games like World of Warcraft.



Black Desert is just one of many next gen MMO's being developed overseas, and hopefully this game will be able to make a transition to Western shores once it's released. I've seen so many games with truly amazing potential absolutely fall flat due to bad marketing, but hopefully this will be one of the exceptions. If you're in the mood to get a feel of how this game might play while we wait for Black Desert to released, I'd recommend giving the free to play Vindictus action MMO a shot (The only Korean MMO developed on Valve's source engine).

10 Fanmade Versions Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles We'd Rather See

We've all seen it at this point. A trailer featuring the Michael Bay produced version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And in general, our response was pretty much in line with the rest of the internet. Confusion, a little bit of anger, a bunch of Shrek jokes thrown about liberally. In this day and age it seems warranted to be concerned about Michael Bay getting his hands on anything, as historically he's shown us the ability to drain the soul out of properties he touches (Transformers 1-4). And after watching the gritty trailer and the telltale signs of a style filled with flash but no substance, seeing Megan Fox recast as April O' Neill..It seems like this world exists in the exact same realm as the ill-fated reincarnations of the Autobots and the Decepticons (The merchandising did amazing though).

It's not the worst thing we've seen, and it might be half decent- But the overly designed reimaginings of these Turtles sure do bug the hell of us. Why did they feel the need to push the iconic turtles designs into an uncanny territory by giving them more humanoid features? As a result we've spent the last few days scouring the internet for artists who probably could have done it better, if only they'd been offered the chance. Joining the fight against terrible reboots, we present our top ten fanmade takes on the Turtles after the break!

My Love/Hate Relationship With Titanfall

Titanfall just fell into our laps over a week ago, and I’ve been having a blast wall running and gunning my way to victory. But I can’t help but feel that for every step forward the game takes, it then proceeds to take two backward. It’s been very difficult for me to say that this game was worth the hype because of these steps backwards. Let me begin with what I think Titanfall does right, and by what it does right, it does better than most.

The multi-tiered staging of the combat between pilot and titan feels very much like a battle between David and Goliath, but neither feel dramatically more powerful than the other. Titans feel powerful, but not overpowered, and nothing stops an experienced player from taking one down. This tends to breed gameplay that is high octane, jumping from titan to titan, planting satchel charges, grabbing a zipline and gunning up enemies as you make your escape present moments that are truly unique, and in all, gives you one hell of an adrenaline rush.

Some Thoughts On Studio Ghibli's "The Wind Rises"

From time to time we all tend to ponder about death, where our life is going, our wishes, dreams, our goals. These thoughts linger in our daily existence, it's simply how we choose to interpret and deal with them. While some people choose to live a life of taking no risks and playing it safe in order to protect themselves and guarantee a comfortable existence, other people throw themselves at the unknown in pursuit of their passion, regardless of the consequences.

Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises delves into the story of Jiro, possessed with an insatiable desire to quench a thirst for aviation despite his poor vision. The movie follows him over the course of a few decades, starting from the birth of his dream until it's fruition, following inspiration that comes to him in a dream from a famous Italian designer called Caproni.

I'll be honest, Studio Ghibli's last few features definitely had a very understated feel, including Arrietty and Up On Poppy Hill. In terms of their narrative and emotional aspects, they both offered offered much milder experiences compared to what we'd come to expect from the studio. I went into The Wind Rises with similar expectations, and was absolutely blown away.

"Life After Pi" - An Intimate Look Into The Troubled VFX Industry

Life After Pi is a documentary born out of a deep sense of frustration over a completely broken system in Hollywood, one that's adversely affected over 21 US VFX Studios in the last ten years or so. In an article that we wrote last year, we noted how foreign subsidies were driving VFX studios to bankruptcy by stretching them extremely thin and forcing them to bid lower and lower for movie projects: Ryhtm and Hues was just one of the companies to fall victims to this trend at a most inopportune time back in 2013, going into bankruptcy while winning Oscars for Life of Pi simultaneously. At the time it seemed baffling that such a thing could happen, but troubling rumors started to pop up while last years Oscars were ongoing.

The event that caused a large stir in the VFX industry came about when director Ang Lee and the Cinematographer completely failed to acknowledge the hundreds of (Now jobless) people that poured their life into making their CG heavy movie a success. This unified artists from many different fields to share their disdain for the current state of the movie industry, which has paid no regard to fostering the home grown studios that made dozens of their movies into visually stunning box office hits. Life After Pi goes into what happened at the studio during and after this period, and the type of broken system in Hollywood that has been driving many studios into bankruptcy.

Considering that we've seen little to no acknowledgement of this problem from studios, we'd encourage you as a reader to share this documentary wherever you can to educate people on this issue. Especially with the Oscars around the corner, it wouldn't hurt to see actors or directors acknowledge the hundreds of people working long, unpaid hours in the VFX trenches out of love for their craft. The same could be said about many other creative industries, where figureheads get all the credit for the work of hundreds. There needs to be a change.

"Life After Pi" - The Rise And Fall Of The VFX Industry

The 2013 Oscars marked a dark moment in the VFX Industry, when artists were presented with a very strange moment: The Life Of Pi getting an Oscar while Rythm and Hues, the studio behind it's beautiful visuals went into bankruptcy, just one of many VFX house casualties in that short period. At that ceremony an entire group of people who owed their success to these hundreds of hardworking artists took on a dismissive tone. Ang Lee accepted that Oscar and failed to even thank the hundreds of people who made the heavily CG reliant movie possible, which honestly disgusted us to no end.

As Walt Jones, a CG supervisor best put it: It gelled the entire VFX industry into being horrifically pissed off at the way they were being treated. A new documentary will be released in just two weeks time called Life After Pi which is set to be the first chapter of an upcoming feature-length documentary: Hollywood Ending that delves into the larger, complex challenges facing the current US film industry. This year's Oscars will also feature a march of solidarity for these artists, a second plea to Hollywood to not destroy the American VFX Industry in favor of cheap outsourcing. The film will be released on the 25th.

Flappy Bird By Kud

This is probably the only Flappy Bird related piece of content you'll ever see on our website. Created by Kud and voiced by the folks over at Mega64, it's probably the funnest thing to come out of the media circus that this game has attracted over the last few weeks. Curious about our opinion regarding Flappy Bird? This entire debacle was complete bulls**t. Instead of focusing on social gaming's terrible trend of ripping off and copy pasting the same version of games over and over again, mainstream gaming websites decided to turn the spotlight/internet hate machine on a guy who actually made a fun game on his free time. Does having a Mario themed warp tube in your game warrant death threats and people wanting to ruin you?

Let's not forget that other games have made very obvious references to Mario games. Let's not forget Jonathan Blow's Braid (In general), Muigin and Larion from World of Warcraft, Super Guacamelee's princess quote and this entire list of over 130 games that make direct references to the series. Was it worth dozens of articles damning an indie dev who made a little cellphone app on his free time with elements that paid tribute to his favorite games growing up? I think not, and this is why I personally stopped reading a bunch of gaming sites in the last few weeks as this got blown way out of proportion. In the meanwhile, dozens of unscrupulous fly by night devs are capitalizing on it's unwarranted notoriety to create dozens of clones. Thank you, sh**ty game journalists for pushing yet another developer into darkness.

How They Created The Lego® Movie

Lego Movie was a pretty damn neat movie. Aside from being an incredibly meta idea to begin with considering the idea of all the different Lego franchises inhabiting the same universe, the movie added an additional layer of meta not seen in the trailers that surprised us in the best way possible. Overall it was an excellent, fun movie with a fantastic message to offer regarding sharing your creativity with others and not being afraid to think outside the box to create something new. A surprisingly deep message from a movie about bright colored bricks (Which I can't get enough of).

This little making of reel touches on some of the making of aspects, as well as a 15 minute b-roll reel featuring various moments from the production of the film after the break! Whether you've ever had Lego in your life or not, I can't recommend it enough.

Everything That's Wrong With The Social Gaming Industry - In 22 Pictures

We were recently contacted by an anonymous reader/game developer who wanted to share his thoughts on the state of the social gaming industry. After reading his experiences, this was simply too good to pass up. For anyone interested in an insiders look at Silicon Valley's gaming scene, here is an intimate report by reader Iosefatau:

Hello AwesomeRobo readers and game enthusiasts alike. I am one of many artists making (Or at least trying to) a living in this volatile, yet rewarding game industry. I recently ran into a series of anonymous images called Innovation on the App Store, and I was reminded of a year spent in Silicon Valley, seeing what social gaming had to offer. I'd like to share my story to give you an idea of what I experienced.

These companies promised the world, and underwhelmed me so much that I find myself cursing ever having made that decision to take a year to explore that bubble industry. Before I go ahead, I'd like everyone to know that A)I transitioned from a relatively well known gaming studio with AAA franchises and B)Worked at one of the big three social companies (Eg. Zynga).

Now isn't that advertising image kind of curious? Kind of looks like the previous one above in terms of concept. Here's an interesting statistic: I never ran into a single game designer in Silicon Valley's social gaming scene. The entire premise of these 'social gaming' companies was to rip off existing concepts from other companies, slap a fresh coat of paint on them and push even more marketing dollars towards shoving these microtransaction nightmares down the throats of their 'whales' (Account manager lingo for high paying customers). You think the folks at Sony and Xbox are doing it bad? These games are unplayable past a certain point without buying 'gems', or whatever other BS in game economy they pushed.

Everything Is A Remix - The Iphone Case Study

We've featured Kirby Ferguson time and time again for his Everything is a Remix series- a compelling look at how everything is inspired by something at some point. Over time he's done some truly fascinating studies on movies, music and beyond, and his latest installment turns the magnifying glass over at Apple's iPhone, a product that could not have existed without the innovations pioneered by many other companies. Time and time again we've been shown that some of the best inventions were simply created by remixing existing technologies or concepts.

From a website standpoint, two examples come to mind: A)Facebook, which pretty much killed Myspace by taking the idea of a social platform and streamlining it and B)Reddit, which was created to fill a void created by the disastrous Digg V4 implementation, which stripped power from the users. And honestly this mentality applies to just about any creative field. Every creation is inspired by something that came before it.

The Art Of Frank Lin

(Via)

Frank Lin's work is just great..A breath of fresh air in more ways than one with his unconventional visual style. We're used to browsing tons of art and illustration work on a daily basis, and at times it does all start to gel together, especially when people don't stick to their guns and simply start following trends. For example- at the moment there's a huge trend in the concept art field to simply photobash everything together with little painting at all..It makes sense for an experienced artist ina production environment, but to the swathes of naive, aspiring concept artists without a proper art foundation- it's a dangerous mistress to say the least. 

Tangent aside, I was drawn in by Frank's style, which is definitely catered to the storybook illustration niche. There's a ton of playful experimentation here, ranging from working with textures and patterns, experimenting with different degrees of painterly to flat areas, and straight out fun work like the eye popping Luchabros illustration pictured above. Check out more of his awesome work after the break.

The Art Of Minosch

(Via)

Minosch, also known as Nadia Enis is an up and coming German illustrator, and a self dubbed 'survival artist,' which is a pretty good description for anyone currently heading down the freelance artist path. Looking through her gallery we initially thought that we were looking at a collective due to the numerous styles we encountered from piece to piece, but it turned out that she simply wears many hats as a concept artist and illustrator.

While some artist choose to stick to their guns and employ a very strong personal style, there's another breed out there that choose to be stylistics chameleons of sorts..A mentality that really depends on how you want to cater yourself to potential clients. Nadia's worked on a slew of projects including Paizo's Pathfinder, Aion, PoxNora and many other clients in various fields ranging from comic books to teaching. Check out more of her work after the break!

Goldie Blox's "Princess Machine" Stunt - Good Message, Potential Backfire

Offering a very relevant message challenging the social norm of girls only being entitled to certain types of toys - Princesses, dolls and pink colored objects, Goldie Blox's Princess Machine promo hit home with many people that feel like it's time for a change. Using a remixed version of the Beastie Boy's Girls track and the same director who created the Rube Goldberg filled music video for Ok Go's This Too Shall Pass, this viral video had it all; With the exception of the Beastie Boys' permission for the cover.

The company is now being sued for unauthorized usage of their intellectual property, claiming that it's not exactly 'fair use' due to the fact that it's an actual advertisement rather than a parody skit. I'm all about the message offered here, but this startup seems to have made quite a gaffe by not clearing this ahead of time. So what is it, fair use or infringement?

"Synchronicity" - A Taste Of Next Gen Facial Animation

Uncanny valley has been a term that's been brought up time and time again when people in the CG realm have attempted to bring believable, photorealistic characters to life in feature film and movies. Most attempts have typically walked a fine line between a character being believable or just creepy and lifeless. Quantic Dreams have probably had the most success in this realm with titles like Heavy Rain and most recently Beyond Two Souls, whereas directors like Robert Zemeckis have failed time and time again with their mocap heavy CG films that simply lacked that 'spark' which made their characters all fall into that creepy, uncanny valley.

I really think It's all about the eye movement. If there's one thing that people sometimes forget is how expressive eyes can be, constantly darting around, an open book to the mental state of a character. Synchronicity is a next gen test by Side, 3Latereal and CubicMotion using a new type of head rig for capturing performances from an actor (Lydia Leonard in this one) working on the latest in game engines. While it's a solid performance and very impressive, pay attention to how the eyes work and think about how yours shift around during a casual conversation. It might be a technological hurdle, but I feel that once somebody really dedicates some time to capturing eye movement in a performance the medium will improve dramatically in it's believability. Just my two cents.

Disarming Corruptor - Cryptography For Copyrighted 3D Model Printing

Very interesting tool by M-Plummer Fernandez that also scares me for some reason for what it represents. While 3D printing has been burgeoning with the technology becoming cheaper and more accessible, people have already begun to explore the grayer area of this technology, including copyrighted designs. Corruptor allows people to encrypt these models by 'obliterating' them, a 3D term for damaging a model beyond recognition so they can be passed on without people knowing it's true nature.

Now the scariest part of this type of encryption is that it could definitely be used by the type of people who have taken to printing their own unregulated firearms (Schemas are already floating around) and weaponry, which could single-handedly ruin this entire medium for many if it's used for destructive purposes. I'm all for 3D printing, but not like this.

In a time of prolific online espionage, crackdowns on file-sharing, and a growing concern for the 3D printing of illegal items and copyright protected artefacts, DC is a free software application that helps people to circumvent these issues. Inspired by encryption rotor machines such as the infamous Enigma Machine, the application runs an algorithm that is used to both corrupt STL files into a visually-illegible state by glitching and rotating the 3D mesh, and to allow a recipient to reverse the effect to restore it back to its original form. The file recipient would need both the application and the unique seven digit settings used by the sender, entering the incorrect settings would only damage the file further.

Using The New Youtube Commenting System - A Not Sarcastic Tutorial

The recent features that Google has been rolling out to create an unholy union between Google+, Youtube, Gmail and other services - And it's only made me aware that the company might have more of an engineer driven approach to problems instead of a designer based one. It's been quite fun being forced to use a now broken Gmail account, an incredibly un-intuitive commenting system that makes little to no sense and losing a year or two of subscriptions on Youtube thanks to their forced account swap roll out.

Lowtax, ringleader of the Somethingawful forums put together a concise guide to the new Youtube/Google+ rollout that perfectly captures the sheer confusion that they've unleashed with their bizarre new commenting system. Seriously, these recent update fiascos really have me wondering what's going on over in Silicon Valley. You can't win people over on your social network by ramming it down their throat with every service you provide.

Overboard!

Ariel Chao's Overboard is one of the best representations of the types of experiences you'll probably have while employed in any creative industry. With a few years of experience under my belt in the rocky videogame industry, I think Overboard nails it on the head, hard. You'll run into studios run with a hands off approach, disorganized studios, studios run by divas, ego trippers and crooks, but every once in a while a studio will come around that knows how to run a tight ship and keep everyone relatively happy. It's not all peaches and cream, as they say.

An animated look into how the production side of animation works. How an animation studio runs portrayed through a ship analogy. We follow producers Jim and Jane as they navigate their way through the wonderfully chaotic world of animation.

The Value of Design

Despite being created by Golden Wolf for the British market, the message in this short is universal in regards to how much a good designer can contribute to helping a business grow and be successful. This especially applies to new businesses, as they are more in tune with what newer generations are drawn to. Inspiring for any struggling designer out there, as it paints a powerful picture as to the increased role that they will play in solving problems in the future.