If you’ve read our previous blog about revealing a character’s emotions by bringing their eyes to life, you might be interested in how this quick animation was done. We’ve therefore prepared a little tutorial that you can hopefully follow easily. It introduces you to two helpful tools of mine that really speed up my animation [...]

It’s a great advancement of our times that nearly anyone with a designer's eye and some feel for motion graphics can now get their hands on animation software without the need to be able to draw properly … but, what is the secret of really breathing life into your character? Knowing how a character needs [...]

Animation is becoming increasingly widespread in online learning. The benefits of animation in eLearning environments is well documented; animated content is fun, engaging, motivational and enhances memory recall. With Covid-19 forcing school children and university students to study from home, teachers are finding it difficult to keep on top of the amount of content they need [...]

What is Synthetic Data? Synthetic data is a result of artificially manufacturing any sort of data - whether it be images, texts, or audio - algorithmically, rather than generating the data type by real world events. These data sets are used as a stand-in for testing production or operational data, to further corroborate mathematical models [...]

When trying to achieve realism and high definition in Unity, it is important to study lighting techniques within game engines (such as Unity & Unreal) to see how much you can push a scene and how much others have been able to achieve. Once you’ve done some research, find an image with nice lighting similar [...]

If you’re honest with yourself, the content on your internal communications platform is boring. Nobody is reading them. There could actually be a rack of reasons why your employees don’t read your intercoms but the main reason is a lack of engaging content. The problem most companies will encounter when internal communications are ignored are mistakes - and [...]

Employees and customers are hungry for information. However, for businesses to communicate effectively, it is the core questions of what, how and why that brings clarity. Explaining the “why” with animation enforces understanding and builds trust. Moreover, people are more willing to respond in a positive way when they can comprehend the purpose behind their actions. The other challenge [...]

Continuing on from Part 1 and Part 2. Disney v Warner Bros  The Golden Age of animation began in the early 1920’s and continues today. Disney was the first to transform cartoon characters into stars with the likes of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.  The shades of Mickey Mouse first appeared in 1922 when Hugh Harman [...]

So continuing on from Part 1, Animated pictures made significant strides in the early 20th-Century. The first animated film was a series of funny faces created with stop-motion photography.  However, the foundations of animation as we know it today were laid two years later with the 1908 film, Fantasmagorie. The French artist Emile Cohl created the [...]

Those of you old enough to remember pre-millennium animation will have noticed the rapid improvement of animated films over the last 30 years. Today, 3D animation can be rendered with such accuracy it’s difficult to distinguish animated characters from real-life actors. It’s taken animators a little over 400 years to get to accomplish such an [...]

The evolution of deep learning models has seen significant advancements in recent years. With the adoption of game engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine, animation teams can support data scientists by generating insightful visualisation from synthetic data. Animation is becoming increasingly popular in a business environment. Even in a standard format, animated visuals such [...]

Real-Life Examples Of How Businesses Are Adopting VR Technology It doesn’t seem all that long ago since businesses made the transition to digital technology. Yet the next phase of the technological revolution in the workplace is already picking up pace rapidly; virtual reality (VR) simulators. VR technology has been slow to break into the commercial [...]

Overview There are two major players when it comes to the subject of game engines - Unity3D and Unreal Engine. Both of these engines have been steadily and rapidly evolving along with the gaming industry. Some of the world’s most popular games are powered by these engines, such as Fortnite with the Unreal Engine, and [...]

Lockdown changed the world in which we live. Social distancing and isolating at home also meant for many of us, combining home-working with home-schooling. This was a real challenge for us here at Sliced Bread, as the first few weeks of lockdown was filled with frantic activity completing projects, with our team spread out over [...]

It is estimated that 75% of the UK workforce will be millennials and Gen Z by 2025. These tech-centric age groups are already changing the way we work, and place unprecedented demands on employers. Whilst the media portray millennials as the most problematic generation for employers, that is not necessarily the case. A report published by PwC suggests [...]

If you’ve never worked with an animation studio before you would be forgiven for being a little unsure about what the animation process is, and how it all works. Do you want to know exactly what to expect if you work on an animation project with Sliced Bread Animation?

Gamification changes the way employees interact and engage with their work and their co-workers. Because gamification makes learning interactive, the mechanics improves employee engagement and inspires collaboration by encouraging co-workers to interact and share. The essence of gamification is a rewards system. It works by eroding users with in-game feedback and proactive messages. featuring the [...]

Stories are integral to, if not the very definition of the human experience, learning, and culture. It is said that human beings have evolved to understand their existence in terms of the structure within spoken or written accounts of connected events, with narrative being the mechanism through which we have come to construct reality and [...]

The 3D animation industry is becoming increasingly popular and firms are crying out for skilled animators. There are numerous opportunities for outsourcing, employment, revenue generation, and business growth. However, in order to make a career or an animation project profitable, animators have to be skilled in creating high-quality animation fast. Respectable animators should aim for [...]

It is said that creating and developing a game takes a whole village, but getting your game in front of players does not have to be an equally arduous task. There are a number of options for self publishing games with Unity3D. Getting player feedback as quickly as possible is vital for the game iteration [...]

Christina came to the UK from Austria to study animation at Bristol University where her talent was spotted by Aardman Animations. She worked on a number of Aardman projects including ‘Morph’ and ‘Rex the Runt’ and was an animator on the internationally successful “Chicken Run”. A few years later, in 2002, Christina set-up Sliced Bread [...]

Imagine opening your eyes to find yourself behind the controls of an aircraft, with no clue as to what any of the lights, buttons, and switches mean or do. Yet there they are, blinking, waiting to respond to your inputs even though you do not know what is expected of you. Now imagine another scenario [...]

Animated videos are increasingly surfacing across the internet. They appear on client websites and the multitude of social media platforms. It’s also fair to say animation is a favourite medium for corporations to make their internal communications more engaging. This is the beauty of animated videos. They are highly flexible and can be used in multiple [...]

Virtual and mixed reality technology has made a significant impact in giving businesses the ability to replicate real-world situations in a safe environment. The latest technologies have significantly enhanced training and learning. The next stage of development is to replicate the feel of objects in the virtual world using haptic tactile feedback technology. Haptics aims [...]

Scientists developing artificial intelligence (AI) are quick to point out that teaching computers to be creative is a different methodology to how the human mind can be inventive. On the flip side, German artist, Mario Klingemann says “Humans are not original.” We typically find inspiration from what has been created in the past. The question on [...]

When I was a little boy I preferred to watch cartoons than children's TV programs with adults in. I much rather preferred to tune into the cartoon town of Trumpton and watch Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew and the boys than Floella Benjamin or John Craven. Animation has the power to hold children spellbound - and [...]

The media typically cover the topic of virtual reality (VR) from an entertainment perspective. In recent years, a variety of other stories have emerged as businesses began exploring the potential of using VR technology to capitalise on cost-saving opportunities. VR, however, has a number of other uses that extend far beyond shifting stock or entertaining [...]

Virtual Reality has the potential to enhance the lives of individuals in recovery, take house-bound patients on adventures they cannot physically experience, enable people with disabilities to perform activities that would otherwise be unsafe and help people with certain impairments learn new skills. Numerous scientific investigations around the world are waking people up to the [...]

We have an extensive history and understanding of e-learning and animation production. We know how important it is to breakdown the requirements and deliver them economically without compromising quality. We work fast and smart to deliver measurable results on time and on budget, ensuring each client receives exceptional and cost effective creative digital learning content. [...]

Creating Personas Saves You Time, Money and Headaches A lot of money goes down the drain during the product development process. Yet more cash is splashed and wasted on marketing a product that was never right for your audience in the first place. Brands are then faced with entering the design process and product development [...]

Everybody knows the first day of a new job sucks. This has been a fact of life for as long as anyone can remember. The only real surprise is that more companies haven’t done anything to improve the onboarding process before now. In their book, ‘The Power of Moments’ Dan and Chip Heath describe an [...]

We are very pleased to announce that we have won funding for the Audience of the Future programme by UK Research and Innovation through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.