Our VFX wizard Mike Ritchie is responsible for this little 3D ditty in which Pixar’s beloved Luxo Jr. takes things just a little too far.  It’s so freakin’ awesome that Disney/Pixar even recommended it on their own Twitter account.

For the video, Mike started out using Maya for the modeling and then finished off the project using AfterEffects.  At this point, he would probably want me to talk about how hard he worked on it and how many sleepless nights he had.  However, I feel it more important to point out that I was the one who came up with the “UR A DCK” and “Bounce on THIS!” signs in the Media Frenzy scene.

After all, Gloo Studios is a team, and there’s no “I” in team.  Now, literally.  Because it’s dead.  Luxo Jr. killed it.  In this video.  Sorry if I ruined it for you.  Of course, it happens in the first ten seconds, so I don’t think I’m really ruining anything.  I think the thumbnail for the video also gives it away, so there’s really no need for me to apologize.

Anyhoo, I think what I’m trying to say is that Mike is awesome as always, and I’m still living in his shadow.  But I digress.  Here’s the video!  Enjoy!

UPDATE:  Check out the "making of" article that also announces Pixar Intro Parody's Webby nomination for Best Animation.

UPDATE:  Pixar Intro Parody has won the Webby Award for Best Animation as well as the People's Voice Award!

(WARNING:  Contains mature themes, including the murder of part of the English language)

It's not much, but we just finished graphics for a project parodying a video by Google to showcase their new chat program called Google Wave. We had to recreate all of the screens in the video. We did it by rebuilding everything in Adobe Illustrator as a vector image so that we could zoom into it without losing quality. We used the same technique for our videos We didn't Start the Flame War, Internet Distractions and MSN. It's a bit time consuming to rebuild everything, but in the end it pays off.

Enjoy!

***Warning! This video contains mature themes and one (written) bad word.

It’s funny cause creating the Visual FX for this one actually required us to purchase our own Hadron Collider. Do you have any idea how much the shipping costs alone were?! Well, once we had it hooked up and Maya was properly installed, this video really became a breeze.  Eyes blinking sideways... you don't really see that too often do you?  And that makes creating something like that actually really difficult.  To make the human body do something so unnatural you first have to take apart that part of the body (digitally of course!) and then rework a way that sideways blinking could feasibly happen, and then rebuild it all up from there.  Interesting stuff, right? I just feel smarter having the Hadron Collider kicking around the office. The windows open and this pesky breeze keeps threatening to blow my papers all out of order.  I need a paperweight or something. I'm going to go get me some dark matter.

Here it is!  One of College Humor’s biggest videos ever, “We Didn’t Start the Flame War”.  The animation and effects come courtesy of Gloo’s very own Mike Ritchie.  Don’t believe us?  Who do you think “Nabob?” is at the end of the video?  Yep!  You got it!  That’s just a fun little fact.  Here’s a couple more:

Mike had the unenviable task to make simple internet posts look visually stimulating and entertaining.  Well, he certainly rose to the task by using Adobe Illustrator to recreate every single web page from scratch so that he could zoom in and time out every movement just perfectly in AfterEffects.  That ROFL Copter gets me everytime!

Awesome!  “Gimme Some Mo’ ” by Shandar Gray just showed up in my iTunes shuffle.

(WARNING:  Contains mature themes, naughty language, and music inspired by Billy Joel)

OMG! OMG! OMG!  IT’S THE TRAILER FOR THE NEW “TWILIGHT” MOVIE!!!!!!  Well, not really, but this is based on a true story of what happens when you watch it.  Robert Pattinson is soooo dreamy.  He brings out the screaming teenage girl in me.

This is one of those absurdist comedy pieces that I personally love so much.  Effects were done by the fine folks here at Gloo Studios.  You may think they look cheesy, and that’s good because that was the point!  You see that window on the right hand side of the video?  ENTIRELY FAKE!  The toilet dude?  Didn’t really fall from the ceiling!  I’m not jiving you.  Seriously, I would never jive you.  That’s the kind of magic that we create here at Gloo everyday!

So, the next time you’re making a video and you need a shot of a guy falling from the ceiling while sitting on the toilet, give us a call!