Jim's Whiteboard

I'm not dead yet!

2012-01-26T16:39:00.000-08:00

I feel happy! I think I'll go for a walk.

I should really get back to posting finished work. Dam Skyward Sword.

I have a back log of images and screenshots that I need to post.

Rarrrah!!!

2010-11-22T17:40:00.001-08:00

What a Tavern Bully. Sheesh! Some more rig work for Cerebus the Aardvark from What Comix. Make sure to check it out! Here's a demo of the muscle bound oaf:

All muscles are geometrical influences. Most of the influences are expression driven to create their deformation. And all deformable meshes are override-able via a small control located off the left hip.

English translation: Muscles move by themselves but can be controlled if need be. It's a cool system.

Oddly, the most difficult portion of this rig was the chest belt. It had to move with the torso and also has to get out of the way of the deforming muscles. What I did for this situation (since it was one whole mesh) was to skin the back side to the spine joints, and create several free floating joints that are completely free to move in space at the front of the torso. They'll move with the spine, but are free to be moved and rotated to simulate sitting on a fast moving body. A simple solution, really.

On to the next rig! Yea!! (I love this shit.)

What's New Scooby Doo?

2010-11-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

I'm tired of Velma. There. I said it. Time to move on and complete the cast of Mystery Inc. like I said I would (to no one) a long time ago. Scooby's the hardest of the bunch, I think, to model, rig, and animate.

Scoob's a very stylized Great Dane. His proportions are about right, but he's all angles, knoby knees, and teethy grins. He has very wild takes, opens his jaw very wide (to accommodate big sandwiches), and walks bipedaly sometimes. He talks sometimes, too. These are all gonna make this rig a heck of a challenge.

Started this morning on the modeling. This is about five hours in. The biggest hiccup I've run into so far was his paws. I derp'ed and gave him only three toes on each foot before I realized my mistake. His paws will need to be plantable with toe-spread to show his weight, and....they'll need to be articulateable because Scoob gestures like a person with regular hands does.

Some editing of the style sheets was needed here.

Head and body are separate pieces of geometry.

Things next to do are eyes, throat (he'll need a very large throat), teeth (they'll need to be retractable 'cause you only see them them at appropriate times) and a great big Great Dane tongue.

Velma Vs Velma

2010-11-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I had to get a new job, a new apartment, and struggle to keep up in the side projects that I've taken on. Just finished some rigging and UV layout for Cerebus the Arrdvark. It's an independent project out of California. I've very much looking forward to seeing the final results of everyone's hard work!

In all that I've been fitting in some of my own personal project work (when I'm not playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 that is). And here she...er, they are. Not to brag, but I'm very good at losing in Street Fighter. I love playing it regardless. I know there are some inconsistencies between what's said and the moves made but I wasn't going for strict accuracy here--just for fun. Hope you enjoy!

You can grab a high resolution version here.

A Familiar Face

2010-06-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to tell you what I'm planning here. You'll just have to wait and see.

Click to embiggen...

Voyager Fly-by

2009-06-16T07:15:00.000-07:00

Now that the model's all done I thought I'd put together a little exhibition video. Just some fly-bys, nothing too extravagant...yet. Maybe I'll put together a Borg Cube later and stage a battle sequence.

Music and sound effects are from Wrath of Khan (has a better score than the Voyager series, IMO).

Looks and feels better in HQ and Fullscreen!

Voyager Renders

2009-06-10T06:33:00.001-07:00

So she's about done. Over a million and a half triangles. Over 20 maps. And about a month of work from scratch to render. Big renders, click on em and have a look-see.

I'll work up some fly bys some time soon.

The starfield back grounds are NASA images. Thank you NASA!

Voyager progresses...

2009-06-03T07:03:00.000-07:00

Took some time off this project to work on an animation, but now I'm back on it full steam (besides looking for a job). The memory demands are killin' me on this one. The main hull has, so far, two 4K maps @ 100 dpi for bump and beauty. I'm expecting to at least do a spec and glow yet. Even using BOT textures I get a memory exception after a few test renders.

I need to change the color of the Deflector Dish background....I just noticed that it's wrong. :p

Click on the images to view them larger. Plenty of details going on in there.
Again a million thanks to Janet's Star Trek Voyager Site for all the references and interior window shots. This wouldn't be possible with out this fantastic resource.

Velma lives!

2009-05-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

All done with this animation. I had put Voyager on hold to do this because I got a bug up my butt after watching the source video. Good stuff.

....and the original...

Back to Voyager now. Cheers!

Schrödinger's Venn Diagram

2009-05-18T17:05:00.000-07:00

This actually made me chuckle out loud. I'm so jaded because of the interwebs that it seldom happens anymore.

see more Funny Graphs

Erwin Schrödinger is most notable to the regular populace because of this thought experiment.

Voyager UVing

2009-03-31T09:25:00.000-07:00

You can never be too anal about your UV maps. My plans for this model require a huge texture map, so proper layout is crucial. This task is made sooooooo much easier with DannyUVTools. Learning to use this very smart tool has made UVing almost enjoyable. Almost.

Made the windows three times larger so I can squeeze in a lot of detail. Same with the background for the deflector dish.

Oopths. Voyager pt 4

2009-03-23T17:39:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Janet's Star Trek Voyager Site I was able to gather up a lot more really good detail shots. Unfortunately, those really good close up shots showed me that I made a ton of mistakes. I got the aft torpedo launcher waaay wrong. I had to replace all the escape pod hatches. I got the forward deflector dish wrong.

With the better shots I was also able to properly place the sensor strips along the saucer section. I also replaced the RCS thursters with much better versions

click the images to view larger

Along the entire hull there are strips that I haven't been able to identify. They're prominent and numerous, and I'm only half way through putting them in. They're troublesome.

Was able to better sculplt the cargo bay door and the impulse engine exhausts.

Voyager modeling part 3

2009-03-17T15:23:00.001-07:00

Making progress. Almost about done with the modeling stage. I'd like to get a lot of the extrusions out as geometry and paint less. Better for shadows and close ups shots. Of course, I can't model every little thing in.

Bridge panels and escape pod hatches are all in. From what I can find, each escape pod can hold 6 crewmembers. There are 42 escape pods. Voyager's standard crew compliment is 150 people. So if you're ever a guest aboard and something goes amis, there's plenty of room to spare (skip to 2:30).
Finally got the pylon hinges to a place where I'm happy with them.
She's got a great ass. For the most part, Voyager is perfectly symmetrical. All windows, indents, escape hatches, and other such stuff is a mirror image. Except one hole in the spine that is the EVA Egress Door (airlock in plain terms)--it's on the port side only.

That little round thingie that looks like an outtie belly button is the warp core ejection cap. There's actcually two. The one that's visible is just the cap for the secondary (spare) warp core. The primary is further aft, but I forgot it. :p
I should also model in the antimatter loading port since it sticks out an apprecieable distance.

After those few additions (and whatever I realise I've glossed over) it's time to lay out UVs. Ooo....fun stuff.

More Voyager modelings goin' on...

2009-03-12T15:41:00.000-07:00

More time to work in the evenings that I was expecting, so I got more schtuff done on the Voyager.

In adding the RCS thrusters (the small trapezoidal shape on the quarters of the saucer section) I messed up the overall shape of the saucer...didn't notice that until I was taking these shots.

Click the image to see it larger

The forward deck 4 (or 5) windows are too big, too. Some tweaking on the uniformity of the geometry when UV mapping time comes will be necessary. I think I'm gonna model in the escape pods instead of making them displacement maps--they protrude too far, I think. That goes for a lot of the rear sensors and transporter emitter pads, too. I haven't been able to find any images of the Aerowing separated from the ship, so I think that I'll displace that, too, instead of making it removable--I can't foresee the necessity.

Oddly, I had a major bite of a time getting the warp nacelles and impulse engines looking right. I'm still not one hundred percent on them, but I'll come back to 'em later. I also need to tweak the meet-up point between the main tubular body and the saucer section. It's too soft a transition as you can clearly see in the above image. And the termination to the deflector dish isn't complete either.
My next set of tasks is the aft torpedo launchers cut in.
I am really pleased with the shuttle bay section. I will cut in doors later so that the Delta Flyer can come and go realistically. I really, really hate the pylon hinges. I can't find two images that show the same thing--seems that each person has their own interpretation on the concept.

Anyway....time to go eat some pizza.

Live long and model

2009-03-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that I'm a huge Trekkie. I'm ubersiked for ST9 coming out in May. While I love TOS, I have to admit that Voyager is my fav of the shows. Voyager is an Intrepid class and one sexy ship. And, as I have recently found, a lot more complex than I originally gave her credit for. As you can see here, I'm not very far along...

click to view all images larger

Two biggest trouble spots are the main delfector dish and the forward sensor array. I also see all the deck windows to be a problem when I get to them.

Texturing is gonna be a challenge, too. Now that you're done here, check these places out:
Star Trek: New Voyages
Star Trek: Hidden Frontier
Star Trek: Odyssey
Star Trek: The Helena Chronicles
That Jean-Luc Picard

Textured and rigged...for the most part.

2008-12-02T10:09:00.000-08:00

Haven't updated in a while about this, but I have been working on it. I swear. She's textured for the most part. I'll go back later and add some finer details, but I don't wanna stay too closely focused on one element and skimp on others.

The rig is also done for the most part. As I weight the geometry to the bones, sometimes I catch that a pivot or a series of bones isn't quite where it should be. It's an on going process.

Face is rigged, too. Controlled grossly with blendshapes, and more finely with face bones. This is where majority of the refinement is being done. Even after a few animation tests, I'm still finding places where things aren't quite right.
Like in this test, the lower lips aren't responding as well as I'd like them to. From screen left, count 1-6, joints 2 and 4 need attention in the weighting department and joints 1 and 6 seem extraneous. On the top row joints 1 and 6 could stand some weight polishing. I'm also not too happy with the pucker-face blendshape target, so that'll need attention. A laundry list of things to take care of.

I've rigged her in my usual method of control-rig connected to the skeleton, physically, through only one point--a Point Constraint on the root joint. Everything else is matched up via hierarchy. Both Controls and Skeleton are parented under one master Character Control Curve (seen in the second image above as the 4-pointed shape under her feet). This control is for scene positioning and shouldn't be keyed. The root of the Control skeleton is the one control you need to key (named appropriately KeyMe). You set your animation preferences to key the entire hierarchy, create your pose, select the KeyMe curve and press "S". Done. All controls are now keyed.
Alternately, it's a very easy way of restoring the bind pose. Select the KeyMe curve, select the hierarchy by entering "select -hi;" and then entering zeros in all transformations. Bam. Inital pose reacquired.
Okay, I lied. It's not only one place. The face is a separated hierarchy so that you can work on it separately. The KeyMe control for that is the big face-shaped curve around the face controls. Same principal, though.

Velma Modeling 2

2008-09-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

Had a few more hours to work on her. For the most part the blocking is done. Now it's time to get to the details. I did get some in the hair and in the face, but there's a lot to go.

After stoping, taking a break and looking again...I'm not digging the hands. The finger tips are too rounded and not supple/feminine enough. Legs on the upper side--under the skirt--are sticking out of the dress. Glasses are way off. A bunch of stuff on my trusty yellow pad to take care of.
All in all, though, I think she's looking okay so far.

Velma Modeling

2008-09-22T13:12:00.000-07:00

Having a little time here and there, I thought I'd do a little practice in an area I'm not too strong in: modeling. And since it's my choice, I choose...her. The smart chick with the glasses. The under appreciated one who always get the right answer but almost never gets the credit for it. I have me a Velma in real life and she never disappoints, but there are, as a causal search tell me, no 3D Velmas out there. A model sheet was pretty easy to turn up.

And after several hours of pushing and pulling, this is what I have so far.

Didn't have a good arm shot, so I had to draw one in curves and kinda guess at it through some Scooby Doo episodes. The eyes are going to be a problem. There are figurines of the gang out there, but they're usually cheap-mold versions and her eyes are painted right on to the glasses. That, obviously, won't work here so that'll be an interesting puzzle.
Back to work.

Psycho Cyan

2008-08-21T09:16:00.000-07:00

If you've played any Final Fantasy game, this ought to impress you.

Michael Jackson's Punch-Out!

2008-08-11T07:47:00.001-07:00

Pixar's Presto!

2008-08-01T12:03:00.001-07:00

Stop what you're doing right now and go watch this:

http://www.gamaniak.com/video-2822-presto-pixar.html

And when it comes to DVD along side Wall-E...buy it. It's more than worth it.

Translates To You

2008-04-30T12:31:00.000-07:00

A great way to know that you have too many things going on at the same time is that you never get anything finished. This little exercise I put together over the past few weeks in my limited spare time. The voice is Charlton Heston from True Lies (you can find the original audio here). And the rig is from http://shrtcww.com/journal/136/generick It's an awesome rig to work with with only one minor little complaint: The mouth doesn't pucker very well. Pronounced Os and kisses don't read smoothly. Other than that, it's better than anything I've ever put together...so I use it.

Custom Mel Script Buttons

2008-02-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

This is a shortie tip/trick on how to work easily with other people's rigs in Maya. I dunno about you, but I like to set keys on my controls all on the same frame while I'm laying out my animations. This allows for easier massaging of timing and make changing a pose easier when the need arises. I've seen and worked with animators who's keys are all over the place and if you're handed an animation and asked to finish it, it's a hairball to pass.

In this example I'm using Generick, an awesome rig by Ian Jones that can be found here. I also suggest perusing his site....it's fantastic.

Now, on to the point. You've just received this awesome rig:

You didn't rig it, and unless you wanna spend the next several hour deconstructing it, or have a document on how to best use it (such as a Hierarchy-Keying method, or a snazzy custom interface) you're gonna be stuck having to grab all those controls and key them each time. Gets kinda tedious after a while and being human you're gonna miss one here and there causing you to go back and find that one you missed and...well, it's annoying. 'Nuff said.

Maya's command structure makes it easy to automate stuff since almost everything you do is echoed in the script editor. If we select something, that selection is typed up. If we wanted to do a bunch of stuff, we simply need to select all that stuff and copy the commands that Maya uses and then make a Shelf button for it. It's easier than you think.

Using a custom shelf we're going to make four buttons. Two for selecting, separately, the face and the body, and two more buttons for setting keys on the same controls that the other buttons select. We'll then make labels and choose icons for those buttons to make identifying them as easy as possible.

First, make a new Shelf by choosing the little down-arrow next to the Shelf and choose New Shelf. Name the shelf whatever you want. Then select that shelf to be current. Empty and waiting.

Open your script editor with the button or by choosing Window->General Editors->Script Editor. If you're not familiar with this window I recommend leaving it open at the side and watching it as you do your thing. Get familiar with the commands that Maya sends through the Mel scripting language (or Python in later versions).

To make things easier to identify, I like to clear the backscroll by choosing, in the Script Editor window) Edit->Clear All

Next, so's I don't select stuff I don't want by accident, I trim off items in the Selection Mask that I don't want to grab. Here, all I want is curves, so that's the only thing left unpressed.

You may also want to check your Set Key options (Animate->Set Key) and make sure that everything is the way you want it to be. I recommend reseting the tool.

After that carefully select the items that you want your Shelf Command to work with. Check out your Script Editor output:

The first line you see in the image is “select -cl ;” This is a result of my clicking in an empty spot to make sure that nothing was selected. The other three lines are me, first selecting some controls, holding shift, selecting more, and then again holding shift selecting a third bunch. Doesn't matter what tool you use to make the selection, so if the Lasso makes it easier, do it.

Now that things are selected, hit “s” on your keyboard setting keys on the selected items.

You'll see the resulting setKeyframe command and all it's flags appear followed by a “// Result: ## //” line where ## is the number of items that Maya has keyed for you.

We now have the two repetitive tasks laid out for use to reuse over and over. Select the “select” items, then, using your Middle Mouse Button click and drag the command to the shelf. A “Mel” button will appear.

Do the same thing for the setKeyframe line. Don't worry about the “result” message. You can now undo the key framing unless you want to keep it.

Now to customize those buttons and make them identifiable. Choose Window->Settings/Preferences->Shelves... In the resulting window, you have three tabs. You should open up to the Shelf Contents tab with your new Shelf and it's Mel buttons all ready to be edited. Select the first item...it should look obvious enough. Change the Label & Tooltip to something meaningful, such as “Select the characters face” and change the Icon Name to “Face”. The Icon Name is what you'll see on the shelf and it's a limited size, so any names that are too long will be truncated. Next, click the Change Image button. The resulting dialog box will put you in the default icons directory (It depends on what version you have as to where this may be). For all the buttons on the other shelves, this is where Maya stores them. I recommend using only these icons, but if you want to make custom icons I'll tell you how at the end of this tutorial. I prefer to use USERASELECT.BMP for the selection button (It's a red mouse cursor) and USERMENUICONKEYS.BMP for the Key button (It's an image of a key).

Do the same thing for the other button, but this one's a Key command so make the appropriate changes.

To make a pair of buttons for the body or whatever other items you may want, repeat the steps making the appropriate substitutions.

I usually end up with something like this:

Now you can pose your character and simply click the Key button to set that pose, or if you're editing you can simply click the Select button and move all your keys at once. Easy-peasy.

Custom Icons

The icons are nothing more than 32x32 pixel BMP files. It's a simple matter of screen-grabbing a representation of the command (such as a picture of the head for the face icon) and making the changes in Photoshop. If you share, move, or backup your shelves, though, remember to take the icon, too. When I make shelves for other animators in my office I use the icons that come with the Maya installation so that I don't have to track down icons files and place them in the proper places.

Your shelves are located in your My Documents folder then \maya\version#\prefs\shelves\

That's all there is to it. Making your own shelf buttons for common tasks, even temporary ones, makes your work flow smoother. Now, if only there was a Mel command for “make coffee.”

Refresh your Inbox

2008-01-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

Right before I Stumbled upon this xkcd comic, I refreshed my inbox.

Dynamic Phone Cord

2007-11-06T18:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the absence. No excuses....so let's get to it. This one was requested a
little bit ago. The dynamic phone cord. There's a really good tutorial on Highend3d for
this one, and it's quite similar, but that's because the end result is the same and in
Maya there's then ways to model a skinned cat. Mush!

First, we need some geometry. I just happen to have, handy, a phone and handset modeled.
How convenient, eh? First off we need to draw a curve. After that curve is drawn, do
a Edit Curves->Rebuild Curve. Reset the tool and set the spans to a nicely spaced
number. For my cord it's 10 spans, but your curve may be longer or shorter and you
should adjust that value to a suitable amount. Just don't want the spans too far or too
close to each other.

Next, Hair->Make Selected Curves Dynamic. We go from having Curve1 to having:

Select follicle1 and set Point Lock to NoAttach. This determines which end Maya holds
when a simulation is run. To facilitate control, we're telling Maya to let go of the
curve completely. If you hit play, the curve will fall forever into the distance. This
is no good, of course, so we're gonna make two constraints. select curve1 (in the
outliner is easiest), right click and choose the first CV. Hitup Hair->Create
Constraint->Transform. You'll see a small locator-esque item appear. That's the
constraint handle, Do the same thing to the opposite end. Parent the constraints to
their respective geometry.

For now, I prefer to set Stiffness on hairSystem1 to 0 and crank the Gravity to 9.8.
Also, turn on Self Collide. This makes a simulation run quickly so I can see if it's even
working up to this point. Before you hit play, though, make sure that you're playing
Every Frame....check your Animation Preferences. Each frame of the simulation depends on
the results of the previous frame and if you play at a frame rate, but your computer
can't keep up Maya will skip frames and this could cause errors and flub-ups in the
simulation.

At the moment all we have is a dynamic curve. Looks noting like a phone cord. Let's add
a paint effects stroke to it by selecting Hair->Assign PaintFX Brush to Hair (need to
have the hairsystem1 selected for this). You won't see any results in the 3D view, but
Maya will birth pfxHair1 in the outliner. Keeping that selected, goto
Modify->Convert->Paint Effects to Polygons.
Again, you're not going to see much change except the new brush2MeshGroup and it's child
brush. Here's where we affect changes to make this mess look like a phone cord.
Select the Brush by selecting pfxHair1 and in the Attributes Editor, selecting the brush2
tab. Set the Global Scale to 1.
Now select hairSystem1 and expand the Clump and Hair Shape group. Some major changes
here, so I'll list them for easier reading.
Hairs per clump = 1 (only want one cord)
Subsegments = 10 (good to match the spans you rebuilt the curve prior)
Clump Width = 1
Hair Width = 1.5 (Global scale x Hair Width = what you see)

In the ranged areas, hit the little x's to make the position curves flat.
Type these values into the Selected Value area...
ClumpWidthScale = 2 (the diameter of the cord's curl)
HairWidthScale = 1 (this is for changing the Hair Width along the length, but we need a
unifomrly width'd cord. If you need to affect the diameter of the cord itself, then
adjust Hair Width (above)).
ClumpCurl = 2.5 (this is how many times the cord runs around itself--use more or less to
get the right look for your cord)
Clump Flatness = 0 (Smooshes the ClumpWidthScale affect, so use that value to adjust
instead)

At the moment, you see a black cord, but you can assign your shader of choice to it.
Now that you can see your cord go back to that brush2 node you were on before and expand
the Brush Profile group. Change flatness1 to a value that flattens your cord to your
liking. Too much is too much.

If you want to see the results in action, choose the Hair Tab (have you saved your file
yet? If not, here's a good time. I'll wait. Done? Alright. Cool.) then select the
handset geometry, choose the move tool, and click the green arrow on the shelf
(Interactive Playback). Move the handset around and you should see things working for
the most part. Reload your saved file just to put things back in order.
Back to that hairSystemShape1 node. Expand Dynamics and set the Stiffness Scale to look
like a soft depression like in the image below. This makes the cord rigid when it goes
into and comes out of the geometry, but soft and chewy in the center.

For the cord to interact with the environment you can either create a collision cube (via
the hair menu--have the hairsystem selected), or you can do a makeCollide (select the
hair system and then the geometry it's to collide with). Play around with these to see
which works best for your situation.

When you hit play, you'll notice that the cord sags for a bit. This is no good unless
you start all your animation on frame 20 or so. To address this we need to set the
dynamic curve in a relaxed pose. Hit play and let it go until the cord settles down. In
the outliner select curve2 from under hairSystem1OutputCurves and choose Hair->Set Start
Position->From Current. You'll see curve2 assume the current position, and when you
rewind the animation this will now be where the simulation starts.

Your cord probably looks pretty low resolution at the moment, but ignore that for now and
do your animation. When it comes time to render you can either do a polySmooth on the
geometry, or you can crank the SubSegments on the hairSystemShape1 node.

Well, now. That was easy, eh? Have Fun!

Useless Body Parts

2007-10-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

A fascinating read on organs, tissues, and muscles that evolution hasn't done away with to date. Makes me wonder if, since medical science enables, to the limits of it's ability, those afflicted by previously unsurvivable natural genetic mutations to survive and propagate, that they propagate that mutation as well, suffering people to continue to suffer from ailments that would, otherwise, be worked out by natural selection. Sounds very harsh, but it's a testament to the effects of intelligence on evolution.

https://notes.utk.edu/Bio/greenberg.nsf/0/0765bb50d404455385256f0000680854?OpenDocument&Click=

Dynamic Hair and Spline IK...together.

2007-10-02T13:19:00.000-07:00

This one came up at work today: How to drive a bone chain dynamically. This is realitivy easy to setup....so....let's go.

Go ahead and draw your joint chain. Orient your joints--always orient your joints. Here, I'm putting Y down the bone, with a pole prefrence for z-positive. Hopefully, if all goes well, this will make the joint point it's local Y axis to the next joint in the chain, and rotate it on that to get Z facing in the positive world orentation. Not always perfect, but it's a good start. The last joint has nothing to point to, so it's ignored. And if it's not, make sure that the "Orient Child Joints" box is checked so it affects the entire joint chain.

Next, choose to draw an EP curve, with at least a Curve Degree of 3 in the tool settings. Hold V and click the first and last joint to snap to those joints and complete the curve. Now, goto Edit Curves -> Rebuild Curves. In this box, reset the tool, then enter the number of joint spans in the "Number of spans" box. This will recreate the curve, making a Control Vertex for every joint in the chain. This isn't absolutly required to do, but it makes sense to have the same number of spans in each the contol spline and the joint chain.

With your curve selected, goto Hair -> Make Selected Curves Dynamic. This will...uh, well, this will make the selected curves dynamic. Doing so moves the curve from something you control into something Maya controls. In your Outliner you'll see all that Hair System stuff appear that always accompanies this kinda stuff. The curve coming from the Follicle is a draw curve, and the curve coming from the hairSystem1OutputCurves is the dynamic one. At this point, selecting the curves in the 3D view is difficult because they're in the same place. I don't need or care about the draw curve, so I'm gonna toggle it's visibility to off. Now I can easily select the dynamic curve in the 3D view. To clarify, draw = curve1, and dynamic = curve2.

When you create a SplineIK, Maya draws the Spline part for you. We want our curve to drive the SplineIK, so we don't want Maya to create one. To stop Maya from doing this, I'll uncheck the (on by default) Auto Create Curve box in the SplineIK tool settings.

To tell Maya what curve to use as the driving curve for the SplineIK, we click-click-shift-click. Click the first joint....click the second joint...hold shift...and click the curve. If Maya gets your point, she'll make an IK handle which will appear in your outliner. *stretch!*, almost done.

When you convert a curve into a dynamic curve, the curve is automatically anchored at both ends. If you hit play, the curve will only sag under the virtual gravity. If you followed this example as I've done it, when you hit play you won't see anything happen because the virtual gravity is pulling down on Y and we're vertically oriented (Y is up by default in Maya). choose the follicle in your outliner and in your channel box, set Point Lock to Base (your first click in creating the curve is the base). There are four options there, No Attach, Base, Tip, and BothEnds. Seems pretty straight forward as to what those mean, so we'll skip explanation.

Now you can test your finished Dynamicaly Driven Spline IK system by heading to the Hair shelf, choosing the follicle, and starting Interactive Playback (the green arrow icon on the Hair shelf). Move your follicle around and watch your bones go swayin' all over the dang place.

To make any use out of this, parent the follicle to what ever it is that's moving, such as....oh, I dunno, a lamp so you can puse it as a pull chain.

Pirate vs Ninja

2007-09-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I would have made this post yesterday, but me and my wench were too busy celebrating by playing Super Mario World--though I did check out her booty. The battle between Pirates and Ninjas has been raging for as long as man has been able to remember the debate. To date, no consensus has been reached. Some are strictly for Ninjas wanting nothing to do with the Pirate crowd and in some cases, blatantly speaking ill of them. Take for instance this review of Pirates of the Caribbean by the Ninja from Ask A Ninja.

Some very obvious personal attacks goin' on there. But Pirates are not innocent in that regard. Some would say that they're worse about talking crap about the other side. In this video a pair make a pros and cons listing that's a bit one sided.

There are many movies about Ninjas, and there is no shortage of movies about Pirates. But rare is the opportunity to see them go head to head as seen here:

I for one, side with the Pirates for two very simple reasons....rum and wenches. That, and my butt looks all misshapen in black pajamas.

The day may never come where one stands above the other in victory. All I can say is that being polar opposites, Ninjas and Pirates are not compatible. Breeding the two together to receive the ultimate power results in a sterile, misshapen creature that deserves only pity--much like breeding a Tiger and a Lion to get a Liger. You can see the results for yourself here:

Tamagotchi!

2007-09-19T11:25:00.000-07:00

At long last, the Tamagotchi PC Pack with v4.5 Tamagotchi is available. (I'm sure I'll be told, I'm behind the curve here a bit, but I just found out.) My work line up includes the Itchigotchi and Mametchi in-the-lab screen saver, and the on-stage performances of Itchigotchi, Memetchi, and Violetchi. Each character responds to your voice commands!
After you get your PC Pack, you'll get a password that will enable you to enter TamaTown!

Image from the Toys R Us website. Used without permission.

Dog Feet

2007-09-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

In the real world, your feet work without you even thinking about them. You climb stairs, you turn in place, you ascend an inclined ramp, whatever. You don't think about where on your foot you impact the ground, how you roll to the ball, and then launch off the toe. But, if in an animation it's not done in the proper fashion, it looks like heck. I was told once by an instructor that a walk cycle is the hardest task an animator will have to deal with. Well, if you don't count object constraint animation, then yeah, I'd agree with that. It's a bite. But a good rig can take some of that bite out. I've done a few quadruped rigs before, but they've all be quite simple, and each time I pretty much got away with out having to make a working heel-ball-toe foot rig. This time, though...unh-huh. Puppy's gotta giddy-up, and trot, and roll over, and all the other assorted stuff that cute-wittle-puppies do.
Quads and Bis have pretty much the same joint hierarchy. In the images below you can see how the limb extrudes from the central spine by way of the scapula, humerus, ulna/radius, carpus, metacarpus, and then finally the phalanges. In the rear, well, you can follow the chain from the pelvis to the phalanges easily enough.

In you and me--I'm assuming you're a human--the order of the bones is the same. The scaling is different, and the necessity for a dog to put even weight on it's "arms" makes they dynamic of the "shoulders" work differently.

When you land on your step, the first pivot point is the heel--you've evolved differently than the dog has so there's more bone back there to handle your larger foot, seeings how you need to balance all-of-you on only two limbs. For sake of easier explanation, we'll consider this part of the Tarsals. From there, the next pivot point is between the metatarsals and the phalanges. When the dog's foot plants, though, it's more of a flat-plant, as there's no heel bone. There's a fleshy pad that a dog lands on--it's the human-equivalent to a tiptoe walk.
So, here I am, rigging this dog, looking at how the dog's bone structure is lined up, and how the dog is walking. Heck, why not used a modified human leg IK structure? Like this:
1. The toe pivot. Used for launching and for yaw pivots on weight shift.
2. Metatarsal and phalanges hinge. Used for tip-toe pivot, heel lift, and toe wiggles.
3. The imaginary heel. May not be on in there for real, but this allows me to land the heel down with the foot up.
4. The Shoulder, or in the rear it's the hip.

This method worked okay in this situation. I think, if I were to do it on a larger dog, I may go the route of the old-fashioned reverse foot setup.
I can't show the final product, obviously, because it's a work in progress, but I can show a test of the rig. Came out alright looking. Whatcha think?

Dog riggin'

2007-08-24T17:07:00.000-07:00

The great thing about rigging is that there isn't a right or wrong way to do it. In the end, a rig must satisfy a small list of requirements:
1. It must be fast.
2. It must be easy to use.
3. It must reach the needs of the scene.
and for an extra bit of fun
4. It must avoid gimbal lock.

When I was in college my instructor would show us examples of characters where the hands and face controls would be set driven keys. If it works for the scene, then there's no problem. I don't agree with this method, but it's not wrong. I prefer to not limit a rig by a min- and max- value. The problem with animators is that they like to push things beyond what is expected. What if, in some particular scene, the pose of the hand at its maximum finger travel didn't look right--the silhouette doesn't read. What if you needed to push that pose further to anticipate a really wild take? Oh....set driven key...."call the tech person and have him adjust the rig so I can get this pose!" Nah. That's not gonna get you invited on the next project.
I digress. Personal pet peeve about SDK's.

Today's bit of work involves another character I am not at liberty to share because I don't have the permissions to show copyrighted material. Sucks, I know. But the geometry can be anything, really. It's a small quadruped. On most mammals, the center of gravity is in the belly. On a person the belly is right above the pelvis, so it's a nice place to put the root joint in a rig. In a four legged creature, though it's different. Standing on four hooves, paws, or claws, you can lift any one leg and essentially become a tripod, you can wiggle your butt independent of your upper body, and you can wiggle your upper body independant of your bottom. You can sit on your haunches, and when you run you bend and twist and heave in some really interesting ways. The pivot for those actions is right in the belly area. Watching Gizmo here, it's interesting to notice where his stomach is. If you could put a tracker on his side, just in front of his hip, you'd notice that his vertical translation is quite steady. The same is noticeable on larger animals, such as Pudge. A slight sine wave pattern, yes, but in relation to the rest of his body it's practically static. This is a small dog's center of gravity, and an idea spot for a root joint.
The center, low joint is the root of this very unfinished rig. This will allow the animator (which will probably be me) to create a realistic walk cycle, sit, tail wag (which in small excited dogs ends up wiggling the entire butt), bend the forepart of the body down to retrieve objects and other such little doggie actions.

I think the next blog entry will be about those feet....but until then...

Because I'm a nerd...

2007-08-14T08:13:00.001-07:00

Uber-nerd points go to the first person who can identify the footage in the second shot. :D

GHE:80's

2007-08-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been just over a week now that Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80's came out. GH was awesome. GH2 was even better. GHE, though...well...Is it too mean to say that they basically phoned this one in? Let's do this in a compliment sandwich:

Good: 80's music. Dude....it's 80's music.
Bad: Almost half of the track listing was cassette fillers.
Good: Those cassette fillers were from really cool bands.

We're off to a good start here...

Good: The intro screen is nice and neon.
Bad: It's basically the only screen that's changed since GH2
Good: The band name entering method looks like those bullshit No.2 test things they forced you to do in school. I made pictures in mine and always passed.

Good: The gutiar hero characters are decked out in crazy stylish outfits.
Bad: No other characters were even looked at...everyone's wearing the same thing as before.
Good: Pandora and Johnny got some gnarly do's, man!

Good: There are a few new character animations, like Pandora checking her nails out before a performance.
Bad: They still all look like taxidermied puppets with those crazy stone eyes.
Good: Frankenstein at the third venue, man! Rock! (Too bad you never see him again after that, though)

Good: The Grim Ripper is a playable character (again)
Bad: He's the only unlockable player.
Good: The Grim Ripper rocks with Chuthulu on the last track! (In the background stage elements, that is)

Good: Hard is friggin hard.
Bad: Medium is too easy.
Good: There's a track my girlfriend can't do (Play With Me -on hard) . Which makes me feel a little better seeing as how she pretty much shreds me on every track.

Good: "Free" poster. :D
Bad: It's lame.
Good: Uh....it's shiny?

Good: The “varoom...errrt!” sounds during carrer make me giggle.
Bad: Seen it before.
Good: The Battle Axe Guitar....sweeeeet.

Good: I can play a plastic guitar on a videogame consel.
Bad: I can't play a real guitar.
Good: I'm a professional level air guitar player.

All right, everybody stand up, please! Everybody up, c'mon! You! In the back! You waiting for a special invitation? Yes, you too! Uppity-up-up-up! You're gonna like this! C'mon! Now, breathe in... Breathe in, blow out. That's it. Now, shake it out. Good!

Simple GI (and free)

2007-07-27T08:27:00.001-07:00

Global Illumination is cool--no question. But it's expensive and difficult to set up. There are plenty of tools out there that will help you fake it--one really good example is GI_Joe.
While GI_Joe is good, it can be clunky. Kinda leaves depthmap files all over and it can be a pain to clean up if you want to get rid of it. And besides the real use of GI, maybe I just want a basic lighting setup so I can see what I'm working on. Well, I can just dip into my toolbox and drag this file:

http:\\jameszonta.prohosting.com\jimsGI_v5.zip

into my Maya window, and poof, I have a nice little lighting setup that's easy to control and that doesn't leave files all over the place, and that I can control from one place--dialogue windows are okay, but it's extra mouse-mileage that I can save if everything's in the Control Panel.

As you can see from the test image below, it does a pretty good job. Nice shadows between objects that penetrate and, if there was a ground plane to cast upon, it throws nice soft shadows in all directions so that there's no hard edged lines. If you want hard line shadows, then there's options to increase the Dmap resolution, or you can switch all lights to Raytraced Shadowing instead.

The idea is simple....three rings of directional lights--all of which have grouped controls (Top, Mid, and Bot). three separate set lights (Key, Fill, and Rim), and a Sun lamp for those nice top-down shadows. All are controlled by that blue circle/arrow thing. The arrow indicates the front of the lighting setup so that the Key, Fill, and Rim lights are positioned properly.All the lighting controls are on that circle/arrow thingie, and each group of lights has controls for Intensity, Specularity, Dmap Shadows on/off, Dmap resolution, and a Raytrace Shadows switch. (Raytraced Shadows on will shut off Dmap shadowing, but it's free to be overridden in the case that you need or want to.)
And that's that. Feel free to use/keep/modify the file. Just keep the credits and the names of stuff intact. If you improve on it, drop me a line and let me know.

Phone and Lamp Dynamics

2007-07-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Dynamics, when they work, are sexy. Who wants to sit there all day and animate a phone cord? I know I don't. So, using Maya's hair system, I made me a automatic phone cord. Nothing fancy here, really. It's a dynamic curve with the follicle at the base of the telephone and a constraint in the handset. The phone base, handle, and desktop are set as collision objects, and the cord itself is a paint effect converted to polygons. Have to keep history, though. During animation and playblasting, I want this thing to move without slowing me down. So, I'll backup the history by one, and let it be a paint effect until the very end. At rendertime, I'll convert it to polygons. Incidental, there is a conversion ceiling--a maximum number of polygons that can be created from paint effects. I didn't know that before. The lamp cord, is also a dynamic curve, but it's driving a spline IK chain. Couldn't think of a way to get paint effects to make all those tiny little chain balls and the flare at the end. To those who would want to know....you create your curve, make it dynamic, and in your spline IK settings, uncheck Auto Create Curve. Select your dynamic curve, and create your spline IK. Voila!

House Fly

2007-07-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

Not very exciting, but the mechanics of flight for a housefly are quite intresting. Watch it in slow motion and you see things you never thunk. We needs a fly to fly, so wes builds us a fly. Simple-simon. But how do you make it easy to use? Mmmmmm-ath. Sine functions allover the place in this rig. Beautiful things, sine waves. Sine waves with healthy offsets make up the wing movements all with one attribute slider. Set it as a float, and it's infinite flight for our little bugger. I know it's not dead-on-balls accurate, but for the time this guy will be on screen, it's not necessary.

If I were gonna build a bird's wing, I think I'd use a similar method on a pillow node. I image several pillow nodes to affect seperate automated functions, while still allowing for manual operation for those fine-touch moments...but I'm rambling.

Somebody shoot (Jamie) Kennedy

2007-07-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

Looks like Jon Lovits, sounds like Hasselhoff at a Wendy's and is about as funny as Andy Dick. I'm so glad I didn't goto this years E3.

P.S. To Jon Lovits....thank you for creaming Andy....seriously. You rule.

Props- Fedora and Desk

2007-07-17T09:23:00.001-07:00

It's really annoying that my connection at home seems to have it's own preferences to where I can and can't surf to. From work, I can get into this blog, my email account, and all kinds of lovely Internet-type stuff, but from home, I can't access popular sites like Yahoo Mail, Google Images, this blog here that you're reading. But I can get to BS sites like YouTube and DeviantArt without fail...and blazingly fast, too. And before everyone suggests that I clear out my cookies and try turning off my antivirus software I'll mention that the connection failure affects my Ubuntu box in exactly the same way....so I think we can rule out Windows Firewall, thank you very much Mr. Joey Stevens from tech support. Incidental, if his name was really Joey Stevens, then I'm the pope.
Anyway....now that I've gotten that out of my veins, let's show some pictures (I know you already scrolled down and looked....fess up). First up is the Fedora. When I hear the audio clip, I see a Bogart-ish character--fedora, unbuttoned shirt collar with the sleeves rolled up, soggy chewed cigarette. So, since I'm the director in this bit, I'm gonna run with it. Lofting a bunch of curves into a nice nurbs hat here worked out pretty nicely I think.

I'm gonna forgo the shirt and cigarette so I can avoid messing with cloth and particle smoke. I just wanna animate something fun.
We do need a scene, though. Seeing as how the clip seems to be a phone call, we'll need a phone. Seeing as what gravity tends to do to phones, we'll need something to put it on. A Desk would be great right about here:
Ahhh, that's nice. Nothin' too spectacular--just a big, solid desk. For a note, all the modeling being done for this piece is done by eye. At work, I have to recreate stuff down to the Nth degree, and it's really tedious. Put a nice little bump map on the desk to break up the slight amount of reflection for that "just got polished by the help" look. I see the shot opening with the character sitting in the chair, legs propped up on the desk--should make available a nice dismount when the phone rings. So I'm gonna have to make up a small rig for the chair so's that I can pivot it on the legs and I won't have to put any nasty keys on any geometry....in my book animating geometry directly is just bad form.

Got the phone and the lamp modeled and rigged for action already, so I'll post those later when I have the time. 'Till next time....

Riggin' a ghost

2007-07-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

Nothin' sooths me more than putting together a rig. It's a character I'm not at liberty to show....'cause it's not mine. It's for a short we're producing to see how fast we can do it. I'm not the world's greatest modeler, but this one came out okay. SoftImage's smoothing or half-poly, half-Sub-D system is way better than Maya's. I dunno if that's changed after 6 (of which we're using), but I hope so. The only saving grace to Maya's smoothing ways is the proxy smooth tool--make the proxy and fix a camera to both, putting a constraint to the camera looking at the smoothed version, and edit the not-smoothed version. Nice that poly cuts and extrudes show up in the smoothed w/o having to remake it. (note to self: look into making a script that automates the setup of proxy modeling)
Simple rig, with IK arms and legs. This guy's gonna have some wild takes, so stretchy limbs are necessary. Face rig get's built on Tuesday (got Mon off), and I think I'll go with a completely joint driven face...he'll have no speaking parts, so phenomes aren't necessary. That, unfortunatly, I can't show until after the short's released into the wild.
Dunno about the weekend, but Monday the latest, we'll talk about that dynamic phone cord I got workin. It's sweet.

Commodore PDA

2007-07-13T07:55:00.000-07:00

If anyone's making up a christmas list...here's an idea...
http://jledger.proboards19.com/index.cgi?board=dtvhacking&action=display&thread=1167546608

Light a fire

2007-07-12T14:44:00.000-07:00

I'm hoping that this blog thing will guilt me into getting some stuff done. I get a lot of work done, but it's work-work and not play-work. Time is a valuable commodity, and I'm short on it, but by the good graces of my girlfriend I've been allotted a few hours here and there to work on something I've been meaning to do for a while: make another short. This short's gonna be short, too. Using THIS sound file and THIS rig. It's a good solid rig with quite a lot of options. To get around a personal time crunch, I'm not modeling and rigging my own, but that's on my list of things to eventually do list. I've gotten a bit of this item though so far....the idea is planned out. Simple set, few props, concentrating on the animation.

I'm partly on the way of setting the scene...I've the desk, the phone, the lamp, the fedora, the stage, and the lighting done already, so I'll document those stages in a little bit. The phone cord and the pull chain on the lamp are dynamically driven, and those were interesting to setup, so I'll go in detail about those when more time presents itself.

Until then, beers and cheers!

Random Question

2007-07-11T09:59:00.000-07:00

Transformers are robots. Robots are metal. Metal things don't require sustenance. Why do Transformers have teeth?
http://www.myconfinedspace.com/2007/07/10/megatron-hi-res/bad-ass-mo-fo/

Hello World

2007-07-11T08:41:00.000-07:00

10 Print "Hello World!"
20 Get A$
30 If A$ = "" then goto 10

run

Hello World!
Hello World!
Hello World!
Hello World!
Hello World!
Hello World!
Hello World!