Computer Animation Arts

Announcing the launch of Jon Stewart's 'Pretty Awesome Character Design Challenge'! Jon is challenging the CGAA community to participate in a character design brief. The brief is below but you'll find more info on Jon's blog . Get involved, share skills and go learn something new!

... and while I'm in the mood for all things uncanny, take a look at the unsettling ceramics of Israeli artist, Ronit Baranga . This is dining ware as imagined by David Cronenberg! Bon appetit!

The unheimlich delights of Unit 3 are but a distant memory by now, but the tableau vivant photography of Joshua Hoffine returns us to the 'return of the repressed'. More cartoonish than Gregory Crewdson , Hoffine's constructions are cheaper and nastier; they are to Crewdson's images what Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the 13th (1980) is to John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). For me, it's the washing-line + clown that presses the primal button, but it's Stephen King's Pennywise I have to thank for having a clown button in the first place! For lots of behind-the-scenes stuff, visit Hoffine's blog .

Whenever I smooth the binds of the body and move the joint, the ground seems to be attached to it and stretches. Any idea why it does that?

I've reinstalled Maya 2011 hotfix 3, got rid of my previous maya folder in my documents folder, deleted all the layers in the scene and yet the All Inputs window doesn't appear when I hit the button. Are there any workarounds for this?

Okay - you're going to love this one: Pixels by Patrick Jean

Can all CGAA Year 1 students please ensure that both their animations and 'Art Of' publications are uploaded to their blogs ASAP - as stipulated by the project brief...

Production drawings and painted cels from Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 Akira - courtesy of Living Lines.

Thanks for sorting out the earlier problem but I still cant find the file for: Render Layers 3 - Effects Pass could you help with this Thanks Adam

I followed the Dynamic Cradle tutorial and for some reason when I play the scene Ball2 does a very huge swing. Here's an image As mentioned before I did follow the tutorial all the way, so I don't know what is wrong with it. If anyone knows the problem please let me know.

Hi Alan, I have noticed that some of the tutorials haven't got downloadable files of them Jiggle deformer 1 Flesh Jiggle deformer 2 Heart Render Layers 3 - Effects Pass Is there a reason for this and are you marking these tasks alongside the rest of the unit 6 tutorials because I am slightly worried that I cant even attempt them yet? Thanks in advance Adam

I was looking where and how I should download it in this page: http://students.autodesk.com/?filter_city=Rochester&filter_country=2&filter_state=Kent&nd=participating_schools&base=1 And it seems that UCA is not on the list. So can we legally use maya at home without paying?

Congratulations to Dan Sperrin, whose entry for the Sky Arts Ident Competition has been shortlisted. The winner will be announced at an awards shindig at Sky HQ on June 21st. We wish Dan the best of luck: our fingers are crossed. Well done! Dan graduated in 2010 and you can follow his blog here. Sky Arts Sting - Daniel Sperrin from Daniel Sperrin on Vimeo .

Production drawings and pained cels from Don Bluth's much sequelised animated feature, The Land Before Time (1988) - courtesy of Living Lines.

Having started as a diploma project at the Institute of Animation, Filmakademie Baden-Werttemberg, "Descendants" is a 14-minute animated short. The two main characters are flowers who grow on the edge of a clearing next to one another. One is old and jaded by a mysterious history -- the other one still young, vivid and curious. The wish to attain the unattainable: something good can evolve from something evil. Descendants from Goro Fujita on Vimeo . To find much more about behind the scenes go here as Heiko van der Scherm and Holger Schoenberger  have uncovered many 'secrets' in preproduction, in story development and design,   then pipeline, rigging . Also uncovers the processes of animation, lighting, rendering and postproduction. Descendants has been screened on 36 festivals so far,The film has won 12 international awards so far. Amongst others the "Animago Award for the Best Character", the "Grand Prize of the Tokyo Anime A...