Hasta La Motion!

Tinkle Comics art director Savio Mascarenhas completed a silver jubilee at the publication house. Mascarenhas’ journey started with Tinkle in 1991 as a freelance cartoonist. He started drawing single panel gags called See and Smiles.

He was working as a copywriter with an ad agency during that time. Pai, the editor and assistant editor Reena Puri showed a great amount of faith in his work, encouraging him to pursue drawing comics as his career.

Mascarenhas remembers the fond memories of joining Tinkle as a full time employee, he said, “I used to visit the office regularly to submit my work and then one day in the last week of December 1993, I walked in with a cake to wish Mr. Pai and the team a happy new year. He asked me if I was happy being a copywriter or did I like drawing comics. And I replied drawing is what interested me more. “I have a New Year’s gift for you, “he said, “Join us as a staff artist from the 2 January”. And that’s how I landed in a job of my dreams.”

Mascarenhas’ first break was drawing the characters from Mopes and Purr, a cat and dog detective duo who faught for the cause of animals in distress. He also created Janoo and Wooly Woo, moving on to the beloved Tantri the Matri. “I got my actual break in 1998-99 with illustrating the popular Shikari Shambhu after the original comic artist Halbe retired,” he recalls. Mascarenhas is currently working on the latest Super Suppandi.

Mascarenhas feels that Tinkle has seen a huge transition in terms of production over the years. The hand-drawn comics are been replaced with the digitised format. Storytelling has changed from simplistic to complex and layered plots. The characters have also evolved understanding the changing lifestyle and developments, also new characters like YogYodhas, Wingstar, NOIS, Big Baan (the new version of Kalia the Crow) are been added.

“VB Halbe, the original artist of Shikari Shambu, was no easy act to follow. It required someone full of quirks and childlike sense of fun like Savio to keep Shambu’s spirit alive for 25 long years and more,” said Tinkle editor-in-chief Rajani Tindiath.

For Mascarenhas these 25 years have been like living his dream and “I never saw it as a job; it is more of a passion. I have been fortunate to work with the best of writers and illustrators. I get to interact with children in schools across India who share their brilliant drawing and stories. And they are part of my huge Tinkle family.”

With this completion of illustrative 25 years, this is just one milestone in the journey of Mascarenhas and the comic fans would like to see this legacy going.

The post Art director Savio Mascarenhas completes 25 years with Tinkle Comics appeared first on AnimationXpress.

A handful of sports fans believe fantasy sports are those scoured box scores in newspapers which kept track of scoring by hand. Fantasy sports has faced a tumultuous decade before the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act (UIGEA) in 2006. Shortly after the passing of UIGEA, daily fantasy sports became marketable, and after several years, it has accounted for tremendous growth worldwide. However, the uncertainty of the legal terms and lack of knowledge among players has clouded the industry.

In fantasy sports, it is still a debate whether it is a ‘game of skill’ or the ‘game of luck’ and it is never-ending. The fantasy sports genre has received an exponential growth over the past few years as variations in the model might be one of the factors which kept the players engaged. In the genre there are two models which are offered by the operators, one is ‘free to play’ and another one is ‘pay to play’. In the free to play model, users can play free contests depending on the operator it may or may not have cash prizes associated with it. Whereas in pay to play users pay an entry fee to participate in paid contests where operator charge a service or platform fee of 15 to 25 per cent from the total pool before winnings disbursal.

The recent KPMG report, ‘the evolving landscape of sports gaming in India’ states that 2018 has witnessed seven times more growth in the number of fantasy sports operators in India. Apart from that, the number of fantasy sports users are increasing day by day as it witnessed 25 times growth in million from June 2016 till February 2019. There are many factors responsible for the growth of fantasy sports in India.

Growth in digital infrastructure: The digital infrastructure of the country has witnessed exponential growth. Some reasons behind such growth are – increasing smartphone affordability and penetration and expansion of the internet user base and declining of the data price. Thus according to the report, the internet subscribers grew from 368 million in September 2016 to 560 million in September 2018 which has helped fantasy sports gaming to penetrate in the digital gaming space smoothly and swiftly.

Rising investor participation: The fantasy sports gaming rose in popularity mark drastically over the years. One of the primary reasons behind it is that the platforms also offer content in vernacular languages which have increased the engagement numbers in a couple of years. Thus leaders from Tencent to Nazara are also investing in fantasy sports gaming. Around five to six early-stage investments have been made in this space over the past couple of years.

The emergence of sports leagues: According to the survey 72 per cent of the respondents consider fun and excitement of the sports fan is the primary reason which is driving the fantasy sports gaming in India. 74 per cent of the respondents play fantasy sports one to three times a week with the majority playing once a week. Since there is a wide audience in India and everyone has a distinct preference for the sports gaming thus, multiple sports leagues have sprung up in the recent past, including those for kabaddi, football, basketball and volleyball.

Enhanced clarity around legality: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has affirmed that fantasy sports game Dream11’s format as ‘a game of skill’ and not as a ‘game of luck’. As per the ruling of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in the case of ‘ Shri Varun Gumber in opposite to Union territory of Chandigarh and others in 2017 ‘ the element of skill’ is the predominant influence on the outcome of the Dream11 format of fantasy sports game. Although another appeal against the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s decision was filed in Supreme Court, it was dismissed by the court. This clarification of the legal status of the fantasy sports format as offered by Dream11 has helped in boosting the overall fantasy sports market in terms of a more significant number of platforms entering the market with similar setups and also leading to widespread user adaptation.

These factors are being cited as reasons on why the number of players has also emerged, along with the increasing number of platforms. As per February 2019 records, Dream11 is leading with a user base of around 50 million followed by MyTeam11, 11wickets maintaining the user base neck to neck with 10 million, StarPick 1.2 million, Fantain 1 million.

The post Factors that are driving fantasy sports growth in India appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Critical Role, a weekly live-streamed Dungeons & Dragons game featuring a group of prominent voice actors stars some talented actors. The team has launched a new campaign to bring The Legend of Vox Machina to life as an animated series, expected to debut in fall 2020.

The show will be co-written by the Critical Role team along with TV writer Jennifer Muro (Star Wars: Forces of Destiny, Spider-Man and Justice League: Action).

The animated series will go from a 22-minute special to an 88-minute epic, along with three Critical Role one-shots. Chris Prynoski‘s Titmouse, the animation production company behind the hits Big Mouth, The Venture Bros., Metalocalypse, Niko and the Sword of Light and Star Wars: Galaxy of Adventures will be handling the animation.

Voice actors Matthew Mercer, Liam O’Brien, Taliesin Jaffe, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey and Ashley Johnson will voice their fan-favourite characters, bringing their experience on shows as Teen Titans Go!, Ben 10, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Attack on Titan, Dragon Ball Z, Sofia the First, Avengers Assemble, DuckTales, Transformers, and many others.

Set in Exandria, the show’s fantasy world, The Legend of Vox Machina, features the seven-member band of loners who proceed on their first “grown-up” mission, pitting them against dangerous and legendary beasts — eventually transforming them into a band of adventurers called Vox Machina. “They will become heroes… if they don’t murder each other first,” according to Critical Role.

The post ‘Critical Role’ gets animated with ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’ series appeared first on AnimationXpress.

Cinema 4D’s Lead Developer talks about the now Academy Award-winning MoGraph toolset in C4D, which earned a Scientific and Technical Award.

Though the films themselves often take the spotlight during the Oscars, this celebration of achievement in production extends far beyond the last year’s movie releases. In addition to the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (A.M.P.A.S.) celebrates outstanding achievements with Scientific and Technical Awards.

We previously talked about Cinema 4D’s MoGraph tools earning a Scientific and Technical Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and since we have had the opportunity to talk with Maxon’s Cinema 4D Lead Developer Per-Anders Edwards about their achievement.

Here’s our conversation.

Per-Anders Edwards Interview

Per-Anders Edwards at the award ceremony. Image via Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S.

Michael Maher: Mr. Edwards. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’d like to start off with the basics. Can you first tell us about yourself?

Per-Anders Edwards: My name is Per-Anders Edwards.  I am the current lead developer and one of the designers of MoGraph for Cinema 4D.

I grew up in England, and I started my career basically working in events and corporate production for quite a few years. Eventually, I met my wife and decided to move to California.

After the move is when I really switched over to 3D. I’d been using computer graphics CG software before, however not as a full-time gig. So when I came here I decided to focus a bit more. Unfortunately, I moved just when Dot flop happened.

Michael: Perfect timing.

Per-Anders: Worst possible timing. I had a promise of a job with one of the design agencies, and of course they collapsed. So, I’m just like, ‘Oh crap, okay, better pick something up pretty fast.’

I’m not sure why I picked computer graphics at this point, but I just did. It was one of those things. Maybe I’d been inspired by all the movies, seen some Pixar stuff and all the rest of it around there. I thought web stuff was no longer something I can invest time in, because it’s not gonna get a return quickly. So, quick jump to something else.

At the time, there were lots of people who needed visualizations, tech visualizations or medical and corporate stuff. I started doing that with computer graphics. I’d already been using various applications, and for some reason I picked up on a series of websites where people started to talk about Cinema 4D.

I think it was [release] eight which was out, which to me was very familiar. I was looking at it and was going, well that timeline reminds me an awful lot of timelines I’ve used elsewhere. I was using it and I was thinking, you know what? I always assumed that the applications that I was already using were fast. But I found out that I was much faster in Cinema 4D. Its workflow just clicked with me.

I started to meet various people like David Farmer, who was part of a plugin development company who produced a famous series of shaders called Smells Like Almonds. Those shaders are now in Cinema 4D, they form the basis of much of our noise system.

I was learning [Cinema 4D] through the forums, sharing my experience and answering other people’s questions as a means to teach myself. That actually opened up the door for me. These people were producing plugins, and there are still some things which I’d like for Cinema 4D to do. So I started to learn to program.

Michael: That is fascinating. I also come from a production background which guided me here. I was in live production for quite some time, and spent many years as a video editor. My Cinema 4D skills were very limited very early on. I would be working on an edit and I might need some 3D titles or some graphics or something like that. Now that I’ve spent so much more time with the community recently, it just seems like so much of it stems out from this traditional corporate events world.

Per-Anders: Speaking of that sort of thing, I had that similar sort of situation except the production house I was in, we actually had a dedicated 3D department to do titling. But a lot of the time I was so naïve, I would just actually do that in Photoshop. I’d try and quickly make it because back then, it took some time to render, even these things.

Michael: I still recall my early edits before I even tried to do After Effects or anything I would just layer and layer and layer on top of my video timeline and then start animating through Final Cut. A very complicated process to get a little movement until I realized how much easier it could be when I actually sat down and learned the tools properly.

Per-Anders: Yeah, I think that’s a natural path in revelation for many people. You start out and master a single tool, and once you’ve mastered that you become very comfortable staying in that tool and not realizing that perhaps there are superior alternatives.

You have this one day where you’re like, okay, I’m going to give this other tool a try. That or it might be a single project where a client specifies you’ve got to use this tool because that is their in-house tool and everything’s got to work with it. You take on a job, and you pick up a tool, and after a short time you realize it’s actually much faster.

The fear of having to make a new pipeline that includes another tool is far bigger than actually doing it. Just making that first step is all it takes.

Michael: That’s a good segue. What was missing from your workflow that led to the development of MoGraph?

Per-Anders: MoGraph tools came about from my experiences in events, then later working on freelance jobs. As a freelancer, you’re always feeling rushed. You’re always feeling busy, and you shouldn’t. You should be able to step back, take your time, plan things out. Stepping back is probably the single most important thing I could suggest to any freelancer coming in. Stand back first, for five minutes, then make your first move.

I found I was doing a lot of stuff that required some technical level of proficiency in the application, but I didn’t ever have the time to do it on the job. When you’re on the job, you have scheduled so much time for modeling, this much time for texturing, this much time for rendering. I know that to get this rendering done, even with the render farm, it’s going to take X amount of hours.

It’s the same reason you don’t want learn another application, you realize you can do it easier [with the tools you know] but you’re making too much haste. You’re not really taking the time that you need, you’re not stepping back.

Terry Prach had this wonderful old maxim which was, ‘There’s the easy way and the hard way, and the difference is the hard way works.’

That’s basically it. That’s the approach. You’re always trying to do things the easy way, and you eventually find out that it’s more painful. It takes longer and gives you bigger a headache and you don’t get as nice a result.

Michael: Once artists started using MoGraph to step back and save some time, did you immediately see the tools being used in ways you hadn’t anticipated?

Per-Anders: I think that it’s been an ongoing process. People are still impressing me today with new stuff that they’re doing with this tool set which is now 13 years old, I think. And they’re doing amazing things that I’m like wow, really? How? That’s the ingenuity, that’s the beauty I think of motion graphic artists in particular. They’re kind of the grease monkeys of the CG world, they get their hands in there, get dirty and come out with these beautiful things and it’s really incredibly impressive.

I think people discover stuff, they go through an initial phase where they use presets essentially. Then from there they start to experiment further. You start to get more comfortable. Again, it comes back to that being comfortable with the tool. You become more and more comfortable to the point where oh I can do anything with the tool and that’s great, but that also means we’re now reaching perhaps the limits of where MoGraph is at this point.

Michael: How did that help MoGraph evolve to add new features?

Per-Anders: I think that one of the great things that Paul [Everett] and I did at the beginning was to make sure that Cinema 4D and MoGraph were very tightly interconnected. Pretty much anything added to the objects system and a lot of things that added to the shader system, they immediately become extensions of MoGraph. And I like that Cinema 4D, the idea that many things are tied together. You don’t have so many islands of features. You have a more coherent tool set.

I really feel like the strongest things, the things that I really felt were standout, were probably features like when the bullet dynamics were first introduced, which were done by Erwin. And that was something which I wanted for a long time and when we brought that out, that obviously opened a lot of gates. Because people wanted to do that already, but they were struggling with the previous dynamics system which wasn’t really geared up for dealing with motion graphics.

Another great release was the fracturing. Again, it was one of these features which was a long time coming, but it was so nice to see it in there and so powerful. I think the trouble is that I can go through every single release and say that made it so much better. Every single thing we create, adds to the motion graphics artist’s tool set.

MoGraph just happens to be a section of this, perhaps it’s not even a section, it’s maybe a heart around which many things might hang for a motion graphics artist. But at the same time, this is the whole package. The whole package to me is more and more powerful as a motion graphics tool set over the years.

Cinema 4D didn’t used to be motion graphics focused, none of the 3D apps did. With MoGraph we’re suddenly talking about motion graphics workflows, workflows for freelancers who want to direct large numbers of objects and not have to surrender the power over to a dynamics system.

MoGraph side steps that and gives artists direct control and that workflow perhaps, all of the workflows we added, they’re focused on some tasks, but largely on tools which are general purpose and designed to be honest, largely around my own laziness.

Michael: The best tools come out of laziness.

Per-Anders: Absolutely. Laziness achieves far more than actual effort. People are willing to put much more effort into being lazy than they are into actual work. Fortunately, everyone else also wants to be lazy so MoGraph was a huge success.

Michael: Mark it as a win. Where are you currently seeing Cinema 4D and MoGraph used in ways that surprised you?

Per-Anders: Obviously the most visible thing that everyone thinks of first if they were to answer that question would be movies. Future user interfaces and all that kind of stuff you see. The interfaces from Iron Man or Black Panther, and that stuff of course is also motion graphics.

The Avengers Find Their Way With C4D and City Kit via Jayse Hansen / Marvel.

Traditionally in film, that would be handled by the VFX companies but now increasingly with the demise of some of these large houses, we’re seeing smaller houses providing film quality VFX with a small team of artists.

Of course with motion graphics, it’s even more key that you have a single artist working on a whole shot. So the ability we’re given by making the tools and the workflow fast means a single artist can do a whole film quality shot themselves from start to finish. Maybe they won’t do the color grading but they will do everything up to that point. That’s much harder to translate into a larger team when you’ve got a pipeline with one person doing one specific thing. A good art director can do it but it’s more expensive, it takes more time, there’s a lot more communication involved.

Michael: Do you see any other avenues for motion graphics in the future?

Per-Anders: Obviously real-time will likely be a big part. Motion graphics, it’s very nebulous. It’s very hard to pin down exactly what motion graphics is and what the future is of it because of that. Because you have so many fantastic artists, each with their own ideas and they’re each doing what is motion graphics. It’s visual, it’s animated graphics on the screen. How do you predict that? You can’t really but you can focus on delivering certain tools.

Michael: How do you decide on delivering new tools?

Per-Anders: I still work as a motion graphics artist as well, I’m not just a developer. I’m sitting there going, you know, this really stinks. I want to do it this way. I don’t want to have to deal with all that. Next time, note to self, fix this. And that’s where a lot of the stuff comes from, like I said, laziness and a desire to fulfill clients and have an easier life and reach the Bahamas sooner.

Michael: So it’s more of a constant push of its limits, then evolution.

Per-Anders: I think that philosophy, that’s something that is at the heart of Cinema as well. That’s what makes it so good, it’s an abusable system to begin with and that makes it a good foundation for MoGraph. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why when I first picked it up it clicked more with me because it was like, oh of course I can do that but I’ve also got this procedural workflow as well as a non-procedural workflow for modeling. I’ve got these tools which are pretty friendly but I can abuse them, I can use shaders in areas that shaders traditionally aren’t used.

This is something which, whether wittingly or unwittingly, been designed as a perfect playground for a freelancer.

Image via Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S.

Michael: Well let’s switch gears, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the award you’ll be receiving from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Per-Anders: Yeah, well the scientific technical certificate, it’s amazing. It’s really astonishing. The process is something which … it’s not clear to the outside world.

This year we happened to be nominated and we went in, had these interviews with these stern industry professionals. They’re all fantastic people, these are some really impressive names in the industry. You’ve got the people who designed Houdini, various heads of R&D at big name companies. And they’re involved in the process.

This is not one person’s decision, this is a whole group of people and they sit down and they decide. You go through this process and of course the first thing you think after you’ve done this is, oh god that went terribly. I’ve got no chance. I’ve ruined it.

Six months later or something, you hear this, “The Academy is pleased to announce blah, blah, blah.” and my name’s up there and I’m like … Really? Wow.

You get blown away, it’s difficult to process. You grow up with the Oscars and the Academy Awards, it’s a piece of pop culture. It’s something which is talked about everywhere, all over the world. And so to see your name up there with the Academy logo at the top and all the rest of it, that’s like, wow. This is a point where you feel recognition, like I’ve made it.

To get my name up there is wonderful, but it’s a process of many people over the years. It’s recognition for the work that other artists have done. And you know, it’s that stuff that keeps it alive because we wouldn’t be up there if the artists themselves hadn’t invested, hadn’t bought in to MoGraph and continued to use it.

It obviously matters how much we work at it and improve it, but without the users giving it life, then obviously no one’s going to pay attention. And it’s because of the users doing what they’re doing, doing all this amazing stuff that the Academy does pay attention.

The fact that you guys have stuck with us means so much, it means a return and it means we can develop more cool tools to improve this. We believe in motion graphics artists as well, it’s a two way thing. They believe in us, we believe in them and it’s wonderful to see.

This also represents the Academy now recognizing motion graphics as a legitimate art form. As a legitimate thing, not just us. Not just myself, not just Maxon and all the incredibly talented developers. This is like we’ve landed, motion graphics, we’re no longer some little corner of the design scene.

Michael: Well thank you so much, this was great. A wonderful learning experience for me and I appreciate your time. Congratulations to you and your team, and enjoy the Oscars.

Per-Anders: Well I appreciate having the opportunity. Thank you very much.

Award Acceptance Speech

Since our interview, Per-Anders Edwards has officially received the Scientific and Technical Award for MoGraph.

Courtesy of the A.M.P.A.S., you can watch the Cinema 4D MoGraph award presentation below.

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Legislation dissertations are frequently quite complicated and incorporate every one the origins of legislations: judicial dedication, educational creating with books and eBooks, instructions and out of currently on naturally state European mediation and, wherever applicable, Global Legislation. The various tiers of all legislations, collectively with, for example, contradictory predicament legislations along with obiter notions originating from judges, so create legislation dissertations special demanding.

The following guide hints advice about just how best to construction a dissertation of legislation.

Name webpage – displaying that the topic from the dissertation along with also the author

Synopsis – summarising precisely what the viewer may expect to detect from the dissertation. Constantly be succinct and also don’t mention or maybe quotation within this component of the dissertation. This genuinely is just like a advertisement onto work so make sure it’s brilliant and including a few excess weight (150 – 300 phrases)

Dining table of material – Largely since it indicates!

Initiation – This may likely function as 10 percent from the dissertation completely. So in the event the dissertation consists of 15,000 phrases and words afterward a initiation needs to be 1,000,500 phrases and words and ought to develop into a really clear and true initiation of this dissertation (which naturally to express desire to show exactly the decision).

Methodology – particularly everything it is that you’re getting to complete and the way you expect doing exactly the job. In just a legislation dissertation it really is likely that qualitative analysis is going to be carried out. You will find plans todo qualitative analysis (e.g. poll of states maybe) nonetheless it is very feasible that law dissertations is likely to soon be made out of regularly technical journals/books or legislation.

Literature review – breakdown of applicable thought and also the many up to date published advice about the question. Yet more you will discover dissertations without a literature review: it’s dependent on the subject and no matter of if a person pick it to eventually become mandatory (e.g. most likely there is certainly plenty of published literature/theory?).

Truth – exactly what you might have seen and also which you have determined out of this. Even the vast majority not only necessarily be in-depth yet need to compose an idea to be more investigate from the research, moving towards show and knowledgeable method of the development.

Bottom line/Determination – exactly what you already have seen and also which you have determined out of this. This really cannot only necessarily be in-depth yet need to compose an idea to be more investigate from the research, moving towards show and knowledgeable method of the development.

Tips – In an legislation dissertation I would ordinarily incorporate them to give a symptom of how analytic mind would be. As soon as we take the corporation Homicide Act illustration above a number of the recommendations may possibly be, for example, to redesign the occupation of medical care section and also to enhance this specific aggregation philosophy. The hints have to be eloquent as well as special. Certainly no waffle the following even philosophy excerpts!

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