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All posts in Inspiration

Posted:
February 13, 2013
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EXODUS from Peder Norrby on Vimeo.

Commissioned by Trapcode to showcase Mir. Made by POTEMKIN.
POTEMKIN notes: “This low poly semi-epic child hood tribute space saga called EXODUS was born when Peder Norrby asked us to make a short film using Trapcode MIR. We accepted the challenge, made up a multi part narrative and went to work, letting the plugin affect both our creative, narrative and technical results.
This is the first part of a space epic, establishing the protagonists and a fragment of the universe as well as the timeline in which EXODUS takes place.”
Music and visuals by Magnus Östergren
Production management by Thomas Oger
Produced by POTEMKIN
Commissioned by TRAPCODE / Peder Norrby
More info on Trapcode Mir: redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/trapcode-mir/

- I recently purchased Trapcode MiR for a soft drink commercial. There are some really great effects that you can achieve using the plugin/preset. This piece was very inspiring and caught my eye immediately. It reminds me of the last years trending low poly design. What do you think?

-mattnikkila

Posted:
February 12, 2013
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Disco Damaged Kid - Lyric video from Kristof Luyckx on Vimeo.

• Client: EMI
• Production: Agile Films
• Design & Animation: Kristof Luyckx

Lyric video for ‘Disco Damaged Kid’ by Polly Scattergood.

- Another interesting take on Typography. I’m always inspired by simple typography animation and simple shape animations. What do you think?

-mattnikkila

Posted:
February 12, 2013
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Bonobo - 'Cirrus' (Official Video) from Ninja Tune on Vimeo.

Download Cirrus for FREE at bonobomusic.com
The new album ‘The North Borders’ released 1 April (EU) / 2 April (NA)
Buy at bonobomusic.com + ninjatune.net/shop
New LIVE tour starting April 2013
Video by cyriak.co.uk

- This blew my mind. The trippy visuals are all created with appropriated 50′s footage. The amount of rotoscopping in this is an interns worst nightmare. Check it out

-mattnikkila

Posted:
February 12, 2013
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Dave is trying all kinds of way to get to work on time. Will he make it?

- I really like the attention to detail, texturing, Character design and overall visual design of this animation. I’m a huge fan of mixed media projects and personally have a few in the works. This is a great source of inspiration. Check it out and tell me what you think!

-mattnikkila

Posted:
February 12, 2013
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Visual: Carlo Vega – http://carlovegaart.com/
Audio: Chilly Gonzales – http://chillygonzales.com/

Special thanks to Tilman Zitzmann – http://geometrydaily.tumblr.com/

- I’ve really come to admire this style of animation. The simplistic form and style are personally desirable. I’ve really tried to approach current projects with the same outlook. I hope you enjoy watching as much as I have.

-mattnikkila

Posted:
June 30, 2012
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greekPool

Cinema 4D – Cookbook (text review)

I recently purchased this C4D book from Amazon. (‘Cinema 4D Cookbook‘)
I have found it to be a great collection of ideas for beginners and intermediate users.
However, I fancy to think that I am an advanced user, there is something for everyone that can be found within these pages.

The format for the writing includes short easy to follow working projects. (Which they provide on a DVD)
The projects including, Modeling, Lighting, Rendering, Texturing, Scripting and Rigging.

I’m currently working on a project, ‘The Whale Project’.
I will be using Renderman for the majority of my rendering.
This book covers the process for using Cineman to take advantage of Renderman capabilities.

Anyway, I thought I’d share some of the work that I did along the way.
Again, a lot of it is rhetorical. But, this project coming up will be done solely in Cinema 4D and I want to learn as much as I can before I begin.
Hope you found this useful.

-mattnikkila

Posted:
June 27, 2012
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BallBounce

Pixar Master Class assignment #1 – Ball Bounce

Recently I attended the Pixar Masterclass here in Chicago. It was a 2 day seminar that was focused on Story and Animation.
There were two Pixar employees Matthew Luhn and Andrew Gordan guiding us in our journey through the Pixar process.

I’m going to post more about those two days later. What I want to post about here is the “ball bounce”.
I’m sure you have all seen/done several ball bounces in school or for a random assignment.
Usually the ball bounce assignment you pick two different balls and discuss their weight and movement.
Whether or not they squash and stretch the distance. Etc. Etc.

We were all given a notebook from the Pixar Masterclass.
It has several very simple quick assignments.
The 12 principles all exist in each assignment and if done right it will look amazing.

Most of the interns are tasked with completing one or more of the assignments.
I decided to accept the challenge of completing them before I apply to Pixar later this year.

I have included in this post my ball bounce.
I made a reference and used the Animators Survival Kit as a reference.
I decided to make it less stylized than per say a bowling ball or ping pong ball.
I wanted to focus on the relationship between bounces and the how the distance, height, squash and stretch all change exponentially with each bounce.

I created this with a simple sphere object in Cinema 4d
I rendered it out with the Sketch and Toon Shader to give it the look of being hand drawn.

Look for more of these samples coming up here shortly.
Thanks for stopping by.

-mattnikkila

Posted:
June 26, 2012
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1
ballball

Texturing and Creating Materials for Maya or Cinema 4D

Hey guys, I wanted to post something that I found extremely useful.

This is by no means something I devised however, I have seen Robert Redman use it several times for his tutorials.
If you haven’t seen his tutorials at Pariah Studios, do it. They are awesome and incitful.

Ok, so the picture above is a simple “Ball” object.
It is used to test lighting conditions and materials and how they will respond in renderable situations.
You can also add ambient occlusion and whatever else you want/need to test your material/texture.
I have provided you with a Maya and a Cinema 4D version of my files for you to play with: Click HERE.

The way I use it in a Production Pipeline is by:
Adding the material I’ve created to the outerball, base and maybe inside ball.
Adjust lights and test render.

The best thing about this is depending on your materials it renders FASTER than a large shot or composition or animation or pig model. (I don’t know :) )
Also, for us it has been helpful because people are working on different things in this project. This ball allows us to test the materials that will be applied to models that are not yet created.

Hope you found this useful.
-mattnikkila

Posted:
May 29, 2012
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Work In Progress

Recently my father was transplanted to Champaign, IL for a short duration. While there he will be overseeing the construction of a new building on the U of I campus. He very excitedly sent me this link today which I thought was pretty interesting.

I’m doing a lot of work for construction companies recording work sites and work areas. I find it intersting how video can play such a vital role, to help keep records and how new companies use new technologies to advance the production of those records. I’ve ripped the URL link from the source code in an attempt to post the live feed on my blog so you can see what i’m talking about!

My creative brain would love to find a way in which to record images (automatically) from the URL in order to create a time lapse of the final construction… that would be something I’d like to watch anyway.

-mattnikkila

Posted:
March 17, 2012
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inpsirational

Inspiration – The Icebook


This is some really beautiful stuff. I have a few animations coming up and I’d really like to obtain the patience to work with paper and some mixed media. Truly inspiring stuff. You can also check out more of their work by clicking here.

-mattnikkila