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"Blocks" or "Marbles" movie?


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I'm tapping into the old caverns of the brain and I think I remember there being a demo movie out there that was on one of the original A:M demo reels called "Blocks" or "marbles" or something like that.

 

It was a movie that had a bunch of marbles riding down roller coaster tracks the a block trying to do the same and smashing through a wall.

 

Does this ring a bell with anyone and if so where could that be found?

 

Thanx

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It was called "Balls and Blocks" and I am in the process of resurrecting it along with many other great animations from "the old days". It was done by Allen Coulter around 1993-94 probably with A:M version 2.

 

It's on a couple CG video compilations. I saw it in a tape called "Animations for Kids" or something like that when I was at the last SIGGRAPH. It was playing on a tv in one of the book sales areas. It made me pretty happy to see something done a decade ago with A:M getting shown so prominently at SIGGRAPH. It made me reflect a little on how long we've been doing this.

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I still have a lot of these shorts on a Hash video tape I purchased at a Las Vegas trade show some 10(?) years ago. Yeah, 1994. I can almost credit Animation Master for curing me of addiction to gambling as, at that time, I didn't think I could afford even the tradeshow discount because I wasn't very good at budgeting in those days. Ahem...

 

Anyway...

I watched those shorts over and over again until I couldn't resist the call.

Now I have another addiction: Animation Master

 

Night Out (Frankenstein) was also on that videotape too. Balls and Blocks, the alien truckers, and more... All the old, truly jawdropping animation, that still hold up even in todays 'high tech' world.

 

Please bring them back Ken. This you've got to do!

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I've kind of been the official company archivist (I guess my History minor in college gave me the bug to keep track of history). I have a lot of stuff on video that I want to migrate over to Quicktime and get online. Last night I was looking at an old Apprentice tutorial tape with Martin in his 20's! You'll be seeing this stuff in the coming weeks and months.

 

Stay tuned!

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Last night I was looking at an old Apprentice tutorial tape with Martin in his 20's!

Does he say, "See you in cyberspace, man!"? :P

No, this was about 4 or 5 years before that, in 1988.

 

We have animation that dates back to 1987. It's really amazing when you compare it to what other CG was being done on personal computers at that time. Back then, seeing CG in commercials was still pretty rare. Reagan was still president! :-) Man, we've been doing this a long time. I'm really looking forward to digging this stuff up.

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I had one of these tapes from around 1995, with the balls and block, hammertime, etc. It's in a box somewhere. But I've also got right here in my hand, the A:M by Jeff Paries CD that came with his Charles River Media book. It's got a bunch of still and movies on it. Nitewalk, Truckin, and all those old classics are already on the CD in Quicktime format. So go find your CD!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ken,

 

Thanx for getting this stuff up on the FTP site. It's so great to be able to see these older pieces again.

 

I really liked the Today show clip I just wished that they could have plugged you guys a bit too. Oh well.

 

Thanx again.

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From a lost post I had a question about a game that was made in A:M called Captain Quasar. Anyone remember it and how to get it, or just see it?

There's actually a couple of clips from CQ on the FTP site.

 

From doing a couple of Google searches it looks like it was either developed by or for the 3DO platform but I'm pretty sure the company's not around any more.

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It was done by Bob Terrell and Vince Backeberg. They were both with Will Vinton Studios, and then started their own company called Computoons (which did the Captain Quazar animations). I don't know what they are up to now.

 

They also did some short films for Hash, including Truckin', Voyager, and Nightwalk.

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Here's the link to the Captain Quazar Quicktime.

 

http://www.s1.hashmirror.com/ftp/pub/movie...ptainQuazar.mov

 

The game came out about 7 years ago, so it's long gone.

 

And since this thread was originally about "Balls and Blocks", here's the link to that film.

 

http://www.s1.hashmirror.com/ftp/pub/movie...lsAndBlocks.mov

 

I know some of you found movies on our FTP site, but it would help us out a lot if you go to the mirror site to get them. ftp/pub/movies is mirrored at www.s1.hashmirror.com/ftp/pub/movies. The mirror is much faster and won't bog down our server. So, if you email movie links, PLEASE USE THE MIRROR site.

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...The mirror is much faster and won't bog down our server...

 

Ken,

 

That's something I tend to forget. Thanks for reminding us as I'll stop posting links to the main FTP site.

 

Is there any way you could add the words FASTER after the FTP mirror link on you main page?

 

Like:

FTP Site

FTP Mirror (Faster)

 

This would remind people like me when we are quickly surfing for an answer to post. I definitely don't want to contribute to slow connections on your server!

 

Thanks!

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  • 2 weeks later...
Ken, if you are doing A:M classics, it might be fun to also post "Gecko", which I think was also Allan, in light of the popularity of the Geico ads.

 

-Vance

It's already there. It's called newt.mov

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