Two new Vids

Have been a little bit lax updating the blog recently, as I've decided that the facebook page will get the short and sweet 'pretty pictures' type posts and the blog will get more in depth ones. Anyhow, two new vids which I'll explain below.

Lute Rig Demo from Courtenay Cooper on Vimeo.

This is a demo of how the Lutebox works. The Lutebox (a sort of medieval jukebox) is a somewhat magical invention that is a little anachronistic. That's OK though, as it's not a terribly serious film.

It was invented by Al one night in a drunken frenzy using techniques that he had learned from beyond the mists of time. Basically cobbled together out of some junk he had on hand, it is powered by steam or smoke turning the turbine which through a series of belts, gears and pistons enter a black box which animate a trio of armoured hands which in turn play a lute. (On a side note, I believe that lutes actually have 8 strings. I presume that four of them broke and Al never bothered replacing them.)

The Alcoholemist Title v3 from Matthew Scott Graham on Vimeo.

This is a WIP of our title sequence. The background is only a temporary stand-in. So basically what is happening is the title will fade up on the soon to be revealed background, stay for a bit then there will be a bit of a gold flash as the title melts away in dust and sparks and fade off screen.

This is acheived by using particles in Maya which hold the shape of the text and are then affected by various fields, including gravity, turbulence and a vortex. I will expand on this later when I get one that is close to final.