Andy Wilson has been doing some funny/trashy Simpsons stuff.

See also – the infamous DRAWN SEX comics which spread around a while back on 4chan.

Yep – I’m calling it. The popular Dead Space franchise released it’s first 3d feature this year: “Dead Space: Aftermath”, and it’s a milestone in 3d animation.

Unfortunately, the film is nothing short of a DISASTER on every front. Poorly written, sloppily directed and practically unwatchable. Here is the first 15 minutes of this pile of garbage:

What makes this film a milestone is that it was released alongside the game Dead Space 2 – which is rendered in real-time, and is by far better in every way than it’s feature equivalent.

Terrible feature adaptations of video games are nothing new, but what is new is that a game will look and feel more realistic than it’s feature counterpart. Despite the restrictions of real-time hardware rendering on a 4-and-a-half year old console, the game looks 10 times better than what has come out of a render farm at an animation studio. Here is some footage from the famous “Jump” sequence in the game.

It’s hard not to wonder why they didn’t use Machinima for Aftermath, a film created using the game engine would have been so much easier, not to mention far better looking.

The release of Dead Space 2 alongside Aftermath marks a turning point in what we expect from real-time rendering.

NMA strikes again with more gold.

Cory Arcangel gives the Guardian a tour of his new exhibition at the Barbican.

From his site:

The show is called Beat the Champ, and the work I am showing is a massive video installation called “Various Self Playing Bowling Games”. It’s a big one. It is pretty much the entire history of bowling video games and each has been hacked to throw only gutter balls. 14 systems! One projected after another(!) in a row. From the Atari 2600 all the way up to the PlayStation II.

Beat the Champ
The Barbican Curve
10 February 2011 – 22 May 2011
Tickets: Free
Times: Open daily 11am-8pm

Apparently created by the same person behind the @PeterMolyneux2 twitter account, this excellent horror short feature’s a depressed Mario in a Hostel-esque world where Nintendo has abandoned him.

Thanks to Josh via the forums!

Here it is, hope you guys like it!

More details over at davidoreilly.com

Not new – but this film by fellow Berliners Zeitguised is awesome.

Some beautiful experiments in dynamics by Eitan Grinspun, a computer science professor at Columbia. Videos & research papers here.

A work of dark genius by wendyvainity that’s pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, emailed in by eamonn o neill.

‘VERSE on Vimeo, via the forums!