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    Keeping an eye on the competition

    on April 6th, 2010, by William

    A while ago, something strange happened while working on Sintel. A trailer was released for a movie called How to Train Your Dragon, with a very similar theme to what we’re working with. Strange how that happens, eh? I guess dragons are just the ‘in’ thing these days. Apparently we are at the mercy of trends too.

    Anyway, the film was recently released here in the Netherlands, and so we went to watch it in IMAX 3D. Admittedly, we were actually blown away by its awesomeness. Crikey! These facial expressions sum up our reactions to the film – a mix between being awed and scared at the same time.

    51 Responses to “Keeping an eye on the competition”

    1. Pablo Vazquez Says:

      my favorite: Epic Ben

      simply epic.

    2. Davis Says:

      Seeing the trailer, it looked like junk tbh, just another Dreamworks animation- If the Durian team really likes it that much I’m definitely seeing it though.

    3. Virgilio Says:

      Yeah… I’d be freakin’ scared too! That movie is amazing!

      But you guys also are. Sintel will also turn out great. πŸ™‚

    4. MadSquirrel Says:

      Look like someone walked on Ben’s foot when you took the picture πŸ˜‰

    5. jesse.h Says:

      im not a fan of dreamworks films … well their 3d films anyway. im more of a pixar man. can’t wait for sintel πŸ™‚

    6. tyrant monkey Says:

      @Davis I posted about this movie on blenderartist and nobody replied trust me the trailers suck and really do this movie a great injustice this is Dreamworks best movie.

      Its gotten about 98% on rotten tomatoes you won’t regret seeing it. The have used the Disney standard of One lead per character and it shows its beautifully animated and kicks the stuffing out of anything Pixar have done since The incredibles.

    7. William Says:

      Jesse.h: Yup, so are we, but Dreamworks seem to be improving. Kung Fu Panda and this film are good, enjoyable films, unlike their earlier stuff. In my humble opinion of course πŸ˜‰

    8. D Says:

      Is it too late to sponsor for stereoscopic Sintel? We need the edge! πŸ˜€

    9. Angel Says:

      Yeah! guys, you can do it! Dragons are in fashion.
      I’ll be waiting for Sintel.

    10. JoOngle Says:

      I’d love a Stereoscopic rendering of sintel, in fact – it should be done, as this year is the YEAR OF 3D TELEVISIONS, they’re popping up all over the place right now – and the biggest problem they face…

      …is lack of Material – yet another chance for your teams to SHINE! If the Blu Ray can conform to the Blu-Ray 3D standard just released, then we’re all a head of the game, consider it!

      About the movie, went to see it in 3D too yesterday (still have the glasses…useless at home…for now…he he, we’ll think of something). The story was really nice, and I had to struggle to hold back the tears :/

      It also nice that it didn’t have a classic Disney ending where absolutely everything is perfect, the dragon had a flaw (spoiler coming up) and the boy got one too… that was a nice touch.

      Good luck with the work boys, I have a feeling you’re presenting us with the most awesome work yet! :o)

    11. Davis Says:

      @tyrant Yeah trailers can really have nothing to do with the actual movie, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” had a crappy trailer but the movie was awesome, my favorite of 2009 (I still have to catch up on movies made last year, like Avatar! lol).

      I have to disagree with you on the second point however, I found WALLβ€’E to be one of my favorite movies, ever. It’s what got me into 3D.

      Kung Fu Panda was certainly a step forwards for Dreamworks but Monsters vs. Aliens was a very confusing step backwards, and you’d hardly think it was made after KFP. I couldn’t connect with any of the characters and the animation was roughly on the same line as Planet 51. The voice acting, I won’t even go there. :/

    12. acro Says:

      Ooh, good reviews, I shall have to go see it…
      But… are Nathan and Colin really that happy at the film, or just delighted to be let out of the studio for a few hours? πŸ˜›

    13. Davis Says:

      Also, what kind of camera does the Institute use?

    14. devroo Says:

      Its great movie because its from Lilo & Stitch authors, nobody noticed Stitch face on main dragon in movie ?

    15. blenderman345 Says:

      Pixar usually outs the major super hits.
      Sony puts out junk. Planet 51 was ok, the story idea was cool, but they didn’t execute it right. Cloudy with a chance of meatballs? $1, and 2 hours of my life wasted.
      Dreamworks? As a spanish person would say, ‘masomenos’. Kung Fu Panda as William said, was good, Shreks, I can’t speak for because I’ve never seen any [all eyes turn and stare at me… Just haven’t taken the time peoplez]. Over the Hedge was great, [just looked, Shrek 4 and Kung Fu Panda 2 are coming out respecively 2010, 2011] Madacasgar was awesome.
      But in truth, the next movie I’m waiting for is Ice Age 4. All of Blue Sky’s films with the exception of Ice Age 3, have been great.

    16. blenderman345 Says:

      And of course, Sintel. πŸ™‚

    17. Filipe Soares Dilly Says:

      The dad of the kid on the movie is one of the most awesome CG characters I ever saw. =)

    18. Paulo Bardes Says:

      Just curious, do you used a digital-reflex camera to take the pictures???

    19. Taylee Says:

      baaaad move, posting another picture of colin πŸ˜›

    20. Taylee Says:

      baaaad move, posting another picture of colin πŸ˜› if you see what happened to the last one πŸ™‚

    21. Alkalim Says:

      I would really like Sintel to become a 3D movie (it is already, of course, but I mean Stereoscopic rendering). I’ve always searched for a feature in Blender that allows me to use 2 cameras simultaneously, but I never found that.

      Blender 2.6 is in development – Time to build in Stereoscopic rendering and with that to keep track with modern cinema’s and film industry’s developments.

      I love to keep track with this amazing and ambitous project anyway!

    22. Daniel Wray Says:

      How to train your dragon is an epically good film, Dreamworks are really improving. I’d advise anyone who is even slightly interested to go see it.

      *I actually enjoyed it more than most Pixar films!*

    23. Davis Says:

      In keeping with tradition: http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/9692/colinlight.jpg πŸ˜€

    24. Becca(RedJay) Says:

      More lololololololol William, can I pick your brain for taking rofl pics? πŸ˜›

    25. lsscpp Says:

      Ok, i can’t speak of “how to train” since i’ve not seen it yet, but let me just say Pixar ROCKS. Every flick from those guys is so special and has its shiny, unique points.
      Anybody can say what is their movie that didn’t “work”, and why?

    26. rogper Says:

      Although is not a fair comparation (since one is hand animated and the other uses “performance capture”) but even so I liked more “How to train your Dragon” then Avatar… Avatar is technically stunning, but I felt allot more in the movie in “HTTYD” and the 3D look better in my opinion.
      One thing very cool was the body fur in all characters.

    27. you realized they are nothing compared to Says:

      look

      you realized they are nothing compared to

    28. kram1032 Says:

      It’s very interesting for me to read those comments about the preferences of certain movies.

      For instance, I found Ice Age 3 to be the best of the three, while Ice Age 2 was rather weak.

      While The incredible was, well, incredible, certain later films, like the mentioned Wall-E where actually even better.

      KungFu Panda to me was rather weak. The plot lagged a lot and the jokes wheren’t the funniest either.

      Most really great 3D movies do indeed come from Disney, but there also are other movies in the very high ranks. How to train a dragon definitely is one of them. – I also liked a lot, how they used the 3D-effects πŸ™‚
      Neiter overused nor a waste of money.

    29. Maya Says:

      Dont mess with Ben http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/3356/ben2c.png

    30. sid350 Says:

      There are no 3D cinemas in my hometown. Is it worth to go for 1300 kilometres, to another city, to see this movie in 3D?

    31. Maya Says:

      http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/6631/colinbond.png

      Im still waiting for Angela as bondgirl πŸ˜€

    32. toontje Says:

      I used to be a Pixar fan. But allas, their last good movie was the Incredibles. Everything after that was merely beautifully rendered crap with the forced Disney happy ending. Pixar used to make memorable films, now they seem only to make OK films.

      Dreamworks big on the other hand is improving randomly. I was disappointed that the Panda lost to Wall-e, or was it the rat? I will certainly go watch how to train your dragon. I hope that Dreamworks has any dignity left and just dump the upcoming Shrek in the trash bin. Just format the project discs. For the rest everything else except the first Shrek that Dreamworks made was crap too.

      I think anything that is artist driven (instead of the board of CEO’s, like what they did to Ant Bully) will turn out a success. And that’s why I think Sintel will kick ass too.

    33. nawabz Says:

      nathans face needs more sample on the defocus node.

    34. mbue Says:

      “How to Train Your Dragon” is pretty entertaining and fun to watch, I was pleasantly surprised.
      (Not so much by the mediocre 3D theatre I was in :-/ could easily do without that.)
      The movie had a pretty original story (as far as dragon movies go) and – surprise – no talking animals.
      Also: The music was pretty epic πŸ˜‰

    35. J. Says:

      Talking about music, isn’t it possible to use some fysical music instruments for the score of Sintel?
      I assume Jan Morgenstern has enough contacts to make this true!
      This movie deserves more than a fully computer-generated score, don’t you think?

      The score of How to Train Your Dragon is simply fantastic, use it as inspiration!
      I got an enormous happy feeling when I heard it for the first time, that’s something that seldom happens to me!

    36. 3pointedit Says:

      I did warn you in the last post… sweet story, less than famous voice talent helped (although lots of scottish/shrek sounding vikings!).
      What was overlooked was the hair/skin renders, O.M.G! I was stunned how beautiful they were, anyone notice the lead character’s little scar on the chin?
      The face deform was a bit to subtle for an animated movie IMHO but the eyes were great.
      Can’t wait to see the renders in Sintel tho’. I know they will kick a**.

    37. Bao2 Says:

      There are two photos with Nathan. Now we can do an animated gif !!!

    38. Fabrix Says:

      http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/9433/nathan.gif πŸ˜›

    39. kram1032 Says:

      3pointedit: Ah, good to know. So in the English version, they have a Scottish accent πŸ™‚
      In the German version, they talk like in northern Germany πŸ™‚

    40. ben Says:

      crowline, I’m feeling the love on that one. Makes a cheery wallpaper! πŸ™‚

    41. Sockie Says:

      Need I say that Nathan totally rocks? The first one TOTALLY looks like Popeye.

    42. Josh Says:

      couldn’t pass it up
      http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff51/steve_d4_pirate/SuperBen.png?t=1270739109

    43. Another Fellow Says:

      Yours the most epic!

    44. Sean Says:

      Okay, I’m just starting to learn Blender, so bear with me and try not to groan too obviously.
      Can you, (a.) replace the camera with a token object that retains the position and orientation of the camera. (b.) tie the camera back to the token object so it points where the camera does. (c.) do it again, but with an offset. (d.) pass both sets of renders through a script to colorize them red and blue, and save them as single images?

    45. Sean Says:

      Oh, the above was in response to Alkalim from 2 days ago.

    46. Gwilwileth Says:

      I saw the film yesterday, and it is, I think, the best dreamworks ever ! =D

    47. TheANIMAL Says:

      Hahaha! This is the funniest comments selection i’ve read for a blog entry i’ve ever seen.

    48. crowline Says:

      apologies for the triple post up there, was having some trouble with comment submission seeming to fail… but… success in the end i guess.

      Nice one josh πŸ™‚

    49. Erwin Coumans Says:

      I got an invitation for a pre-screening of “How to train your dragon” at the PDI Dreamworks studios here in Redwood City. Now guess what open source rigid body simulator they are using in the movie πŸ™‚

    50. Another Fellow Says:

      Is it bullet???? XD

    51. Hartmut Says:

      Whow,

      looks fantastic …

      Is this Amsterdam, or am i wrong?

      Was in Amsterdam in the late 80s to visit a company called “modern medium”, they made a 3D-construction-system available for the ATARI called “Axis” and a Render-Software called “Render Star”. Eimar was the chief or one of the chief’s, had found sites about their move to USA, but never could send anything to them due to spam-software.