animations

If you thought animating human motion for a video game or feature movie was hard, try rainbows.

In the search for better animation techniques for video games and movies, computer graphics researchers at the University of San Diego have gained insight into the physics of rainbows. Their discovery could lead to more realistic depictions of rare types of rainbows, such as twinned rainbows, and other natural phenomena.

The conditions for the appearance of a rainbow are well understood: light passing through water droplets in the air causes the light to reflect and refract within the water. The reflecting light fans … Read more

Crafted lets you play a 2D version of the megapopular game Minecraft, using many of the same sounds and graphics--so much so that we're surprised it's still available in the iTunes App Store.

Mojang's Minecraft has achieved a huge following for its open, sandbox style of gameplay, letting you manipulate every block in the world. Once you've gathered the right materials, you can make picks for mining, axes for chopping down trees, torches so you can see at night, and a whole laundry list of other items.

Crafted offers a similar experience, but all in 2D. … Read more

Love is a wonderful thing--so wonderful, in fact, that you may feel the desire to memorialize it in the form of your mouse cursor. Love AnimatIon Cursor lets you do exactly that. To be quite honest, the program isn't really our cup of tea stylistically; on top of that, it's not particularly easy to use. But if you're in love with love, we suppose it could be a cute addition to your desktop.

We installed Love AnimatIon Cursor and weren't sure what to do next; there was no interface, no system-tray icon, and no change in … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--In a quiet alleyway here, Ubisoft gave members of the media an early preview of Assassin's Creed: Revelations and the final travels of Ezio Auditore.

For the uninitiated, the Assassin's Creed series chronicles heroic members of a secret society of skilled professional killers that fight corruption and oppression. The games are deliberately steeped in historical research as each game educates players on the era it's set in and real power players of the period--if players choose to take a moment to read the game notes.

In the new game, Ezio, hero of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, leaves Rome behind for Constantinople in search of a weapon that could forever end a war between Ezio's assassins and the Knights Templar. Journalists had the opportunity to play the game for about three hours, uninterrupted--including the entire map of the great Middle Eastern city. … Read more

There should be no doubt that Apple's decision to block Flash from iOS in favor of HTML5 has spurred Adobe to make sure that its media-rich content-building tool and player Flash remains competitive. Flash Player 11 brings hardware-accelerated graphics support to the platform.

According to Adobe, the new Stage3D technology in the new Flash Player brings combined 2D and 3D acceleration that is up to 1,000 times faster than the previous Flash iterations. While currently Stage3D is supported only for personal computers, it should make its way to mobile devices in future Flash releases. The advancements offered by … Read more

Sprint has signed a $20 billion dollar deal for 30.5 million new iPhones, and Adobe releases Flash Player 11 and AIR 3 with accelerated 3D graphics support, and check out CNET.com's live coverage of Apple's announcement of the next iPhone(s).

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

You might soon be able to interact with both game and animation characters in 3D, thanks to RePro 3D, a technology developed by researchers from Keio University in Japan. The system uses a glasses-free 3D projector to display an image of a character floating in midair, while an infrared camera registers hand movements. Tactile feedback is provided by a wired device strapped on the user's finger to enhance realism. You can refer to the below video to watch RePro 3D in action. Another version capable of rendering a larger projection for multiple users is also in the pipeline.

Judging by the rudimentary prototype in the video, we doubt the system is anywhere near commercialization. That said, this is definitely an interesting idea, particularly for gaming.

(Source: Crave Asia via Akihabara News) … Read more

Meet MotionStudio 3D, Corel's inaugural entry into the animation and motion graphics software category. Geared more toward novices and prosumers than professionals, this capable newcomer lets you create 3D text and titles, lathe objects, and a variety of animations with relative ease.

MotionStudio's interface is intuitive, which should be comforting to motion graphics novices. The Edit Window displays your project as you work, and can reflect changes in near real-time--with virtually no waiting for rendering. Also, you can drag objects directly within the Edit Window for a more tactile way to customize basic aspects like position, rotation, and … Read more

Corel, maker of the popular VideoStudio Pro and PaintShop Pro franchises, has today released its newest title, MotionStudio 3D. As Corel's first entry into the animation and motion graphics software category, MotionStudio 3D targets multimedia enthusiasts looking to create stunning title sequences and basic 3D animations. While it's not quite a big-budget Hollywood workhorse, the program certainly appears to be good at what it does.

On top of its basic 3D titling and text animation capabilities, MotionStudio also includes a powerful, yet simple particle effects tool that recreates the appearance and movement of elements like bubbles, fire, smoke, … Read more