Disney Resemblances

When you work in 3D animation you’ll sooner of later hear of the term “retargeting”. That’s when the artist/TD takes animation that was created for one rig (the skelton used to puppeteer a character) and applies (“retargets”) it to a different rig. That’s how animation sharing across multiple, different characters becomes possible. But if you think that this practice is a modern development, think again! The 2D equivalent of retargeting is “rotoscoping” – and it looks like Disney animators did quite a bit of it:

Quite an eye opener! Of course production realities and deadlines often encourage these kind of shortcuts, so I’m neither condoning nor condemning. The resemblance is very fun to watch, that’s for sure!

Found at ThinkingAnimation.

Silent Reviews

• A Quantum of Solace (Blu-ray) – Yes
• MLB2009 iPhone app – Yes
• Hypothetical MLB2009 iPhone app without bugs – Yes

Happy Easter!

The Power of Package Design

Adage.com has an article on how the Tropicana box redesign caused a 20% sales plunge. I can’t say I’m surprised; I remember seeing those new boxes at the supermarket and not recognizing them as Tropicana (or orange juice) in the first place. When I did, my reaction was “Why?” It seemed unnecessary when the old design was so powerful. A straw sticking in an orange communicates “100% orange juice from fresh produce! It’s like drinking straight from the orange!” The new design looked like a weird buttermilk carton instead. It even took me a while to figure out that the graphic represents a glass of juice! When seen from a few feet awsy, it looks like some sleek gradient design.

Obviously the Tropicana story serves as a strong lesson in the importance of branding. What seems unnecessary is the specific mention of designer Peter Arnell in the article. The man might be an asshole, but the designer didn’t make the final decision on this new design. He probably didn’t even set the direction. A whole army of brand managers at Tropicana did, and deserve the blame.

Anyway, none of this really affects Victoria and I. We’re Minute Maid people

Silent Reviews

Marley & Me – Not really
Monsters vs Aliens – Kind of…
The 3D Effect – Yes
Watchmen (book) – YES

NASCAR In Game Design Terms

I was having a great dinner at GDC last week when the conversation drifted to NASCAR. As is often the case, I was the only fan, and I invariably found myself explaining my interest in the sport. My answer to this topic is usually two-tiered: for one, the NASCAR garage is one big dysfunctional family. There’s 43 guys with different personalities who are shoving, pushing and banging on each other 36 races per season. You know that tempers are bound to flare, and that rivalries aplenty are bound to spring up – on and off the racetrack. Having an opinion on NASCAR is easy, and it’s fun! Just start watching for a bit and you’ll catch on.
The other reason to watch NASCAR are the actual races, which, believe it or not, are very entertaining. That part is harder to explain without reference. But since I was at the Game Developers Conference, it occurred to me to describe the appeal in game development terms:

NASCAR is the Mario Kart of real-life racing.

[Read more]

The Best Way To Rob A Bank Is To Own One

This PBS interview with William K Black provides a great overview of the current banking crisis. How did we get here, where were the regulators, why is nobody getting prosecuted for fraud? Because, as Blake lays out quite convincingly, banking fraud is what created this crisis. A giant Ponzi Scheme, officially sanctioned and never investigated by the government. A tiny snippet from the 30-minute interview:

BILL MOYERS: And we have to know that, in order to know what?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: To know everything. To know who committed the frauds. Whose bonuses we should recover. How much the assets are worth. How much they should be sold for. Is the bank insolvent, such that we should resolve it in this way? It’s the predicate, right? You need to know the facts to make intelligent decisions. And they’re deliberately leaving in place the people that caused the problem, because they don’t want the facts. And this is not new. The Reagan Administration’s central priority, at all times, during the Savings and Loan crisis, was covering up the losses.

BILL MOYERS: So, you’re saying that people in power, political power, and financial power, act in concert when their own behinds are in the ringer, right?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: That’s right. And it’s particularly a crisis that brings this out, because then the class of the banker says, “You’ve got to keep the information away from the public or everything will collapse. If they understand how bad it is, they’ll run for the exits.”

Normal Map Information

This paper on real-time normal map compression, written by J.M.P. van Waveren and Ignacio Castaño, is a great read for everybody who wants to deepen their fundamental understanding of normal maps. The paper fully explains a whole bunch of issues with normal maps that I only touched on in my 2007 GDC talk, and contains a lot of details that I didn’t know about yet. Highly recommended reading for all technical artists and grpahics programmers.

Darth Vader Feels Blue

The extended version of this touching moment includes scenes that you didn’t see in theaters.

Monthly Hike: Sonoma Overlook Trail

For all its beauty and tourist appeal, Sonoma has an embarrasingly small number of public hiking trails (especially when compared to Marin County). Most of the land is privarely owned by vinyards, and the mountains that surround the valley are closed off to hikers. Sonoma Overlook Trail is one of the few trails that isn’t only open to the public, but is well maintained and advertised in various brochures. It’s a relatively short hike up Schocken Hill, close to the town square. The town graveyard is adjacent, and there’s an alternative way that leads through the old cemetery. The hiking is nice, and once you get to the top, you get a good 270 degree view of the town of Sonoma and the San Pablo Bay.

Victoria and I haven’t found much time to go hiking in recent weeks, and the month of February was completely rained out. So even though we’d hiked the Overlook Trail many times before, I decided to use the beautiful weather last Sunday for another visit, trusty iPhone in hand (which means crappy pictures). Here’s a few impressions from the trip.