OT: Animusic - Free HD download

Chanimal wrote on 11/30/2006, 9:09 PM

OT: but of interest to all us audio and video folks, so I thought I would let everyone know about it.

If you have never seen one of the two Animusic videos you will be in for a treat--incredible animated characters performing great music (reminds me of Fresh Aire and Chip Davis, only animated).

They are based here in Austin, TX. I saw the DVD and picked it up at Fry's Electronics (Playing on the big screen).

I just got an e-mail about a free HD version on the apple website at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/animusic2dvd.html

If you have the paid version of QT (that allows you to save) you can actually save it to your system when it has been viewed (200 meg, but streams across as you watch).

Excellent example of combining music and animation and special effects. You got to check this out!

Chanimal - Ted

Comments

Cheno wrote on 11/30/2006, 9:14 PM

This stuff is both beautiful to watch and amazing to listen to. I'm sure Spot will chime in because I believe he knows the guys who actually do this. The choreography of the animation to the music is breathtaking, Definately a top notch product and one to watch and listen to over and over again.

cheno

Spot|DSE wrote on 11/30/2006, 9:28 PM

Yup, it's GREAT stuff. Their team is amazing, and of course the visuals....just watch them closely and you'll be shocked at the amount of detail placed in the movements of the various musical characters. I'd put their work up against any Pixar or other product in its class.

MH_Stevens wrote on 11/30/2006, 10:24 PM

I play these at 720p on my 24" Dell HD monitor and I'm gob-smacked. To me this is really using the computer to make art and not just CGFx

Laurence wrote on 11/30/2006, 10:38 PM

Cool but every few seconds I see what look like dropped frames as the video jumps forward a little. Is everyone else getting this as well?

kdm wrote on 11/30/2006, 10:58 PM

Spot - do you happen to know about how long it takes them to put together one of these? Very impressive work.

(It would be fun to see one put to a stutter-edit electronica track. ;-)

UlfLaursen wrote on 11/30/2006, 11:54 PM

Very cool... impressive

Thanks for sharing the link, Chanimal.

/Ulf

Chanimal wrote on 12/1/2006, 8:18 AM

MH Stevens,

I do not get any stutter. It sounds like it is your machine.

Memory?
Indexing off?
Display acceleration on?
Junk running in the background?

John_Cline wrote on 12/1/2006, 8:54 AM

WOW! Spectacular!

JJKizak wrote on 12/1/2006, 9:16 AM

Saw them on PBS. It's a wonderment how they do it.

JJK

Former user wrote on 12/1/2006, 9:56 AM

Go to their website and download the samples. My favorite is the CHAMBER piece.

Dave T2

VMP wrote on 12/1/2006, 10:13 AM

Looks like the Blue man group animated ;-)

fwtep wrote on 12/1/2006, 10:14 AM

Coincidentally, while browsing around Snopes.com I came across this.

John_Cline wrote on 12/1/2006, 10:36 AM

"Looks like the Blue man group animated"

But MUCH more interesting.

deusx wrote on 12/1/2006, 2:08 PM

But MUCH more interesting.<<<

Come on, this is as cheezy as Britney and her husband or Yani or Kenny G and ( insert your favorite cheezy poser here ).

Jim H wrote on 12/1/2006, 6:14 PM

It's surely entertaining to watch, especially that HD video. What would really be amazing is if they programmed these animations to react live from input of actual musicians. Could you imagine the Vegas (as in Las) show with the live muscians on stage while these graphics streamed on a huge screen? Now that's one show I might pay $120 for... unlike the Blue Men Groups.

Spot|DSE wrote on 12/1/2006, 6:54 PM

What would really be amazing is if they programmed these animations to react live from input of actual musicians.

This could happen much sooner than you'd think. Watch for an upcoming story on these guys and their recent move to the "big time" on the DMN network. Very creative, inspiring, and intense stuff they've got going on. The technology that does the actual playing isn't all that advanced, but the work that goes into the characters is.

Jim H wrote on 12/1/2006, 7:07 PM

"This could happen much sooner than you'd think. "

I wouldn't doubt it. In fact I thought that might be how they generated the animation movement. It's obvious they took great care to hit the right pad for the correct notes... so why not just write a script that translates the music into the movement then render it afterwards. It's getting the rendering done at that quality level in real time that's the trick. Don't think my AMD 4800 X2 and 7800GTX could handle it.

So what's DMN Network?

Chanimal wrote on 12/5/2006, 3:07 AM

Jim,

You refer to hitting the right pad for the correct notes and a script. They actually produce their own custom software to connect the movement to the music notes/midi so it looks like the animation is playing the sound, rather than responding to it. Details about the software is on their site.

Coursedesign wrote on 12/5/2006, 10:03 AM

www.dmnforums.com is one entry point to the "parallel universe of DMN." :O) Often useful information for professionals.

I find their servers to be flakey though, at least on the paid, advertising-free side. They really need to hire some guys who know how to run Apache servers.