Aug 4, 2015

CG tribute to Hayao Miyazaki made with open source tools

Some of Studio Ghibli's most memorable characters come to life in the digital environment of Paris-based Dono's short film Tribute to Miyazaki.

Many of Hayao Miyazaki's most famous works, including "Spirited Away," "The Witch's Delivery Service," "My Neighbor Totoro," and "Princess Mononoke," are brought to life in a photorealistic world using open-source tools such as Blender for 3D, Gimp for image editing, and Natron for compositing. The only software that was not open source was Octane, the rendering engine.

The result was a tribute to Japan's greatest animators and studios that ran smoothly throughout the three-minute screening time. Characters from various films are impressively composited together to create what appears to be a single world, but Dono's photorealistic CGI backgrounds stand out more prominently than samples of Miyazaki's hand-drawn work. But the tribute is a short and sweet bow to the influential back catalog of the recently retired Hayao Miyazaki, who will (thankfully) return to produce his first all-digital short film, which will be exhibited at the Ghibli Museum.

Until then, you'll just have to scratch your Studio Ghibli itch with this warm tribute, dress up as Hayao Miyazaki, or attend the Hayao Miyazaki Film Festival in Switzerland, which concludes in September.