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I think you either mean Blue Sky Studios, or more likely, Blur Studios, Who were the ones who did the Dawn of War cinematic. Blue Sky does more feature length stuff. Horay for using in game assets and all, but that was pretty unsatisfying for me. I don't think it conveyed enough of the fallout world to get me that excited.

Good point though, but I think it's a little bit too niche of a market?, but hey, what do I know, since I'm obviously not in the target audience.

Blue Sky is the studio that's making Robots. Though you wouldn't know it from their own site or any of the promotional ones.

"10Gbs etho and blow your mind away servers"

This isn't Dreamworks or Pixar, but I had a job interview a few years ago with Blue Sky Studios who created Ice Age. They had a render farm of over 250 machines, but they were hardly "blow your mind away" servers. I believe they had 1Ghz. processors in them which at the time wasn't bad, but not quite top of the line. They said each frame took around 9 hours to render and each machine was working on one frame at a time.

So, you're saying that Blue Sky Studios isn't a professional studio?

In general, you're right - nobody does ray tracing for final renders, but Blue Sky is the exception that proves the rule.

It's a myth that Pixar are uncontested when it comes to digital features (as it states in the article). For example:

(1) Blue Sky Studios made a little movie called Ice Age.

(2) Pacific Data Images made a little movie called Shrek, and also released the 2nd ever computer generated feature, Antz (the official site, Antz.com seems dead).

Here's another myth:

While Pixar's rendering techniques are *good*, they aren't necessarily cutting edge when it comes to technology. Blue Sky uses raytracing for their images. This gives them features like caustics, global illumination and efficient curved surfaces. Curves in particular had a huge advantage through memory efficiency for their render farm - meanwhile Pixar's render nodes were crashing because of scene complexity simulating curves through polygons. Sure, Pixar's movies are impressive, but I can't help but think they'd do better without clinging to some legacy baggage that comes with Renderman.

Anyway - the technology is overhyped. It's just a better pencil. Story, story, story is what counts. Disney can probably afford to take longer developing scripts. This is why you can have something as gorgeous as the Final Fantasy movie and have it completely suck at the box office; and Disney flicks don't look so great, but sell well.

Lilo and Stitch: This is the best and most unique film Disney Feature Animation has done in awhile, and Chris Sanders certainly deserves major props for bringing a Brad Bird-style approach to the usual slick and flowy style of Disney animation (Brad Bird, FYI, directed The Iron Giant, created Family Dog, and was a consultant for the early years of The Simpsons). The character animation for Stitch is easily THE BEST I've seen in any film this year (they wuz robbed in the Character Animation category for the Annie Awards), and the watercolor backgrounds, design, etc. was stunning. Major weakness: the flimsy climax and ending.

Ice Age: Instantly gets extra points for being the first feature animated film made ENTIRELY on the East Coast ;) I am really, really happy for Blue Sky for their nomination and I hope it leads to better days for the NY animation industry. But enough of that... Exquisite timing worthy of Pixar, beautiful (and tactile) production design, an "okay" story broken up by some very funny and inspired bits. Major weakness: aforementioned "okay" story.

Spirited Away: The best film ever to come out of the House of Ghibli, and that's not saying much, as they're usual level of quality is as high as that of Pixar and Aardman (It DOES say a whole lot if you're not any one of these three studios, though ^_~). Gorgeous artwork, inspired fish-out-of-water/Alice in Wonderland-type story, overall character animation is humorous and believable. Overall, the best animated film I've seen all year. Oh yeah, and all those critics awards it's already one couldn't hurt ;) Major weakness: the dreaded Anime Stigma (you know, the assumption that all anime is either about hentai tentacle rape monsters or Dragonball Z-type battles with cute characters somewhere in between), though this is becoming less of an issue with each passing year...

Treasure Planet: This is a beautiful film, but unfortunately, it's a typical John Musker/Ron Clements job, which means you've seen it all before... in the likes of The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, etc. The usual fluid Disney animation. Nice Jules Verne-esque background design, too-- and at least it was better than Atlantis. Major weaknesses: Didn't break any new ground in the art of animation, weak musical score.

So, here's the odds, if, like my office, you have an annual Oscar pool:

Lilo and Stitch-- 1:5
Ice Age-- 1:7
Spirited Away-- 1:2
Treasure Planet-- 1:30
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron-- again, haven't seen it, but I'd estimate 1:8

Enjoy :)

The other fact you need to face is the best way to secure employment is not through classifieds and monster.com, but personal contact with people in the field.

Very true, but don't count out monster. I got my current post-graduation job through monster (my employer found me) and I also secured 3 other interviews through them, including one with Blue Sky Studios of Ice Age fame. Didn't get that job, though heh.

That film is Ice Age, and it being done by Blue Sky Studios which Fox bought a few years ago along with VIFX (which they later sold to Rhythm and Hues). Blues Sky Studios have even won an Oscar for best animated short, "Bunny", just like Pixar did and they are CG veterans, founded in 1987 (one year after Pixar), though many of the principals are veterans from other facilities. They also are a mostly propietary software house just like Pixar and PDI. Besides doing commercials and animated shorts they have also done tons of FX for movies including Joe's Apartment, the CG aliens in Alien Resurrection and the penguin in Fight Club. They are in the same league as Pixar and PDI and I wouldn't discount them. Tghey seems to be going for a more classic cartoony feeling, like the old Warner Bros or tex Avery cartoons. personally I can't wait to see it. At SIGGRAPH Blue Sky had the short first teaser during the Electronic Theatre and I can tell you it was a success.

That film is Ice Age, and it being done by Blue Sky Studios which Fox bought a few years ago along with VIFX (which they later sold to Rhythm and Hues). Blues Sky Studios have even won an Oscar for best animated short, "Bunny", just like Pixar did and they are CG veterans, founded in 1987 (one year after Pixar), though many of the principals are veterans from other facilities. They also are a mostly propietary software house just like Pixar and PDI. Besides doing commercials and animated shorts they have also done tons of FX for movies including Joe's Apartment, the CG aliens in Alien Resurrection and the penguin in Fight Club. They are in the same league as Pixar and PDI and I wouldn't discount them. Tghey seems to be going for a more classic cartoony feeling, like the old Warner Bros or tex Avery cartoons. personally I can't wait to see it. At SIGGRAPH Blue Sky had the short first teaser during the Electronic Theatre and I can tell you it was a success.

It's all great stuff that allows for rapid development and building (sometimes glueing) systems together.

-danimal

The reason the Phoenix facility was closed was that after 3 films the returns were just dissappointing. Fox is a business and this was a business decision, plain and simple.

-danimal
*disclaimer* these comments neither represent Fox or Blue Sky Studios, they are mine alone.

Blue Sky Studios won an Oscar for Bunny , a brilliant CGI short that, among other things, pioneered the use of radiosity in a short film. (It's been too expensive for use in anything but stills until now.) Now, anyone with a better memory than mine should correct me, but I believe Bunny was first distributed with RealPlayer. It was several weeks before it was accepted into Spike & Mike's Animation Festival, which would have been the first time anyone would get to see it in the cinema.

I believe you are right. I first saw it on the web, later at Siggraph well before it was added to Spike & Mike's Festival. (BTW, an MPEG clip is available on the site).

Incidentally, Bunny is an amazing film. Great animation, music, writing, metaphors. In contrast to the well-written, but decidedly child-oriented Disney/Pixar stuff, which is visually stunning but conceptually lightweight, Bunny was about death. Nice to see CGI being used for real art for a change.

So? If it weren't for the grandfather clause, would this great short film be disqualified? Has anyone seen any press recognize that this assinine `ruling' has already been violated?

Incidentally, Bunny is an amazing film. Great animation, music, writing, metaphors. In contrast to the well-written, but decidedly child-oriented Disney/Pixar stuff, which is visually stunning but conceptually lightweight, Bunny was about death. Nice to see CGI being used for real art for a change.

So? If it weren't for the grandfather clause, would this great short film be disqualified? Has anyone seen any press recognize that this assinine `ruling' has already been violated?

What? Check out Blue Sky Studios. They only use raytracing.

Well, probably the 2 most famous are Blue Sky Studios and R/GA Digital. Blue Sky has worked on "Joe's Apartement", "Alien 4", "Star Trek: Insurrection", "Armageddon", and many others. R/GA mainly does commercials now, but they were responsible for the FX of the Predator movies. Another one on the East coast is Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company who worked on things like "Clear and Present Danger", "Stargate", and the Spiderman ride at Universal Studios.

Also check out http://www.ecdc.org/ for a list of companies. Other good places are VFXPro, Visual FX, and VFXHQ.

Keep in mind that most companies in the US are in California, after all they have to be close where the business is. And if you are thinking about jobs, better start saving and planning for SIGGRAPH 2000.

No problem. I found it at:

http://bunny.blueskystudios.com/pho to_page.html

At the bottom, there is a very nice, large size clip (5 megs worth).


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Jason Eric Pierce