Archive for the ‘Animation’ Category
Twestival Global 2010
Posted by Administrator | Filed under Animation, Events, Sliced Bread, Social Media, Twitter, Video
Here’s an animation we have just completed for Twestival Global (2010)... see twestival.com for more details. There’s a blog post coming up shortly, which details more about the collaboration process (which was a fantastic experience), but for now we wanted to get it out there and promote the cause.
Creative: Crystal English, Leynete Cariapa, Animation: Sliced Bread, Music: EliasArts, Audio: Green-Shoot, Recorded at Dammit Ltd., Voice: Lawrence Sheldon, Twestival Bird: 383 Project, Video Footage: charity: water, Thanks to What Talent Ltd., Produced by Connect the Dots Foundation, Photography Courtesy of National Geographic (c) James P. Blair/ National Geographic, Gabriele Gaspardis, Justin Sangani, Brooks Walker/ National Geographic, Johannes Ehrhardt, James P. Blair/ National Geographic images
What is Twestival™?
On Thursday 25 March 2010, people in hundreds of cities around the world will come together offline to rally around the important cause of Education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness. Twestival™ (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good. All of the local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects. If you would like to get involved, please Register your City, Register your School, or Volunteer and we will get in touch. Organizers will be given a handbook and invitation to our collaboration workspace. Follow @twestival for updates.
1066 The Game wins a BIMA!
Posted by Administrator | Filed under Animation, Games, Sliced Bread, awards
The online game 1066 won a BIMA last Thursday (19th Nov 2009) for Best Online Game, The BIMA awards ‘celebrate the work of the UK digital creative industry’. As previously blogged we were responsible for creating over 270 animated assets in just over 2-weeks. Preloaded did all the creative and site development, and we created the Norman, Viking, Saxon and Villager character animation elements. We are very proud to be part of its success, the quality of the game speaks for itself in terms of the gaming results:
Since launching in May 2009, the game has received an overwhelmingly positive response from both the gaming community and online press.
The project has received no marketing budget, simply relying on the audience and community to seed and share between themselves. The traffic to date is testament to the quality of the game and the compelling nature of the content.
The Multi-player mode plays a large part in the distribution mechanic of the game and this is reflected in the continued and sustained and growth in traffic and game-play duration.
Effectiveness
> Number 1 search result in google for ’1066′
> Current total game-plays standing at over 5 million
> Average game duration over 25 minutes
And the reviews:
“If half the Proper Wargames released each year showed as much imagination, style and spirit as 1066 the genre would be in a far healthier state”
Tim Stone – rockpapershotgun.com
“Pleasing to play and pleasing to the eye. Check it out.”
Brian Ashcroft – kotaku.com
The Glory Days – I’ll remember, but will YOU?
Posted by Administrator | Filed under Animation, Sliced Bread, Video
We recently compiled a DVD for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission using supplied assets and some good ‘ole Boyce Dungood animation (by us). Sponsored by The Mirror and Mirror Football it has been sent out to over 28,000 schools over the past week to coincide with Remembrance Day.
Glory Days – Football in Times of War is a short film aimed at engaging teachers, students and football fans of all ages with the website of the same name at cwgc.org/glorydays
Introduced by David Beckham and enthusiastic football manager Boyce Dungood, Glory Days tells the stories of some of the footballers who gave their lives for their countries and how they are remembered. It explores how the two world wars affected football teams and how football played a part in times of war as entertainment, for boosting morale and for propaganda.
Calling All Toy Testers! Its the Argos Toy Tester Online Game…
Posted by Administrator | Filed under Animation, Games, Sliced Bread, Social Media
Argos have recently launched this Sliced Bread created game (client: Meteorite) to coincide with their ‘Toy Tester for Year‘ competition and ‘Big Play’ Roadshows. The game has 3 competency zones, each with 4 playable levels. Players can also invite their friends to join them in mini high scoreboards. You can play the game here.
I’m Angus and this is my awesome Toy Testing factory. It’s my job to make sure all the toys are off the Fun-o-meter scale! But there are so many great toys here, I need another Toy Tester to help me. So let’s see if you’re up to the job. Collect as many toys as possible from the Big Play Area zones – the clock is ticking!
Hey buddy, its our msn.co.uk expanding takeover banner…
Posted by Administrator | Filed under Animation, Banners
We recently created an expanding banner campaign for use as a takeover on msn.co.uk, view here or click the image. The original MPU (300×250) was created by Glue and wide expanded banner (980×450) by using Maya (client: BPL Marketing).
Philips Sonicare Toothbrush on a Philips 3D WOW monitor
Posted by Administrator | Filed under Animation, Product, Stereoscopic
We were recently commissioned by award winning MS&L (Manning Selvage & Lee) to create a 20 second 3D animation piece for the new Philips Sonicare toothbrush. The sequence was designed to give the user a full ‘wow’ experience with the product appearing to come out of the screen via the Philips 3DWOW monitor.
Philips 3D Solutions offers a 42″ autostereoscopic 3D display family, for professional applications, that provides today’s best 3D viewing experiences without glasses. The slanted multi-view lenticular lens technology affords full brightness and full contrast and allows multiple users to view 3D content at the same time, within a large comfort zone. Moreover, a true colour representation is ensured by the lenticular lens technology.
The images below provide an insight into how the monitor works, on the left you will see the beauty image and on the right the z-depth registration. The z-depth dictates how the 3d is read by the monitor through the light and dark gradient. There are lots of variables with the settings (with some basic set-up provided via the Inition website) and therefore some ‘trial and error’ required. The final file is rendered an exported as a .s3d file for use on the monitor [video clip to follow].
Updated video clip:
HP – Mr. Z Designer Challenge
Posted by Administrator | Filed under Animation, News, Sliced Bread
Sliced Bread Animation are pleased to announce their involvement in the HP Mr. Z Designer Challenge. Our ‘week’ comes in a couple of weeks and we are busy thinking through ideas. We will blog regular updates on both the machine’s performance and the animation developments. More info here
HP has given the UK’s leading digital content creation (DCC) agencies a tough, yet exciting task: capturing ‘a day in the life’ of Mr. Z, a superhero designer with SFX superpowers.
Using HP’s recently–launched Z–800 workstation and Adobe’s Creative Suite software, each DCC agency selected by HP accepted the challenge to develop a 30–second animation or film clip about Mr. Z and his powers. Once all the clips are produced, they will all be joined together, to create a ‘A day in the life’ of Mr. Z.
Twitter and Facebook links
Preloaded 1066 The Game
Posted by Administrator | Filed under Animation, Games
Things have been pretty busy here over Sliced Bread recently, and we are please to announce one of a favourites projects 1066 The Game has now launched. In partnership with Preloaded we created over 270 animated assets in just over 2-weeks. Preloaded did all the creative and site development, and we created the Norman, Viking, Saxon and Villager character animation elements.
Preloaded have created the web-based 1066 The Game to coincide with Channel 4′s 1066 documentaries. 1066 The Game puts the player into the muddy boots of the English, the Vikings and the Normans, to play through the actual battle situations of Fulford, Stamford Bridge and Hastings.
Using historically accurate troop formations, battle styles, troop makeup and featuring a voice-over by Sir Ian Holm, 1066 The Game is educational and battle strategy gaming at its very best.
To give the user a full game ‘simulation’ experience it needed a sufficient library of character sequences to make it work. Preloaded pre-planned them and we considered the best approach in getting them delivered in the timeframe. We did this by creating a generic character, then modelling and animating bespoke assets for each character trait, there was also a requirement to create a horse for the Norman soldiers. We devised a working pipeline that allowed us to manage all the game requirements from build to animation, and then finally to render. We also needed to consider the correct historically accurate shields, weapons, helmets the soldiers used. Using the render layers in Maya, we were able to turn on/ off the required elements after the animation move had been completed. All the sequences were rendered as vector for Flash.
Pre-planning pipelines and considering the best approach is integral within any animated production. This is because once you are committed to production it is very difficult to go back and re-think the approach, timeframes for online projects seem to be a lot tighter than TV or film. We were very fortunate in this particular production that the ‘nice-to-haves’ (i.e. different ways of the soldiers being killed) were also able to be delivered.
