Gonna be a hot time in the (deeply poorly conceived) virtual town tonight:

Some cool making-of details:

The results look so realistic that they could almost be stop-motion. “I built a big virtual set, I guess, is how you could describe it,” he said. “The characters are like stop-motion marionettes in a way; they have joints to the arms and the knees and all of that, and controllers.” He then used a low-budget motion-capture process — a D.I.Y. version of Hollywood’s green screens and Ping-Pong-ball suits — using the XBox Kinect and special software. “It sees you doing the motions you want the character to do, and then you can transfer that to the animation so you can transfer that onto your characters,” he said. He considered having a giant robot attack Cardboard City, and then settled on fire: that looked kind of cool, too.

[YouTube][Via]

#BobRossIsABoss—weirdly brilliant! Kottke writes,

As a fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Micah Sherman and Mark Stetson produced a web series called The Bob Ross Challenge in which 13 comedians attempt to paint along with Bob Ross as he does his thing with the trees and little fluffy clouds. Here’s the first episode, featuring Aparna Nancherla:

[YouTube]

Wanna feel old? Illustrator’s gradient meshes debuted 20 f’ing years ago, and the challenge of using them effectively is attested to by the age of images made with them. Now, though, it seems Adobe’s putting a more accessible interface atop similar-looking tech:

Traditional linear or radial gradients can limit your flexibility, while gradient meshes can have a steep learning curve. The new gradient feature lets you create rich blends of colors that seemingly diffuse naturally into each other.

Check it out (as I hope we’ll all be able to do hands-on this fall):

[YouTube]

Fore-edge painting renders a scene on the edges of the pages of a book, and Martin Frost might be the last remaining professional fore-edge painter in the world. Here’s a peek at his vanishing craft:

Dating back centuries, the delicate art form places intricate scenes on the side of books, cheekily hidden beneath gold gilded pages. The beautiful paintings are only visible to the trained eye, but once you unlock the secret, you’ll find pure magic.

[YouTube] [Via]

I enjoy crapping on pointlessly voice-driven apps, but in this case Google’s Poster Maker—a demo for how Assistant can control devices—is so gleefully silly, I can dig it:

[YouTube]

My 8-year-old and 42-year-old selves just high-fived & it was glorious. Oh my God, I am so here for this. Check out the animation below & the making-of thread here.

 

In progress: Capturing Donald Glover dance in This Is America video. Using Macintosh SE computer, MacPaint software & MacroMind software. Currently: 375 frames.

A post shared by Pinot W. Ichwandardi (@pinot) onJul 4, 2018 at 4:18pm PDT

[Via Alex Powell]