2D & 3D Animation
2D & 3D Animation
In my opinion, one of the most fascinating usages of computers is for making graphics and in particular 3D scenes. I started experimenting with 3D in 1992 using 3D Studio v.1 and today I primarily use 3D Studio Max. Back in 1992 I was offered a job at Nielsen & Nielsen mainly because my job-application consisted of a 3D vector-program, I had written in Turbo Pascal. And later - in Colour Company - I had a chance to use my 3D interests in real productions. In some productions we mixed both 2D and 3D with real life scenes.
Live TV Lottery show - using Direct3D
Since 2000 I have worked with DirectX - and especially Direct3D - at several occasions. In the autumn of 2003 - while at Blu Productions - I was given the task of creating the animated graphics for a live lottery show - called Boxen, broadcast live every sunday on Danish TV (DR1) since janury 2004. I recommended using Direct3D - the Microsoft platform for 3D graphics, especially intended for the game community, and the lottery-software was developed in Visual Basic.
Grab from Boxen - the number is animated onto the screen and to its position on the board
The numbers drawn are generated by officials at Danske Spil A/S( (who also handles the sale and administration of lottery-coupons) and imported into the Boxen-3D application as an XML-document, driving the execution of the TV production.
The Direct3D frames are rendered at 50 fps and transferred as fields (by a memory-copy subroutine programmed by Christopher Jacobsen) to a Bluefish444 graphics-adapter with proffesional SDI output for highest quality.
Boxen host Hilda Heick, keyed on a Direct3D generated background
Watch this video with an example of a Boxen show.
Colour Company (1993 - 1996)
In 1993 Kirsten Skytte Jensen and I started Colour Company.
We specialized in digital postproduction of different types of animation. We scanned all the animations into computers, painted them, added line-colour, lighting, camera-motions (zoom, pan, tilts, etc) and a variety of digital effects, after which each frame was transferred to 35mm film or video. All done on software developed in-house. For a long period, most animated commercials in Denmark came through Colour Company?s production-facilities.
The examples shown here were productions for Colour Company's biggest customer - A. Film, Copenhagen, the largest animation studio in Scandinavia.
Jungle Jack (Jungledyret Hugo)
The biggest project, Colour Company participated in, was 'Jungle Jack 2 ? The Movie Star' (Jungledyret Hugo 2), at which point the company had grown to 10 people. We had also been part of the first Jungle Jack feature, but not to the same extent.
Help I'm a Fish. Click here to see a tiny Quicktime clip from the pilot
One of the most challenging projects we did was the pilot for the feature film Help I'm a Fish, which was released in the autumn of 2000. In this production there was a lot of 3D and special effects, some of which we had to develop new software for, just days before it was needed in production: This included software for making animated, underwater-ripples on 2D-layers and software for making substances glow, and so on.
When Life Departs
In 1996 I was in charge of postproduction on 'When Life Departs'. This production told the childrens view on death and loss, and was nominated for an Oscar (Academy Award) in the category Best animated short. The director, Karsten Kiilerich, wanted the film to look like it was hand drawn on coloured paper: This gave him the means to signal different moods in the different colours chosen.
Commercials for TV and cinema
During the three years with Colour Company, many productions consisted of animated commercials for film and TV.
Frame from Bikuben-commercial
In Colour Company, we developed a lot of software for different purposes. Our main developing platform was Watcom C, but we also used Visual Basic and sometimes Turbo Pascal. As an example we developed a special ink-effect software, where every line in every drawing was automaticall given its own colour depending on the fill-colour, it surrounded, with rules for what colours were to overrule which and in what situations.
Frame from Bikuben-commercial
Frame from Bikuben-commercial
One of the animated TopDanmark-commercials
3D animation
Below are some images from 3D animations that I have made - mainly in 3D Studio and 3DS Max.
Scene from a 3D animated Suntop commercial. The animation was done in the old 3D Studio r3
Closeup on Suntop-carton
Scene modelled in 3DS Max and rendered using Lightscape
A glas with reflectionmaps
Building without textures, rendered with Lightscape
I made this model in 3D Studio Max as a sketch to work out composition and colourscheme for a real painting on canvas
VRML
In 1996 I delved into VRML which is a fully interactive, web-based 3D language, perfectly suited for making animated interactive/immersive presentations and visualizations. Unfortunately VRML never reached the popularity it deserves. VRML is - in my opinion - one of the most fascinating areas on the web: Imagine beeing able to design 3D scenes and animate them - making them interactive to users!
An important milestone for VRML was Siggraph 96 in New Orleans, where I participated for a week, to learn all I could about this great language. I also met some of the initiaters, among them Mark Pesce.