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So I Can Post Anything Here I Want To?
Then I’m going to brag about my son. Since I’m not on twitter, this will be my outlet. He just won best in show in the Utah Digital Animation Festival for his 3D animated film, “Trashed.” Take a look if you like animated shorts — it’s only 90 seconds long.
Here is Nathan to tell you about his video:
Published in EntertainmentI made this animation for a digital media contest for high school students in Utah called “UDMAF.” (I ended up winning 1st place, which is pretty cool I guess.) For those interested in the technical side of the video, I created it using Blender, an open-source 3D animation software (because I’m a cheap high school student who can’t afford anything else). One of the hardest parts to create was the robot trash can’s mouth; the display is generated procedurally by a material I created using Blender’s node editor, which allows me to alter the mouth’s distortion, saturation, and static noise.
If anyone would like to contact me for more information or advice, my email is nriceusa@gmail.com.
P.S. Congratulations to James Lileks—you are the first person to say anything about the discrepancy with the hinge in the trash can’s lid. Realistically, garbage men would have to physically remove the trash from the robot, but I thought a hover garbage truck with a robotic arm would be cooler.
Very clever.
very nice. There are some great kids out there!
Love it! Well done!
Very charming and has a very good overall level of craftsmanship. Tell us about your son. Is he in college or high school? Was this a student film project? Is he working in the industry? For us geeks or those of us with some professional background, could you get him to provide some details such as the software used including which renderer? Maybe you could have him edit the original post as a “guest expert”.
Very enjoyable! Thank you for sharing.
Very well done. Clever and heartfelt, like a Pixar animation, and well implemented. If we subscribe to his YouTube channel, can we expect more until a studio hires him?
Clever and adorable!
My son is a senior in high school and did this to fulfill a class project, though he did go a little above and beyond the scope of the assignment. I’ll talk to him this afternoon and ask him all the details for a “guest expert” post, but off the top of my head, I think he used Blender to everything. Also, the rendering was taking quite a bit of time, so his digital media teacher let him use all the school computers to render a few frames apiece overnight to speed it up. He got the thing submitted to the contest at 11 p.m. one hour before deadline!
He may try to do one more this summer because he’d like to enter another festival with a new film, but beginning August 29 he’ll be serving a two-year mission for the Mormon church. It will be awhile till he gets hired by Pixar, but that would be his ultimate dream!
That’s just lovely! Thanks for telling us about it. Good luck to your son in all his future endeavors.
Utterly charming. Watched it three times to get it all. (It was the third time, if your son is curious, where I spotted the Lid Discrepancy – so it has a hinge? And then it doesn’t? If that bugged him, but he had to let it go because no one would probably think about it right away, he was right.)
I sent it to a fellow at Pixar with whom I’ve corresponded over the years – hope he passes it around!
This is super!
Where is he doing his mission?
Wowza!
Also loved the “inspiration” and the order of it:
Mom (1st)
Dad (2nd)
etc.
Poor dad, just working his career off, but always to come in second place to mom. Somehow, I think that is how the universe would have wanted it.
Tijuana Mexico. He took four years of Spanish, so he flies directly to the Mexico MTC. Fortunately his older brother gets back from the Oklahoma City mission about two and a half weeks before he leaves.
Thanks! I don’t know if anyone else even noticed that discrepancy–he didn’t point it out to us. But he knows every darned frame of that thing backwards and forwards, so I’m sure he’s just keeping a lid on it. (See what I did there?) He wasn’t sure how he would end the conflict until after he’d already started the animating process, so he probably couldn’t easily go back and remove the hinge.
Ha ha! Yes, he is a good boy. And his dad would probably have told him to do it that way himself, because he’s such a good dad, too. <3
That sounds like pretty tough duty!
It does, doesn’t it? My husband served in Brazil and he says economically it sounds similar to some of the areas he was in. Weather is much, much drier, though. Also, BED BUGS. Ick.
I grew up in San Diego North County. The weather will be great!
Sa-weet! Great job, Nathan!
Wow! Most impressive.
Mom! You did good! What an adorable, and so “human” video :) It took a talented, intuitive, good-natured young man to come up with this.
That was very, very cool. Thank you for sharing it.
Get that boy a job at Pixar! Very cool.
My favorite thing about this: when the mailbox goes to the door and extends up, the “camera” stays at ground level. We don’t see what happens above the frame, but we don’t need to because we already know.
Maybe that was just done because it made the rendering easier. Or to keep from showing a face – we didn’t see any human faces. But whatever the reason I found it charming.
That was great! One thing I was curious about – both the mailman and the homeowner “pet” the mailbox. Is that necessary to get the mailbox to do it’s job, or is it just a show of affection?
Just a show of affection, thus the trash can’s jealousy.
Yes, people are very hard to model, so he avoided faces. But I liked it that way, too. Helps keep the focus on the robots as the central characters.