Making sheep view 360 #wewantgooglestreetview


THE FIRST 360 FILM

HELLO YOU GUYS. The first Sheep View footage is up and ready! I have already uploaded some of the best 360 pictures to Google Street View, so now you can take the tour for yourself. Just click the link below and you will be taken straight to the beautiful Faroe Islands. Isn’t that cool?! David is currently working on a way to fix the problem we have with getting the sheep and camera back. You won’t believe the weird things that are hidden in David’s shack! I hope that he finds a solution. STAY TUNED. DURITA : )

– See more at: http://visitfaroeislands.com/sheepview360/first-360-film/#sthash.Vho3wHQ1.dpuf

#wewantgooglestreetview www.sheepview360.com

#VisitFaroeIslands
#FaroeIslands
#weWantGoogleStreetview
#Sheepview360

GEIST


A shipwrecked fisherman is led to a dark secret within this short thriller. This film was supported by the Frameworks scheme. A big thank you to IFB, RTE & BAI for their continual support of the Frameworks scheme and their overall support for Animation in Ireland. We’d also like to thank Enterprise Ireland and their CSF fund that allowed us to build the tools & technology that we needed to create this film. Finally, a massive thank you to all the crew who worked on this film and helped us get it over the line. Winner Best Animated Sequence – Galway Film Fleadh Winner Best Cinematography – Spark Animation Festival Winner Best Irish Short Film – Audi Dublin International Film Festival Official selection – Dingle International Film Festival Nomination & International Premiere at SXSW Winner of Best Animation – Irish Film & Television Academy awards Official selection for Animafest Zagreb Winner of Best Animation – Fastnet Film Festival Official selection for Palm Springs Official selection for Odense International Film Festival Official selection for Badalona Film Festival Official selection for Milano Film Festival Directed by Alex Sherwood, Ben Harper and Sean Mullen. Produced by Daniel Spencer. Post Production and Sound Service by Mutiny Post, Dublin. Voice Actors: Cormac O’Sullivan, Remy Purtill. Production Executive: Emma Scott Executive Producer for RTE: Pauline McNamara Head of Film and International Arts for the Arts Council: Fionnuala Sweeney Shorts Co-ordinator for the Irish Film Board: Jill McGregor This film was funded by Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board, Raidio Teilifís Éireann/RTÉ, the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland/BAI

Rose is the Apple of My Eye


ROSE IS THE APPLE OF MY EYE The magic of skateboarding isn’t going further or faster or even higher. Those are physical feats that the mind automatically gravitates towards, when learning a new skill. Fluidity is skateboarding’s power and allure—the ability to physically interact with your environment in completely new ways and adapt to anything. Every time you step on a skateboard, no matter what your age, race, sex, or even physical capabilities are, you have a unique opportunity to do something that’s never been done before. 
 If you embrace that side of skateboarding, New York City is one of the most expansive palettes to create on, despite Manhattan being less than 23 square miles. For Aaron Herrington, it wasn’t his home state of Oregon or California—skateboarding’s de facto capital—where he became a professional skateboarder, but it was in the Five Boroughs of New York, where he found himself, while nursing a serious injury. That unspoken power, hidden on every block how NYC became the apple of his eye. 
 At only 26-years-old, Herrington’s body of work has already proved that you don’t have to be from the East Coast to be an East Coast Skateboarder, just as you don’t have to be born in NYC, to be a New Yorker. And most importantly, in a city that’s constantly changing, there are infinite opportunities to do something new, every time you leave your doorstep. 
 If you’d seen his Static IV part or his skating in Pontus Alv’s most recent skate film, I like it here inside my mind, please don’t wake me this time., you’ll immediately understand Herrington’s skateboarding. It taps into the spontaneous freedom that’s made Video Days such a beloved moment in skateboarding, as much as it’s a continuation of the street discipline, captured by Dan Wolfe in Eastern Exposure 3: Underachievers. It’s anywhere, anytime, anyhow, and once you embrace that ever-evolving mindset, you can adapt that credo wherever skateboarding takes you. For Herrington, 2015 took him across the world, for the Converse CONS “One Star World Tour,” but it’s the way he taps into New York City’s energy that best displays his power, finesse, and boundless energy. If you’re steeped in East Coast skateboarding, you want to see Ricky Oyola crush the streets of Philadelphia, Bobby Worrest expanding on the history of marble and granite Pulaski in DC, Freddy Gall ripping crusty spots in New Jersey, and Herrington is an extension of that family tree, most firmly rooted in New York.   For some skaters, it takes a while to form who they are. Years are spent building up a foundation, before their personality truly shines through. Limbs need to fully extend, muscles need to rip and reform stronger, and an eye for spots needs to be gained. In many ways, Herrington’s skateboarding is freakishly mature, without attempting to be so. There’s a natural flow to his skating, that, like his personality is never forced. There’s no pretension, just the pure love of riding a skateboard and sharing that commonality with anyone down for the cause. And yes, part of that cause is donuts, because, again, shit just isn’t that serious and it shouldn’t be. 
 Herrington, along with an entire generation of skateboarders, is part of a shift in the documentation of skating, where every one with a board and a camera can shape what’s seen on their social media accounts. For decades, even the most photographed pros were only depicted in what? 20… 25 photographs a year? That’s a sliver of coverage compared to the real time, always on documentation of today. Part of the soul of “Rose Is the Apple of My Eye,” is stepping back into the essence and preciousness of a filmer and skater, working to create a body of work together—one of purpose and intent, standing as art, not content in the digital world. 
 This is Aaron Herrington framed through photographer Pep Kim’s eye. Like Herrington, Kim’s not from New York, but something about East Coast skateboarding—the mindset, the lifestyle, the weather, and the purity—infected him six years ago, since leaving his home in Korea. It’s more than photographing a trick, it’s the relationship between the skater, the obstacle, and the one documenting it, which becomes a symbiotic trinity—all parts equal, creating the whole. This is how I want to see skateboarding and this is how i want to see New York, cracks, scars, flaws, and all, because those imperfections equal a perfection that’s best captured and appreciated, rather than explained.   by Anthony Pappalardo

HINDS – WARTS


Directed by Pedro Martín-Calero

An Idiot Abroad 2 – Pilko Pants (FULL)


An Idiot Abroad 2 – Episode 8

Karl’s new invention – The Pilko Pump Pants (on the Shopping Channel)

FULL CLIP

I do not own this. For entertainment purposes only.

Shark!

Lively1

The Shallows has some amazing CG shark visuals, but you’d expect that with Important Looking Pirates on board, as well as VFX supervisor Scott E Anderson. I talked to Scott for this new piece on One Perfect Shot.

Money spinning app ‘Pokemon Go’ to rake in more money through Ads

With each passing day, the Pokemon Go fad seems to be on the rise and the game’s developer Niantic CEO John Hanke in a recent interview with Business Insider has revealed that new features along with bi-weekly updates were coming to the augmented reality app. But it has come to light that not only the new updates but Pokemon Go will be home to advertisements as well.

The app has been steer clear of ads up until now, however, it will soon be seen within the app in the form of sponsored locations. Pokemon Go will offer retailers and other companies the option to sponsor locations, and advertisers would pay Niantic based on the number of visits they receive as a result of the game.

This is something that is not new for Niantic which had similar sponsorship deals with retailers like Duane Reade, Jamba Juice, and Zipcar for its other augmented reality game Ingress. Just at the initial day of release, Nintendo’s share price increased by 10 per cent, adding a value worth $7.5 billion to market value of Nintendo.

Pokemon Go’s advertising platform will allow partners to pay in order to have Pokemon appear in a specific location. Several analysts have seen this as a significant move by Niantic and Nintendo to rake in money through paid advertising and paid deals to encourage players to come to a particular place, for example a mall and a restaurant where players could spend time and catch Pokemons.

It’s actually a brilliant way to further monetise the game, and it doesn’t necessarily interfere with the user experience at all. Pokemon Go makes the bulk of its revenue by selling virtual goods as in-app purchases, but a sponsored location program could add a huge second revenue stream if the app manages to maintain its popularity.

Pokemon Go Squirtle

Launched last week in the USA, Australia and New Zealand markets, the game is all set to soon debut in the Asian and European markets starting with Germany and UK. Hanke has said the company is doing all it can to stabilise the servers before the global rollout. Pokemon Go within just 24 hours of its launch became one of the most popular games and is on track to soon become bigger than photo sharing app Snapchat, possibly in the next couple of days having an active user base of 21 million in the USA alone and having a daily time spent of more than 30 minutes, thus overtaking Facebook’s 22 minutes.

SurveyMonkey Intelligence firm which reports on the mobile industry has released a report which says that the game is the biggest mobile game in the history of USA. But according to the data provided by the company, the game has a long way to go before it comes to the time spent in the game by the users. The 30 minute mark for Pokemon Go is far less than strategy game Game of War which is nearly 2 hours of total daily usage for the average user, while Candy Crush Saga, sees daily usage of about 43 minutes.

All said and done, there is the question of how sustainable is the game in the long run? The first game from Nintendo’s stable Miitomo was topping the Apple charts when it debuted on the app store but has since vanished in thin air. Pokemon Go has the prominent brand ‘Pokemon’ attached to it and a huge number of users who are already the fan of the franchise, making it easy for such large scale recognisability. However, issues have already started cropping for the players in the sense that top players are dominating the gyms making it difficult for casual players to advance and enjoy the entire mechanics of the game. The balance of the game between hardcore vs casual gamers has gone for a toss. But Hanke has said that soon one-on-one battles and trading of Pokemons will settle the issue.

The post Money spinning app ‘Pokemon Go’ to rake in more money through Ads appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Hasbro finally has an animation facility of its own with the acquisition of Boulder Media

Were you still in the dilemma that Hasbro had an animation studio of its own? The company responsible for creating My Little Pony and Transformers toy franchise never had an in-house toon facility of its own, but now the scenario has changed.

Hasbro has now acquired the Irish animation studio Boulder Media which is known for its work for Disney Channel’s Wander Over Yonder and Cartoon Network’s Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.

Ae6HXtPMFollowing the acquisition, Boulder will begin producing animated projects for Hasbro’s best-known brands, which include My Little Pony and Transformers, as well as Play-Doh, Monopoly and Clue, among others.

Boulder will maintain its name and keep its brand separate from Hasbro. Boulder Media, founder, Robert Cullen and his team will report to Hasbro’s chief content officer Stephen Davis. “As one of the largest independent studios producing animation in Hollywood, the time is right for Hasbro to acquire its own animation studio, allowing us to expand our animation and storytelling capabilities even further,” said Davis.

“With Boulder, we will deliver the highest quality animation that will engage our audiences with deep storytelling and great characters in a very cost-efficient manner,” said Hasbro, chairman-CEO, Brian Goldner.

Boulder Media was started in 2000 by Robert Cullen. The company is known for key animated projects like The Amazing World of Gumball and also the 2015 series of Danger Mouse.

Amazing Gumball

The post Hasbro finally has an animation facility of its own with the acquisition of Boulder Media appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Valve seeks to put a stop to third party gambling sites

There have been recent controversies where two reports were filed against Valve accusing them of being beneficiaries from the third party gambling site facilitated by their digital platform Steam. Steam allows users to trade in-game items from games like Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and Dota 2, where real money is also involved. According to a data analysis firm, it was projected that bets would have made around $7.4 billion by the end of this year.

Recently, two popular eSports YouTubers, Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin and Tom ‘ProSyndicate’ Cassell were revealed to be connected to a third party CS:GO site named CSGO Lotto, which they promoted through allegedly rigged YouTube videos.

CS GO WEAPONS

But now, Valve’s Erik Johnson has released a statement in an attempt to clarify their part in the whole controversy and how these sites are violating Steam’s agreements:

“In 2011, we added a feature to Steam that enabled users to trade in-game items as a way to make it easier for people to get the items they wanted in games featuring in-game economies.

Since then a number of gambling sites started leveraging the Steam trading system, and there’s been some false assumptions about our involvement with these sites. We’d like to clarify that we have no business relationships with any of these sites. We have never received any revenue from them. And Steam does not have a system for turning in-game items into real world currency.

These sites have basically pieced together their operations in a two-part fashion. First, they are using the OpenID API as a way for users to prove ownership of their Steam accounts and items. Any other information they obtain about a user’s Steam account is either manually disclosed by the user or obtained from the user’s Steam Community profile (when the user has chosen to make their profile public). Second, they create automated Steam accounts that make the same web calls as individual Steam users.

Using the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements. We are going to start sending notices to these sites requesting they cease operations through Steam, and further pursue the matter as necessary. Users should probably consider this information as they manage their in-game item inventory and trade activity.”

Even Twitch has taken the recent turn of events into consideration and has barred any sort of third party gambling content to be streamed on their channels.

The post Valve seeks to put a stop to third party gambling sites appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Is ‘Pokemon Go’ riding the post-release hype train? Here’s what the Indian gaming industry has to say

Since its release on 6 July, the pocket monsters managed to grab attention of each and every possible publication across the globe. Right from the day of its release, it managed to create a hype which made me wonder what’s the fuss all about as Pokemon Go is yet to officially set its foot in India. Eventually after doing some research (which was not really hard, given it was everywhere), I found out that Niantic was (is) probably just running the initial trial in some countries, given the maturity of the audience’s acceptance for a newly launched game. But this did not stop the Pokemon enthusiasts from downloading the game through the APK file from other regions.

While I joined the bandwagon to catch Pokemons in order to faintly experience one of the most fantastic and alluring universes of my childhood, the global milieu was getting bombarded by news related to Pokemon Go. Some showed their support, some raised questions and some rested their case with speculations of ‘what could be’.

Albiet, it was needless to say, Pokemon Go has definitely created an identity already, or is it just the initial post-release hype? That would indeed be a tough question to answer as the game has not even launched officially here, at least. While thoughts regarding the game pondered my mind, I reached out to the Indian gaming industry personnels to get some perspective of what they feel about the game.

“I think the game will continue creating news because of the Pokemon fan following. Every game serves a different purpose, so Pokemon Go has its own purpose and its own place. Currently, I am playing other games as well but my motive to play this game is not to sit in a place, it’s more like collecting them from places around me. The target audience here is not the ones who play Teen Patti, but the ones who are into pop culture and I am assuming that all of them have a smart phone with a 3G connection. So it might not be a long term activity, it’s more like I am going out to a shop so I might as well play Pokemon Go,” said Lucid Labs, creator, Chirag Chopra.

However, Dropout Games, co-founder, Ankush Madad seems to have another story to tell. “I have been playing the game for about four days and boy-oh-boy! The game feels awesome. I have gone out at three in the night, walked two to three kilometers, just to try and catch those rare Pokemons, increase the number of Pokemons in my list and to hatch the egg.”

Pokemon Go india

“Pokemon user base has been around for long and has an active user base, and this is something people wanted for so many years. When I watched Pokemon on television almost a decade ago, first thing that popped into my mind was that even I want to do something like this and be in this world. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

Will it attract everyone? I don’t think so. It might manage to attract some people who are not familiar with the universe. As far as others are concerned, it won’t really matter as Pokemon already has a strong user base who have been playing Pokemon based games from Nintendo since a long time.”

When asked about how the game will fair in India, Madad asserted his views saying, “I tried catching some Pokemons at night but the ones that I caught didn’t get registered due either connectivity or server issues. In India, it will only work in Metro cities where 3G connectivity is proper.”

Indeed the game might face some issues running in India given frequent connectivity issues, thus it might just be more popular in more developed areas, and the same was expressed by 99Games, AVP Operations, Anila Andrade.

But as we talk more and more about Pokemon Go, a topic that draws our attention is the comparison of VR with AR. With all the hype of VR technology bringing in a revolution, does Pokemon Go’s success go on to prove that Augmented Reality (AR) is the future and not Virtual Reality (VR)?

A good VR device comes at a pretty steep price right now whereas for AR games, you just need a smartphone, making it more feasible for a user. To get a clearer perspective, we spoke to Smartvizx, head of virtual reality, Chandan Singh.

“It depends as both have their own pros and cons. VR has a very specific user base, it is not something that you will use in the day to day life, thus AR will have a better penetration.”

So, the audience that’s already niche for both the genres is different and they serve other purposes, but can a VR game create the same excitement that Pokemon Go has done with AR?

“It’s hard to sell something this huge unless you have an IP like Pokemon and people have been looking for a Pokemon game on mobile for years,” said Singh.

Pokestops

We also spoke to Dhruva Interactive, CEO, Rajesh Rao on his views about the game’s scope in India.
“Firstly, the game has not been launched in India, so we don’t know what Nintendo’s plans are for launching it over here. I would guess that they would launch these games in a phased manner in mature markets and will be careful about providing a good, clean user experience and also think about the ROI (return on investment) after investing in all the technology.

India is already exposed to Pokemon in the form of TV series and trading cards fame. So, if you bring a Pokemon game, they will definitely play it. But then again, it’s a game that requires a lot of infrastructure, so they might take an extremely phased approach for the launch.”

Speaking on the competition between VR and AR, Rao stated, “I think both have their own USPs, but it’s like watching a movie on a big screen and watching a movie at home, so there is a value to both those experiences. Like AR can be accessed with just a smartphone with a camera but it cannot provide the immersive experience that VR does.”

Finally, we can conclude one thing. VR and AR, both have their own exclusive perks and shine in different areas of interests.

While taking over the world by storm, Pokemon Go must have inspired a lot of developers to follow suit and create a game embellished with AR technology, can we expect games with AR technology from Indian indie studios?

“Yes, maybe in the future,” says Anila Andrade, as does Rao, saying that it will definitely be an inspiration for a lot of indie Indian studios to plug in AR into their games.

Madad has some other views on this subject, as he says, “I don’t think so. Indian developers have not caught up on much of VR and this is something far superior in terms of technical feat. In terms of development, I don’t think people will take this up as people are still fixated on getting money out of games of inferior quality and the ones who actually want to try don’t have the resources.”

While it would be very hard to predict how the indigenous studios will react and follow the recent trend, Pokemon Go has definitely created a buzz even in the Indian industry with no one mincing their praises for it and they believe that given the popular IP Pokemon is, the game will continue getting a strong following. We will have to wait for the formal launch of the game in India and see the results for ourselves.

The post Is ‘Pokemon Go’ riding the post-release hype train? Here’s what the Indian gaming industry has to say appeared first on AnimationXpress.