Here’s a long-delayed new imago studios reel for 2012. It includes commercial and independent pieces completed both in-house and as a collaboration with various production companies.

This video can also be watched on YouTube and in imago site.

Dear Esther. I sometimes feel as if I’ve given birth to this island. Somewhere, between the longitude and latitude a split opened up and it beached remotely here. No matter how hard I correlate, it remains a singularity, an alpha point in my life that refuses all hypothesis. I return each time leaving fresh markers that I hope, in the full glare of my hopelessness, will have blossomed into fresh insight in the interim.

Dear Esther is one of these titles that defy our common conceptions about what video games should be. It can be considered an anti-game, or perhaps a game that transcends the genre. Personally I perceive it as an amazing experiment in interactive storytelling.

Released on February 14th 2011, Dear Esther is a re-make of a free Half-Life mod from a few years back. Although it utilizes Valve’s Source engine and a first-person perspective, it has very little else in common with other games running on this technology. There are no guns, no cover system, no sprint button. You find yourself on the shore of a cold English island and are left to roam around exploring the deserted environment in search of a better understanding of who you are, why are you there and what has happened to you in the past.

The story is delivered in scattered pieces of narration triggered as you explore the environment bit by bit. It never really paints a full picture nor provides any definite answers to the questions you may have. Instead, it masterfully sets the mood and deals with emotions rather than with absolutes.

Visually, Dear Esther is a stunning piece. Just like the AAA titles created by Valve, it manages to utilize the Source engine to its full potential, proving once again something I have been always claiming about this particular piece of tech. The Source engine is not nearly as powerful as some of the contemporary heavyweights such as CryEngine or Unreal. It lacks many of the bells and whistles the others have, pushes fewer polygons per frame and often has to resolve into sprite trickery.

It is, however, an engine that does wonders when put in hands of a skilled art director. Based on the concept art by Ben Andrews and designed by Robert Briscoe, the game is a true work of art. It utilizes color palettes that always border on the verge of photo-realism, while maintaining artistic composition and flow. It truly pulls the player in and fleshes out a tactile, believable world filled with immaculate attention to detail.

From the cold afternoon sights of the opening chapter, through stunning cave system filled with bioluminescent flora to the full-mooned night in the conclusion, every step of your journey is a true feast for the eyes. During my first two-hour playthrough I have accumulated a total of nearly 200 screenshots in an attempt to capture and own a piece of this experience.

It is impossible to talk about the story of the game without spoiling the experience to those who haven’t yet played through this title. It will unfold to you at perfectly timed moments as you explore the island, providing the narrative context to the environments you visit. A by-line provided by the studio on the official site, however, manages to set the tone and provide you with an idea of what Dear Esther is about: “A deserted island… a lost man… memories of a fatal crash… a book written by a dying explorer.”

If I was to draw comparisons to other titles, the two that come to mind are “The Graveyard” by Tale of Tales and “Trauma” by Krystian Majewski. By the sheer amount of work put into it by the developers, Dear Ester reaches far beyond the other two games in terms of the experience it provides as well as audio-visual fidelity.

As many innovative works of art in the past, Dear Esther immediately polarized the audience – so you may think twice before purchasing it. For me it was a no-brainer and would wholeheartedly recommend this title to anyone looking for something different in video games. The $10 price should not be considered as the “game’s price tag”, but rather as an “admission ticket” to the interactive installation/experience.

Developed by the Chinese Room, Dear Esther is available for purchase for PC on Steam. According to the offical website, the official game soundtrack by Jessica Curry will be available soon.

• Official website
  http://dear-esther.com/
• Steam page
  http://store.steampowered.com/app/203810/

Around a year ago I published a Gotta Play article about PixelJunk Eden. It is a game that provided me with incredible amount of inspiration in my work, as well as hours of fun in my free time. A brainchild of Japan-based independent studio Q-Games and art director/DJ/multimedia artist Baiyon, Eden features possibly the most contemporary design I have ever seen in a video game.

Until yesterday, the game was exclusive to the PS3 platform, but now is available for all PC users through Steam. As a designer you owe it to yourself to check it out!

Check out and purchase Eden on Steam:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/105800/

Read my review of PixelJunk Eden here:
http://qubahq.com/2010/02/gotta-play-pixeljunk-eden/

For the first week, the game is offered at a 20% discount, bringing it to ridiculously low price of $7.99. You can also purchase the soundtrack. It’s well worth it.

Similarly to my 2005 piece entitled Demographix, AE64 is a tribute to the demoscene and to the legacy of world’s most popular microcomputer: Commodore 64.

While this video was created using the typical contemporary arsenal of tools (mainly After Effects and Cinema 4D), it conforms to most of the basic graphical limitations of the C64 such as a limited 16-color palette, low resolution, use of the overscan area etc. To maintain the spirit of the demo, I also created most of the effects using various scripts and code snippets, procedurally automating many of the tasks typically animated using keyframes.

The idea for this video (or, if you prefer, a “wild demo”) came to me a few weeks ago, during the 7DX demoparty. Seeing how this nearly 30 year old system still has people coding for it, developing new tools and techniques as well as actively participating in various demo competitions – really stroke a note of nostalgia in me. I remembered my first C64, countless hours of games, graphic programs, chip tunes… I even recall creating some zine with my friends and printing it on a noisy dot matrix printer. (To be technically correct, my first computer was an Atari 65XE, but for the sake of the story, let’s ignore it.)

For the soundtrack of this piece I chose “Katana Blaster (Constantly Playing Mix)” from the album “Impostor Nostalgia” by Big Giant Circles. The piece was composed by Mick Gordon and since I pretty much had it playing on a loop for several weeks now, I simply had to use it. The song manages to beautifully mix the classic chip tune sounds with contemporary electronic vibes and dubstep rhythm – and Mick was kind enough to give me the rights to use it for this video.

To learn more about Mick Gordon and his music, visit his site at: mick-gordon.com.

If you ever owned a C64, I am sure you will enjoy this piece. Happy new year!

Concept, Design, Animation & Scripting: Quba Michalski
Music: Mick Gordon
Tools: After Effects, Cinema 4D

This video can also be viewed on YouTube

I would like to invite you to visit http://motiongraphs.qubahq.com/ – an online version of an exhibition by Quba Michalski, celebrating over a decade of his work in the field of motion design. Throughout this period Quba created several hundred of videos ranging from small independent pieces to massive visual extravaganzas for some of the world’s most well-known brands. MotionGraphs gives you a rare chance to gaze into the inner workings of his projects and examine in detail the way these selected works were constructed.

Each of the graphs in the exhibition is a visual representation of a single project, rendered using Adobe After Effects flowchart mode. Within the graphs, each box represents a single layer – be it a piece of video, a graphic, effect, camera, light or a simple null helper object. The arrows direct the flow of compositions and demonstrate how these elements nest within and feed one another, producing the final look of the piece.

Just like the projects themselves, each graph has its own style and character. Some are beautifully simple and elegant, while others create a tangled mess of hundreds of elements connected by almost incomprehensible web of interdependencies. On a more personal level, the structures of each graph tell a story of a journey the project went through. The simplest graphs were created when the artist followed a basic, brilliant idea. The tall, symmetrical and repetitive ones were created during less exciting periods. If you see crazy, messy sections full of connections – you can be sure the project went through many changes and patches.

Even the naming conventions change from one project to another. Some are strict and proper. Others – full of silly wordplay and inside jokes. On the most frustrating ones, you will undoubtedly be able to spot the artist cursing through the layer naming, trying to vent his frustrations at a misbehaving element.

Running on Microsoft’s Deep Zoom technology, the page will allow you to smoothly zoom in/out and navigate through the massive graphic using your mouse (scrollwheel works too).

The graphs in the project represent a small selection of works by Quba Michalski. You may view the videos themselves all around this site (qubahq.com). The work is best viewed in fullscreen/presentation mode. You can typically activate it by pressing F11 in PC browsers and Shift-Command-F on Mac, followed by clicking the full-screen button in the lower-right corner of the graphic above. My apologies for the process being so convoluted – I am a motion designer, not a web coder :)

Please, enjoy the show

About three months ago, some post production guys from The Mill decided to troll the Internet with videos of fake UFO sightings over London. I decided to join in on the fun and released a short YouTube video under a fake persona, “documenting” another sighting in Istanbul. Within several weeks, the video climbed up to 10,000 views – by far surpassing any view count I had on any other clips and tutorials uploaded to YouTube. It has also been “verified” by several “UFO authorities” and featured in magazines and UFO sighting websites around the world.

In this tutorial I will teach you how to create your own UFO troll video using After Effects and Mocha – a process that should take you no longer than 30 minutes from the moment you grab a camera, to the time you are ready for upload.

Running time: 31min
Difficulty: Extremely Easy
Required tools: After Effects, Mocha

Original troll video:

Tutorial:

I would like to encourage everyone watching this tutorial to make their own UFO sighting clip and publish it on YouTube. Let’s see if you can beat my 10,5K record, and how long will it take :) Post the links to your UFOs in the comments below – let’s freak out some of “the believers” with a global UFO invasion!

You may download the tutorial video as MPEG-4 from its Vimeo page. The tutorial can also be watched at YouTube.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

I remember the first time John from Motionworks shown me a beta version of MovieType. Pretty cool – I remember saying – I’m sure it will be useful to the people who do lots of 3D text, but not really something I would use in my projects.

While I was certainly impressed with both the idea and the implementation of MovieType, I really did not think I’d ever have any need for it. My motion pieces rarely, if ever, use 3D typography. I may throw an After Effects 3D text layer here and there, but that’s pretty much it.

And then came the Morhipo.com gig.

The deadline was tight, the advertisement’s content was not fully finalized. Changes to the timing, featured products and celebrity photos were delivered several times a day, as the agency struggled to get the finalized content locked down and approved by the client. To make things even more interesting, I had two more projects in the final stages of development at the very same time.

I could have said: Screw it, I’ll drop in the text in AE, throw some gradients on it and call it a day. Unfortunately, that’s not how I roll.

Now let me be very clear about something: I am no expert in 3D. I know what the software is capable of and how to get there, but I am terribly slow with execution. Typically, I prefer to work with a 3D artist or operator, guiding the development of the project, rather than a full hands-on experience. This time however, I did not have a choice. It was early evening, my 3D guy went AWOL, there was no time to find a new one, and I had to have all typography ready by the morning.

Getting the base geometry was as easy as loading up a path from Illustrator, dropping it inside MovieType Extrude object and tweaking the values till I got the desired thickness and bevel size. Camera was even easier – a simple preset, tweaked a tiny bit to look and time just right.

Next came the shaders. Gold and silver are always a pain to set up and render properly – too many reflections and they start looking like plastic. Too much saturation – and gold turns into orange. Too little gloss and everything becomes dull and rubbery. With the help of MovieType though, I was able to load up library shaders and within just a few minutes tweak them to look exactly how I wanted.

After that all I had to do is drop some light presets, adjust them and add a few extra ones for a good measure. I also used the MovieType Reflective Sky object with some noise shaders to make sure the reflections on the surface of the text are exciting enough.

Not only was I able to finish the project on time – I even got a few solid hours of sleep that night!

Don’t get me wrong here. The final ad is no piece of art – it will not win any awards or be featured in motion design festivals. It is however, a solid piece of advertising, created on an impossible deadline while matching and even exceeding client’s expectations. I call that a success.

On an extra note: MovieType was also used to create the little black plexiglass boxes I placed the products on. It’s truly a very versatile product and after having it save me from delays I felt I owe it to the Motionworks team to do this little write-up and recommend it to all motion designers. You truly never know when it may come in handy – take it from a non-believer :)

For more info about MovieType, check http://www.motionworks.com.au/2011/08/movietype/.

I just got the word that my reel is featured in the latest issue of Computer Arts magazine (#193, October 2011). It is a great opportunity for all those of you who are too busy (or lazy) to click a link, to be finally able to view this fine piece of edit.

Simply head out of your home, go to the nearest kiosk, newsstand or bookstore, purchase the new issue, go back home and view the reel from the DVD that comes with the mag. If you happen to be living outside of Europe, you may need to do a special order or travel a few thousand miles, too :) Alternatively, you can always get the digital edition, available for Adobe AIR, iOS, Android and Windows 7 phone – though I am not sure if these include the DVD contents.

More details of what else is included in this issue of CA can be found here: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/shop/magazines/computer-arts/october-2011-193. The page features the summary of all the main articles as well as the links to purchase both physical and digital edition.

Ever since my first Commodore 64, I have been an avid follower of the demoscene. For many years groups like Fairlight, Kewlers, The Black Lotus, Orange, Farbrausch and more recently ASD (Andromeda Software Development) have been pushing the art of realtime graphics into new extremes.

While entertaining to watch however, demos usually had a tendency to lack in the art direction department. The would excel in cool visual effects, pumping more and more graphics at better framerates and higher resolutions – but being primarily created by coders, not artists, the majority were more of a technical showcase rather than an artistic pursuit. In the recent years, the new breed of demos started emerging – one where art and code truly go hand in hand. One that can easily rival the amazing vfx and motion design pieces from the world renown motion design directors.

I would like to share with you one of such pieces: Spin by a Greek demo group Andromeda Software Development, a 1st place winner at Assembly 2011.

You may watch it below via YouTube, or download the code and run it yourself.

If you are new to the demoscene, but the video arose your interest, a good place to start would be the archives of scene.org. In there you will find years worth of demos as well as the information about the latest competitions (and their results). Another good starting point could be AssemblyTV – the official YouTube channel of possibly most well-known demo party (competition).

It is my pleasure to publicly announce that as of today I have changed my official status into Creative Free Agent and I am available for work with all interested parties. For all business inquiries you may contact me directly – the details can be found on the About page of this site.

It took me a while to figure out how to properly title myself and my services. Freelance Director? Motion Design Artist for Hire? Unassociated Writer/Art/Creative/Director? Truth be told, looking back at the past decade, it is much easier to list the things I did not do than all the roles I assumed on all the projects.

I developed concepts, plans and ideas for major TV, cinema, web, multimedia and viral campaigns. I wrote scripts and scenarios as well as did re-writes on existing ones. I pitched and sold the ideas and projects to agencies, creatives, producers, clients, marketing specialists and CEOs.

I storyboarded, art and creative-directed projects. I animated, photographed, directed live shots, stop motion, slow motion, green screen, tilt-shift and any other technique you can think of. I created 2D, 2.5D, 3D (stereoscopic included) content myself as well as supervised teams of various sizes in creating it.

I filmed, edited, composited, created vfx, sfx, music, created interfaces, scripted code, developed techniques and styles, trained teams and individuals, developed systems and pipelines, contributed to industry standard software development – you name it.

The projects I worked on range from independent to commercial, abstract to narrative, artistic to realistic. I worked on overnight express solo jobs as well as on massive projects, directing dozens of people over the course of several months.

I created 2-second pieces with a single graphic element as well as 5 minute long 3D extravaganzas. I worked with small clients and world’s largest corporations, with small studios and biggest agencies, with production companies and with post houses. How else can I sum all these up in a title?

If you need someone to take your brand, product, concept, scenario or project and deliver a completely new level of advertisement – I am the creative free agent, and I want you to work with me.