Interview with Pedro Rizzo

Here's an interview with Pedro Rizzo at brazilian Sport TV. There's also a brief conversation with Lyoto Machida, a great Karateka and friend. I've learned a lot from his father and I wish him all the best, for he holds the true spirit of Karate-Do.

I'm sorry but it's in Portuguese. Pedro talks openheartedly about his career, his passion for fighting, his family and his Master, Marco Ruas.

Those who can understand Portuguese will understand why I consider him my best friend. He has a huge heart and Is, by far, a better person than I'll ever be.

You can't stop The Rock, and If you try, you'll have to stop me either, for I'll be at his side to the end and that will be an honor.

Pedro ROCKS !!!!

To Fabio Amaral

These songs were on his desk on the day he passed away. I sincerely hope he finds, at last, what he was seeking. May God embrace him.

Sailing

I am sailing, I am sailing,
home again 'cross the sea.
I am sailing, stormy waters,
to be near you, to be free.

I am flying, I am flying,
like a bird 'cross the sky.
I am flying, passing high clouds,
to be with you, to be free.

Can you hear me, can you hear me
thro' the dark night, far away,
I am dying, forever trying,
to be with you, who can say.

Can you hear me, can you hear me,
thro' the dark night far away.
I am dying, forever trying,
to be with you, who can say.

We are sailing, we are sailing,
home again 'cross the sea.
We are sailing stormy waters,
to be near you, to be free.

Oh Lord, to be near you, to be free.
Oh Lord, to be near you, to be free,
Oh Lord.

Rod Stewart

Sailing

Well, it's not far down to paradise
At least it's not for me
And if the wind is right
You can sail away and find tranquility
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me

It's not far to never-never land
No reason to pretend
And if the wind is right
You can find the joy of innocence again
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Yust you wait and see
Believe me

Sailing takes me away
To where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

Fantasy, it gets the best of me
When I'm sailing
All caught up in the reverie
Every word is a symphony
Won't you believe me

Sailing takes me away
To where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

Well it's not far back to sanity
At least it's not for me
And if the wind is right
you can sail away and find serenity
Oh, the canvas can do miracles
Just you wait and see
Believe me

Sailing takes me away
To where I've always heard it could be
Just a dream and the wind to carry me
And soon I will be free

Christopher Cross

You can't stop The Rock !!!

People still didn't realized that the only one that can stop Pedro "The Rock" Rizzo is, of course, himself. If he is with the right mind and free of injuries, (which is rare, for his training is really tough!) I don't believe anyone would beat him. Those who suffered the pain of his strikes and kicks know what I'm talking About...

I know I'm suspicious, for we are like brothers and I consider him and his family part of my own family, but I've trained with him in the old days, and Marco Ruas and other great champions of different styles of martial arts, and I saw NO ONE that could hurt people so badly.

Here he is with my daughter, Júlia:

This one he is with his gorgeous daughter, Laila:

And here I am at my birthday between Pedro, his Brother, Felipe and My Master, Flavio Costa Sensei in front of us:

This one was taken at my daughter, Júlia's 3rd birthday party. From left to right, Orlando Costa, my Master's younger brother, Oswaldo Gonçalves, both top Karate-ka and instructors at Flavio Costa Dojo, Pedro Rizzo and the great champion and friend, Peter Aerts:

And as we are from Rio de Janeiro, here we are at the beach:

Here he and his wife Glaucia holding my two daughters, Júlia and Bella...

This time was Jeff Monson. A tough guy that has beaten great fighters and was knocked out by Pedro some time ago. He tried again and lost once more. If Pedro wasn't hurt in the arm less than a week before the fight and on treatment after a knee surgery a month ago, I don't think Monson would get out of that fight in one piece, though he suffered several injuries and was limping.

These are from the first fight.....

Pedro ROCKS !!!!!

The Shark in love.....

Another scene from this guy. Now he asks for help to get the girl he wants. The problem starts when his wife arrives!

This time we had other Animators in the project. I just animated a couple of shots, modeled and adapted the rig for the female shark and did the Shark's wife from scratch.

Sid Ahearne is back with us and animated some of the scenes.
Pedro Vasconcelos managed and organized all the production, from story reels to basic compositing in After Effects. The final compositing was done in Flame by Jonas Ribeiro.

Paula Gouvea and Pedro Vasconcelos were THE MAIN ARTISTS involved in the project. Both of them were our interns and today are TV Globo's employees, improving themselves as Animators and managing projects. They've animated most of the sequence. I am very proud of them.

Again, every character animated in Lightwave and rendered in Max with the render pipeline developed by Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal.

I hope everybody likes....

Sorrow...Tadashi Takeuchi Sensei Passed Away

I've discovered today, with great sadness, from a former instructor and colleague, Gustavo Lucena, that my first Sensei passed away. He was the toughest guy I've met and one of the best Karateka of all time. Everything he did was absolutely perfect and his technique was a rare thing to see.

TADASHI TAKEUCHI is gone, but we, who knew him and learned something from him will always remember the great Master. One of a kind...

He lost his last fight (the only one I know he lost) in 11/16/07 from a heart attack, result of a treatment against stomach cancer.

One of the last, real Samurai!

Gustavo ( with him in the picture ) waited 18 years for our Master to come back to Brasil to get his Black Belt from his own hands. I congratulate his loyalty!

OSS, SENSEI !

Layer Animation Approach

One of the 12 principles of Animation is "straight ahead and pose to pose". Well, there´s also layer animation which is kind of straight ahead. Many Animators, myself included, like and talk about pose to pose in 3D Animation, but the layer Approach can be useful and here is one example in detail. When I had to animate these scenes I decided to do it in layers. Of course, being a fish with no hips and legs makes this project the ideal opportunity to try the layer approach.

Layer Approach in 3D Animation 02 from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

Woody Woodpecker

I did this one some time ago. I had to make a Woody Woodpecker animation for a comedy show.

I did the scene in 2D, but they didn´t have time to get permissions, so I had to do it again and change the overall design to avoid copyright issues.

I had already modeled Woody in 3D on my spare time and decided to do the same scene in Lightwave. Then I´ve changed the model shape and colors and rendered the generic woodpecker.

Woody, however, is such a charismatic character that I decided to render the scene with the original one from 1947.

My shading and render knowledge are very limited, even in Lightwave, so Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal imported the model and point cache to render in Mental Ray.

As far as I know I am the only Animator that had the pleasure of animating Woody both in 2D and in 3D on the same week. And they pay me for doing it!!!!

Te 2D is on twos and the 3D, as usual, on ones. The one thing I miss from 2D is that we can control the motion blur...

Here´s some screenshots and the final render from Mental Ray.

Woody Woodpecker from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

Rex got the flys

We did this for a comedy show. Some flys kept bugging a guy untill he releases his pet to get them. I did the concepts and character design. Modeled, rigged and animated in Lightwave. Render in Max by Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal. The frog was modeled in XSI by Thunndro and brought to Max where he was rigged and animated. I wish I had more than a week to animate all of the flys...

And he is back!!!!!

And he is back!!!! from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.


I was fortunate enough to have another go with that great white! This time he strikes a doctor in a hospital for mental illness, that didn't believe one of his patients when he told him that there was a shark in the pool.

The guy was crazy, but was telling the truth....

Unfortunately due to realy short deadline, I had to animate without sound.

All done in Lightwave and rendered in Max with Mental Ray by Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal.

T-Rex on TV

This is a smal part of the sow we did with the T-Rex. Unfortunately, I've only animated the first shot in this sequence. Everything else was animated by Sid Ahearne and Paula Gouvea, who also modeled and textured the pterossaur in Max. Then I brought it to XSI where I've rigged and animated. As soon as I have the complete material, with the scenes I've animated, I'll post here....




In this sequence I've animated the first shot where he comes out of the woods, the one when he jumps to bite the pterossaur and the one when he gives up the pterossaur and goes back hunting the main characters.

Dragon Unleashed

Before we did the T-Rex, we had to create this guy for a TV show for kids. We had to deliver 8000 frames of animation in wich he interacted with the main actors. All done in 3 months from concept to final compositing.

This is the first sequence I've animated. The bad guy sends the dragon to seek and destroy the good guys. This isn't the final compositing, just a render test in Max.

I did the concepts, character design and storyboards in TVpaint, modeled, rigged and animated in Lightwave.

Render in Max with Mental Ray by Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal.

Scupt and textures in Zbrush by Sid Ahearne who also animated.



Dragon unleashed from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.




Dragon attack from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

Finding Emo

Finding Emo from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

We had to do this piece for a local comedy TV show. I've modeled the main characters and did the morphs in Lightwave. The other characters were done by Tiago Reyes and Caio Nascimento. Marcelo Papf was ahead of the production when I've started and he did all the concepts, character design, model sheets and story reels. Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal did the setup in Max and the animation was done by Marcelo Papf, Bruno Costa and myself. Render by Igor Lementy who also assembled all in After Effecs with Diego Gabrig. BGs by Beto Campos.

T-Rex

We were asked for a T-Rex, but the V_rex from Kong is soooooo cool tha we decided to mix it with our T-Rex a litle bit. I've modeled in Lightwave, rigged and animated in XSI.

Here are some pics...












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T-Rex Deformation Test from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.


Here is the rig in action.



V-Rex from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

Amazonia - Making Of

Old Man Dies from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

We had to create a digital actor for the miniseries "Amazonia" from TV Globo, Brasil. We needed to "age" the famous actor Jose de Abreu to 90 years old. But before the green light was on the director wanted to see a test and gave us 10 days. This is what we showed him...

I did the model in Lightwave based on Beto Campo's concepts. He also did the sculpt in Zbrush and Caio Nascimento textured it. Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal did the base rig in Max while I modeled the morphs in Lightwave. The final shot had 5 minutes of animation done by Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal, Rafael Ambrosio and myself.

He was the first digital actor in Brasilian television....

Casseta e Planeta

Casseta e Planeta - Making of from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

This one was for the feature "Seus Problemas Acabaram!" (Your troubles are over!) from Casseta e Planeta, a famous group of comediants here in Brasil. The film was directed by José Lavigne and VFX produced by Gustavo Guarnier.

We had litle more than 3 months do animate two scenes of about 2 min. each. The other one was mixed with live action.
Ive supervised the production involving 7 artists.

Concepts: Marcos Piolla
Character Design: Marcos Piolla and Marcelo Papf
Storyboards: Marcos Piolla and Bruno Costa
Animation: Marcos Piolla, Sid Ahearne, Bruno Costa, Marcelo Papf, Tiago Saad and Aline Coelho
Compositing: Diego Gabrig
BGs: Beto Campos

Bang! Bang!

Bang Bang from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

We did this in 2005. It was the first scene of the first chapter of a TV show.

I was ahead of the 10 artists team that delivered the 5 min animated scene in 3 months. I did the concepts, character design, color scripts, the second storyboard (firs one done by VFX producer Gustavo Guarnier) Animated and did some of the compositing in After Effects.

Alexandre "Thunndro" Areal did all the 3D BG, pre viz, and rendering pipeline. I've animated and supervised all the animation done by Orlando Merola, Marcelo Papf, Bruno Costa, Tiago Saad e Leonardo Finocchi. Ricardo Queiroz did all the 2D BGs and painted the textures for the 3D BG. Diego Gabrig and Romulo Oliveira did the compositing in After Effects.

Sharks !!!!! Making of...

Making Of Tubarões Didi from Marcos Piolla on Vimeo.

How we did it...

Sharks !!!!!

Turma do Didi - Tubarão
by unodeoliveira

I did this with Alexandre "Thundro" Areal for a TV show aired on June, 15 of 2008. I've created the concepts and character design, modeled the sharks in Lightwave, rigged and animated.

Thunndro did the texturing in Zbrush, light, shading and render. He also did all the animated BG in Max and the base compositing of the rendered 3D in After Effects.

Uno Oliveira did the final compositind in Inferno. VFX produced by Andressa Ambrosio. All done in 3 weeks.

Finalmente resolvi arrumar um canto pra botar minhas brincadeiras!...