Making Sloppy Cartoons With The DSi’s Flipnotes

Brian Crecente — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:20:00 +0000

The free-to-download animation creator for the DSi has arrived.

As you’ll see in this video, Flipnote Studio is a surprisingly robust little toy. Be warned, though, I have zero artistic ability. [Flipnote Studio]

Kung Fu Panda Had The Best Video Game Animation Of 2008. Conversation Over.

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:40:51 +0000

Kung Fu Panda? Says who? Says the International Animated Film Society, that’s who. The video game based on Dreamworks Animation’s movie of the same name just scored an Annie, beating out Dead Space and Wall·E.

The 36th Annual Annie Awards threw down this past weekend, honoring the best that animated things have to offer, whether they be animated feature length movies, achievements in storyboarding or outstanding television commercials.

Three games were nominated in the “Best Animated Video Game” category, with Activision’s Kung Fu Panda snatching the Annie “in recognition of creative excellence in the art of animation.”

I’d cry foul, but I’ve yet to bask in the animation of Kung Fu Panda in any of its forms. Who objects?

36th Annual Annie Award Nominees and Winners (2008) [The Annie Awards]

The First 11 Minutes Of Resident Evil: Degeneration

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:30:00 +0000

Above, the first eight minutes of the upcoming Resident Evil CGI feature, Degeneration. You’ll get eight minutes of backstory and build-up, along with a certain…understanding. See, at TGS, they had this running right next to Resident Evil 5, on a big screen. And Resident Evil 5 looked better. A lot better. The stiff, bulky characters and animation on show here look more like a pre-rendered cutscene for a PS2 game than a 21st-century animation film. Ah well. It has zombies, it’s Resident Evil, people will love it. After the jump, the conclusion to the above scene, age-gated because there are eat-the-flesh-of-the-living bits.

Mirror’s Edge ‘Faith City’ Trailer

Stuart Houghton — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:30:00 +0000

For once, this trailer isn’t about showing off the innovative free running 3D engine and physical environment – it is a bit of animation (in the cartoony sense) that provides some more background about the dystopian setting and the traumatic events that have set our heroine on course to clash with the gub’ment.

Stylistically, it reminds me of the O-Ren Ishii anime from Kill Bill – no bad thing, in my humble opinion.

Plot-wise, not much is revealed, but attitude? Attitude it most definitely has.

Metal Gear Solid: Cold Blooded

Mike Fahey — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:30:00 +0000

Graham Cornell, Creative Director over at multimedia studio TheDuoGroup, directed us to this amazing animated Metal Gear Solid short his company created. Did you ever stop to think about how the enemies that Big Boss and Solid Snake see their nemesis? Cold Blooded explores this in the form of a brief encounter in 1972 that Captain Mikhail Tarasov calls “The Margov Incident”. The short is just so beautifully done, and at the end I felt an odd sort of pride at being briefly in control of such an absolute bad-arse. Very, very nice work Graham.

ACMI Gets Its Machinima On

Logan Booker — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:00:00 +0000

Just because you don’t live in Sydney doesn’t mean you have to miss out on meeting some of machinima’s biggest names.

Rooster Teeth’s Burnie Burns, creator of This Spartan Life Chris Burke and Bioware’s Armando Troisi, among others, will be present at the ACMI in Melbourne from June 14 to 15. They’ll be talking about all-things animation, including making movies in games like Halo and World of Warcraft.

Press release with pricing and bios after the jump.

[Pic, thanks Sgt. Hartsock]