Codehunters

Ward Jenkins | September 13th, 2006

This gives me hope in CG animation. Not that the field is without its hopefuls, but the 9 minute short film, CODEHUNTERS, by Ben Hibon has me hopping with joy. With a de-saturated color palette, nicely designed characters, and subtle motion combined with sci-fi/western action sequences, CODEHUNTERS is pure fun to watch. One thing that stands out for me is that it doesn’t look CG if you pause it anytime throughout the movie. The lighting and shaders make each frame look like an illustration. Made by UK’s Blinkink for MTV Asia, and directed by the multi-talented Ben Hibon, the film was broken up into several scenes to be shown throughout this year’s MTV Asia Awards ceremony. One of the characters was even the basis for the award trophy. There’s talk of a possible series in the works as well as a videogame based on the characters, which, if you ask me, would be a very welcome thing since the film ends sorta abruptly.

To download the movie (big file warning: 147 MB!), click HERE (it’ll download to your desktop directly), or just go to Blinkink’s site and follow the instructions. If you don’t have all the time in the world to wait for the high-quality version, you can view a medium-quality version of the film at the ‘boards site.

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  • This is a refreshing change from the default Pixar look! I just hope they can come up with a narrative that is as compelling as the animation.

    This reminds me a little of what they were doing in the (French?) Corto Maltese movie. I've yet to see it, but from clips I've seen, they were also going for the occasional 2D texture map look. I hope that one makes it over here too--it also had a very unique feel.
  • hmmm.

    It is refreshing to see 'cell shaded' CGI. I have to say, it's not bad. Not great, though. I know that it is hard to avoid being derivative these days, but the characters, the setting, whole piece left me with a nagging feeling that I'd seen it all somewhere before.

    I also prefer a more cohesive story if it's going to be a stand-alone piece. To me if a short lacks a good story, it's like an illustration of a cool figure without a background; there's no context.

    My favorite CGI short in the past year is still "Rockfish". Sure, it's regular old 'Pixar-style" CGI, but nicely done.

    Rockfish

    In fact, I prefer most of Blur's portfolio to BlinkLink's
  • Aviv
    aside from the color-scheme (monochrome, really) nothing here was any good or refreshing. looks like a bad 'cowboy bebop' ripoff to me... and i don't even like 'cowboy bebop'.
  • The monochrome color palette was one of the things that stood out for me in this piece. Something different from the typical CG norm that I see everyday. Yes this piece has it's shortcomings, but I enjoyed it. I was entertained. That's why I posted it.

    (Sheesh! What's with all the cynicism lately? Has Drawn! become a big fat bitch-fest now? I certainly hope not....)
  • MrBlank
    Well, I certainly can't bitch about this one! I loved it. CG with hand-drawn textures have so much more life than the regular vector style. It's like a sketchbook you can fly around in. I've seen some video games try it but not quite get it together like this one has.

    I do have one criticism -- a lot of the camera motion was very CG with a bunch of swooping around on tracks. If it weren't for that little thing, I would have forgotten it was a CG animation.

    Wow, makes me want to learn a 3D animation program.
  • Devin
    Not sure what the breakdown was but Axis Animation also had a hand in the film's creation.

    http://www.axisanimation.com

    Here's a blurb about it as well...

    Link
  • Lone
    Not much of a complaint here. Story was fairly non-exsistant but aside from that it was entertaining. Agree with Blank about the hand drawn textures, the gritty feel of the movie, and I liked the characters themselves though it some kind of felt like a cross between Gorrilaz and Mad Max. Certainly a lot of comendable work went into it for a something MTV likely chopped up.
    Odd that I didnt see the CGTalk article earlier, I visit the site regularly :\ Oh well, better late than never..especially at full size ;)
  • jeremiah johnson
    That is the best cel shading I've ever seen. It exactly matches the style of illustration and coloring it is intended to match.
  • I thought it looked great and was an entertaining short.
  • jericho
    More like 'comic book shading'. Who cares about the solidity of the story here? It'sd so obvious if you consider the fact that there is no dialouge, that the story will manage to be of a linear quality like in a teaser film. So wat until theres an actual series. And there is much to be impressed with this, pity the fool who cant see it enjoyable.
  • wow. i loved this. no complaints here and i'm usually really picky about animation.

    i'm just glad to see cg without animals. american animation needs to take a break from animals. i did like 'over the hedge' though. =) i would love to see more stuff like this and final fantasy vii advent children.
  • katakami
    Eeeyeaaah.... what was that about? In terms of storyline and the way the shots cut together I thought it was a little messy. It had no point to it... it's all about looks. In terms of animation I thought it's so so compared to the other works that are out there. I'm pausing it in different places and it still looks CGI to me.
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