Ben Simonds writes:
Done for Gecko Animation Ltd, which I am now a part of!
A short experimental piece featuring a blend of Macro Photography and CG Animation. It started with an idea from David Parvin, of Two Rivers Partnership, involving abstract forms and macro photography. With the footage shot, Jonathan Lax and myself worked on constructing a narrative from the forms we saw by combining CG elements with the original footage.
The CG elements were all done in blender (though some of the fluid sim stuff was done with RealFlow) and rendered in BI. Lots of animated node materials for the shifting surfaces and displacements.
Credits:
- Director of Photography – David Parvin
- Live Action Shoot – David Parvin, Jonathan Lax, Tobin Brett
- CG Animation and Effects – Ben Simonds, Jonathan Lax
- Editing – Jonathan Lax
- Music and Sound FX – Alistair Lax
46 Comments
Holy crap, that was AWESOME!
Beautifully done!
Pretty awesome indeed!
That was impressive and beautiful at the same time. Very well done !
Amazing & beautiful work. Are you guys going to show us a breakdown of the video someday?
That has to be one of the most beautiful short videos posted on this site. An excellent example of the power of nodes.
SWEET! very nice!
This is hands-down the most realistic and impressive Blender animation that I've ever seen. Just. Wow. I'm left speechless.
WOW. Incredible.
Noooo way that was made with Blender! That looked SOOO real!!
Very well done. Il like the concept.
o_______O
wow i sooooooo incredible and thought they was cooking squid lol...
".....and rendered in BI" ?? Blender Internal?
Really beautiful, a joy to watch, congratulations!
He said is a mix of footage and CG so I think we should be more cautious praising the render quality, I'm guessing 90% is footage
Really Beautiful! But what are those things that looked like vanilla ice cream with strawberry syrup?
@Juan Romero Thanks so much :) its about 45-50% Blender Internal rendered CG shots and the rest was photographed.
@Georgie Yeah either myself or Ben will definitely do a breakdown of a couple of shots at some point soon.
Absolutely AWESOME!!!!
Awesome... very creative !!
stunning...
Okay but what is CG and what is macro photography?
Incredible! Look forward to the breakdown. The sound design was brilliant also. Good job guys! :D
@Roger : I was wondering the same thing, but I suddenly realize that what is REALLY impressive here is that I'm just unable to see what is CG and what is live footage…
Really awesome, congrats guys !
WOAH!
Watched it a second time and tried to pick the CG shots. Here's my guess:
0:41-0:47
0:53-0:57
1:35-1:38
1:48-1:51
1:54-2:05
Was I close? :D
Either way it was done superbly. The live and CG shots work together seamlessly. Love it!
@AndrewPrice: You've got a lot of them, but there are a few more hidden in there :) Keep hunting!
Wonder why when BI is responsible for awesome render results everyone here sounds amazed...
Brilliant !!
Real Footage and 3D is very well mixed, at a point it's hard to see what is what...
And visually/creatively speaking the result is really interesting !
Please give us some clue on how it's made or we gonna die....
Cheers
Seems like a alien meat.
Can't really add much to the above comments other than to give a thumbs up to Alistair for emotive use of heavily saturated soundscape ... it took me ages to remember where I'd heard this used before. @AndrewPrice after you've found all the hidden CG you get an extra 5 points for telling me which blockbuster space thriller I was thinking of ;)
Seriously though guys, great work and nice to see something done in BI that shows how capable it is when put int he right hands.
Oh great. I feel worthless again.
Back to preschool.
A 12hr tutorial would be nice.
Excellence is all I can say about this.
Stunning stuff, think i can speak for everyone if I say a breakdown would be HIGHLY appreciated, as Sopaz says "..or we gonna die!" :D
@1:08 is real footage?
would love to know some tec specs.
awesome work!
truly beautiful!
nice sound as well
Andrew Price add 1:00 - 1:05, 1:14 - 1:16
awesome. if that's submitted to the suzanne awards i'd vote for it in best designed. (not that it's a voting process, i mean i'd comment and like it) although the nature academy would also be a good winner (current submission). i hope mine gets nominated too for something.
40%-50% Blender Internal!!! I missed by a lot! congratulations even more! while you do the brakdown, it would be nice to see a wire or two, you know, for making us all drool...
mental note *learn nodes*.
(stunning close-up scenes, btw)
@DimitrisC: I've wondered the same thing too... I've always marvelled at the quality of BI and hope that it doesn't go away with the inclusion of cycles. My guess is a lot of people are just getting tired of using BI and want "the next better thing" which I can understand, however it's no reason for disregarding what we already have
One word: Whoa
Guys, this is incredibly cool! :) I wish to see some "making of" this.
Any guesses about procedural texture setups? Sculpting also?
OMG THAT WAS SO AWESOMEE!!!
The word awesome falls short to describe this piece.
!!!!!!!!!!!AWESOME~~~~~~~~~
Stunning piece.
Bizarre - Captivating - Enjoyable