Avatar: The Last Airbender found an expanded audience when it came to Netflix in May. The animated series that aired on Nickelodeon from 2005-2008 has inspired a themed Animal Crossing video, an Avatar musical, and now some 3D animation. CG lighter Jacob E. Mann worked with a talented team to remake the beginning of the iconic Avatar opening credits in 3D animation. They did this animation strictly for fun and because they love the series. And we’re grateful, because Aang looks rad. Watch:
And for the sake of comparison, Avatar‘s actual opening credits are below.
The entire team crushed this animation. Mann handled lighting and compositing, while Mia Pray tackled modeling and texturing. Rijah Kazuo did the rigging, and Sagar Arun (who also put the team together) handled animation for the water and fire portions and tested the rigs. Greg Verreault animated earth and air, Danny Barnhart provided the FX, and Brett Bread Taggart took care of cloth simulation and technical animation. It looks so cool.
That’s not all either. The group tested another brief scene from Avatar. This time Arun animated the model.
Please give us an entire movie that looks like this. I know Netflix is working on an Avatar: The Last Airbender live action series, but can you have too much Avatar? The answer is no. Which is fortunate, because we also want to share the Aang rig they used for the animation. It’s free to download from Rigstation if you have an itch to animate Aang yourself.
It’s clear the world of Avatar is ripe for all manner of stories. We won’t say no to any of them. The live-action movie already exists, however, so we can’t do much about that.
Nickelodeon
Featured Image: Nickelodeon
Amy Ratcliffe is the Managing Editor for Nerdist and the author of The Jedi Mind, available for pre-order now. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
