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Funny CG animation of Bush and Blair

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Funny CG animation of Bush and Blair

Here's a funny and technically excellent animation of Bush and Blair, modelled in Autodeskês 3D Studio Max and then converted across to Softimage XSI for animation, I should warn you that it contains swearing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWTcPzBlYkk

Feel free to leave comments. Thanks

Welcome to the AWN Forums leewashington.

I wouldn't say it's "technically excellent." The animation was pretty stiff and robotic. A lot of the movement looked pretty linear instead of moveing on arcs. Also there was quite a bit of "twining" when Blair would move his hands. Basicly, both his hands would move up and down at the same time and speed. If you vary this up alittle this would help quite a bit.

I was also distracted by Blair's ears. I don't know if that's his most prominate feature.

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Eh...

The writing was a bit weak, imho.

And I agree about the ears.

Cheers!

Splatman:D

Thanks for your feedback guys, I will pass your comments onto the animators.

Mind you, Blair often does move both his hands at the same time, and he is kinda robotic!

Here is another animation from the guys at World Leaders.
http://www.djobscura.com/media/worldleaders/Lost_Loved_Ones.mov

What do you think of this one?

They've got a website at http://www.world-leaders.com which is worth checking out, the blogs are very funny.

The following statements express my opinion, and just my opinion. They are not meant to be the end of all discussion:

Caricature is just that, caricature, and for heavens sake this is animation! So I see no problem with these two clips. If you want perfect human movement, then live action filming and 2D rotoscoping fit the bill. The day will come when one will no longer be able to distinguish between human and CG actors. I guess this is some folks' Nirvana---we will then have perfect human movement in nonhuman entities. Ditch the humans, for CG dummies work for free. Hey, how about it---Tom Cruise can license his likeness and let a dummy play his roles! Wait! If a dummy on the big screen can fool us, what is there to stop savy programmers from creating their own movie/tv stars? Then we can have dummies making show biz appearances (Japan has started to tinker with androids), endorsing products, running for office, etc. The future looks bright indeed!

Sorry, but that Bush was far too articulate to be believable.

Beeble, LOL!

Here's the last Christmas message from Bush and Blair. In my opinion, this is the funniest yet:
http://www.djobscura.com/media/worldleaders/Little_Drummer_Boy.mov

The following statements express my opinion, and just my opinion. They are not meant to be the end of all discussion:

Caricature is just that, caricature, and for heavens sake this is animation! So I see no problem with these two clips. If you want perfect human movement, then live action filming and 2D rotoscoping fit the bill. The day will come when one will no longer be able to distinguish between human and CG actors. I guess this is some folks' Nirvana---we will then have perfect human movement in nonhuman entities. Ditch the humans, for CG dummies work for free. Hey, how about it---Tom Cruise can license his likeness and let a dummy play his roles! Wait! If a dummy on the big screen can fool us, what is there to stop savy programmers from creating their own movie/tv stars? Then we can have dummies making show biz appearances (Japan has started to tinker with androids), endorsing products, running for office, etc. The future looks bright indeed!

I don't think anyone here was or is asking for perfect, real life movement but I think they are commenting because it isn't very good animation. Bad animation should never be classified as stylized or caricatured animation. All the old Looney Tunes are stylized and great animation. They have good timing and spacing, move on arcs, exaggerated, have follow through and overlapping action, which these pieces are lacking. When body parts are moving around they should feel like they are being generated by the force from the character itself, rather than being pulled around or rotated by a computer mouse, or feel like the computer is doing all the work other than setting the keys.

CG "dummies" don't work for free. There are quite a few more people behind every one "dumby" to clean the motion capture and add to it when needed.

I hate to break it to ya, but people have been creating fictional movie stars for close to a hundred years now. Remember Snow White? Woody and Buzz have been in two movies now and Disney wanted to "sign them on" for another movie deal. They're not completely life-like so another more recent example that does look very life-like, other than the tentacle beard, is Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and his whole crew is cg. Yes, the bodies were mo capped but then the curves were most likely cleaned quite a bit by a whole other crew and the facial animation for every character was all key framed.

I personally prefer more stylized animation and naturalistic(ex. Pixar) even though the work done on Pirates 2 was awesome!

Oh, and please don't rotoscope.

...not my cup of tea!

I'm not anti-3D...others with more experience in that field could elaborate, but I'm just not getting "Funny" out of 'em.

So now that they're built, you'll be leaning more and more on the writing. And that's what I see as the weakest link.

Just my $0.02 !

Cheers!
Splatman:D

"I don't think anyone here was or is asking for perfect, real life movement but I think they are commenting because it isn't very good animation."

Point made. However, there are examples of, let's say, less-than-optimal animation shows on TV, and somehow they got there, didn't they? What should be isn't always what sells. If the audience was comprised of art/animation school faculty and their students, then these poorly animated shows would surely bomb, but this is not the case.

"CG "dummies" don't work for free. There are quite a few more people behind every one "dumby" to clean the motion capture and add to it when needed."

Second point made, but I was referring to the dummies themselves, not the artists.

"I hate to break it to ya, but people have been creating fictional movie stars for close to a hundred years now." :confused: :confused:

The reference was to CG characters, and Tom Cruise's CG double the example given.

Keep your opinions coming, for one can be just as "wrong" as the other is "right".

I don't think anyone here was or is asking for perfect, real life movement but I think they are commenting because it isn't very good animation. Bad animation should never be classified as stylized or caricatured animation. All the old Looney Tunes are stylized and great animation. They have good timing and spacing, move on arcs, exaggerated, have follow through and overlapping action, which these pieces are lacking. When body parts are moving around they should feel like they are being generated by the force from the character itself, rather than being pulled around or rotated by a computer mouse, or feel like the computer is doing all the work other than setting the keys.

Amen!

Oh, and please don't rotoscope.

[B]
Double Amen!!![/B]

Yeah, not that my opinion counts for anything, but I thought the writing was pretty weak and the animation was mediocre at best.

Sorry if that sounds kinda harsh. I'm just tired of seeing poor animation get passed off as "good" or "funny" just because it's making fun of an unpopular person or idea, or supporting a popular one.

Good points all. IMHO the skits were funny, despite the animation. Keep your thoughts flowing, for only when you have a mouth full of flies should you stop tongue-launching after the unreachable grasshopper. :eek:

Twisted I am, but I try to toe the line.

They're getting funnier leewashington. I thought the part where Bush and Blair are yelling at each other was ok. The animation is still wooden and marionette-like. There is also still a lot of twinning going on.

I kind of got confused at the end though. Can they see Putin or not? Bush says "...little fucker!" but I'm not sure if he's talking to Putin or Blair. Then Putin desolves into the floor. So is he a ghost? Not a big thing, but I just got lost there.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Thanks for all your comments, nice to have a lively debate! I think this is the strongest animation, because of the way Bush get's angry.

I think at the very end Bush sees that it is Putin who is making the extra "pump"

Not really sure why it appears that he is a ghost! It's a bit strange the way he disappears into the ground.

The blogs on the website are funny and I think they'll hit the nail on the head when they transfer this humour to the animation. Particularly if they can incorporate current events.

breaking through the clutter

I just saw another story on "Little Bush" on that Big Idea tv show--that host must have a stake in it (or Ampt Mobile)...it's not that funny but he keeps shilling for it). While I'm all for alternative content delivery (on phones in this case), the creative bankruptcy in play is bugging me. Something else struck me: I have a problem with Bush spoofs.

"Little Bush" is just another of probably thousands of Bush spoofs out there. I haven't seen them all, but they're not that funny; not animated all that well; and, most-importantly, usally don't have a strong point-of-view. Too much time has been spent making them (and watching them).

My point: Bush and his War and their impact on the world are too serious a subject. There are too many deaths so far; too many lives in the balance. Unless you're making a serious editorial statement (pro or con), anything less is just war profiteering. (yes, you can make serious statements with humor.)

As for these World Leader shorts, ask yourself, why are you producing it (or promoting it)? Are you out to say something or just to make money? If you've got something to say, it needs more teeth; needs to be funnier and hit harder. The animation could be better, or worse--right now it's okay, but it will wear thin over many more shorts. We've seen the whole range of expressions repeat over the series. Great writing would forgive loosey-goosey animation, although great animation is always nice to have.

Ted Nunes - www.tedtoons.com

My point: Bush and his War and their impact on the world are too serious a subject. There are too many deaths so far; too many lives in the balance. Unless you're making a serious editorial statement (pro or con), anything less is just war profiteering. (yes, you can make serious statements with humor.)

As for these World Leader shorts, ask yourself, why are you producing it (or promoting it)? Are you out to say something or just to make money? If you've got something to say, it needs more teeth; needs to be funnier and hit harder. The animation could be better, or worse--right now it's okay, but it will wear thin over many more shorts. We've seen the whole range of expressions repeat over the series. Great writing would forgive loosey-goosey animation, although great animation is always nice to have.

Good points all TedToons!

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

The day will come when one will no longer be able to distinguish between human and CG actors. I guess this is some folks' Nirvana---we will then have perfect human movement in nonhuman entities. Ditch the humans, for CG dummies work for free.

Hey I can hardly wait!

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.