Anakin's Switch Commercial

[Cat Atomic]

We've been obsessing over the Apple switch ads for the last few days at work, and I came up with a stupid spoof idea. =P

http://www.pixelred.com/switch.htm

[Mr. Anderson]

Wow, that is pretty damn good, nice job! Too bad you didn't get it done when we had the contest. I'd highly recommend spreading word about it, maybe some StarWars fan sites and such. :D

Anything else planned?

D

[cubist]

Excellent work!

[irmongoose]

Very well done. Good job. Make more and show us!!!!!

:D



irmongoose

[medea]

Nice Flash man, you should submit that to atomshockwave.com. good job.

[mcrain]

That was really good. I forwarded it to my friend who is a huge star wars nut. Hope you don't mind.

[Cat Atomic]

Hehe- thanks guys.

mcrain: I don't mind at all. =P

Bleepbleepbleepbleepbleepbleepbleepbleep!

(edited to get the correct number of bleeps)

[Shrek]

Well, you know, that Anakin Skywalker (a.k.a. Darth Vader) did look back to the light side once in his lifetime, just before he died. ;)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, that is. . . :D

[medea]

Gee, thanks for pointed out the obvious shrek......
Do you have more Flash to show us Cat Atomic?

[Cat Atomic]

Hmm... nothing very funny, I'm afraid. =P

I have a few odds and ends sitting around at http://www.pixelred.com , but they're mostly just little animation experiments. It's amazing how easy that Apple thing was to animate- the animation took about 2 hours. No props... no locations... Hehe. =)

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Cat Atomic
Hmm... nothing very funny, I'm afraid. =P

I have a few odds and ends sitting around at http://www.pixelred.com , but they're mostly just little animation experiments. It's amazing how easy that Apple thing was to animate- the animation took about 2 hours. No props... no locations... Hehe. =)

Wow, some of that stuff is quite good :D - I noticed that the one space animation seems to have a little Swift3D work - what did you do the 3D in or is it all with Swift? I just got the Lightwave version of S3D and haven't done much *yet*.

And I also liked the horse running animation - what did you use to get the horses gate to work correctly?

D

[Cat Atomic]

Heh- yeah, that 3-D is 100% Swift3D. I still like Swift3D alot- it's great for certain jobs. I'm also looking at Discreet's Plasma right now- looks fantastic, though it's currently PC-only, I think. Suckage. But still, I can always do the 3-D modelling on the PC... if I have to.

On those horses- Muybridge's "Complete Human and Animal Locomotion" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0486237923/qid=1036011537/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-6241688-7547810?v=glance&n=507846) is a great reference to have around. I think you can get them in smaller volumes, as well.

=)

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Cat Atomic
Heh- yeah, that 3-D is 100% Swift3D.
On those horses- Muybridge's "Complete Human and Animal Locomotion" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0486237923/qid=1036011537/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/103-6241688-7547810?v=glance&n=507846) is a great reference to have around.

Swift3D is Very cool - what sort of things are you using it for? I might be picking your brains in a month or so.....I'm just getting into flash animation in general, but I've been doing 3D for almost a decade now.

I've seen the Animal Locomotion book in a few stores, haven't gotten around to making it part of my collection, but I imagine its inevitable. What was the frame rate on the horse animation? And how many frames to cycle through once?

D

[scem0]

Very nice. But he switched to the dark side. Is apple the dark side??????

[Cat Atomic]

IRT dukestreet-

Surprisingly (at least to me), I haven't used Swift3-D much for logos at all. That's what I expected to use it on. I use it alot more for building small pieces of eye candy... like this stuff...

http://www.pixelred.com/pages/laptop.htm

http://www.pixelred.com/pages/zip.htm

Those things just acted as small visual elements in the layout of a larger site. And it's so funny- the site they were included in took 2 months to build, while those 3-D models probably took a day tops. But when the client saw it, all they remembered were the 3D models. They loved the 3D, hardly noticed anything else. =)

And then for narrative type stuff, of course. It's great for that. Spaceships, city fly-throughs, you know. But I'm sure you'd be able to do a much better job of that stuff with your more serious 3D apps than I can with Swift. But you know- nice tool to have around when the need arises.

Hmm... I *think* that horse thing is at 24 fps. I believe most of Muybridges stuff matches up pretty nicely with anything 24 fps as well, so it's one less thing to think about.

But yeah absolutely- feel free to pick my brain- as long as I can do the same to you on 3D. I have to get into some more serious 3D modelling in the next few months. Yikes!

IRT scem0-
Yes! But the Dark Side is cooler anyway and you know it. =P

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Cat Atomic
I use it alot more for building small pieces of eye candy... like this stuff...

http://www.pixelred.com/pages/laptop.htm

http://www.pixelred.com/pages/zip.htm

And then for narrative type stuff, of course. It's great for that. Spaceships, city fly-throughs, you know. But I'm sure you'd be able to do a much better job of that stuff with your more serious 3D apps than I can with Swift. But you know- nice tool to have around when the need arises.

But yeah absolutely- feel free to pick my brain- as long as I can do the same to you on 3D. I have to get into some more serious 3D modelling in the next few months. Yikes!


I have no problem discussing 3D, I use it almost every day, but I'm pretty much a Lightwave user, teabgs and jelloshotsrule use Maya (which I'll be learning in the next several months, after the flash) and Vitruvius and agreenster use Cinema4D. My first and only Swift3D so far can be found at www.gone3d.com and I'll be updating shortly another site with some new stuff and post that when its done.

How did you get the texture map to work on the laptop? Was that all done in Swift3D or did you add them altogether in flash and have them as separate layers?

I checked on the Discreet software and it looks great, but there aren't any samples and it works with Max, which I don't do.

And for 3D related items, go check out www.cgtalk.com - truly amazing stuff.

D

[Cat Atomic]

Hey- cool logo there on Gone3D. Very cool.

And thanks for the tip- I'll check that link out.

Oh- heh- I fudged that whole laptop thing. It does a fast rotation, blinks, and once it's sitting still, a mask is dropped over the screen area in flash and a little quicktime clip plays below.

No texture support is truly a hassle, but there you go.

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Cat Atomic
Hey- cool logo there on Gone3D. Very cool.

Oh- heh- I fudged that whole laptop thing. It does a fast rotation, blinks, and once it's sitting still, a mask is dropped over the screen area in flash and a little quicktime clip plays below.

No texture support is truly a hassle, but there you go.

Ha, glad you like it, it was thrown together pretty fast. I haven't had a chance to do much more since I'm still figuring out flash - but its only a matter of time.

Ok, the 'fudged' part of the laptop animation makes sense. I'll have to try that myself to see if I can get something simillar. The newest version of Swift3D allows for texture mapping, but that's only currently available in the stand alone package. I'm hoping they get the plugins updated soon.

D

[rainman::|:|]

LMAO! My partner happens to be a star wars nut and writes for a website, PegWarmer.com ... He thought it was hilarious... look for a link to it in the near future, if you don't mind that is :)

pnw

[Cat Atomic]

Not at all. =) I greatly appreciate it.

[Mr. Anderson]

A spoof like this that has a large fan base associated to the genre usually has a tendency to get pretty damn popular on the web. Let us know how the hits to your site change over the next week or so. I imagine once word gets out your site will be slammed. :D

D

[Cat Atomic]

Hehe- no kiddin'. I went through 1/4 of my alotted monthly traffic in the last 2 days. =P

Waiting for word from Atomfilms on whether or not they can host it for me. Ack.

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by Cat Atomic
Hehe- no kiddin'. I went through 1/4 of my alotted monthly traffic in the last 2 days. =P

Waiting for word from Atomfilms on whether or not they can host it for me. Ack.

Very cool - I can't imagine that they wouldn't - as a Flash animation its not that big, is it? I tried the low bandwidth and high bandwidth and didn't see any difference either.

Have you looked at iFilms.com?

Good luck,

D

[Cat Atomic]

iFilms- there's an idea. I'll try them if Atomfilms doesn't work out.

The only difference between the two versions is the sound quality- I'm always annoyed by the lowered quality of the mp3 sound from Flash. The tiny file is nice, of course, but... I always like higher quality when it's possible.

[Mr. Anderson]

I listened to both and really couldn't tell a difference - or enough of one that it made a difference. What's the difference in flie size?

As for flash sound, I just don't like the sound that's set to 11 and comes across way too loud. When I get around to making flash movie, hopefully soon, I'll have to make sure I don't do that. Any settings for the sound files that I should know about? And on some of your other movies I was wondering where you got the sound effects. I need to pick up a bunch actually.

Thanks,

D

[daniel77]

that is absolutely hilarious. seems like every1 is making fun of the switch commercials; most noticeably TECHTV commercials for Fresh Gear and Call For Help, both feature the ominous all white background and the signature closing. Anyways back to the flash, very funny, the animation was perfect, the voice hilarious, the closing part for the website url and the closing signature all were perfect. well done.

[scem0]

This is kinda off topic, but there are some matrix reloaded teaser posters (you can find them at The Matrix Online (http://thematrixonline.com)) that have Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and the new characters standing on a white background, and they look very apple-ish. Some people even commented on how apple-ish they look. (They look good, I can't wait till THe matrix Reloaded comes out).

[Mr. Anderson]

Scem0, could you provide the exact links on the matrix shots, there is quite a lot of info on the home page, and its not very well organized and I don't feel like spend a bunch of time digging around for it.

Thanks,

D

[Cat Atomic]

Pardon my self serving /bump, but I just wanted to respond.

Dukestreet-
On those sounds- you know what I like to use for personal projects (non-profit, goof off stuff that is)? I dig through the bargain bin for ancient computer games. Things you can pick up for $5, that fit the theme you want. They generally have hundreds of sounds, all presorted, all of good quality, all ready to use.

I believe all the sounds in that spaceship thing came from some fighter jet simulator from around 1995. =P

If it's something for profit, I either make sounds myself in Sound Edit, work with a Sound Engineer I know, or just license stuff. Sometimes the video games can be used to find the stuff you want, then look up the sound credits and license from that source. If you're super serious about it, and paranoid of copyright infringement suits (as I am), I think those are decent routes. Works for me at least.

[szark]

Originally posted by dukestreet
Scem0, could you provide the exact links on the matrix shots, there is quite a lot of info on the home page, and its not very well organized and I don't feel like spend a bunch of time digging around for it.

Thanks,

D

He must be talking about these posters (http://www.thematrixonline.com/gallery/display.cfm?ID=144).