Sakowski Studios is hiring on a new animated project collaboration with MoistCr1TiKaL. Currently we are seeking inquiries of interest for 2D animators and Background Artist. Click below to find out more.
Episode 20 /
Tammo is an example of what happens when you reject technology beyond the 25th century. Episode_20 is live! These last few have taken me a while to get to as I have completely re-written them from what is in the book. Making this YouTube series has allowed me to understand the world-story much better and has given me a chance to expand on topics that are rooted deeper in the lore of humanities future. The 3rd Edition of Vol.1 feels like a level up from the first edit, but also I should spend some time on Vol.3 soon. I also take solace in the fact that J. R. R. Tolkien only started writing when he was 38!
Shinichiro Watanabe On Making ‘Cowboy Bebop’ And What He Thinks Of The Live-Action Adaptation /
A nice little interview here with one of my favorite animation directors. Gives insight into his work and also why there might be lots of terrible adaptations in Hollywood. Some directors you just have to trust! -
“Actually, I had a big altercation with a Hollywood producer on The Animatrix. He would always come with these stupid requests. As the requests were stupid and made no sense, I rejected all of them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t win in this situation"...That sounds about right. Read via the link below.
Drone Rig /
Illustrated in Procreate, rigged and animated in After Effects
@Sakowskistudios /
You can now find us on Twitter at - https://twitter.com/sakowskistudios
Happy new year /
Hope everyone had a nice break. Below are some photos from our exploration of birsbane’s greater areas over the Christmas break. Click on the images to view them larger.
CDawgVA Discusses Him Voice Acting "DeFister" In GodSlap! /
When I suggested to Charlie we should use Conner to voice DeFister, I didn’t actually expect it to happen! A couple of messages later and here we are CDawgVA as DeFister. I already had Conner in mind for this role during the storyboard phase, as his voice was the right style we were after for this character. One day if we make a series we 100 percent want him to carry on voice this role, and another idea of mine would be to also introduce some other famous youtubers to voice specific roles!
Conner did a great job. He was super professional and we recorded it all online within 30 mins. Lots of people have mentioned that he went a lot deeper here and that is because we pitched his voice down a touch. Below is Conner chatting about the project.
Avatar: Way of the Water Short Review /
WOW is an understatement. James Cameron pushing cinematic technology to the next level again. The true hero here is the water FX teams. The fluid FX are so good you forget that it's pretty much all simulated. All the 3D was epic but the water is a technological marvel here. The Character animation and rendering is next level, it’s truly immersive. You can forget that your are basically watching 3d generated characters and really invest your self’s in their emotions and journey.
But even though this film may be a technological marvel, it’s hard to see this kind of effort being applied to many other films. It feels like this level of work will only be reserve (and afforded) for the biggest of the biggest films out there… and i’m all for it if it’s executed as well as this movie. For the cinema experience to live on, it’s films like this that make me go ”we need to see this on the big screen”.
The story... suits the world Cameron has created. It's heartfelt and action packed and the 3hr runtime seems to vanish right before your eyes. It’s the first film in a long time (perhaps since Endgame) that has felt like a true mega-blockbuster.
One of the understated achievements is they made 48fps actually work in the cinema format. The 3D stereo work is superb - definitely worth seeing in 3D Imax. Well done to the Wētā FX teams, absolutely outstanding work. - I give it 4 and a 1/2 stars out of 5
No to AI? /
I've written about this in The Mecha Genesis - except replace AI art with 'human augmentation and real AGI'... I agree that artist images should not be used in AI algorithms without their permission. That needs to change asap.
However the tidal wave of AI’s will be unstoppable and I've speculated in the Mecha Genesis that many of us will segregate ourselves from it, to our detriment as it will just continue to get better whereas our evolution will stagnate without it. It needs to be symbiotic. I am however talking about real AGI, not these algorithm based AI tools.
More importantly It's not the AI that is in the wrong here. It is its owners. There are humans behind these tools that are making huge profits. That animosity we are showing AI art is miss directed, It should be NO TO THE (insert company name here) - The AI has no choice, it's an algorithm after all, just a tool, it's not actually intelligent. The humans running the company's, making money by using others' art without permission, that's the real problem. People are paying to use these AI tools and that money is going into a few peoples pockets.
I'm all for AI, but the rules of engagement need to be set and that is the era we are living in, when the Laws governing the evolution of AI will be defined…. and that potentially will set the course for humanity’s evolution.
Compositing GodSlap’s Megacity in After Effects /
A break down and time-lapse of shot 02 from Godslap Issue 02 animation. Software used - After Effects, Element, Blender and Photoshop.
This video is not so much a tutorial as it is a breakdown of how I composited this shot in After effects. Here you can watch 8 to 9hrs of work compressed into 4 minutes (that's not including Thaws time illustrating the assets).
It goes by quite fast as I didn't want to drag this video out too long, so for all those AE nerds out there, the left window is my main comp and the right window is all the pre-comps, you may pick up on little things watching it through a couple times.
I normally work with 2 or 3 screens so I tried to keep most of my work flow to the central screen, but there are some things I could not include that were off-screen. Feel free to ask any question in the comments with time stamps if you would like to know more about how we achieved certain things. This was the only shot I recorded while working on this project. If there is interest I may record more shots like this for future projects.
Below is a full making of the project