What do you think?

Why is it that the trailers for videogames excite me more than the trailers for any animated feature? Case in point is this trailer for The Last Guardian, a new PS3 title that was previewed at E3. The game is created by Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus). Brew reader B. Bolander, who sent me the link, writes: “Everything you see in that trailer—the griffin, the boy—has been animated. Fumito Ueda, the creator of the game and an ex-animator himself, doesn’t do motion capture. Every flick of an ear had to be done by hand, or at least by mouse.” There is more info about the game, including quotes from Ueda, in this article on 1UP.com

Talk about your butt-ugly martians.

I went to the movies last night (Terminator Salvation). Saw posters for what looked like a new animated film, Aliens In The Attic. But alas, as the trailer below shows, the film is actually a hybrid. The posters played up the CG aliens, not the live action cast (which includes teen queen Ashley Tisdale, comedians Kevin Nealon and Andy Richter). It looks stupid - and probably is. I thought you should be warned.

The CG characters were created at Rhythm and Hues.

When will the quality of video game animation rival the major theatrical animation producers? That day may already be here. Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer on-line game created by Valve, and while the game itself doesn’t boast Pixar-quality graphics, they’ve created an impressive series of “Meet the Team” videos that tell the stories of the game’s characters.

The latest episode released last weekend, “Meet the Spy,” boasts some entertaining animation that would appear quite at home on the theatrical bigscreen. (Then again, with cinematic waste like Battle for Terra, Fly Me to the Moon and Space Chimps, bigscreen CG standards aren’t exactly what they used to be.) I don’t know much about the artists at Valve, but I’m told that the company includes veterans of studios like Pixar, Blue Sky, DreamWorks and ILM. Their experience is on full display in “Meet the Spy,” and despite my lack of interest in playing videogames, I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

UPDATE: The directors of this piece are Jamaal Bradley, Aaron Halifax and Andrew Burke.

(Thanks, Andy Lyon and Barry Rooney)

Finnish studio Anima Boutique produced this series of refreshingly stylized CG spots for Kopparberg cider drinks. The director and designer of the spots, Eliza Jäppinen, tells me that they “were lucky enough to work with an art director, agency and clients who wanted something new, and also meant it.” She first created a series of illustrations for a print campaign and subsequently these spots were produced in CG. Credits besides Jäppinen include:
2D Animation: Heli Ellis
3D modeling & Animation: Olli Rajala (Anima Commerical)
3D animation: Olli Rajala (Anima Commerical)
Producer: Anttu Harlin
Sound: Timo Anttila (Humina, Agency: Zeeland
Zeeland team: Migu Snall, Mikko Vaija, Anna Korpi-Kyyny, Riitta Bergman

Here’s something we don’t post much on Cartoon Brew - medical animation:

Minnesota based Ghost Medical has been producing medical animation for 15 years. Art Director/Animator Joel Erkkinen writes:

We wanted to make something that pushed the limits of medical animation. This short was created from the ground up to showcase the talents of ghOst Productions at the 2009 American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons in Las Vegas. Instead of showing pre-existing client work in our reel, we thought it would be more fun to make a character animation, break nearly every bone in his body and then surgically repair him in under 3 minutes.

Heal was the result. While it may not win awards at Annecy or Ottawa, it’s a clever way to present a demo reel for specialized work.

This trailer, created by Studio Anima, is for a proposed anime series called Cat Shit One. It’s based on a manga by Motofumi Kobayashi, released in the U.S. as Apocalypse Meow.

(Thanks, Sandra Khoo)

Sony Pictures Animation released the trailer today for their next feature, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Watch it here. The eyes on the characters are bigger than in most Pixar/Dreamworks-style CG features so I suppose they’re going for a “cartoony” aesthetic.