Furball - an animated short

[Jaster]

Hey everybody!

We are happy to present you our animationfilm "furball" about two cats trying to wake up as many people as possible from the rooftops at night...

The film was created during the second year of our studies at Salzburg University of Applied sciences and we hope you like what we have come up with!

http://furball.multimediaart.at/shot_14_press_small.jpg (http://furball.multimediaart.at/Furball_Video/Furball_500px.mov)

You can also watch it in PAL (http://furball.multimediaart.at/Furball_Video/Furball_PAL.mov)!
or on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jj12uSZ8Vk).

The Team consists of:

Paul Baaske (http://baaske.multimediaart.at) - Director
Sebastian Falkner (http://sfalkner.net) - Director
Johannes Figlhuber (http://jastorama.net) - Director
Michi Schoenrock (http://www.michi-schoenrock.net) - SoundFX and Music


For some Production insigts Please visit our Making-of-Blog (http://furball.multimediaart.at/wordpress/), it is in german but most of the pictures aren't...

We definitely hope you like it and are looking forward to your feedback and criticism folks! Feel free to ask anything!

Paul, Sebastian, Johannes, Michael

[BANNED_For_POOPY_PANTS]

I loved it. The environments, lighting, everything looks beautiful.

A few crits on the cats:

1. The cats' eyes are really... distant? They seem to be looking more into empty space then at each other.

2. They look more like puppets than actual living, breathing cats. In terms of capturing a cat's behavior you did a good job. They're really close to being believable street cats, especially the little guy. The action sequences are incredible (and funny).

3. The entire story seems a bit dragged out, the pacing is a little on the slow side.

All in all it's f-n brilliant, the idea is hilarious. Bookmarked!

[egerie]

Awesome! Poor kitty...

My main crit is about the few knee/elbow pops and a few uncontroled arcs. Otherwise, the shading is cool, and it made me giggle.
To pick up on what JonathanS said, I found the eyes bothersome as well but in the way they were animated in relationship with the head.

[SneakersSpeakers]

I really enjoyed this, pretty much all the issues I've found were already covered, although I like the pacing. I really like the behaviors, just somethings were a little stiff.

Either way, super fanastic.

[Jaster]

Thanks guys!

I agree with you in all points you criticised. The biggest problem with animating the characters was, that we didn't have enough time to do it properly. We focussed more on the look and atmosphere of the film, than on the acting and animation. The whole film was animated in 3 weeks by two people, and this was for both of us the first time we animated characters. There wasn#t enough time to polish the animation and in some shots we had to use the rough blocking, because we ran out of time. I think too, that it's to slow overall and the eyes are off most of the time. Well, I#m glad we managed to finish the project and I'm really looking forward to our next movie, where I want to focus a lot more on a proper character animation.

[BANNED_For_POOPY_PANTS]

Hey Jaster, I'd just like to say again though, that what you guys set out to achieve you really did do brilliantly. The environment looks Pixar grade. The action sequences are Pixar grade. The lighting is cinematic, and the colors are perfect. This an amazing achievement for two people in three weeks. I bookmarked your website too, I wish I knew German. This is literally the coolest 3D animation I've seen so far that doesn't have a Pixar budget, and if you guys can come up with something of this caliber in such a short time -- hats off. I can't -wait- to see the next one!

[Jaster]

Oh sorry man, i think you misunderstood me. We did all the character animation in 3-4 Weeks. For the whole Project we had 2 semesters, that's an estimate of 8 months time. Of course there were still classes and other assignments, so if i calculate all together we were working on the project fulltime for around 3-4 months. And we were 3 guys working on the visual part of the project, and one guy doing the sound. But still, thanks a lot man! We're thrilled about your feedback.