Little Angel

Engaging six minute 3D animated short film based on a young Dutch girl caught in the crossfire of German and American troops during WWII.

In late 2006, the partners of Blockade got together and decided that we needed a proof of concept to support the idea of using game engines and assets to produce linear animated content. We had access to Gearbox's "Brothers in Arms" game assets, so the decision was made to produce a short film set in WWII.
Working with Rhythm and Hues writer/director Bill Kroyer, our production team was given some very tight parameters for its production: 30 days for production, from concept to delivery in HD, using the Brothers in Arms assets but re-purposing the assets to look nothing like the game, and using a team of only eight people. The goal was to showcase a range of emotions, dramatic tension and top 3D animation within a pre-existing game environment under normal TV restraints. In short, we played to our weaknesses, so that we knew where to build for strength in the future.
The Little Angel project taught us that the game engines and assets were extremely limited when it came to facial animation - something we have since improved upon. Beyond that, we saw only huge opportunity before us. We are proud of Little Angel as our first effort, and believe that it will come to represent a notable benchmark in animation.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Blockade
• Brothers
• in
• Arms
• Grearbox
• Little
• Angel
• Rhythm
• and
• Hues
• WWII
• Animation
• Machinima
• Video
• Games

[DanielaZmaye]

I've read about that - Germans and Russians stopping the fight to celebrate, I think it's true

[66thPsalm]

Very good!

[Fuchur84]

There is a german movie about something similar in WWFII called "Merry Christmas" based on a true story where Russian and German soldiers stopped fighting and celebrated xmas together...

I am not totally sure if it really happend that way, but still it is good too know that sometimes there is even in a war some kind of humanity...

*Fuchur*

[imdavidavid]

reminded me of a situation during World War 1. Germans and American trench soldiers made a temporary truce on Christmas, where they had mass, and spent the time burrying their dead. sadly, i dont remember what the situation was called. i learned about it in my world studies class.

[mtfr2]

You guys are arrogant thinking this is a benchmark in animation. In my opinion it looks amateur-level and the only thing that is obvious from it is that a lot of man-hours went into its production, but not much more. It's just "nice".

You should research more yourselves before going for such bold affirmations, see for example Anachronox's in-game sequences that were made a long time ago with a stone-age game engine. Or Resident Evil 4's or play some games and see that your clip is no benchmark.

[MelHolden]

Fantastic

[Altheamay]

A truly wonderful story with a great life lesson. Well done!

[Anim8torCathy]

A whole new level in machinima. Very nice work and a very sweet story.

[WolfzoneTV]

Absolutely fantastic movie and something you have a right to be proud of.

[gizmovideos]

Excellent by anyones standard.