Directed by Aeon Flux creator Peter Chung, Diablo III: Wrath is a prequel to the game that focuses on the war between the angels and demons. Diablo fans are sure to love it, despite lines like “Your rage makes you powerful,” Besides what else are you going to do as you count the hours?

The cartoon is about six minutes long, and it is beautifully animated, regardless of the occasionally cheesy dialogue, so it is worth your time. Anyway soon you will be hacking and slashing to your hearts content, so in the meantime, enjoy.

[via Geekosystem]

Created by Youtuber Rocky Planetesimal, and set to the dramatic A Wild and Distant Shore by Michael Nyman, Go Right is a loving and often emotionally moving tribute to classic gaming – with a focus of and run-and-gun side-scrollers. Check out the video below, and see if you can name all of the games (leave a comment below if you can!)

[via Joystiq]

However, this won’t be a Saturday morning cartoon like we had growing up in the 80s; rather it will be short form online video series. Rovio says that is targeting “all screens” so you should be a would get it on just about any device when it rolls out later this year. There is no specific launch date noted with the developer saying simply that it will be out this Fall. The show was announced at the MIPTV conference by Nick Dorra, Rovio’s head of animation, who says they also are planning on releasing a feature film at some point in the future. If you skip ahead to 11:55 in the video clip below, you can see a sneak preview:

The series will have 52 episodes, and each episode will last between 2.5 and 3 minutes. Presumably, Rovio is having Kombo, the animation studio it purchased last year doing the show animation.

[via Guardian]

Using a “genetic algorithm,” YouTuber 99munimuni trained his digital Gundams to walk on their own. It’s an interesting evolutionary process, watching these imposing mechs flail around as they try and figure out how to amble about. See what I mean in this fascinating (and often comical) training video the Gundams attempt to walk without faceplanting (be sure to leave closed captions on):

Apparently, it took about two weeks of heavy-duty CPU churning for his computer-generated Gundam to learn how to walk. In the mean time, he filled in the long hours with a bunch of other primitive looking ‘bots walking about and swinging from swings. Why? Why not?

Watch and cringe at the doubly time-consuming short film:

If you ask me, instead of going to battle Stevezilla should just send Notchzilla a tweet and demand millions of dollars in compensation. We know how he’ll reply.

If you couldn’t get enough Notchzilla, Keep an eye out on MinecraftA2Z’s YouTube channel for future episodes.

The classic post-impressionist painting underwent a digital transformation, thanks to Petro Vrellis, a Greek digital artist and electrical engineer, using the open source C++ openFrameworks. In this new, interactive version, you’ll see swirling patterns of color set in constant motion. When you touch the night sky, you can change the wind’s flow. Dragging along the tree trunk makes the tree grow extra limbs. The digital piece of art can also react to sound. The whole piece of art will reset once it’s left untouched.

This is a pretty amazing way to rediscover an already incredible painting. I’d love to see more classic works of art updated in this fashion – then put into an iPad app for all of us to enjoy.

[Vimeo via Colossal Art + Design]

Cinemagram converts short film clips into a single, animated image. It also offers special filters and photographic effects that can be layered onto the resulting animations. You can even select only a part of an image into a GIF, making it look like a video is embedded in a still photograph. Here are a couple of examples produced with the app:

You can get Cinemagram from the iTunes App Store for $1.99 (USD), and check out more Cinemagrams on Cinemagram’s Tumblr site.

[via designboom]

Brilliant animation there, Joel. Now if only Nintendo would make this into a game…

[via Destructoid]

The cartoon is called Om Nom Stories. In it, Om Nom pops out of an iPad when the person isn’t looking and goes exploring. He happens on a tennis ball and tires to eat it, but we all know those things don’t taste good. He spies a bag of eats on the counter and goes searching for candy, when on the way, he encounters the family cat, and wacky hijinx ensue. Check out the cartoon below and see for yourself.

Not an Oscar-worthy plot, but still good fun.

The GIF Player is a mechanical device which displays the images from an animated GIF by spinning them in sequence on a rotating disk. The machine was created by Pieterjan Grandry, and is based on a 19th century animation gizmo called the phenakistoscope.

It’s really a rather simple concept, in which images from the animation are spun in a circle below a window which only exposes a single frame at a time. With enough speed, the images create the illusion of movement.

The cool thing is that each animation can be printed onto a single record-like disc, so you could have an entire library of animations at your disposal with this.

While Pieterjan doesn’t provide build instructions for the GIF Player, I can’t imagine it would be that difficult to make your own. Heck, you could probably just hack one together using an old record player and putting that inside a box with a circular cutout.

[via It's Nice That & Coudal Partners via Laughing Squid]

You’ve probably seen the flurry of photos animated thanks to GIFs. It seems old school, but there’s a lot you can do with GIFs. Check out what Vancouver-based French artist Nicolas Sassoon does. Some of these are pretty cool.

His work uses computer-based aesthetics to generate strange and surreal visions of architecture, landscapes, and environments, that are quite hypnotic. His art is styled as pseudo-retro, which includes bright colors, moving patterns, and that bitmap-quality that is so cool. I’ve put up a couple of examples of Nicolas’ GIFs in the gallery below:

The undulating pixels might disorient you due to their movement, but it’s all in good fun. You can check out more of his art over at his blog You Make Me So Happy.

[via designboom]

The guys at MinecraftA2Z built this Tetris level using the Minecraft engine, but they did cheat a little bit. That’s because the video below was put together using stop-motion animation, and it’s not actually a playable level.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Still, it’s pretty impressive and worth checking out if you have a minute. Plus, I can never get enough of that original Tetris theme… Especially this version…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Second, note that Pac-Man only goes up against one of the four ghosts, and does so in an open world instead of a constricting maze. And yet… just watch:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I think that’s the saddest way to lose – when the enemy isn’t even trying. But you have to give it to the video’s creators, Sergej Hein and David Moya, for the special effects on Inky. You’ll barely notice it but it’s a great touch. But as Vimeo member John Veloso pointed out, this Rémi Gaillard classic is still the undisputed champion of real-life Pac-Man videos.

[via Kuriositas]

Videographer/Photographer/Motionographer/Virtual Mario noob Jeremiah Warren made this delightful recreation of World 1-1 using After Effects. To make it extra special, he used an orchestra version of the iconic background music. Watch and cringe as he misses goodie after goodie:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Not even the flag? Still, that was fun to watch. Perhaps Warren will have improved his skills in controlling Stop Motion Mario in the next World. Or maybe there is no secret 1-up block in Stop Motion World 1-1. Who knows? I’ve never played it.

[via Geekologie]

This video was made by Balazs Kalocsai and it shows you exactly what the game might have looked like in the 80s, on an 8-bit console. Would this game work for real this way on an Xbox 360? Probably not, but the video is still fun to watch.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The art looks way better than any 8-bit console I’ve ever seen, but you get the point. The characters sort of like voxels which have been flattened into two-dimensions, which is a strange way to describe them, but that’s what they look like to me.

[via Olybop]

The tattoo was created by Paris-based tattoo artist Karl Marc. As the barcode tattoo was completed, it became the target for an augmented reality application. The whole thing was streamed live while he worked on his friend Marco’s chest for about four hours. Once finished, the tat resulted in a little augmented reality animation on the guys chest.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The only question that remains is what to do once you get tired of that little animation? Probably just tattoo something else over it. Or, you could just create a new animation, I suppose. Adding an interactive element is something that some people will enjoy. I wonder if someone will end up covering their whole body in augmented reality targets.

[via Make:]

Before you let the kids watch this clip, however, you ought to know that this isn’t your wholesome old 8-bit Mario. Perhaps it’s the fact that he was born on the edge of a razor blade, but he’s just a wee bit more destructive in Eric’s version of the Mushroom Kingdom. But that doesn’t make him any less entertaining. Here, take a gander and see what I mean:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Of course, that part where Mario eats Toad is a little disturbing. And burning down the entire forest with the Fire Flower is just wrong. Still, Eric created the Paper Mario clip in order to raise awareness about a new feature-length animation, based on a far more bloody short about Ninjas that he’s working on. If you’re interested, head over to his Kickstarter page and show your support.

The video was created by Mike Scott along with a 14 pixel artists from around the globe, as well as 3D voxel artists, chiptunes and a little bit of claymation thrown in for good measure. Watch the awesome video below, then see if you can name all the different gaming and geeky references in the clip. Bonus points for that voxelized Cactaur.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Right from the the SEGA-ized opening logo and sound, I knew this video would be great, and I’m just glad that the tune is just as great as the animation itself. I’ll be adding this track to iTunes tonight.

[via Vimeo]

Just like Pac and his pals, they’ve created an animated version of the arcade game using building blocks from Minecraft. It looks just like the original game. And though  it’s not actually playable, they did add the requisite sound effects, and it’s still pretty cool. Check it out:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I’m not quite sure what the deal is with the giant “Lockia” telephone to the left of the playing field. Maybe it was to call mom and have her pick you up from the arcade after you’re done playing. Or maybe the extraterrestrial Invaders just need to phone home.

The blue “h” in the vide seems kind of horny and keeps humping the white “h”, you will see what I mean. A couple bricks also get the green “H” to rocking so this is almost like LEGO porn. Still the video is cool and it’s interesting that the bricks are the characters in this case.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Generally, with stop motion we see minifigs as the focal point, so that’s kind of different. If you like LEGO, you will want to check this out, be warned though that there are a handful of sound effects that will make people wonder if you are surfing porn.

[via Buzzfeed]