Great job! I liked the guard test lol, and the screen test’s environment was really nice.
Wow - you guys have set a new record of hits on my website! I only posted this animation not ten hours ago - and I have already logged over 60 downloads! Thanks for the comments from 3 FORUM GURUS!!! Keep them coming. I do have another animation I did for disney which I will post tonight, hopefully. This one’s also an After Effects tour de force, but it is 98% Blender. Keep in mind, guys, that I will have to take down these commercial examples soon, before Disney gets wind, cos I don’t think I am allowed to use without permission. I just wanted to show you fine fellows. I will, however keep the media up on my website, I will just remove the link from the page.
WATCH THIS SPACE! 
Hi guys! I posted the second animation I did for disney - this one is a combination of blender and after effects - and I am more proud of this one than the opener I did.
For those of you who want to know how the transition was achieved:
I created the train animation complete first. I then printed the first 150 frames on A4 sheets, and traced the image on the back of each sheet by hand over a light table. I then scanned the sheets back into the computer, and built up an animation that ran for 6 seconds. I built a desk environment and textured this animation onto the “notepad” that the camera moves in on. I then frame-matched it with the blender animation in after effects. The transition was also done in after effects using the “vector paint” tool, by duplicating the coloured layer four times, and only vector painting one colour channel at a time. Each layer was composited over the frame-matched “handdrawn” animation, then faded into the full-res Blender animation.
http://www.flawedprefect.com/showreel/station.mpg
Paul,
Fantastic stuff! I like your style.
Tim
Nice work, Paul!
Check in your contract about whether or not you are allowed to show your works for portfolio purposes. As a company they are pretty specific about everything, and you should get an idea whether or not they will be cranky with sharing the work over the web.
superb work
I really liked the way you somehow managed to make the whole thing to look alive. I mean, the colors, movements and all are pretty organic.
And by the way, I hope more people start to look at Blender with other eyes. Maya and 3DS are not the center of the universe…
Nice work again, Paul - the crossover from cartoon to 3D works very good. I especially like how the 3D scene gets ‘painted’.
By the way, the Undo function is coming :D. You can download a current CVS build from blender.org to use it.
Link: http://www.blender.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpBB2&file=viewforum&f=18
Check in your contract about whether or not you are allowed to show your works for portfolio purposes. As a company they are pretty specific about everything, and you should get an idea whether or not they will be cranky with sharing the work over the web.
Meh - I know it’s disney, but I asked my bosses and they said it’s cool. Just wanted to share it with you guys cos I know you’d like it!
I hope more people start to look at Blender with other eyes. Maya and 3DS are not the center of the universe…
Well, they’re not… you’re right about that, but people I have met in this industry love big expensive toys. A lot of questions come to mind when I think of Blender as a professional tool: how long will it be before there is a cost involved? How do we get around the ethics of making a profit from freeware? Is there a way to give back to the open source community?
One of my bosses is looking at the Maya personal edition. Right now, he is weighing up Maya vs Blender.
Pros of Maya: a commercial application with software support and a dazzling showreel of work. Comes with a fantastic render engine (I have to agree) and at a good price ($999 US) for this type of software.
Cons of Maya: Buggy. Is an “unwieldly beast” (his words) and he would have to pay for me to do a course - then give me a pay rise for expanding my skills! lol!
Pros of Blender: Can’t beat the price (free). Can produce output comparable to commercial applications (I have proved this with the above examples, but am not alone). Can output field rendered quicktimes for use with FCP, After Effects, and other commercial applications. Makes up for internal and blender-specific plugins with a wealth of python plugins. On the Mac, this is AWESOME, since you don’t have to install Python - most plugins work fantastically. I know it already (not so easy to get a payrise this way). There is a WORLD WIDE support base and forums such as this one.
Cons of Blender: Now now, I was gonna say “none” but there are a few - besides the Undo thing!!! Being open source, it is susceptible to bugs. The interface is not easy to master (I was trying to teach another editor how to use it yesterday and he found it very difficult. He’s also been around 3d a long time). It is not widely known, and being “free”, commercial companies are reluctant to use it proudly. (eg: compare saying “We use Maya. This program has been used to provide special effects for movies like Final Fantasy, TV shows like Buffy, and countless TV commercials - just take a look at the website!” and then saying “Blender can do all these things, but has only been used mainly by hobbyists so far. Oh, and it has no undo feature”. No, no! Not flaming blender! please believe me, I am just making a point!)
The truth is: commercial production is a fickle business based on image. Clients liked to be jerked off. They like to know they paid top dollar for a kick ass TVC or corporate video done by high class professionals with all the latest gadgets and fancy programs… At least some of the clients I’ve worked with. 
Blender has to get up there, but what will happen when it does become a popular commercial tool? Is there another place to post such a question? Would rather keep it in an appropriate place.
sigh rant over - thanks for all the support, guys and girls!
I think that’s been spoken about before. Blender is open source so I doubt it will ever go commercial as there is too big a community backing it.
Deja vu.
You’ll find that Maya and Blender are not all that different. I actually have little trouble with switching between them except that I find Blender’s workflow faster because of the hotkeys. In Maya I feel I’m constantly sifting through oodles of dialogs and menus. I gave it up 'cos of the bugs.
Yeah, that’s sort of why I used it first. Also the fact that the big industry players tweak the code and people like to think they know what they’re doing.
But it’s like people have said in the past, if you’re not a developer, you are more likely to reach a point with Blender where you say, oh I can’t do that. Whereas with Maya, this is rarely the case. If you’re doing pro work, I would say you should use both. Blender for modelling and possibly animating. Maya for the rest as it has better materials and rendering capabilities.
I miss that sometimes in Blender like accidentally deleting an object. But I think it sucks a lot of memory out of your machine. Blender uses much less Ram and so it tends to run a bit smoother. Also, that history stuff in Maya bugged me. I always forget to delete some objects history before animating.
Everybody does ;).
The whole Blender community will echo “I told you so” and stick 2 fingers up to the condescending pricks who constantly put down Blender in places like CGTalk.
/dev/null (commonly known as off-topic ;)) Possibly News & Chat. Search for the subject first though, I’m sure there have been similar threads before.
I know what you mean by image, but image has nothing to do with quality of work. I do mainly video, but you have the same type of thing there.
Yes, maya and 3ds users are usually crass, in video you have the avid users. They scoff if you use any other product, usually out of ignorance.
They make it sound like how could you ever create anything that looks good without the avid. I bailed big time when I realized I could complete the same project in a third of the time by using Premiere or the Toaster. And clients care quite a bit less about image when you can do the same project for them in half the time while saving them a bunch of money.
And besides, for every kick ass production I’ve seen made with avid I’ve seen another crappy PSA or commercial, in other words you can make crappy stuff with Avid, maya, 3ds, Blender, or any other program. In the end it is your artistic talent and attention to detail that will win over your target audience.
I just downloaded all of your examples, and they are fantastic. They are (of course) very professionally done, but there is more to them than that. I have seen too many generic station announcements, but yours are not llike that – they are compelling, and the two main ones (station and amint) have energetic, happy feels to them that most similar content lacks.
I admire your use of the camera, something that can easily make or break an animation. Most animations stick to angles and wipes that can be done with a traditional physical camera, while you balance novel angles and correct, consistent composition. The camera spin in amint is impressive. It contributes to the happy mood, but does not disorient the viewer.
You use the Toaster too??? I thought I was the only one! Which version – VT4000 (oh, that goes back…$1500 for 32 megs of RAM type of back…), Toaster 2, or Toaster 3?
Matt
First off, great work. Did they let you do art design and direction on the clip? Do you have the storyboards?
I am a bit surprised to see a Disney show intro done in Blender, simply because I would have guessed there would be software standards in place, not to mention a few licenses for Maya. From an IT point of view, by working in Blender you make portability of your animation imposible. Also it’s more difficult to have another animator pick up on your work later and run with it.
“We use Maya. This program has been used to provide special effects for movies like Final Fantasy, TV shows like Buffy, and countless TV commercials - just take a look at the website!”
Now we can say that blender was used for many productions, including, but not limited to Spider-man 2, and a Disney show 
well, they can always learn blender 
First off, great work. Did they let you do art design and direction on the clip? Do you have the storyboards?
Yep - I took it from go to woe. The only thing they said needed to be included was the studio set, and the toast. They had a basic idea of toast flying around the studio, and when they saw I achieved this, they wanted the toast to fly in through the window from the toon town. I had the full say on the colours of the houses, etc, and collaborated with a graphic designer here who created the sun and clouds in After Effects (to be later comped in) The trees and street signs were designed by our graphic designer. Disney was only interested in the finished product.
I am a bit surprised to see a Disney show intro done in Blender, simply because I would have guessed there would be software standards in place, not to mention a few licenses for Maya.
“Studio Disney” is the client - part of the Disney Channel in Australia. As with most of my clients (and by mine, I mean my company’s) they don’t care how it’s done, as long as it’s done. As to “portability”, you’re right: I can’t claim it as my own (I have signed a contract that states intellectual property remains copyright of Steam: Motion & Sound) but I can sure as hell show people! Steam will be putting it up on their own website as an example of work, and I asked my boss if it was fine to show this forum - he gave me his permission. I will be taking down the links on my website soon, but I see no reason for you guys to keep downloading the examples and seeing that Blender is out there in commercial work.
Wait… you mean portability as in letting another animator modify it later. Sure, you’re right, but that’s like saying that by creating an animation in After Effects makes it impossible to port into premiere or Shake (don’t quote me on that: haven’t tried shake yet). It doesn’t make a difference in terms of work flow, since all the stuff will be animated through my company anyway. If it needs to be modified by another animator, it’s just unfortunate if he/she does’t know blender.
I admire your use of the camera, something that can easily make or break an animation.
I agree 100% All the principles of animation are present: squash and stretch, anticipation, colour balance, even giving the toast personality. There is no reason these principles should be restricted to objects alone. By streching the depth of field, you get a nice build up to the sling shot into the studio window.