Leave of Absence w1

Some work during first week, less than one day for the baseball animation, two days spent on step on the side and two more on turn around. They are not completed because the second one is still in blocking and the other one, although it says final I would touch it at least one more day, because the spacing is not the best, but I'm trying to do some kind of work and leave it as it is when the clock sounds, like this week, with a blocking per day.

Class 3 progress reel

Trying to embed a quicktime file.

Some tips & tricks to improve speed when changing to splines

Most of the tips are based on create hotkeys to make the work on graph editor a lot faster than using buttons every time, you could use them while blocking too if you use another workflow, it could look like the same, but when you know those hotkeys, it's quicker to change and correct graph editor. I won't say that those things are really advanced because they don't, but if you don't know how graph editor works, working with it at more speed only will slow you down,  because you won't know what you're actually doing, by the way, some other hotkeys are suitable for everyone like the ones making the graph editor appears. 

Basically this post is something like a mix of the hotkeys and things that I use every day but feel free to change them with other keys or do whatever combinations you want or add anything with a comment here.

-How to create hotkeys on scripts other than default actions:

First of all let's see where are the hotkeys and how we could change or create new ones.

On the top menu, Window/setting-preferences/hotkey editor/

1-Scroll down on categories until you found user and select it.
3-You'll have to fill the gaps here, name can't have spaces, so use _ instead than space, and command place is where we'll put the code.
5-Put the key that you want to use there, check ctrl and alt if you want to use them while press or release, I'll use ctrl+alt+key to avoid rewriting default maya ones (all the ctrl+alt+key combinations are free by default) if you want to use a normal key but you don't know what that key does, put the key on the box and press find and it will tell you what's actually doing that hotkey.

Now that we know how to do a new hotkey let's begin with custom ones.

Show/hide Graph editor ( ctrl+alt+g you have to put this on the 5th step)

all the text below goes inside command on 3rd step of the image

if ( `window -exists graphEditor1Window` )

deleteUI -window graphEditor1Window;

else

tearOffPanel "Graph Editor" "graphEditorPanel" true;

Show Outliner on left side ctrl+alt+o

OutlinerWindow; dockControl -area "left"

-content outlinerPanel1

-label "outliner"

-allowedArea "left"

-allowedArea "right"

-width 250;

deleteUI "outlinerPanel1Window" ;

Convert tangents to Spline under graph editor categorie(left at hotkey editor) you'll find tangents to spline, assign that to ctrl+alt+s

Tangents to Linear under graph editor categorie ctrl+alt+l

Tangents to Flat under graph editor categorie ctrl+alt+f

Free Weight tangent ctrl+alt+w (this one is a modification of the ones by default to do it all in one key)

keyTangent -weightLock off;

keyTangent -lock off;

*To free Weight tangents you need to have tangents set to weight first, I use to work with that activated, you could do it on preferences/settings/animation and check Weighted tangents.

Be careful with going quick on those last 4, because if you don't select the key point and you press one of those hotkeys you could change by mistake all the curve tangents! Be sure to not press those hotkeys while you select a control but not a key point!

Add inbetween to add a key between 2 frames, you need to have graph editor open, under graph editor I use + key

Remove Inbetween under graph editor I use - key

Nextkey to jump over keys under playback controls I use , key, but I think that on English keyboards should be < and >, feel free to change all the other keys to whatever works better for you, because maybe some are difficult on an English keyboard.

Previouskeys under playback controls I use . key

-See through Graph editor (if you don't have 2 screens)

With PeekThrough you could see through windows, it could give transparency to any window or menu or whatever, so if you don't have double screen, you could use the program to see through graph editor, on that way you could make the graph editor as full window and still see what are you moving.

I upload the program on my dropbox, I didn't find any virus but feel free to say whatever if you think something, I mean, found that through the web. Just for Windows, once you have it installed you turn on transparency with win+A (You could change that hotkey or the level of transparency on the options)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/31354384/tools/PeekThrough_1.1.0.0.zip

-To create a quick selection set and add a hotkey to it to select the character really quick (I though on this, thanks to Siddhant Mehta who told us how to do a quick selection set as a week tip)

Select all the controls of the rig that you want,  go to create/sets/quick selection set and give it a name, normally you'll use stewie, bishop... but if you use a more regular name like char, character 1 or whatever like this it will be easier for this tip.

Go to the hotkey editor as we did before, create a new hotkey under user with the selection set, on the command line, if you used char as character name you'll have to type 

select -replace char 

If you named it stewie it will be

select -replace stewie

If you named it bishop it will be

select -replace bishop

You don't need to change the hotkey if you do a new scene, just do the quick selection for the new character and named him with the same name, it doesn't matter if it have different controls or whatever, it will select all the ones you select for the new quick selection.

I use to do one for the character (ctrl+alt+q) and another one for all the props and things with the character (ctrl+alt+a) but if you have two characters you could use one and call it char1 and the other one char2 and assign them to two hotkeys or whatever.

If you want a key on everything you just need to use the hotkey and press S later on, knowing a bit of script you could do the selection and key with a single hotkey, but I find it really more useful on this way, since I could decide where I want a key all.

-Hide/show curves on stewie to use Grease Pencil tool from AM menu easily

On stewie rig v094 to be able to draw with grease pencil with nurbs activated (you'll have to use GPIKR from am shelf tools to be able to select stewie controls) because right now, if you do it without hiding the nurbs controls it's such a mess with all those lines on the screen.

Hide curves

select -r stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility ;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.layout" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.head" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.ikspine" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.ikleg" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.leg" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.arm" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.fkarm" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.ikarm" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.squash" 0;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.blink" 0;

Show curves

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.blink" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.squash" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.ikarm" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.fkarm" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.arm" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.leg" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.ikleg" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.layout" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.ikspine" 1;

setAttr "stewie_ac_rig_v094:stewie_ac_C_visibility.head" 1;

Copy all that code under script editor (bottom right) under the MEL tab and then select all of them, press middle mouse and release it under custom shelf tool.

I guess that you could do that with bishop or other stewie or rigs from am, just select the rig, go to the outliner, select the rig, the ac_anim and then the ac_C_visibility change all the curves to hide or 0, open the script editor, copy the code and create a new button, then do the same but changing 0 for 1.

If somebody knows script I guess it will be easier to create a simple IF to do all of this on just one single button, but as I'm not that good I have it with two buttons, one for show, one for hide.

-Put Playblast or reference on top window

For this last part, I used to take playblasts and draw over them on tvpaint, and then open the video on quicktime, put it to the top with this little program https://dl.dropbox.com/u/31354384/tools/AlwaysOnTopMaker.zip , and then translate the draws over maya too, but right now I'm using the blue pencil plugin by Chris Zurbrigg (alumni here) which is great and saves me a lot of time.

Always on top is really useful when you're working on maya looking to a videoreference too, because on that way the videoreference won't get lost under maya.

I think that's all, hope it helps somebody and feel free to comment, ask or add anything.

8th week, walk + strength

For this week, we block a vanilla walk with ballie, a ball with legs, and we had to do one pose showing strength, so we learn an important thing for this week, how weight affects body, and how to do a walk.

7th

On this 7 week, we didn't have to do any pose, since we had to focus on tailor, a ball that's similar to a squirrel, with big tail that overlaps all the way. Let's see how it turns on my animation doing some kind of circus thing to get to the other side. I had to rig a simple trampoline to achieve this animation, but it was really simple to do.

week 6 is over

We pass through the middle of the class 1 so fast...it looks like it was on yesterday the day that we start this amazing journey.

For the last class we had to focus on overlapping action with a pendulum, doing some movements and let him settle in 200 frames, it was a though assignment because it looks easier at first look, but as you go deep the thing is getting really complicated! I guess that my settle is too long, and I should make it with less time, but I'm going to polish it for next week :)




This next week I'll try to have some fun with tailor, which looks really awesome and really hard to make it works, but I'll try haha

4th & 5th

Some work that I did on week 4 and 5, balls with different weights and obstacle course + devastation pose.

revision of excitement pose



I did the obstacle course on flipbook first to check the timming, althouhg I made a more cartoony feel than basketball and maybe I'll have to make a revision changing everything this week.




obstacle course


heavy and light ball



See you next week :)

3rd Week :O

Time is moving really fast, but it's cool. On this week we had to make and excitement pose and a bouncing ball assignment with a feeling of a basketball. I did a revision of last week pose following my mentor critique. So here we go...

For this week excitement pose I tried to do something like a charcoal effect to lead the attention to the center and play with negative space, hope it works :)

2nd week complete

After a lot of changes on the pose, because it looks so static before, finally I'll leave it as it is now and wait until my mentor say something.
It was harder than what I though, because his big head annoys me a lot when I had to move the right arm and leave it away from the head to help the silhouette, and as it's not on the ground it was harder to make him feel alive.

By the way, on yesterday I had my old demo reel reviewed by Sandy Christensen, an amazing animator who worked on pixar, as freelance or in videogames at lucasarts for example, very good tips on the demo and very appreciated to her because all the effort that she puts correcting the shots and giving tips to make it better.



See you until next week, with a ball assignment and some excitement sketches and pose.

Class 1 Week 2

It's a bit long to explain here, but after the big kit kat that I take on the blog I want to retake again and make a week update at least.

You'll think, why the entry is called Class 1 Week 2, or why I turn to English again haha, but it's because I started Animation Mentor last week.
It's an amazing place, full of people from everywhere of the world who wants to learn animation, so the webpage and all the stuff and people there are pretty cool.

My mentor is Chad Stewart who seems an awesome mentor because all his students talks very well of him, he worked on Simpsons, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000, the emperor's new groove as 2D artist and Surf's up, Stuart Little 2, Open Season...as 3D artist and actually is a freelance.


That's just a brief introduction about what's coming next, so I'll try to keep this updated and I'll put my stu pose at the end of the week, so bye bye!

11 second club entry

No sabia si se podia poner antes de que terminarán las votaciones y todo por lo que lo deje para hacerlo ahora. Realmente me falto tiempo para terminarlo y tuve bastantes problemas de gimball, porque al ser un rig nuevo no tuve suficiente tiempo para probarlo y los codos seguian la rotación de las manos y tuve follon, que ahora sabiendolo y desactivandolo será más fácil.

Le falta trabajo como digo, se ve bastante con cosas como que hasta se me paso hacerle el cerrarse de los ojos, que apenás hay, y eso, en fin, este mes no voy a participar porque quiero terminar la otra que tenia a medio terminar y no se si haré el rig del personaje que hize como dije o intentare hacer algunas animaciones asi rapidas, de ciclos de caminar o correr... con el personaje de este video para practicar un poco más con el personaje y con los ciclos claro, y eso, sobre la marcha.

Digo, ahora veo que los videos del youtube no terminan de salir bien, a ver si puedo verlo y arreglar la anchura y eso, y si algun video del youtube no va es porque me petaron la cuenta por copyright cuando realmente denegaron un video que no tenian porque, era un remix y por tanto la propiedad pasaba a ser del que habia hecho el remix, porque él habrá comprado esa propiedad intelectual, y en cambio me pidio abuso el primero, total, que me petaron la cuenta porque hacia mucho tiempo también me habian pedido dos copyrights de padre de familia (como 5 o 6 años atras o más)

November entry 11 second club

La verdad es que el otro dia entre a la pagina de 11secondclub y el audio me gusto mucho, realmente la animación que estaba haciendo esta casi terminada, le faltaba decalar partes para que quedara todo más dinámico pero eso, cogí el audio, me vino una idea y decidi dejarlo que ya lo terminaria, el problema es que como tengo sólo medio mes para terminar lo otro porque se termina el plazo el 31 veo que sino tendre tiempo justillo y he decidido recortar la otra animación de momento y si eso la terminare al finalizar el mes porque apenas le quedaba uno o dos dias de trabajo.

De momento aqui esta un blocking primitivo, y a ver si le puedo meter algo de caña y queda algo decente y guay :)



Rig es Morphy v2 de josh burton que esta de puta madre y el tablero era free por internet de matt clara y lo cogí prestado, pero las fichas no me gustaban y las hice de nuevo en un momento.

blocking puenting

Blocking primario de la escena, aún le falta currele en los tiempos y alguna pose.

psl_salto

Se que dije que una vez terminado el rig en el psl_man pasaria a hacerlo en renton, pero al final me parecio de hacer una escena con este rig, bueno en realidad 2, pero primero empiezo con una y luego quizás por la mitad hago el rig de renton y luego hago la otra o no se, ya veremos.
Y eso, por cosas del tiempo las últimas dos semanas no pude tocarlo mucho y espero que la semana que viene me ponga un poco las pilas, porque con lo que queda de semana tampoco tendré tiempo a avanzar mucho.

Probando de riggear

Se que tenia que riggear el personaje que habia modelado, pero me dije, como lo empiezes a rigear todo y luego tengas algún problema de que has hecho algo mal (hace mucho que no riggeaba nada) sera un fóllo saber si peta la malla porque no esta bien el skin, porque los huesos no son correctos, si he hecho el rig mal...
Asi que me cogi el modelo de PSL del JUR por defecto y empeze a hacerle todo el rig y pasar a apuntes con buena explicación e imagenes como hacer un rig con todos los controles que pueda necesitar y tal.

Falta hacer el skin y terminar de hacer los atributos de algun control, asi como la mano del otro lado, pero vamos, de resultado de momento estoy contento porque no tenia del todo claro que me saliera el rig a la primera, junto con mejoras que no habia hecho nunca, y pese a algun contratiempo solucionado gracias al amigo google, ningun problema :)

modelo terminado

Bueno, hoy he tenido un poco más de tiempo y creo que ya esta terminado en cuanto a modelado y texturizado, falta en este render el cinturon bien de color y todo, y quizás algunos materiales se pueden mejorar, pero tengo ganas de ver si lo puedo riggear bien y no falla por ningun sitio ni nada.

Vamos, falta ajustar el brazo que se sale un poco de la manga y creo que los zapatos son algo planos pero es que los de verdad son así, dibujados quedan medio guays, pero como modelo 3D sin tener cordones ni nada solo el pegote blanco y la puntera bien redonda y con pocos detalles no me molan mucho, pero bueno, ahi estamos.

Texturizando

La verdad es que aún le falta quizás más de lo que me pensaba, le añadi los ojos que es un poco difícil, bueno no se, nunca se me han dado bien hacerlos y todo, y aqui al ser grandes rollo anime aún sabia menos como encajarlos, pero creo que lo he hecho más o menos bien.
Ensanche el cabello que creo que aún le falta más porque sino quedaba muy plano apretado, la cabeza no me termina de convencer y lo más seguro es que vuelva a retocarla un poco, a parte que faltan cejas y pestañas y tal, que quizás es por eso que lo veo más raro de lo que es.

Y por otra parte he estado sacando los mapas para texturizarlo un poco, se tiene que arreglar la mano, se tiene que tocar más la camiseta porque le faltan un par de bolsillos, el zapato los normal maps que habia preparado no estan bien porque no tenia el uvw desplegado correcto y tendre que volver a retocarla...

Pero bueno, vamos avanzando con el poco tiempo que puedo sacar, a ver si esta semana lo termino ya de retocar y le empiezo a meter setup, que lo más seguro sea en nada, porque hay ganas ya, pero me da palo empezarlo y luego al cambiar la mano o algo se joda y tenga que rehacerlo todo, por lo que esperare... :(

actualizacion renton

Tuve que rehacer el cabello porque no tenia bien las uvw...¬¬' vamos, lo exporte en nivel 1, le hize las uvw bien y lo volvi a subir de niveles y volvi a detallarlo más y igual con la cara, que creía que la tenia bien pero sólo tenia la mitad unwrapeada y la otra mitad no :S

en fin, probare de sacar los normal maps a ver si me salen bien y luego pasar la ropa si es que no la tenia guardada con el mudbox (que creo que si), y si no hay ningun problema ya sólo tendre que modelar la plancha de surf y hacer la textura y exportarlo a maya para ver si puedo hacerle un setup rápido que sea decentillo para una animación corta y chula, a ver a ver.

Improving renton

Cada ratito que le doy un poco tengo más ganas de terminarlo ya y riggearlo y animar alguna cosilla pequeña o sacar un render xulo, a ver si no se me va de las manos el tiempo y antes de terminar el mes puedo riggear aunque sea de forma básica el coche y animar una curvilla o algo también, que no se si podre, porque como me vicié a hacer los interiores con el cosido de los cinturones y todo, lo más seguro es que no sea sostenible, pero bueno, borrando el interior y bajando la calidad del exterior yo creo que podria seguir quedando xulillo.

september is back!

Queria actualizar de vacaciones, pero al final no pude hacerlo como queria y por tanto lo deje al aire, por otra parte, tengo ya los cabellos modelados bastante bien por lo que pasare a esculpir con más ganas en el mudbox tanto los cabellos como arreglar las facciones de la cara, que aunque la quiero hacer algo diferente aun le faltan cosas a arreglar.