Butterflies in the Rain

Computer animated student film from 1997 featuring procedural animation of an upright piano driven by a MIDI file derived from a player piano roll arranged by Frank Milne in the 1930s. You can watch and hear a real reproducing piano playing the original Ampico piano roll here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9SJTPTI0J0 For you pianists out there, a sheet music transcription of this piece is available at http://www.pianocorder.info/youtube/Butterflies_in_the_Rain.pdf

Based on a concept by Brad Winemiller, this film was produced by Kirk Bowers, Mark Fontana and Steve May at The Ohio State University's Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD). Additional modeling support (piano harp and strings) was provided by Phil Massimi. Software used was emacs (text editor) for modeling, Steve May's Scheme-based Animation Language ("AL") for animation, GIMP for texture maps, Pixar's RenderMan for rendering, and Side Effects' Houdini for compositing.

An early version of this film was originally created for a procedural animation class taught in 1996 by Rick Parent at Ohio State's CIS (now CSE) department. Additional contributors in that class included Bret McGee and Jeremy Loomis (early butterfly models).

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• computer
• graphics
• procedural
• animation
• midi
• player
• piano
• roll
• renderman
• animated
• short
• film
• cg
• cgi
• music
• animusic
• accad
• cgrg
• osu

[cc213t]

Check the extended description for a link to the sheet music.

[cadinhocarvalho]

This is a Kurzweil piano sound!!!

[cc213t]

You're right! We used a Kurzweil MicroPiano, which had only been out a few years when the film was made.

[cc213t]

This film is available on the DVD "Computer Animation Extravaganza" which was released in 2000.

[KawhackitaRag]

AWESOME!

[Zoooooooooooooooook]

Soooo this is what happens when you piss on your piano.....

[OzzieJohnFerguson]

A delightful video, many thanks.

[hardrocker2110]

if its raining hard enough to push the keys in from a leak, i wouldnt wanna stand outside

[MozartJunior22]

If this is what happens when the roof is leaking over the piano, i'll make my roof leak.

[xoxoDayDreamingxoxo]

This is so cool! *thumbs up* :D

[Bluenuhvok765]

That was pretty awesome.

[FRANCEBERNARDI]

great music... great animation... congrats !

[extremscream]

really great !

[Shangas]

It's jazz.