About the magic of the "Portal" video game by Valve.
The Cathedral (Polish: Katedra) is the title of a science fiction short story by Jacek Dukaj, winner of the Janusz A. Zajdel Award in 2000; and of a 2002 short animated movie by Tomasz Bagiński, based on the story, made in 3ds max . The film was nominated in 2002 for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film for the 75th Academy Awards. The movie won the title of Best Animated Short at Siggraph 2002 in San Antonio as well as several other awards.
The film focuses on a man who visits a mystical, organic building that looks like a medieval cathedral. As he walks through the immense structure, the light from his torch falls upon the pillars, revealing human faces. The viewer later realizes that the faces are still alive, as several smile and open their eyes as the man walks past them. The building's nature is partially unveiled at sunrise as the blinding light enchants the visitor and causes organic branch-like structures to burst from his chest. These protrusions then become another set of pillars in the building.
The film was nominated in 2002 for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film for the 75th Academy Awards. The movie won the title of Best Animated Short at Siggraph 2002 in San Antonio as well as several other awards.
In May 2011, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk gave several gifts to American President Barack Obama for his tour in Europe, as is the custom. One of those gifts was an iPad loaded with The Cathedral.
Fallen Art (Polish Sztuka spadania) is the name of a 6-minute, animated short film written and directed by Tomasz Bagiński. It features Romanian band Fanfare Ciocarlia's song "Asfalt Tango." The film was produced and created by Platige Image, a VFX company. In 2006 it received the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award.
Fallen Art presents the story of General A, a self-proclaimed artist. His art, however, consists of a deranged method of stop motion photography, where the individual frames of the movie are created by photographs made by Dr. Johann Friedrich, depicting the bodies of dead soldiers, pushed down by Sergeant Al from a giant springboard onto a slab of concrete.
Pianist Victor Borge and Soprano Marilyn Mulvey attempt to perform the aria 'Caro Nome' from the Opera 'Rigoletto' by Guiseppe Verdi.
A fantastic animation and a brilliant mashup by a dope animator - Randall Glass.
I animated (Maya) all the characters after the :51 mark (after the flaming barrel). Stuff I did not animate: the huge hordes where you see tons of zombies together on-screen at once (that was just L4D NPCs), nor did I animate the legs of the Headcrab zombie, or the crawling torso. Those were game animations. I animated the Hunter, but based his crawl on Valve's animations (I wasn't able to import those movements so I had to recreate them myself).
I created my own blendshapes/morphs for the Witch to make her talk and emote. The L4D version just has her do a couple things (an expression or two), but I wasn't able to use any of that. I also created my own rigs for controlling the zombies/infected in Maya.