Friday Flashback #439


Blue Sky Studios: Joe’s Apartment, 1997

Scene Description of Funky Towel:
In the movie “Joe’s Apartment”, Joe’s only friends are the talking roaches that infest his lower east side apartment. In this scene, they prepare for Joe’s first date by throwing a party of their own in his funky bathroom, paying homage to every movie musical style in the book.

Technical Notes:
Blue Sky Studios created 13 minutes of character animation for over 200 shots in the feature film JOES’ APARTMENT.

  • The roaches were modeled on CGI workstations using a combination of Softimage, CGI Studio™ (Blue Skys’ proprietary software) and 2D paint systems for creating texture maps.
  • The characters were animated using Softimage on SGI workstations . Flocking animation was created by customizing Wavefronts’ Dynamation Software.
  • The rendering was computed using Blue Sky Studios’ proprietary renderer on an eight processor SGI Challenge L and several dozen desk side SGI Workstations. Compositing was completed using proprietary software in conjunction with Discreet Logics’ Flint running on an Indigo 2.

The production lasted over 13 months and employed up to 20 people at any given time.

Friday Flashback #315


Bunny Hops to Fame

1998
The gang at Blue Sky Studios really knows how to ring in the New Year. Their animated film Bunny scored three top prizes at IMAGINA Du Futur in January, including the Grand Prix IMAGINA. Bunny showcases the warm, photo-realistic style that Blue Sky achieves using “radiosity”, their computer rendering technique that mimics the most subtle properties of natural light.

CGI Studio, their proprietary lighting software, and radiosity work in conjunction with SOFTIMAGE|3D to give Bunny its unique film-noir style.

“Everything was animated in SOFTIMAGE|3D,” says Doug Dooley, senior animator at Blue Sky.

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