Akkad By Gregoire Pierre, this art animation examines the effects of big-city rhythms on our lives and relationships. The project was created using Photoshop, After Effects, Final Cut, and RhythmTX.
Autarkeia Aggregatum An integrated sound-and-image composition emphasizing continuous flow and transformation, this piece by Bret Battey was made using Apple Motion 2 with a custom filter plug-in, along with other tools.
Transrec Patrick Doan used Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Cinema 4D to look at transitional spaces, travel theory, and, by extension, their relationship to the subconscious abstraction.
A tort ou a raison In this award-winning music video, produced by Joris Clerte and Philippe Massonnet, a seemingly static drawing on a table comes alive and begins to sing. While the animated characters are simple line drawings, they express emotion and convey the message of the song.
Digital fine art can assume numerous forms. Many of us are accustomed to viewing 2D, 3D, and 4D wall-hung works that fall into the category of CG art. In reality, these are just the tips of the virtual iceberg: Digital fine art is not limited to an image that can be printed. Nor is it something that only can be seen. Rather, computer-generated selections can have dimension (for instance, sculptures created on the computer and output using stereolithography) or virtual dimensionality (a hologram). Some embrace sound, while others entail motions, either through cooperative interactive participation, electronically mediated performances, or animation.
During the past few months, Computer Graphics World has highlighted a number of unique and interesting works that were featured in the Intersections art gallery during SIGGRAPH 2006. Most of those selections fell into the interactive or wall-hung categories. This month we are taking a look at art animations, which shared gallery space with the more traditional—as well as untraditional—pieces.
Unlike the works featured in the SIGGRAPH Animation Festival, these pieces are less focused on traditional storytelling through the art of animation for entertainment purposes. Instead, they use a range of methods to create an animation, often with a global message. And at the center of those animations is usually imagery that, in its raw form, exists in reality.
For instance, in "Akkad," Pierre Henon uses a variety of software and hardware to craft a moving array of traffic that illustrates how concentrated populations, mass transportation, architecture, and town planning are resulting in an isolation of the people, drowning them in a hurried crowd. Here, real imagery is "artfully" arranged using digital methods to show this concept.
In addition to "Akkad," other art animations from Intersections are featured on these two pages. —Karen Moltenbrey
Fall of Antioch Students created this film in a Film & Animation class at the University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg, Germany, and were inspired from listening to music on the Windows Media Player with the Particle Visualization engaged. Among the tools used to create the piece were Softimage XSI, After Effects, Inferno, and more.
Swim For this striking music video, Sil van der Woerd used Maya, Tracker, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, and other tools to craft a unique synthetic space for this film, whose simple focus is the power that brings us all to life. As such, the atmosphere is organic, yet there is still somewhat of a clinical feel to it.
Cafe Bouillu In this animation directed by Stephane Berla, a cut-out paper person revolves in a merry-go-round, progressively realizing that his universe is not the thing that is spinning.