“Wall E meets cube”
Liquid Orange writes:
This is my first short. It’s my version of Pixars charakter Wall E which i created entirely in Blender 2.5.
Hope you like it.I call it “Wall E meets cube”.
This is just a Fan Art. The copyright belongs to Disney/Pixar.
Very nice. Good graphics and sound effects.
Two small changes that could improve this vid even more. After he breaks the cube, he cleans it up to his internal storage and compresses it back into a cube. he puts it back, and is happy, and touches it ones. Then the cube falls apart and he runs away ;)
Second, the sound effects them selves. they became to repetitive, adding in some fades in/outs would improve it a lot.
Just a thought
I smell copyright infringement…
I like the idea from Gregzilla about pressing another cube.
Very nice animation, very successful! May be it’s a shame there is only one shot, there are still very far from the action, you could have cut the scene in many ways, or at least get closer to the action.
It is still very very nice! Bravo!
Very nice.
Did you make Wall-E or get him somewhere?
Hey guys,
thank you for your proposals. I’m currently thinking of another small episode and this time i will take more more attention to the sound.
@ Terrachild: I created him completely from scratch. It was my first big project in Blender and took me 8 months.
I’m not sure about fair use for fan created art, but crediting the character’s creator at the end would be polite if nothing else. The House of the Mouse can be pretty aggressive in protecting their trademarks.
What a stupid robot, he broke the cube.. :-)
Good job, i like it. But maybe the repeating of squeaky noise could be rather avoided, after hearing it for the ~5th time, it starts annoying me.
Bye.
Nice, but could be more original.
@ copyrightinfringementpanda, John Grigni : Actually you have a point – but its not like liquid orange is making any money on it.
Really liked this animation though! I like Gregzilla’s idea of Wall-E turning the shards back into a cube!
Nice work, although I believe you shouldn’t have used the Wall-E character. It belongs to Pixar and you can’t just use it like it’s Creative Commons licensed material. You should have made up your own character, maybe a parody on Wall-E like WallSocket or Wall-Eye, whatever.
Nice animation, but I agree with other people about Copyright infringement.
Even if no money is made from this work, it’s still a violation of authors moral rights.
What was After Effects used for?
Nice animation. But I agree with a lot of other commenters – the sound effects become distracting. I think it’s likely a case of just toning them down – and perhaps they only happen with specific movements. Wall-E needs a bit of lube.
As far as fair use – don’t think it’s that big a deal considering your having fun, it was a learning project – but you may want to take what you’ve learned and create your own robot – especially for your portfolio.
Reaction – After Effects was used for compositing. Probably could have used the compositor, but why not use the best compositing tool.
Amazing work for a first short!. :) Good–if not masterful–use of subtle nuances. Enjoyed it. I presume copyright issues must have been considered and settled before being featured in this public site. :)
Nice work! I thought the sound effects were spot on. For a first effort it has a nice degree of polish and really shows off the effort you put into it. I can understand starting off with something familiar to get one’s bearings with the software and develop one’s animation skills. As an example, my mother sometimes uses Disney characters to teach basic drawing skills to young children. Even famous artists have copied “the masters.” It is a time honored tradition that finds expression nowadays in the digital art world. Now that you’ve gotten people’s attention, you can put your skills to good use on original material.
The Pixar bird was used in Big Buck Bunny and nobody said anything but here`s nearly everyone screaming. This guy just created Fan Art. I like it :)
Jorge: Nope, the Pixarbird (I guess you mean the one from ‘birds’) wasn’t in BBB – a very similar bird was in the movie. This is a downright copy of wall-e, and it even uses the same name.
But anyway, great animation! But you properly can’t use it in a demoreel..
I really liked this short! Animation was very believable for Wall E, the cube animation was horrible!!! :) Seriously though, my only critique is that it would have been nice to have closer shots. Other than that it was great!
I like it! I’m not a copyright lawyer, but if creating fan art is a crime, then there are a heck of a lot of Star Wars and Star Trek fan films that should be considered illegal. ;)
Nice animation. As for copyright, I think there should be a fair use case to cover this (and we’re not even sure under what copyright regime the animator comes from). However, the animator’s talent and eight months could have been better spent evolving her/his own character that can increase the Commons for reusable designs. Or, alternatively, that s/he can commercialize, say, as the character for a longer web animation.
*Little late edit on my previous comment: When I said that you properly can’t use it in your demoreel, I mean because of the copyright infringement, not the quality of the short – which is top notch!
Do you guys actually worry about this?
This animator didn’t take frames from Wall-E and splice them together to make this. He didn’t copy anything. He “Drew” it from scratch for his own non-commercial use. You can draw your own version of anything you want, of any image you want as long as you don’t profit from it. Is posting it here a violation?
Probably not.
In the U.S., if your work falls under the category of “Fair Use” you can even copy the original artwork. Remember this artist didn’t do that. He re-created it from scratch. There is a big difference.
Interested parties should read these two docs:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
&
abanet.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf
Most of these deal with actually copying original work. Copying, like with a copy machine! Not drawing your own version of something. And even actual copying is frequently allowed.
Calm down people.
As far as whether he should have spent that much time doing it, you have got to be kidding me. Every artist who starts out SHOULD, and does copy the designs of professionals. That’s how you learn. That’s what every art-school since the beginning of time teaches.
Excellent work. The animation is very good!
Copyright?
I suppose it’s modeled from scratch not stolen.
I mean using someones logo is infringement as you may be confused with the original. But how one can forbid to draw something that everyone can see?
Sure, making money on someones else invented character would not be fare though, but that’s another case.
Great animation!
Very nice, and good model too.
I’d work on the timing for the next animation. A bit too slow and chunky in parts, like it was animated in separate parts and then compiled later on without much fluidity. Wall-E may be a robot but, watch the movie again, he doesn’t move like one. It’s missing that “spark” of life.
When crushing that cube, Wall-E would have jumped (not just stood tall), he would panic, he would look and move around anxiously. At the very least, he wouldn’t have gone off-screen so calmly.
That said, if you make another short I hope you do post it to show how you’ve improved.
Re: Copyright – I don’t have a problem with you using a Disney character, but it is limiting for you. You won’t be able to enter it into any festivals and you won’t be able to use it for your reel once/if you start applying to some of the better known VFX/animation houses because it will give a false impression of your work experience. Also, fair use a a very loose term. It’s a lot harder to prove something is fair use than it seems. That being said, for a passion project like this for the blender audience, not really going to be a problem.
Now down to details – two things stuck out to me.
The arm movement seemed off, and I think it may be an issue with the rigging constraints. I’d take a second look at the movie and how the real character’s arm moves and physically operates. It didn’t seem the same to me, and since your main goal seems to be to do a pretty fair imitation, this is important.
Second, I’d take a look at how you animate the eyes. Structurally they seem fine, but Wall-E’s eyes express quite a bit of character and emotion in the feature film. In fact, I would argue that this expression is what helps us to empathize with him even though he’s just a robot. I didn’t get the same feeling from your Wall-E’s eyes. Perhaps if you worked on animating the “pupils” more in conjunction with the overall movements of his eye modules?
Just my 2 cents
The issue is not just copyrigt but also that the artist makes no attempt credit the original creators of the IP or distance his work from Pixar. There is also a risk that this work could be mistaken for something produced at pixar, and could intern damage there brand or image.
I do think it has to be expected that fans of a film will create “Fan Art” and Pixar is unlikely to get upset about that. But they might get upset if they felt the artist here was impersonating them for his own gain.
There are plenty of animations created every day with blender, that dont get fetured here. Would this have still been fetured if it was not a Pixar look a like?
If someone posted a female character that was a rippoff of Sintel on the lightwave forums and didnt say they got the idea form Sintel the short or mention it in any way, there would be a wall of winge from the Blender artists forum. Why the diffrence when you have Pixar?
damn, US people wants to sue everybody and everything!
This would pass the fair use tests
1. passed the first test as this is non commercial.
2. The nature is a lot more complicated. Though there are plenty of test cases for character depiction in others work.
3. Though it has wall-e through out the film. Because of how short it wouldn’t matter much.
4. It has no effect on the potential market or value of the copyright work.
I’m surprised so many people care. I’ve seen plenty of art and films that depict characters. Like for instants Waldo.
Apart from that. Fantastic work. Absolutely amazing. It is just so cute too.
paulica, actually the U.S. is one of the few countries in the world, Israel being the other, that actually have a fair use policy. So this is one area that, because of our Constitution, people have the right to use images for their own use and commentary (parody and satire.)
Bang on mate, Nice play. Well done !!!
Some people here misunderstand the copyright issues involved. How would you like it if you made up a character in a successful movie and someome made a new movie with your character doing things you don’t like or want, for whatever reason. It would be unfair for people to claim ‘fair use’ rights IMHO. I simply wouldn’t want it, chances are good you wouldn’t either. So put yourself in Disney’s shoes. People complain it’s often about the money but these kind of things can leave a bad taste in people’s mouth and damage your brand (in this case Wall-E).
It’s doubtful Disney will have problems with this movie, but the infrigement is still illegal.
To spend few pages to credit softwares but not credit the original authors of Wall-e robot, and Wall-e logo or not precise it’s a fan-art video is in fact perceive more as a choice than a ‘damn , I forgot it’. May be not the best choice for a professional portfolio ; futures clients may care about copyrights.
Olaf, the infringement is not illegal in every country. You may think it is not fair. But, Illegal is a legal question, and has nothing to do with fairness.
Also, so there is no confusion, I should make clear that “Fair Use” is a legal term, and is not a comment on whether you think something is fair or not. It is a legal concept dating back over a century in the U.S. that has been fought over by content producers endlessly. But, the US Supreme court has ruled repeatedly that people have the right, especially for the purpose of “Parody” to duplicate copyrighted material.
In fact, if YouTube “mistakenly” takes down a video claiming it contains copyrighted material (DMCA) you can write them a letter and force them to put it back up if your video was a parody in some way. They have only a matter of weeks to comply. If they don’t you can take them to court.
Interesting, that even in the “land of lawyers”, the US, free speech is viewed as a god given right!
Copyright is a confusing subject in many cases and the outcome of legal issues are more often than not settled in court (with lawyers getting increasingly fat paychecks).
Terrachild, I would be much more cautious in proclaiming this is not a copyright infringement. It not only depends on the intention of the creator of the ‘derived work’, but also on the protection by the original creator. It is very likely Pixar has registered the design of Wall-E, the Wall-E logo and possibly even the sounds!
In that case, even if I rebuild the work from scratch, it would be an infringement (plagiarized work actually). This is similar to infringing on a tangible hardware design.
Considering it is not a derived work for ‘own’ use, but publicly presented and since there is no clear indication this work is a parody, it would most probably be seen a violation in a legal case.
Apart from that, the short is very nice, but it might have been a better idea to spend 8 months on creating your own robot.
To quickly add:
@GREENie
@Constantine
Exactly copying another work and ‘publishing it’ is plagiarism and illegal.
Although it seems that this work isn’t commercial, legally it probably would be, because the distributing party is a commercial company (vimeo, youtube, whatever).
TomsT,
Let me give you an example that most people would say is illegal. They would be wrong however. There was a case of a Prince song that was copied, not recreated, and used as the soundtrack for a music video on Youtube. Youtube took it down and was forced by law to put it back up, even though it contained the actual Prince song. Not snippets of it, but the song. Because the video was considered a “parody” copyright didn’t matter. What is a parody, that’s where it gets muddy. Because any lawyer will tell you to insist your work is a parody. That frequently settles the issue right there because it’s too expensive to contest the claim.
I agree these issues are muddy at best and usually settled in the courts because of the ambiguity of the law. But he did not “exactly copy” anything. He told his own story with his own artwork. Now if he had edited frames out of Wall-E that would be another matter. He may have taken sounds from Wall-E, and that could be a problem.
Copyright, except for the sounds, is probably not the issue here. Trademark infringement may be. But as this is non-commercial use, saying this is illegal is problematic.
Also, I find it curious that people here think this is a big deal because Blender is full of mountains of code that I can almost guarantee is violating countless software patents. I’ve been a computer programmer for decades, and I guarantee you that use of many of the underlying algorithms in Blender is most likely “illegal” because they have been patented, even though they have been written from scratch by Blender developers!
I don’t see anyone complaining about that!
I’m a fan of WALL-E. True we do have to worry about copyright. So don’t use it as a standard usable character. However, I do know of a website where Pixar fan art is appreciated.
Pixarplanet.com