Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Hello, World

Hmm, where should I start?

I'm intending to make this a hub for rigging and technical direction resources, because let's face it - there's not much of anything like that out there for us, which is really, really sad. Simply stated, if you have good resources send them, and I'll keep this place as up to date as I can. I know this is a simple blog, but it would also be nice to have some sort of question area or FAQ. If you have a rigging question, I'd be happy to help in any way possible, and if I can't, I'm sure the group of talented TDs that I am lucky enough to call my friends (HEY GUYS) certainly can.

As for me - I am an aspiring character TD, currently a junior at Cogswell Polytechnic College. I specialize in rigging in Maya, though I am trying to learn Houdini as well as Blender. I can script in MEL fairly well, and my next language to tackle will be Python. I've been interested in rigging for quite a while, although I'm more artistic than technical. I've done some rigging and TD work for a few projects, and I try to pick up as many small projects as I can to build me experience.

So lets get this thing started!

6 comments:

  1. This is probably going to come off as really pretentious--and maybe it is--but I'll say it anyway.

    There are actually quite a lot of resources out there for TD's. It's just that they're more general than "this is how to rig such-and-such in this particular piece of software".

    Books on computer graphics algorithms, research papers on a variety of topics, various anatomy resources, books on programming, books on user interface design, etc. are all excellent (and dare I say necessary) resources for becoming--and remaining--a genuinely versatile TD.

    Most of the best resources are going to be outside of where most aspiring riggers look, because these resources aren't attached to any piece 3d software, and because they don't immediately lead to "oh, so this is how to rig something".

    Documentation and tutorials for specific pieces of software are still important, of course, because you need to know your tools well. But they're not the meat of a TD, just the shell.

    Really, it's the same as 3D animation. The best and most important resources aren't going to be the books on how to animate inside the software, because those books always confuse the tool with the craft. The truly valuable resources are the books, articles, etc. that discuss animation in general, independent of the software or even of the medium.

    This is one of the reasons that the TD school looks pretty cool to me, because it seems very likely that they "get it", and will teach beyond the software.

    Ugh, I'm sure this whole thing came across as really pretentious. But I think it's an important point to make. I feel like people have a tendency to fawn over software and lose sight of what really matters.

    I should probably add that I don't claim to be a master of any kind. I still have a long ways to go myself.

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  2. Ack, I guess I'm grumpier these days than I thought. Starting off the blog with a grumpy-ass, curmudgeony comment. Sorry about that.

    I think this blog is a super-cool idea, and I'm looking forward to reading and participating in it. It will definitely be a good resource. :-)

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  3. Ahaha, Cessen, no worries.

    I get what you're saying - which is actually one of the reasons I started this. I wanted to create a resource of the things that aren't software based, and find the crazy good people that most people don't know about.

    At any rate, I'm glad you'll be participating. I had planned to post links to your rigging videos, from BBB and other things, if that's okay with you ;p

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  4. Sure, you're free to post outdated videos of crappy rigs I made. :-P

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  5. Funny that I also had my first post with Hello World!

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  6. Ahaha, I saw that. Must be a common thing amongst us rigging types ;]

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