*** Notice: For the protection of property rights, this catalog is available for online browsing only. Please drop us a line if you would like to receive a copiable version of this catalog. Thank You!
Stopmotion animator and filmmaker Ray Harryhausen's achievements and influence are incalculable. Numerous giants in the world of cinema have cited his work, especially in The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) as the most profound reason that they attempted a career in films. This program reflects on his pioneering career and the future of animation. Loaded with rare stills from throughout his many films and those of his key influence, Willis O'Brien (King Kong).
A Great Historical Program for a Visual Effects Class. Twilight Cameraman gives a rare glimpse into the remarkable craft of optical printing which was of great importance in the field of visual effects. It demonstrates the step-by-step procedures used to shoot film opticals. Before his transition into digital, Visual Effects cameraman Mark Sawicki documented the old style craftsmanship of the traditional optical cameraman. This program is a wonderful companion piece to the Albert Whitlock: A Master of Illusion as Sawicki worked as cameraman for Whitlock's protege's Bill Taylor and Syd Dutton (now effects supervisors). This program pays homage to an exciting craft that was handed down from one camera person to another in the last age of apprenticeship.
BEHIND THE SCENES (BTS) is an exciting DVD series developed to showcase the creation of a game cinematic sequence. In this chapter of the series Burke Roane focuses on two action oriented game cinematic shots. He discusses the different stages of animation and explains what is expected from animators in a production environment. He compares and contrasts different computer animation techniques, and shows how to reach a high level of refinement in your shots. From start to finish, Burke explains in great detail how to work in an organized and efficient way, but more importantly he talks about the creative process of animation and how that process guides his workflow.
TOPICS COVERED:
Splined vs. Stepped Blocking
Animation Stages
Reference Footage
Refining a Shot
Animating in a Production Environment
Facial Animation
Tips for Animating Action Shots
Efficient Workflows for Creativity
Review
"Burke is one of the fastest and most creative animators I know. His attention to detail, creative eye and technical background has provided us time and time again with a strong foundation for every shot." - Vince Cirelli Visual Effects Supervisor Luma Pictures
This series of tutorials is focused on and titled Structure and Anatomy of the Human Torso. In a continuation of his previous lectures on human anatomy, figure artist Charles Hu approaches these lectures in the same fashion, beginning with a discussion on the primary skeletal structures making up the torso - the neck, spine, rib cage, pelvis and shoulder. After discussing the primary structures and proportions, he begins by breaking down the primary muscle groups, starting with the neck then working his way down to the shoulder, chest, and abdomen, before moving to the muscle groups of the back. In discussing the muscle groups, Charles discusses not only their positions and overlaps, but also their mechanical contributions to the motion of the underlying skeletal structure. This structural and mechanical understanding is essential in producing believable and dynamic figure drawings.
In this human anatomy tutorial titled Anatomy of the Human Head, figure artist Charles Hu provides an anatomical breakdown of the human head. Beginning with general proportions, planes and structural landmarks, Charles then demonstrates how to apply these principles with a series of life drawing exercises. In these three exercises - from Front, Side and ? View, he shows how to approach the lay-ins using the general proportions discussed previously. He then breaks the head down into their individual structures, defining the primary planes of the head first, then refining the individual structures, using the planes to help define the core and cast shadows and shading of the head. Lastly, Charles discusses the primary muscle groups of the human head, demonstrating each muscle's primary motion. These combined lectures provide a much deeper understanding of the human head and provides a strong foundation for drawing much more dynamic portraits.
In this human anatomy tutorial series titled Skeletal Structure, Mechanics and Proportion, instructor Charles Hu will break down the human skeletal system in terms of how it relates to drawing a dynamic figure. Starting with basic proportion and structure, Charles breaks down the human skeleton into 9 primary structures: the head, shoulder, rib cage, spine, pelvis, arms, legs, hands and feet. He breaks down the primary landmarks and planes of each structure and identifies features on specific bones important to the mechanics and motion. Charles also discusses the skeletal mechanics of each structure to provide the mechanical understanding of the system in order to achieve more realistic and dynamic figure drawings.
In his latest release, Harald Belker will cover techniques that reflect the latest process used in entertainment design and concept creation. The crossover integration of several 3D programs, combined and finished in Adobe Photoshop#0174, provide the best results in the creation of stunning vehicles. Based on imagery from his latest book, PULSE: A Complete Guide to Futuristic Racing, he will first guide you through the process of building the racer in Modo#0174. He then demonstrates the set up and rendering phase in KeyShot#0174. The images are then combined and finished beautifully in Photoshop. To wrap things up, Belker will discuss the use of Google Sketch Up#0174 for use building the futuristic racing environment.
Beginning with some thoughts on how we define the concept of color, Richard explains various methods people in history have used to systemize color. These systems include the additive and subtractive color wheels, which are addressed as metaphorical maps of color. The basic vocabulary we use to describe color - hue, value and saturation - are explained through illustrative and graphic means. The majority of this DVD is concerned with color harmonies and contrasts, with references to over 350 paintings. This lecture is intended to do more than spend time defining this list of terms - advice is offered about how to best use these "Mechanics of Color" to your advantage, and a few traps to avoid.
Review
"Often color can be a very mysterious subject for artists to fully understand. Whether you are a beginner or an old pro, Richard Keyes will help you to make sense of the use of color in your artwork. Through explanations about the physics of it all to the symbolic use of color, your knowledge of this subject will be greatly enhanced by the content of this DVD, brought to you by one of the world's most insightful lecturers on the subject." - Scott Robertson, Chair of Entertainment Design Art Center College of Design, President, Design Studio Press
In this expansive demonstration, concept and story artist Derek Thompson takes you through his storyboarding process using Adobe Photoshop®. From developing story concepts through shot design and construction, Derek generates a story sequence directly from his imagination. Topics include sequence building, editorial thinking, action and movement, simulating camera moves and more. You'll see first hand how the process of storyboarding can be fun, exciting, challenging and frustrating. Join Derek as he journeys towards the elusive reward that is a finished, pitch-worthy sequence.
Review
"Derek Thompson is to storytelling what Willy Wonka is to chocolate. This DVD is your golden ticket to explore the madness and methodology of one of the greatest story artists of our time." - Iain McCaig, Art Director
This lecture covers the principles of good composition with an emphasis on effective cinematic lighting. Jeremy begins by discussing the fundamental concepts behind how light operates in the physical world, providing an overview of topics like reflection, absorption, refraction, color temperature and atmospheric dispersion. He then moves into camera based composition, discussing topics like camera angles, distance, lenses and depth of field which all help to define the mood of a shot. The lecture then transitions into more of the artistic elements of lighting and composition as it relates to computer graphics. Techniques such as three-point lighting, framing, tonal gradients, implied lighting, atmosphere and various lighting setups are used to set mood and assist in the story telling process. These principles are then applied using Maya as the primary 3D tool. Jeremy discusses basic Maya lighting but quickly moves on to setting up various lighting conditions using V-Ray for Maya, to achieve beautiful global illumination effects while still paying close attention to the principles outlined in the early part of the lecture.
In this DVD, Cecil takes the initial idea sketches created from the first volume of this series, "Ideation Sketching" and paints them digitally using Adobe Photoshop®. From ten-minute building shading to coloring a vista layout for a fantasy city, Cecil will use basic painting layer techniques to put down value, color and lighting into multiple scenes. During this process, Cecil will also edit the structure design of some sketches as he paints them. Watch as Cecil breaks down his efficient workflow; demonstrating how he preserves line drawings as he separates value and color in multiple layers, and focuses more on readability and defining shapes rather than surface material rendering. This technique allows him to quickly present painting concepts for a production team to review.
Reviews
"Cecil's visions of Olympian worlds put blood back into the marble. His legendary ability to teach others to create these for themselves is a double marvel." - Iain McCaig, Illustrator and conceptual designer
"I admire Cecil Kim for his intuitive, creative design and his generous, patient attitude with students." - Gary Meyer, Professor - Art Center College of Design
In this first DVD of a series, Cecil will demonstrate how he quickly produces various design options using traditional drawing tools such as markers, ink pens and mechanical pencil. Cecil will guide you through more than eight environment production sketches describing how he creates various drawing concepts to support creative leads and a production team on a daily basis. He will begin with concepting the main fortress buildings for a game level idea, continue with rough thumbnailing of the organic building profile, and also create a hi-level production vista shot of a city concept using pencil. Street angle environment layout and futuristic design are explored as well. Learn how Cecil establishes perspective layout, filling it with architectural details, as well as how he designs the surface of the abstract shapes he initially starts with.
Reviews
"Cecil's visions of Olympian worlds put blood back into the marble. His legendary ability to teach others to create these for themselves is a double marvel." - Iain McCaig, Illustrator and conceptual designer
"I admire Cecil Kim for his intuitive, creative design and his generous, patient attitude with students." - Gary Meyer, Professor - Art Center College of Design
"This is the man who through the power of his artistry can bring the very gods of Olympus to their knees. He inspires both his team at work, and his students at Otis to excel beyond even their own expectations. Cecil does this through rigorous attention to detail, yet also through an understanding of how to motivate individuals of differing skills and talents. He teaches how to tell stories through character, using light, color, and shapes." - Harry Mott, Chair Digital Media, Otis College of Art and Design
Wayne England presents an introduction to the creation of digital fluid dynamics using Real Flow, that includes a systematic breakdown of methods used to generate photo-realistic fluid dynamic effects. The viewer takes a step-by-step look at the fundamental procedures and parameters within Real Flow that together establish an essential, practical, working knowledge of the program. This includes a thorough overview of features important in establishing a production-ready workflow, such as questions of scale, particle meshing, Real Flow Node control via the command line, the data exchange pipeline to other 3D packages and many other practical and creative methodologies. Within the context of the tutorial projects, digital fluids with highly realistic characteristics are developed. The material covered in this DVD is intended for both students and professionals who wish to strengthen their practical understanding of the huge range of aesthetic possibilities in Real Flow.
TOPICS COVERED:
SD Format
Export Central
Command Line
Scale
Emitter, Object and
Mesh Parameters
Mesh Methodology
Daemon Parameters
Core parameters and
Production Ready Workflow
Flow Shape, Flow Director Objects
and Sculpting Fluid Methodologies
Review
"Wayne England is a highly dedicated and highly talented 3D artist who is committed to advancing what is possible in the realm of fluid dynamics." - Mark Glaser, Creative Director and Owner, Sway Studio
In this lecture, one of Hollywood's most prolific concept sculptors, Jordu Schell demonstrates the techniques he employs in creating a dynamic creature concept sculpture. Jordu begins with a rough armature, then walks you through the process of correctly building up forms by roughing in the large masses of the creature before the addition of muscular and other anatomical forms. He then covers the topic of dynamically posing the creature for maximum impact. Once the pose is decided on and the shape of the creature is established, Jordu transitions from using only his hands to using tools to begin refining the creature, working on defining the muscular forms, adding definition and detail, and finally blending the forms back together to create a unified appearance. Once the creature sculpt is smoothed and refined, textural detail is added back into the skin, using small tubes of clay for veins, a pin for pore detail, and finally using a texture stamp to apply a texture over the entire sculpt. Next, Jordu applies paint to the creature using a paintbrush to apply the base color of the creature. Next he uses an airbrush to refine the color and establish a translucent appearance to the skin. The final touches include placing individual translucent teeth and applying glossy paint to the eyes and teeth.
Reviews
"If I moved to Los Angeles, the first thing I would do is sign up for Jordu Schell's sculpture class. I'm not kidding. Jordu has an extraordinary talent for creating fantastic faces which have an intrinsic logic and superb modeling that makes them believable. In my opinion, to be great, a make-up, creature, or transformation must make the viewer believe that it could have a life of its own. Jordu is the master of the bizarre made believable. " - Dick Smith, Exorcist, Little Big Man, Taxi Driver, Amadeus
"I tell everyone I meet that Jordu Schell is the finest sculptor, painter, and designer I've met." - Tom Savini, Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow, Friday the 13th
"If you want to learn from one of the best creature designers I know and one of the very best creature maquette makers of all timeˇKcheck out Jordu Schell and his school." - Carlos Huante, Men in Black, Hellboy, Eragon
In this tutorial, concept designer Joe Peterson breaks down the process of creating a mechanical character using only a story outline as the starting point. With the initial premise being a believable sci-fi future world, Joe sets out to design an appropriate mechanized unit for a high-tech SWAT team. He begins by discussing how this initial idea influences the entire design process, beginning with reference gathering and following all the way to the final detailing and rendering phases. Joe demonstrates how, once a level of technology is decided on, the appearance and features of the mechanics are much easier to design. Throughout the tutorial, he discusses the balance between using imagination over using real-world design elements and the importance of building up a visual design vocabulary to help make informed design choices, leading to appropriate mechanical designs. By walking through every step, from initial sketch, to refinement, detailing and final rendering, Joe shows his process of balancing imaginative features with real-world design to deliver a convincing, yet unique and creative mechanical design. He also discusses how to frame your mechanical design around the needs of the story or setting, ensuring that the context will help drive your creative decisions along the way. This tutorial offers various techniques and processes for creating and refining a mechanical design that is intended to not only look cool, but also communicate its function at a glance.
In "MEL For Effects Artists", effects technical director Kevin Mannens offers an in-depth and hands-on dissertation on how to streamline and perfect your effects pipeline. This lecture demonstrates how to speed up your cloth workflow based on your production needs, streamline rigid body dynamics, workaround particle limitations, add functionality to Maya's hair engine, and make your code more dynamic and productive in a harsh production environment.
TOPICS COVERED:
Tab Layouts
WebBrowser
GetFileList
FloatFieldGrp
SelectMode
CurrentTime
Fmod
Catch
PluginInfo
CreateHair
NormalConstraint
Review
"Finally the wonders of MEL are accessible for people with even a bare minimum of technical knowledge! Kevin's thorough production experience and strong educational background shows through in this excellent series on MEL. With his witty eloquence and well-structured approach he makes even the most advanced concepts and techniques understandable. This set is without a doubt an invaluable resource for any aspiring TD - and any artist who is interested in optimizing and fine-tuning his pipeline." - Tom Kluyskens, Senior Technical Director, Sony Pictures Imageworks
In Justin's second texture DVD tutorial, he covers how to paint realistic female skin in the new Mari 2.0. Justin will explore various types of photographic reference as well as demonstrate relatively new techniques to painting pore displacement textures using scanned pore details. He will introduce you to Mari 2.0, the best way to transition from Mari 1.6 or 1.5 and explore the all new and exciting layer system within Mari 2.0 to ensure a 100% non-destructive workflow. To finish off the demos, Justin will show the easiest methods in which to paint convincing eyes that will breathe life and soul into your characters.
In this DVD, Jeremy discusses the fundamentals of light and color from a very practical standpoint. Going back to the basics of how light works in the real world, he focuses on an often neglected subject. Intended as an introduction to understanding light and color, the lecture covers topics such as bounced light, shadows, atmosphere and camera effects, going beyond basic color theory while staying relatively untechnical. Jeremy demonstrates many practical examples of how to apply the concepts to both 2D and 3D image creation.
TOPICS COVERED:
Light Basics
Bounced Light
Understanding Shadows
Color
Surface Response
Depth, Atmosphere and Camera Effects
Traditional Art Studies
Painted Studies
Review
"Jeremy has a deep understanding of the craft of CG lighting. His technical knowledge is strong, but his passion lies in creating artistically gorgeous images. As a senior lighting artist at Pixar, he uses these strengths to create breathtaking and memorable imagery. This DVD is a special treat since Jeremy is also a very capable and generous teacher and mentor, he truly loves to share what he knows." - Sharon Calahan, Director of Photography, Pixar Animation Studios
Brandon Young presents his production FX workflow by reconstructing a shot from the Dragon Age: Origins cinematic created at Blur Studio. He goes over the shot breakdown, the goals of the shot and how to achieve them quickly. Brandon shows how to use Particle Flow, FumeFX and stock elements to make the effects shine. He then delves into rendering and compositing the effects elements into the actual production shot.
Review
"Brandon Young is truly one of the worlds most talented and complete visual effects artists. With the quality, creative ingenuity and sheer force with which he approaches his work, his shared knowledge will prove invaluable for the sincere aspiring artist." - Wayne England, Creative Director, Spatial Harmonics Group
In this lecture, David Meng shares his thoughts on how he creates personality and expression in a character bust. He will discuss his thought process behind doing an unconventional take on a traditional creature. The practical aspects of working with plastalina and building armatures will also be discussed. Viewers will get to look, from start to finish, at how David creates a physical clay design maquette for the film industry.
In this DVD, Maxime breaks down every visual effect, from texture to behavior and integration into an alpha stage game level, using the UDK Unreal Engine 3. He shows how to use Adobe Photoshop®, AfterEffects®, FumeFX and 3ds Max to create textures, and demonstrates essential methods for efficiency and optimization of visual effects to be used in a video game. Watch as Maxime deconstructs numerous realistic effects such as smoke, fire, explosions, muzzle flashes, bullet impacts, and more.
The essence of an exciting idea can be captured successfully using a limited palette gouache and watercolor thumbnail technique. Artist and designer Erik Tiemens presents a compelling demo and covers multiple topics, including how to start visualizing thru multiple mini-sketches that take into account lighting, atmosphere, high-key and low-key plans, palette mixing, and brush control. Additional areas covered include paint consistency, working on toned paper, and zeroing in on your final direction. The lecture concludes with a detailed step-by-step demo for creating a finished small-format painting.