Thanks Susan for finding this!
"Check out this video from disney, its maybe beyond us, but still really cool." - Susan
Disney Deformation
Rigging Fun and Documentation for BYU's Student Film for the Senior class of 2015.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Blue Sky Rigging Dojo Interview
Hey Guys, this article has some nice stuff about rigging in the industry and what they expect.
Hey Guys, this article has some nice stuff about rigging in the industry and what they expect.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Free Quadruped Tutorial
From Rigging Dojo, as a Christmas Present, this Quadruped Tutorial is available free to watch. I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I'm sure it will give us even more knowledge in addition to our Digital Tutors tutorials.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Rigging Dojo - Here is a great place to learn. A website built by a community of Riggers. I wish I had found this sooner, and I still need to watch a lot of stuff it offers, but it also is the only place you can get the Hippydrome mesh - the mesh Brian Tindall was showing us in his videos. Make sure to download that and look at the mesh design, and would be a good model to rig.
Modular Rigs
Okay so I was looking through my notes and realized what Jacob is trying to tell us. Let me clarify as much as I can.
So referencing files was a very powerful asset when we were working on Owned. Individual rig files were referenced into each scene, making it so every time Jeff updated the master file, it would be updated everywhere there was a reference.
Now think of that, but on a rigging level. We build ONE facial rig that has all the controls and attributes we need. Brows, Nose, Lips, Lids, everything. We also build ONE Leg Rig and ONE Arm rig. These rigs are not BOUND to any mesh, it's just a rig that has the movers and avars (pixar terms - avars are attributes and movers are things like joints and stuff) in place. Those rigs are then REFERENCED into each of the character rigs and MODIFIED to fit the proportions and mesh of the character. When we go in and add a control to the face of the referenced rig, the controls and functions will then be dispersed to EACH CHARACTER RIG! It speeds up SO much time because we don't have to do the same job 3 times over! Once we build ONE functional leg, we can use that bone and control setup for all 10 of the legs we will eventually have to rig!
I hope that makes sense because it should be blowing your mind right now. It is exactly how I built my Snake at Pixar! The movers and avars were referenced into my scene and I was able to customize them to fit my character and subsequently to the point weighting and everything.
I don't know how to do this in Maya, but we've GOT to figure it out. This is HOW Jacob got his job at Pixar, by the way, is working with a modular system like this. Until then - find information about how to implement this idea!
Thanks
Landon G.
Okay so I was looking through my notes and realized what Jacob is trying to tell us. Let me clarify as much as I can.
So referencing files was a very powerful asset when we were working on Owned. Individual rig files were referenced into each scene, making it so every time Jeff updated the master file, it would be updated everywhere there was a reference.
Now think of that, but on a rigging level. We build ONE facial rig that has all the controls and attributes we need. Brows, Nose, Lips, Lids, everything. We also build ONE Leg Rig and ONE Arm rig. These rigs are not BOUND to any mesh, it's just a rig that has the movers and avars (pixar terms - avars are attributes and movers are things like joints and stuff) in place. Those rigs are then REFERENCED into each of the character rigs and MODIFIED to fit the proportions and mesh of the character. When we go in and add a control to the face of the referenced rig, the controls and functions will then be dispersed to EACH CHARACTER RIG! It speeds up SO much time because we don't have to do the same job 3 times over! Once we build ONE functional leg, we can use that bone and control setup for all 10 of the legs we will eventually have to rig!
I hope that makes sense because it should be blowing your mind right now. It is exactly how I built my Snake at Pixar! The movers and avars were referenced into my scene and I was able to customize them to fit my character and subsequently to the point weighting and everything.
I don't know how to do this in Maya, but we've GOT to figure it out. This is HOW Jacob got his job at Pixar, by the way, is working with a modular system like this. Until then - find information about how to implement this idea!
Thanks
Landon G.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Rigging Resources
Here are a few of the links that I showed today:
Subdivision Topology and Artifacts - teaches principles of topology and gives lots of ideas of how to kill extra faces and edges
Studio Library for Maya - Pose Library that we can easily implement in our pipeline.
Maya 2014 Modeling Toolkit - additional modeling tools that will help speed your workflow.
Bendy Joint Creator - Why waste time figuring this out when someone else has done it for us? Try out this free script to see if we should implement this in our final rig.
Mesh Face Design and Theory - Brian Tindall addresses the Pixar workflow for facial rigging. Consistency and modular hookups are optimal. If anyone has a macbook and can get this book...our team will become better for it.
JL Collision Deformer - This is actually a plug-in that we would have to install. If you take a look at the results of this awesome tool...I think you'll see that it will be plenty worth it. This script is required if you want the Cenk rig to drive flawlessly.
On Google Drive I've included some files that you can download including some facial rigs that are awesome. Tear em apart. See what makes them tick.
As always, thanks for listening to me ramble today - it means a lot when I see that you guys are learning along with me! Thank you for being awesome!
Subdivision Topology and Artifacts - teaches principles of topology and gives lots of ideas of how to kill extra faces and edges
Studio Library for Maya - Pose Library that we can easily implement in our pipeline.
Maya 2014 Modeling Toolkit - additional modeling tools that will help speed your workflow.
Bendy Joint Creator - Why waste time figuring this out when someone else has done it for us? Try out this free script to see if we should implement this in our final rig.
Mesh Face Design and Theory - Brian Tindall addresses the Pixar workflow for facial rigging. Consistency and modular hookups are optimal. If anyone has a macbook and can get this book...our team will become better for it.
JL Collision Deformer - This is actually a plug-in that we would have to install. If you take a look at the results of this awesome tool...I think you'll see that it will be plenty worth it. This script is required if you want the Cenk rig to drive flawlessly.
On Google Drive I've included some files that you can download including some facial rigs that are awesome. Tear em apart. See what makes them tick.
As always, thanks for listening to me ramble today - it means a lot when I see that you guys are learning along with me! Thank you for being awesome!
Notes 1-22-2014
Rigging Notes
Wed, Jan 15-
1. As we rig our characters for articulation we need to wear many, many hats. We think as artists, animators, modellers, and riggers. We cannot limit our characters!
2. Think of the struggles the animation guys went through on Jeff and Abbie in Owned. How could a better facial rig improved the emotional quality of our film?
3. We are trying to create appeal in movement, and our job is crucial to the success of the animation. Keep fleshiness in mind, but also remember skeletal structure so we don’t feel like jello.
4. Don't think you can fix something later. Test every control as you make it.
There are a lot of assets that will need rigged/deformed. We watched several looney tunes shorts by real fx and watched for all of the movement in the objects, not just the characters.
Consistency
Orientation of Objects, joints, etc
Scale
Hierarchies
Avoid intrusive controls. Make em easy to select, and not in the way.
Stuff to look up.
Cenk - If anyone can figure out how to preserve the volume while stretching and how he kept the face from penetrating below the lowest control, kudos!
Stop Staring 3 by Jason Osipa
Hippydrome.com
Rigging Dojo
K, that is all I can think of. If I missed anything, let me know. Friday at 9:00 am we will be meeting to watch some vids and stir the brain juices.
Wed, Jan 22-
1. Our rigs need to be modular. The control sets on each character should be uniform. This will allow us to transfer animation data from one character to another, greatly speeding animation.
2. Topology. Model for articulation! We reviewed the hippydrome videos and discussed different methods of creating light topology without defects.
Guerrilla CG has a great tutorial on removing extraneous topology.
4. The football shape is key when rigging the mouth!!!
Potential projects include:
How to switch from FK to IK seamlessly.
StudioLibrary script. EPIC.
Soft-select weight painting.
Potential projects include:
How to switch from FK to IK seamlessly.
StudioLibrary script. EPIC.
Soft-select weight painting.
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