Magnetic Dreams

Softimage Tutorial: Global Shader setup

jgibbs — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 18:13:32 +0000

Wow, something crazy is happening at Magnetic Dreams! This will be our third post in less than a month! No, your eyes aren’t lying to you, this is for real. Anyways, Don Culwell, our Exec. VP and in-house specialist of all things software, has treated us (well…mainly you) with a Softimage tutorial. If you find it helpful, give us a “Like”!
Enjoy!

Global AO control for Softimage 2012 using the Custom Property Wizard from Magnetic Dreams on Vimeo.

Colbie Caillat – We Both Know ft. Gavin DeGraw

jgibbs — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 18:08:55 +0000

We had the opportunity to work with top director Roman White again, and this time on an exciting Colbie Caillat music video. The song is tied to the upcoming feature film Safe Haven.

The music video cuts between movie clips and Colbie and Gavin clips. Most of it was shot on green screen, and Magnetic Dreams was tasked to recreate environments based on the Safe Haven sets, but with a surreal touch to them. We explored some new techniques, which enabled us to do 90 percent of the vfx in compositing, knocking out 94 shots in under two weeks!

Here are a few before/after shots, and a link to the video.

Abby Cadabby @ CES

jgibbs — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:46:05 +0000

Here’s some quick news on one of our latest animation projects: Abby’s Fairy Rock. This project was a little different for us, taking us into the world of real-time animation!

Qualcomm and Sesame Street are collaborating on the development of mobile apps for children eduction. One of their first applications, ‘Abby’s Fairy Rock’, was presented last week in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. We worked alongside Two Bulls providing them over 60 animation clips for them to insert into the Unity game engine to drive the animation interactively. Typically our animations stay within two or three packages internally for lighting, rendering, and compositing. The process used on this project required us to export the animations and rigs to the game engine for real-time rendering. It was a great opportunity to see our work through a different medium.

Here’s a quick link to a booth presentation of the mobile app at CES.

Qualcomm / Sesame Workshop two screen game experience powered by Alljoyn and Unity. Developed by Two Bulls, animation by Magnetic Dreams

‘Stray’

tcrowson — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 17:26:15 +0000

Magnetic Dreams is especially proud to promote the release of a short film by one of our former animators: Stray, directed by Andrew Atteberry. Andrew led a collaborative effort between his iAnimate class and our team here to produce a touching piece about a solitary guy and an unexpected visitor. The animation was handled by Andrew, Jason Ryan, and other members of the iAnimate class. Artists at Magnetic helped with extra asset development, lighting and rendering, and compositing. A very special thanks to Solid Angle for allowing us to render the short with their fantastic Arnold renderer.

Stray short film from iAnimate on Vimeo.

‘After’ is released!

tcrowson — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 19:09:05 +0000

We’re especially pleased to promote the release of After, an independent film by director Ryan Smith, in association with Seabourne Pictures and Quite Quick Productions. Magnetic Dreams completed 210 VFX shots. Prominent work included the ominous wall of ‘darkness’ and the antagonistic ‘Guardian’, in addition to plate elements and shot cleanup. This marks our first feature-length VFX project. Details to come soon!

Elmo The Musical

tcrowson — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 18:41:19 +0000

We ‘re really proud to present something we’ve been working on over the last 8 months. The promotional floodgates have been opened by Sesame Street, so here it is: Elmo The Musical!

Here’s also a nice behind the scenes of the production, which explains the concept behind ETM, and what our role has been in its production. We’ve completed several episodes already and are moving to wrap up the first season. More info to come later!

After opening at the Nashville Film Festival

jgibbs — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:34:48 +0000

After many months of hard labor, Magnetic Dreams’ VFX work on the movie AFTER finally hits the big screen for all eyes to see! AFTER is opening the Nashville Film Festival on April 19th. Read NAFF’s press release here.

All you Nashvillians get your tickets!

Music Videos!

jgibbs — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:22:51 +0000

Someone once said that good things come in threes…or was it bad things..? Anyways, over the past few months, we were approached by Revolution Pictures for some post-production work on some of their projects. Included were Shakira’s Todo Juntos featuring Dora the Explorer, Justin Bieber’s Under the Mistletoe, and Cody Simpson’s Not Just You. All three of these were directed by our good friend Roman White.

For Justin Bieber ‘s video, we mainly did some paint-outs of unruly snow flakes. We could tell you where they are , but then you would be looking for them. If you ever found out, that would ruin our reputation.

The Shakira music video was entirely shot on green screen. We worked with Revolution Pictures who provided the backgrounds in which to integrate Shakira. The goal was to get Shakira to follow Dora and her friends through different scenery in South America. Each set was to be revealed in a painterly fashion as the girls explored them.

Last but not least, we created a digital subway station for Cody Simpson’s Not Just You video. The scene was shot on green screen and needed nice grimy New York looking subway station. Although our 3D pipeline revolves around Softimage, we were able to take a slight departure from the norm and use modo to create and render the set.

Production underway on “After”

tcrowson — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:55:55 +0000

We’re hard at work on creating VFX for Ryan Smith’s feature film After, in conjunction with Seabourne Pictures. Can’t say much else beyond that of course, but you can watch the trailer and get more information on the movie’s website, here.

CDC Flu Shots

admin — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:07:35 +0000

When you protect yourself against the flu, you are also protecting those close to you…your family. This is the message that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention charged Magnetic Dreams with conveying to the public in a light-hearted, non-threatening manner.

But how does one talk about a dangerous disease and vaccinations (ouch!), without scaring the audience? Stick-figure animation, of course! Magnetic Dreams created a concept using traditional, hand-drawn character animation, combined with 3D layout and cameras, and CG smoke effects to fully illustrate the ideas that everyone you know (or have contact with) is part of a larger “family”, and that getting a flu vaccine helps protect them by stopping the spread of the disease.

The CDC also wanted to stress that the flu affects all people, no matter their age, ethnicity or occupation. This was accomplished (with some humor) with character and background designs that take the simple, stick-figure concept to another level, including the stylized look of graphite pencil on paper.

In addition to using the 2D animation within a 3D environment for perspective and interesting camera moves, Magnetic Dreams utilized CG smoke effects to turn the characters’ lines into graphite dust clouds as a means to illustrate the effects of the flu and the spread of the disease.