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Rigging Survey

October 28, 2011 0 comments

The above image has nothing to do with this post, it’s just a bit of a humor I say!

Like any other form of art and technology, rigging is constantly evolving. As a character rigger need to adapt to evolve. What I think, is keeping stuff simple and organized! We shouldn’t miss out reference (live, image, video, etc), after all rigging or building a puppet is a way to mimic the natural organic or inorganic world as close as possible and this includes a study of art and building tools to ease the workflow.

A proper naming convention, structured rig hierarchy, directory structure, skeleton layout and orientation (understanding the anatomy) are some of the crucial factors. Creating a clean, fast and functional rig in time demands a clean rig layered with base rig, deformation, automation and dynamics as needed and art directed.

Rigging being a bridge between modelling and animation; during production, there tends to be some back and forth between each departments that deals with aritistic and technical changes and it’s a challenge for the rigger to keep the flow and this includes efficient workflow, tool building and referencing. Working closely with modeller, animator and every other department is vital to deliver better output. There will be many challenges and hurdles, as a rigger we need to stand up to it and that’s how we learn and avoid problems.

Cheers 🙂

Making of Diablo 3: The Black Soulstone

October 24, 2011 0 comments

Behind the Scenes look at the Making of Diablo 3: The Black Soulstone Cinematic at BlizzCon 2011 by Blizzard. A lot of work goes into making these cinematics! Pure Awesomeness 😀

Key Points on Animation!

October 23, 2011 0 comments

Useful points and key notes/quotes to keep in mind and follow during animation…

1. Rhythm, Timing, Beat & Spacing ~ Pattern, Texturing, Timing!
2. Learning drawing is vital!
3. Anticipation ~ Every movement in animation should have! Anticipate force being applied…
4. Arc ~ Every single thing in body should have!
5. No overshoot, No energy ~ exaggerate first and then pull it back until it’s fit with animation (Don’t be afraid of exaggerating too much)
6. Focus on PRINCIPLES ~ Staging, Posing, Anticipation!
7. KISS ~ KEEP IT SIMPLE Stupid!
8. Contact Frame ~ Right before and after the energy applies, foot touches the ground, legs stretch. Look out for contact key poses!
9. Video Reference ~ Cool motion, we could get the acting that people can’t think of consciously. Push things more, search what makes animation unique!
10. Graph Editor ~ Be careful about the gaps between keys. Smooth out until the keys are faded out. Ease-in and Ease-out!
11. At least 3 frames are required to let audience see what it going on the screen!
12. Heavy ball takes a lot more frames to stop. Root is the heaviest part of the body!
13. Every frame should be able to tell a story. Posing is very important!
14. Polish TILT, RHYTHM, TWIST!

P.S. Notes assembled from a Romit studying at PIXAR 🙂

Maya UI Layout Elements Codes

October 23, 2011 0 comments

Layouts determine how all the UI elements in a window should be placed. All menus and windows you see in Maya are created in MEL using specific UI commands such as layout, slider, field, button, etc!

There should be many cases when you must be wondering or getting frustrated to figure out the right UI element or layout? For this reason Matt created a really useful resource on documentation for UI elements so that we can pick the right one without much of a hassle. Click Here for the PDF documentation! Here is the original post from Tech-Artist.org.

Also check out this documentation on creating MEL UI Layouts. Useful resource for UI creation. 🙂

Auto Rig Tools Workshop

October 21, 2011 0 comments

A new Workshop ON Demand has been added to the Menu!!!

“Auto Rig Tool workshop will focus on creating a fully customizable bipedal character rig using automated tools. Using these tools one can setup a character rig in a matter of minutes with just a click of a button saving both time and resources to deliver quality rigs. The workshop includes setting up an interactive user interface to create and connect custom rig set for body parts such as head, torso, arm, leg and finger. Tools are created using MEL.”

Please check out The pupPetEEr’s Lounge webpage for more info!

Cheers 🙂