Facial mocap animation and rig test done by Janimation!
Blog
Mr. BallBot “The Transfomer Concept”
A quick concept art that I sketched up for my new upcoming workshop on Transformer setup!
Mr. BallBot transforms from a spherical ball into a bipedal robot, therefore the name goes Mr. BallBot. The concept is still a work in progress and I am constantly figuring out new ideas. The idea is to keep everything simple and subtle.
Well the sketching part was fun now comes the time to start modelling which is going to be fairly technical. Once the modelling is done, I will be posting a 360 turntable video prior to rigging!
I am already excited to see BallBot transform and come to life 🙂
Stay tuned folks The Transformer Workshop is coming soOn … well not that sOon 😛
Shadow Rig by Martial FONTAN
Check out this unique rig! Very Flexible and intuitive design for a shadow character. Really liked the way the head, facial and finger controls are setup-ed on 3D geometry and later projected onto 2D shadow 🙂
Free Rig: Malcolm Rig
Malcolm Rig from AnimSchool is now freely available for download compatible for both Maya and Softimage. Try it out! It’s fun 🙂
GTA V Trailer
Simply Colossal!
Making of Nissan Skyline Transformer
Very good insights on making of a transformer animation! You can try out similar techniques to make your very own Transformer 🙂
Making of The Smurfs
Very informative and interesting video showcasing the breakdown and making of Sony Pictures Imagework “The Smurfs” movie. See how the 2D characters are brought to life!
Workshop Assets
A compilation image for some of the assets used during the training purpose! Check out The pupPetEEr’s Lounge webpage showcasing some new training workshops for Workshop ON Demand. Cheers 🙂
Rigging Survey
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 🙂
Pigeon Rigging by Wesley Schneider
Bird rigging demo by Wesley Schneider. Lovely character design and beautiful rigs!