Riggers Do It With Constraints

Rhythm and Hues: A New Adventure

2010-11-29T13:55:00.001-08:00

It seems as though in the midst of my production induced haze I failed to notice how quickly time was passing, and a lot of things happened. Fall, for instance, and then Thanksgiving is over, and now I need to shop...

But, best of all was that my hard work has paid off, and I will be starting at Rhythm and Hues next Monday as a technical animator, and hopefully, when I learn enough, rigger. I am definitely excited - I have friends who work there and love it, and I get to work on a movie!

Sadly though, I had to leave my current student production with only one month left. The rigging was about as done as it could be minus a few shot corrections, and I had moved into Techanim and Rigging TD anyway, but I am still sad to go. However, I am looking even more forward to seeing what the film will look like when it's finished, since the shots that are already comped are beautiful.

Anyway, new adventure, new place, new friends and experiences - and most of all, learning. I will be working with some brilliant minds who have a lot to teach me about rigging theory, and I will use it to expand my skills even more.

Wish me luck!

DAA 267!

2010-09-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

Three months left for production, and things are getting crazy!! We're showing a trailer next week, and we have shots rendered and comped, but still - yikes!

I have moved on from Character TD to Cloth TD and Render IO. I love the cloth, but being a render monkey makes me want to pull my eyes out.

Also, I am now teaching Intro to Character Rigging (DAA 267) at Cogswell Polytechnic College. It's a very basic rigging class, covering mostly bipedal anatomy and bipedal rigging techniques. Still, I think I am learning more than my students, and I am having a pretty good time.

For my class, I've been making PDF tutorials, which I will be posting here. They're very, very basic, but I seem to find a lack of comprehensive basic tuts on the web. So, once I find a good file host, I will start to post.

For now, all I can say is that Project X has been a great experience, but boy am I ready for the real thing.

Also, I have to share a great reel I found, for a few reasons:

I see very few solid game rigging demo reels, but this one really takes the cake. It's fast, shows a lot in a little time, and very well done, in my opinion. The deformations on the first model are awesome, and the guts blendshapes are creepily fantastic. Plus, this reel shows examples of stretch, biped/quadruped, dynamics, and solid rigging in a minute fifteen.

Also, while watching this reel I was shocked, surprised, and touched to see that the last model is based off of concept work from Michael Sandborn - an amazing artist and wonderful friend who sadly passed away. It's touching see that his work was taken into the hands of such talented people.

Justin Kirk Rigging Reel from Justin Kirk on Vimeo.

Project X: The Offering Trailer

2010-06-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

For those of you who don't know - I am currently working full time (more than that, actually) as lead character rigger on the next Project X, a series of shorts produced by the students of Cogswell Polytechnic College. The film I am working on is the second one being produced and is all NDA, but I can share with you the trailer from the previous film so you can get an idea of the type of work we're doing. Except this time around looks better :p.

Heh, sorry for the size!

Two of my best friends were the character TD and the effects TD. They've since moved on to be techanims at Rhythm and Hues, and most of the people who completed this project last year are currently in the industry. Shows what having a nice senior piece can do for you!

A Little Bit on Contract Work

2010-04-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have received a ton of e-mails from people that need help on rigging or want advice.

And this is awesome!

I am so happy that people are reaching out through the internet and using resources, and also that rigging seems to be an expanding art. You guys rock for wanting to learn!

However...I am going to have to lay down some guidelines.

I am more than willing to do work for either students or studios (interested in a resume, contact jess(dot)delacy(at)gmail(dot)com). However, if you are a studio, then I am going to charge you. Rigging contracts are how I make my living, and I can't be giving out free favors to studios. If you're a startup and can prove it...we'll talk ;]

Students - I know how tight your budgets are. Believe me, I do. So here's the deal! If you're a student, there's a 90% chance I will help you for free. I'll help problem solve, fix small problems, answer questions, give advice, give you resources or tutorials, even make tutorials all for free. And the catch is this...

I cannot, cannot do a full rig unless it's something that I have never done before AND OR is something that will greatly increase my knowledge. For instance: I have rigged a quadruped before, but I've never rigged a quadruped with cloth based wings, or something with a lot of plates, like a pangolin. Or, I've not rigged a lot of interesting inanimate objects, such as a slinky, if you catch my drift.

But again, I've rigged a biped before. And I have very, very little free time. If you want a biped rigged, unless there's something crazy about it that I deem it worthy...sorry, but I will charge an hourly rate. Less than I would for studios, but still. I have to eat somehow, and I can't just fill every request I get for free. And jeez am I getting a lot lately :/

Still interested? Shoot me an e-mail!

Animated Films: A Rant

2010-04-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

Today I'm going to stray away from the usual rigging posts, and ~~talk~~ rant about something that has been bothering myself and others in this industry for a while. Ready?

Animated is NOT synonymous with "kids' move"

Where to begin...

Today, I was browsing Facebook, and noticed a post a friend of mine had made about the new Dreamworks film How to Train Your Dragon. He said he enjoyed it despite the fact that it was a kids' movie, and it was followed by a slew of comments saying things to the effect of "kids movies suck" as well as "I'm glad I'm not the only one that likes lame movies," etc. I see this every time an animated movie comes out.

Wait, what?

Sure, How To Train Your Dragon is certainly a movie that can be enjoyed by a younger crowd, anywhere from 6 upwards, but that film had some darker and emotionally heavy elements (I'm not going to post spoilers, don't worry.) Also, the demographic that that film, as well as most animated films are targeting, is around 10 - mid 40s. They want kids to want to see the film, forcing their parents to take them, but they also want the parents to enjoy it. And, they're targeting teens as well. The DnD character? Not something a 6 year old would get. So why is this film, along with many other animated films, dumped into the category of kids' movie?

Is it because Toothless is so adorable? Image Courtesy of IMDB.

Lets reverse this for a second. Say HTTYD had been done live action with CG, and slightly less stylization. It would now be considered an action flick geared towards young men from their teens to mid twenties, as most action films are. Now, lets say Avatar had been all 3D, with a bit more stylization. Automatically, it becomes a kids movie. Don't believe me? Ferngully. There. And jeez, Ferngully had some dark elements to it. So did Watership down. But, for some reason, in this country, animated means kids.

Totally kid appropriate.

THIS IS WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS!!

So now I'm saying animation and stylization will automatically designate something as geared towards the younger crowd. True in this country, but what about Japan? There, anime is made for all ages, from 3 - 70+, for all types of people. Granted though, there is an aspect of stylization that appeals to each age group. Shows for younger kids are often heavily stylized and cute, while shows for older groups are more "realistic," or as much so as you can get with the style of anime. That said, Japan, as well as a few other countries, does not automatically lump animated into a genre for kids only. And it didn't used to be like that here. So what happened?

There are a few things. Cartoons or heavily stylized characters are less easily sympathized with, so cartoon violence has less of an impact. Look at the roadrunner cartoons, where Wile. E. Coyote is constantly getting blown up, and more. If a show like that existed with people, and was live action, it would be pretty violent, and a lot less entertaining. This cartoon violence, which has been around since the beginning of "cartoony comics," has shaped the way this culture views animated characters. In more realistic comics, such as the superhero graphic novels, etc., the animated shows are toned down a bit. But Dark Knight, a live action movie, was pretty dark, and pretty violent. The Spiderman series, Iron Man, Dark Knight - all of those films, while aimed at a younger demographic, are by no means "kids'" movies. But if they suddenly were animated instead...Bam. Kids movie.

Disturbing...

...Something went wrong with the special effects in Avatar.

I'm by no means saying that this is the case for all animated shows. Dora the Explorer is certainly a kids animated show, and Family Guy is an adult animated show. The Suite Life of Zack and Cody is a kids live action show, and Friends is an adult live action show. Spongebob is a show that many kids enjoy, but also many adults secretly enjoy, because there are a lot of adult elements. Granted, Spongebob has been marketed to the younger crowd, but what about older shows - Ren and Stimpy, Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, even the Simpsons? These are all good examples of more adult shows, that have a young view base because parents (sadly) think that since they're cartoons, they're fine. How bad could a cartoon be?

The industry is trying to break out of this stereotype, but sadly, it's these ignorant parents that have caused a lot of this drawback. I'll use Pan's Labrynth as an example for this one: before Pan's Labrynth, which is primarily a live action movie, came to America, it was marketed here as a kids movie. "It's about a Faun, and a little girl, and fairy tales, and there's CG in it" was the attitude. When it was released here it was rated R, because it is a pretty violent and depressing movie. Yet when I saw it in theaters, parents had kids as young as three in there, and then promptly stormed out to complain to the theater after the scene where a guy gets his face beat in with a bottle. "This has animation! How can you expect parents to know that this film is so violent!" And it continues. 9 didn't do too well at the box office, despite the fact that it was a visually stunning movie with fantastic art direction (but a severe story and pacing problem) but also because, again, despite the PG-13 rating, people were bringing their 3 year old kids to this animated film.

Totally kid friendly.

But if a live action movie came out about a post apocalyptic world destroyed by a machine, and the only object left were puppets created by the soul of a man who mostly die horrible deaths by getting their souls sucked out anyway, I doubt we'd see many kids in the theater.

There's also a certain "guilt" factor that many adults seem to have. There are a lot of people from their teens and up who won't see an animated movie on their own for fear of being made fun of. This is true for more than movies - there are special versions of Harry Potter printed with a plain cover so people won't be embarrassed reading it in public. However, adults talk more about going to see live action movies that are considered kid ageish - Harry Potter, Twilight, etc. than they do about going to see something like Kung Fu Panda or WallE. Even a movie like Up, where the first 15 minutes were something out of a drama as opposed to a typical animated movie, was shunned for being a kids film. And it goes on. The surprising number of people who go see Hot Tub Time Machine but won't touch How to Train Your Dragon is appalling to say the least.

In the future, I really hope things change. I'm happy that the industry, for the most part, is not catering entirely to kids, and that they are trying to lure the older crowd in more and more. I hope that the trend continues until people wise up a bit.

Bottom line: give animation a break. Animated doesn't always mean kids, live action shouldn't always mean adults. Sheesh people.

/End of Rant.

Demo Reel

2010-03-28T01:16:00.000-07:00

Current (public) reel!

Character TD Demo Reel (Rough Cut) from Jessica DeLacy on Vimeo.

Lately

2010-03-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

Just a quick weekend project. Hey, finally something non-NDA!

Rhino Rig Demo from Jessica DeLacy on Vimeo.

Another Immature Rigging One Liner

2010-02-20T14:52:00.000-08:00

I posted on Facebook that I was rigging, and an illustrator friend of mine commented:

"Rigging? You mean boning 3D models??"

I had to laugh, and to share.

Moveable Center of Gravity

2010-02-08T18:50:00.000-08:00

I've seen some cool tweaks for center of gravity lately - especially in Blender's Project Durian, which features a moveable center of gravity for the dragon rig that my good friend Nathan (or Cessen, to the online world) has posted. I want to recreate it in Maya on my next quadruped (a rhino!), so I've been looking at cool systems.

This incredibly simple shot-by-shot solution surprised me - what a great idea, and with what...four steps to set up? I'd love to find a more permanent solution for this, and would love to see more stuff dealing with center of gravity.

Quick and Neat Coin Rig

2010-02-07T12:42:00.000-08:00

I've heard a little bit about rigging in Modo. Not much, just that it now has SDKs and a few basic things for setting up and posing models, which is Modo's main strength (it's honestly the best modeling package I've ever used - hands down!)

But the other day my team and I were looking for a solution as to how to rig certain mechanics, we stumbled across this neat little tutorial of a quick and easy way to rig a coin using Modo. It's efficient and simple, and can be easily replicated in Maya (although my friend did use some expressions to get it to behave correctly when he did it).

Anyway, just something fun.

Avatar and other things

2010-02-06T15:03:00.000-08:00

So, the secret is out!

I got to work with rigs from Avatar for some promotional material McDonald's was using to promote the movie! Sadly, I have neglected to post for so long, and it seems the promotion is no longer online :[. For those who are curious, I did some deformation work on creatures for these promo online games - nothing too special, but still exciting for me!

Also, I have been made rigging lead on our school's Project X, since I now have two other riggers who are helping me out. I was fortunate enough to get two extremely talented and super nice guys to work with me. Hooray!

And now, I found a nifty little forum for rigging issues - Rigging 101 is a cool little Q and A place, which seems to have challenges and some good advice. Also, it's ALL rigging! Check it out.

Read Only Woes

2009-12-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

So, I wrote an awesome script. An *awesome* script. What it lets you do it choose whether you want to be in IKFK blend mode or IKFK match mode, allowing to switch back and forth, keyframing in all the right places, getting no elbow pop...basically, an animator's dream for arms. I implemented it, and it was glorious. Then I tried to reference it.

Oh yeah. You can't delete read only nodes in a reference.

So now, I am rewriting this script to rip apart all connections and reapply them instead of deletion. Which is proving to be a big pain in the butt.

And, it's finals week.

On a brighter note, a project that I worked on is almost ready for North American launch!

News From Amsterdam!!

2009-12-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

Check out Cessen's first rigging demo from Durian!! Man, that spine is fantastic!

Going to learn 3dsMax rigging over the break, if possible. Wish me luck! Now back to finals...

Huh?

2009-11-23T16:14:00.001-08:00

Here's an interesting thing I learned today:

Some commands cannot be used in a MEL script unless they are done before manually OR called from the source. For example,

Lets say you want to break a connection in the channel box. The command you will get in the script editor is:

CBdeleteConnection "Wrist_l_orientConstraint.w0";

So naturally, you'll put this in a script if trying to break connections. And since you've already done it, since the scene remains open, it's fine. However...lets say you reopen the scene and try to run the script. You will get a cannot find procedure CBdeleteConnection (or whatever command) error. Hmmm.

Apparently, for this to work, you have to call the source file that these scripts are in before using them in a script, unless you do it manually each time (which sources it automatically). The command for this is:

source generateChannelMenu.mel;

And bam, this sources all of those hidden procedures. Best part - Maya help has no information about this. Thanks guys!

A bit of NDA blues

2009-11-22T14:03:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been really wanting to post and share some of what I've done recently online. I keep seeing some nifty rigs being demonstrated, and it really puts me in a lets-sit-down-and-Camtasia-some-rigs mood, but sadly I am under NDA for everything I've worked on since August.

Which brings me to my goal for Christmas break:

I'm going to rig something for me, and for me alone. Might be one rig, might be a couple, but I need to do something that I can show. I've been doing such awesome things lately rigging-wise, and I want to be able to implement them and show them off on my own rigs. Also, here's where I want your input:

As a rigger or animator, what are some of the best features you like to see on a rig? Can be anything, anything at all. I've spoken to quite a few people about this, but I like getting more input when I can and figuring out the best ways to implement different systems.

Although, I say this now...but there's a good chance I'll be setting up quite a few facial systems over the break, so we'll see.

On that note, looks like I'd better hit up some modelers!

Maxya, a script editor to be thankful for

2009-11-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

Well, my Professional MEL Solutions for Production book finally came! So far it's quite a fantastic read. One cool thing I found was a list of a few nifty script editors - MEL Studio Pro I already covered, but I did come across Maxya (sorry, there's not really a description I can link to) is a fantastic script editor for MEL AND Python, that runs outside of Maya, has a complete MEL command reference built in, and has syntax highlighting for both MEL and Python. The best part - if you execute a command in Maxya, it will run in Maya without having to set up any crazy settings. Ahhhh.

The free Learning Edition has everything except for the option to save, but honestly, I use MEL Studio for, well, MEL anyway, and copying any Python scripts to a different editor and saving them out is no big deal.

Anyway, check it out!

And of course, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Seamless, anyone?

2009-11-09T15:01:00.000-08:00

I just wrote a fully functional, fully animatable seamless IKFK arm setup. Ohhhh man this took me so long to figure out, but my animator is going to love me!

Since I can't post files because of NDA stuff, I am going to implement this on one of my rigs when I get time and post it. The seamless setup looks similar "physically" (as physical as you can get digitally, I guess) as the final setup here, except I could not use the ZooToolBox plugin to implement it.

It is set up via scriptNodes, but unlike a few rigs I've looked at the switched follow each other when animated (as opposed to rigs where the setup is seamless, but animation is a whole different story) and is accessible from the channel box using a specially set up attribute. The only drawback I am running into is because the node is running on an attribute change, undoing is a tad difficult...also, the elbow pops every so often. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it has something to do with the offset group on the pole vector. I will try to iron this out next.

I'm really excited - aside from the Rubiks cube, this is the most complex script I've written yet, and it'll actually be applicable in production!

Offsets

2009-11-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

I've been having an interesting thing happen on about 25% of the rigs I've been working on, on the right arm only. I have since figured it out, but I was wondering if anyone had any feedback on this.

I would set up the triple arm in either one of two ways - either using a blendColors node to average the rotations between IK and FK, or just orient constraining each and using set driven keys. The setup itself didn't matter. Upon getting all of the controls for the arm set, I would go to test out the blend. On the right arm, if the wrist wasn't rotated in either FK or IK, it would blend fine. However, if any rotation was there at all, it would flip halfway through the blend.

First, I thought I had messed up somewhere, but then this was happening on more than one rig, and I couldn't figure out why. Everything was frozen, everything was zeroed, all history had been deleted before applying controllers (and after building them). Interesting. I also noticed that even just translating the IK wrist would cause the wrist to go to -357ish, which made no sense to me either.

Then I saw the offset of the orient constraints were at either 180 or -180, most often on the Z or X axis. Odd - the there was nothing unusual about the trash groups or the controls themselves. So I undid the constraint, then added a -180 rotation to the trash group, and re constrained it. Bingo, no flip, no crazy IK wrist rotations. Then I tried adding the rotation (for both IK and FK wrist controllers), and re-freezing transformations. No flip.

The fact that the rotations are on the trash group means this doesn't affect the actual controller at all, but what I'm wondering is why Maya behaves this way - all the controllers were zeroed, frozen, and had all history deleted. All of the skeletons had correct joint orientations, and this only happened a few times, on various (most bipedal) rigs.

Then I thought maybe it was something in the way my joints were oriented. So redid the rig a few times with a few different joint orientations, and the same thing happened. Hmmm.

Does Maya have something to do with this? Is there something somewhere that affects things that are rigged in the 2nd and 3rd quadrant? It's not some huge deal that slows things down, but why should I have to rotate my trash groups 180 degrees and then freeze transforms to get rotations to blend? I notice sometimes I get interesting offsets on the right foot as well, but never to the point where it has caused the rig to flip.

Just something interesting I've come across. Rotations are quite complex, this I know, (entanglement theory - gahhh) but this just seems odd to me.

MEL for Production

2009-11-03T11:14:00.001-08:00

A friend linked me to Professional MEL Solutions for Production, which I just ordered. It's written by Kevin Mannens, who's done quite a few films as well as Gnomon DVDs, and Ed Caspersen, who runs this nifty site here. I'm excited for this book - I have been doing a lot lately with MEL for Project X, and have dissected a few rigs (and a lot of plug-ins) to see how things are done. MEL may be a pain...but it's worth it to know. Python is Maya is just sad.

Also, I did promise to post images...

Yes, I was a rig for Halloween.

Fortunately, I go to a digital arts school, so everyone knew what I was. I didn't get to create as many controllers as I would have liked, for lack of time, but I had wrist FK, so that's alright. It also wasn't entirely correct structurally, but that's just me being picky. *geek*

ZooTastic

2009-10-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

Wow, I cannot believe as a rigger I had yet to see the best damn toolset of all time, written by the fantastically talented Macaroni Kazoo. Just wow.

I am still going through and playing with everything, but being able to apply MEL commands with a custom command editor in itself is appealing.

It's like Christmas, for riggers. <3.

Heat Weighting and Contract Work

2009-10-16T17:46:00.000-07:00

Hey all, my contract ended today with Multiverse, sooo does anyone happen to know of any contract positions located in the San Francisco Bay Area? I'll do skinning, rigging, etc., I just need to be able to work from home. Starving rigging student here :]

Also, have a nifty essay (read the PDF!) on Blender's heat weighting algorithm. I wish Maya had heat weighting. Then again, I wish Maya had good weighting. Oh well.

Contracting and other updates

2009-10-14T16:10:00.001-07:00

Augh, been crazy here lately!!

I enjoyed a nice visit from my good friend Cessen, who is leaving for Amsterdam to be the lead TD on Project Durian, in which we had a lot of fun hanging out and talking about rigging related things. He has some major plans to overhaul Blender's rigging system during this project, so look out for some cool updates!

Also, I am just finishing up my first industry contract job for a great little company called Multiverse. I did mostly basic things (which I will announce when I can!), but it was quite fun getting some experience and working under contract. I'm hoping to find more short term contracts in the future, hopefully for film.

Aaaannnddd I had an interview for a rigging internship at Lucasfilm!! They loved my work, and want me to join their team, but don't want to pull me out of school this semester. So I will be anxiously waiting to hear what the verdict is for next semester :]

We have just started getting final base meshes for Project X, so I am finally getting the chance to implement some cool systems. I've come up with some nifty ways to implement things, and am learning more every day. I'm really loving rigging all day - guess I chose the right career.

And, on a final note...I'm going to be a rig for Halloween. Yup. Photos of that when it happens.

Long time, no rig!!

2009-09-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

Hey all!!

Sorry for my lack of postage lately, but this summer semester quite literally sunk me into a busy oblivion (I took storyboarding. 'nough said!) so unfortunately this blog went on the backburner. But now, I am back in full swing, as the lead Character TD for Project X '09! Which is entirely NDA, so you'll see none of it yet. I am also in the process of learning Python, as to not rely entirely on rather broken MEL :]

I have an interesting dilemma I am trying to figure out though, if anyone can provide me insight: I seem to have a problem when setting visibility keys on my IK/FK arms. Everytime I implement a switch to turn off IK or FK (both the arm itself and the controllers' visibility) the FK arm breaks completely. I've tried keying the object, the group, using a different attribute, everything, yet keying visibility breaks the arm to no end. Any thoughts, anyone?

On a side note, I wrote a nice IK/FK match script that fixes annoying elbow pop when trying to do an IKFK blend while animating. And, it has a UI, which is entirely not fun to do in MEL.

Houdini

2009-05-26T16:00:00.000-07:00

Side FX has a new version of Houdini out, so I went over to download the apprentice version since I've been meaning to get a stronghold on Houdini. If you're using the apprentice version, you have full access - there's just a watermark and non-standard filetypes (though fortunately one can import objs, which is good, because a modeler I am not). Although schoolwork has prevented me from playing with it too much, I will be doing a few exercises with it for Friday Night Modeling and Rigging workshops.

If anyone has any good rigging resources for Houdini, I would much appreciate them. I have one DVD, and the tools are similar to Maya, but I really want to get into the guts of it and learn the ins and outs. Apparently, knowing Houdini can get you places...

The Next Generation

2009-05-18T13:59:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Josh Cogswell, Andrew Jennings, and Ryan Rogers; all of whom got jobs as technical animators at Rhythm and Hues, which is the first step towards rigging.

These guys all did some amazing work, and I'm lucky enough to have them as friends and mentors. I'll miss them, but hopefully in a year or so...maybe I'll be joining them!

Sorry 'bout that

2009-05-16T18:32:00.001-07:00

Finals followed by some time at home visiting family kept me pretty busy for the past few weeks, so my apologies!

Classes will be starting up again on Monday, which means also that I will be rigging for a game project, a few random models here and there, and a senior project, as well as a rig I've been meaning to finish for a friend from Digipen. Hopefully I will also be rigging on Project B during the summer to make a few dollars, along with another rigging contract job I picked up. In the fall, I will be tutoring rigging for students that need it, as well as working as the TD on the upcoming Project X.

I'll also be continuing to work on MEL and try to learn Python. Pretty much, I'll be spending my senior year being the "rigging whore" of the school. It'll be awesome.

In the meantime, I now have a complete autorigger written, which sets up IK legs, arm IKFK, finger controls using expressions, and an IK spine. Now I can at least quick rig something that has a skeleton just to test how things are working.

Next project is going to be the reproportioning script.

Just For You

2009-04-26T22:09:00.000-07:00

My good friends Josh, Andrew and Ryan are all graduating...but they've also finished their reels! These guys have been my rigging mentors and some of my best friends. I'll miss them dearly.

At your request Josh...REELS!!

First off, the infamous Andrew Jennings! Only Andrew could get away with having music like this in a reel...

And of course, Joshua Cogswell, whose technical skills make me envious.

Their breakdowns can be found here and here, respectively.

Unfortunately, Ryan's reel material is still NDA (BUT OH MAN IS IT AWESOME) so he won't be able to post it for a while. These guys have applied to Rhythm and Hues, and will also possibly be applying to Dreamworks/PDI. Good luck guys!

Blog!

2009-04-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

Really short post today, thanks finals.

Charles Looker's blog has some cool things about rigging and animation, and brings up a lot of interesting points.

So thanks Charles! We appreciate your knowledge.

A Few Goodies

2009-04-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

Blender has released version 2.49! This means a lot, and I do mean A LOT of great things, especially for rigging. I'm not even going to talk, I'm just going to shut up while you watch.

There's plenty more where that came from. I don't know about you, but I am really, REALLY excited about this. I started using Blender when I was in junior high, and even though the interface has always been a bit confusing to me (something that will be changed in 2.5) I've always liked it.

Hope this makes up for my lack of posting yesterday!

MEL Studio

2009-04-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

For the amount that Maya costs, you'd think it would come with a built in script editor that has some nice features, a good debugger, the good features that other script editors/compilers have. But since it doesn't, Max Liani was nice enough to write MEL Studio Pro, a rather nice and robust plugin that does the job quite nicely. Currently I'm using MEl Studio LE which is FREE and SPECTACULAR. I can't wait to get the full version installed at school!

It makes life a whole lot easier!

I keep talking about Maya/MEL. Perhaps I should move over and feature some other spiffy rigging tools in other spiffy packages...stay tuned!

An Interesting Dilemma

2009-04-21T22:39:00.001-07:00

So I've run into an interesting scripting error that I thought I'd share with everyone, even though this is something that everyone has probably all figured out.

Currently in class we're working on scripts to automate a biped setup - so we have spine, legs, IKFK arm, and fingers. All of my scripts work very smoothly together, and the entire setup so far is going well. I got an interesting error, however, when I got to the fingers.

The way that I'm setting up the fingers is by using expressions on each driven group that are connected to the hand controller to move the fingers - curl, spread, etc, instead of setting driven keys. So I setup my script to run on the hands when given the knuckle bone of each finger as arguments, sourced the script without any errors, and ran it.

Error on line .2;

At first I though I had entered my arguments in wrong, so I did it again, and reran the script. Same error. Then I noticed the script actually was running through my loop once and then failing. Hmmm.

That's when I remembered the expressions - apparently, when you declare them as a string, if the script errors, it will error on the line of the expression itself. I felt like an idiot after this one, but on the bright side, now I know.

I wish that Maya had a different way of dealing with this sort of thing.

An Artful Approach

2009-04-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

I think today I'll do a book feature. Sure, why not!

Actually, this particular feature will be a series feature of three absolutely essential books in any rigger's library. I'm talking about The Art of Rigging, made by CG Toolkit. You can buy the hard copy of the third volume off their site, which mostly focuses on hair, cloth, and facial motion capture, and you can also purchase PDF copies of the first and second. You can still find hard copies of the earlier two, which feature basic and advanced setup, respectively, but there's a good chance you'll pay upwards of $200 for each (yup...one used on Amazon for $280. Ouch.) Sometimes however, you can get lucky on eBay and pick them up for around $50 each, which is what I did.

These books are serious gold - they go over different bone setups, controller setups, facial, scripting, everything that you need. My only nitpick is that they occasionally do things the "hard way," but overall the robustness of this book makes up for it.

In my opinion, they're the perfect books to grab a cup of coffee and curl up with on a rainy day.

Some Rubiks Cube Funstuff

2009-04-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

Gonna post something fun for today, just because.

A while back I decided to see if I could tackle the challenge of rigging a Rubiks Cube, simply because I really love Rubiks Cubes, and I figured it would be an interesting scripting challenge. Although, admittedly, I have seen cubes rigged without any scripting, but anyway!

I wrote a script with some trial and error, and ended up with success! The video is old, and things were still in testing stages, but...

To sum it up: the script runs based on selections. When a controller is selected, it calls all of the cubes that have a Global/Local XYZ value that corresponds to that controller (basically the closest cubes), then groups them so that they can all be rotated . After the group is rotated and another selection is made, a script runs that makes sure the group is rotated in some increment of 90 degrees (if not, it corrects it), then ungroups everything, resets and freezes all transformations so that it can run again.

The code has since been updated, and there's now a Scriptjob so everything runs automatically, and I made a few other fixes to make things easier.

The real difficulty when it comes to this, however, is making it animateable, and also making it have a self-solver. Both are problems I have seen tackled in a few different ways (though personally I'd love to see the way Pixar did their rig for it from WallE), and thus far no two scripts I've seen have been the same - my friend Josh and I sat down to write our own scripts simultaneously, and we came up with two entirely different things.

Here, however, is one interesting approach to the whole method.

This solves the issue of animation, and it's also a very interesting way to set things up. I found this after I wrote my script. I have not tried to animate my cube, but I have figured out a way to write a solver for it (but then school sucks away all my time, so that hasn't been done yet).

I don't know, I just find different approaches to the same thing fascinating.

MEL MEL MEL

2009-04-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

'nother short post!

While we're on the subject of MEL, here's another really nice place of reference. There are quite a bit of how-tos, and also - not just on MEL, but API as well. Good stuff. His match expressions alone are worth visiting this site for!

Also want to give a shout out and a link back to a fellow rigging blogger! Maulik is waaay more technical than I am, so I'm hoping to learn some good tips.

RIGGING QUOTE OF THE DAY!
"Is that poorly-done weight-painting, or are you just happy to see me?"
- Pspynett

Meltastic

2009-04-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

Quick entry for today! Low on time due to finals.

We all know that working with MEL can be a bit of a...well, struggle. It has some wonky formatting sometimes, and things that just occasionally don't work. The Autodesk Handbook is decent, but there's another way!

Eric Pavey's super-extensive Maya Mel Wiki is full of answers and solutions to all of our MEL ~~problems~~ questions. You can find everything from animation to UI, and there's also info on Python!

So for my fellow scripters out there who have ever pulled their hair out over an unsolvable MEL issue, at least now you've got one other place to look before you trash your code ans start over :].

Sexy Articulation

2009-04-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

I'd say about half the riggers I know consider themselves modelers as well, and all of us TDs know the importance of having good edge loops so that things deform the way they're supposed to. I'm not much of a modeler - I can fix a model for rigging, and that's about it. But damn, this guy is good.

He goes over everything, from edge loop theory to articulation all over the body, and not only are his deformations friggin' lovely, he also has the skeleton rigged and moving in his examples.

Tell me that isn't sexy. This is such a great resource for articulation theory, for both modelers and riggers. So thank you, Hippydrome, you get hero points.

Credit Where Credit is Due

2009-04-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

There are a ton of really awesome TDs out there, but for today I want to give credit where credit is due, and provide some nice tutorials. So I'm going to go ahead and feature my rigging teacher's page, which features some of his work and some helpful tutorials.

These are really useful for learning basics, starting with a simple biped structure, FKIK switches, IK spine, and building up to more advanced things, such as facial rigging and using scripts. Currently, I'm in his Advanced Rigging class, where we've written a whole slew of tools that make the lives of riggers so much easier. The layout of the tutorials is easy to follow, and there are plenty of pictures for people like me, that better understand something that's illustrated.

Hooray, labeled joints!

I find things like this much easier to follow than plain text. There are also examples of how the hierarchy should look, which certainly makes things easier when you start doing things like fingers and facial rigging.

Plus, he's a pretty cool guy. Thanks for sharing your secrets, Mason!

School of Hard Scripts

2009-04-14T18:36:00.000-07:00

Gonna open this up with a bang.

Everyone knows about Animation Mentor. It's all backed by Pixar, people rave about it, you learn really cool things, yadda yadda.

BUT DID YOU KNOW THERE'S A TD EQUIVALENT!?

That's right, there is a TD College! Started by some of the leading TDs in the industry, it's still in its early stages, but already they've got quite a lineup of classes to offer, and all online, and they're quite reasonable price wise. Whether you're into character, effects, or rendering, they offer everything from math to scripting to specific software packages, and you're taught by someone that, simply put, knows their stuff. This is what I plan to do for graduate school, because really - no one offers a MBA in Character Rigging. This is as good as it gets, and it looks good. I can vouch for these guys, as a professor at Cogswell knows the people who started it, and he himself is quite excited by it. Also, it's not a set program - if the Python course is the only thing that appeals to you (because you're already a master at everything else) then you can take just that.

"TD-College is the first and only school that truly prepares the students for the realm of CG-production by personally pairing them up with the artists behind movies like The Day After Tomorrow, King Kong, The Matrix and many more. TD-College's personalized mentor system will put each student 1-on-1 with artists from major studios like ILM, Dreamworks, Weta Digital, Disney and Digital Domain. Mentors credits include all blockbusters in recent memory.

TD-College's curriculum has been designed by industry veterans and is based on years of experience in the high-end visual effects industry. Advanced courses (so called "Production Techniques") explain in detail how a specific shot in a movie was created, which problems were encountered and how they were solved. All course material consists of detailed and illustrated notes and an accompanying video.

Our individual courses are for those individuals who are looking to expand their skills in specific areas or for artists looking to become savvier on the technical side of CG production. Individual courses are 6 weeks long and anyone can enroll providing they have met the pre-requirements for that course.

Once you have been admitted into TDC you can enroll in any desired course. On they day the course starts you will immediately receive access to the relevant course materials and assets (scene files, background plates, textures, scripts and plugins) for that week's assignment. You will then have a group session with your mentor and course mates to review the course outline and establish the schedules, goals and procedures for the course. From this point on, you will have weekly, personal sessions with your mentor who will review and critique your work and give you pointers on how to improve. Aside from the 1-on-1 sessions, there will also be a weekly Q&A session with your whole class, where you can ask your mentor questions and interact as a group. On top of that, there is also a private channel of communication with your mentor, through which you can ask questions if you don't understand certain elements of the course.

The TD-College online experience consists of a sprawling community that closely mimics the production environment. Some of its features include: a dailies system with instant peer feedback, weekly Q&A sessions and assignment-based deadlines.

Students can enroll any time of the year, because TD-College offers courses on a constant basis and does not follow typical academic cycles like quarters or semesters.

In short, TD-College offers CG education with REAL production value. Based around a production-designed curriculum, a personal mentor system and an online production environment."

Rigging may be still small, but the force is growing! I'm glad to see something like this happening, and I hope they do well. I plan to enroll as soon as I can.

Hello, World

2009-04-14T18:27:00.000-07:00

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!