Kung Fu Panda – Prepare for the Awesome Thing!
July 1st, 2008
You have all probably seen the new animated film from DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures – the ‘Kung Fu Panda’. And since it was made with the 3D visual effects we thought it’d be great to post something interesting for our audience as you are all both fans of 3D and of the funny cartoons, aren’t you?
So, today under our blog’s newly added “column” called 3D NEWS we post some of the most interesting stuff from the interview with two main directors of ‘Kung Fu Panda’ posted at Animated Views blog (which by the way we at Templates.com always enjoy reading).
Besides its colorful visuals and excellent vocal performances, including Dustin Hoffman as master Shifu, the cartoon is also a challenge in itself in matter of animation. As one of Kung Fu Panda’s directors, Mark Osborne, said, the biggest challenge for them was a way to actually perfect kung fu and get all this physicality actually correct. The creators wanted their kung fu to be as grounded as possible, and all the acting in this movie as grounded as possible, so that people couldn’t say that it’s animation. Quite a logical challenge for 3D artists that have been working on the cartoon, isn’t it?
the image is taken from Animated-Views.com
The studio appealed to Daniel D. Gregoire, a live-action artist, and brought him in to do some pre-viz on the film, which is a rather unusual way to proceed. As John Stevenson (another film director) said, the biggest challenge for the movie, artistically and technically, was how to make the action scenes look different. So, that first translation from 2D storyboards into 3D was very critical. Daniel Gregoire had an immense experience in pre-viz on a lot of huge movies like the ‘Star Wars’ films and Spielberg’s ‘War of the Worlds’.
the image is taken from Animated-Views.com
There is indeed a traditionally hand-drawn animated sequence, realized by James Baxter, that opens the film. So, there is 2D sequence in a 3D movie. “Starting the movie with something that would hopefully surprise people because they would expect to see a whole CG film was something fun”, said John Stevenson. “And this sequence appeals to us. It is more graphically stylized than the standard look of 2D animated feature. We have a more graphic sensibility and “anime” was of a huge influence”.
the image is taken from Animated-Views.com
So don’t miss ‘Kung Fu Panda’ cartoon, enjoy it and see the striking 3d graphics performance!
January 6th, 2009 at 5:51 am
Panda – Prepare for the Awesome Thing! | Templates.com nicely covered the world of unusual christmas presents