Every 2 weeks, some MAXON employees do a live show called Cineversity Live. It’s great. If you work in CINEMA 4D it’s a great resource. They cover a lot of awesome stuff. Kai Pedersen and Rick Barrett are typically the hosts, but occassionally they fly solo. Rick is in Germany this week, so Kai decided to do a Rigging episode, and due to my contributions to Cineversity and Rigging in CINEMA, I got to be on it today. I don’t do much but crack wise and demonstrate a few things like What pole Vectors are(all live, I don’t even use a computer!) and Gimbal Lock. It may have been the longest Cineversity live episode so far at nearly 2 hours! Check out the link below:
It’s been a while. Class has been going pretty well. We’ve moved onto our 2 person dialog shot and I have a pretty solid bit of dialog from It’s Always Sunny and a good setting. We’re in the blocking stages right now. The weather here has been rainy. Rugby is still cruising along. We are now 5-0 sitting on a bye week, then we travel to San Diego and then 2 more weeks off. I dig it. I could use the cardio but my shins could use the break.
I’ve been working on a couple of rigs, and I think one of these days I am going to have to create a rigging demo reel. I get some offers thrown my way because I get some referrals from people, but I think no one believes me because I don’t have any sort of reel. Maybe after the Ottoman is done I will have something.
Speaking of that, I’ve been working on the final, production rig for the short, and I am pleased to say I am almost finished with it. I have been working with Charles Wardlaw implementing what he wants and once I get some mockups from him, I should be finished…except for weighting the stupid thing….have I ever mentioned I hate weighting? Anyway, I am going to dive into some python probably to help simplify the rigging process as I have to create rigs for 4 main characters and then all of the extras too.
Anyway, that is all. Not a whole lot to report. I’ve been sick for a week now. It sucks. I’m not prone to headaches normally and I’ve been getting them repeatedly. Lame. Ok adios.
Man, it’s hard to find time to update this with Work, School, Rugby, and a girlfriend haha. School has been ok so far. I got a pretty good critique last week, but it required a lot of re-work. I think I’ve managed to get it close but I had a short week and so I had limited time to work on it, but I think given the ammount of time I had I did pretty good I think. Awaiting this weeks critique hoping it’s good eek!
Work has been ok. It’s been a little busy. I just recorded a tutorial about a clavicle/Scapula setup that Kai taught me before R11 came out. I’ve got a few more tutorials in the que to do.
Rugby season has started! Whoo! Because we are a new club we are are in Division IV which is the lowest Division. There are 5 other teams in the division. We started last weekend in Long Beach against a newly formed Team called the Long Beach Waves which I believe formed from the San Pedro Rhinos. They are a big tough team of big islanders. In our first match of the Season we managed to pull off a 10-5 win. This weekend we traveled to Vegas to play the Maoris. So some of us came up early on Friday and others came on Saturday. Libby and I went up on Friday and stayed at the Rio. It’s a nice place to stay really. We went to Stack(Best Burger ever), then played some Blackjack at the Mirage before Meeting up with some of the guys on the Team where we went to Oshea’s for some beers which was a lot of fun. Then Saturday we played the Maoris, another set of big Islanders, but we played well and won handily. Our pack is pretty solid, I think we won all but 2 scrums. That means Offense and Defense, and we didn’t lose any of our own scrums. At half-time it was 29-0 With trys by Cox, Koto, Marcus, Myself, and Hector.
We started the second half and Rubin scored a try. Then, we brought in some subs, and unfortunately, one of our subs Jeff got tackled oddly by a much larger guy and It looks like he broke his fibula. It was truly a shocking and sad moment. The Maori’s thought it best to just call the game over at that point since it was so one sided, they did not want to see anyone else get injured. EMT’s were called and Jeff was taken to the hospital. I have not heard much else from him or the extent of his injury, but I want to wish him a speedy recovery. It was a jolting moment to hear someone screaming in pain. It reminds you this is a tough, dangerous sport.
After the Match the Maoris had us over at a nice little joint called PT’s for the social. Bunch of nice guys they were. I always enjoy playing with fun nice guys. It was suggested by Marcus that we all must shoot the boot since this is a new club. So at PT’s, Cox, Ruben, Myself, and Nick all shot the Boot(Nick had scored against long beach), leaving Hector, Koto, and Marcus to shoot the boot next week at home.
Me shooting the boot. Paulie Cheering them on. Rugby is a blast. We got a home game this coming weekend.
…That’s what I would have said had I posted this 7 days ago. So a quick update on life in the 9 minutes I have waiting for a download before going to Rugby Practice.
Started Class 5 at AM, which means A year ago at this time(I believe it was the 4th…) I just started AM. It’s hard to realize that I’ve been at AM for a whole year, with 6 months still to go.
My mentor this class is Randy Haycock who if you grew up in the 90’s you probably loved every film he worked on. Aladdin, Lion King, Tarzan, total Animation Badass. I hope to learn a lot from him. He seems like he will be a tough grader, but hopefully it just drives me to do better.
Rugby has restarted and we have our first match This saturday in San Pedro. Then, my birthday is Sunday, as well as my niece Alice. That should lead to a fun weekend.
The connection in here is not the best, otherwise I would show you where I’m at so far with my shot, which is a continuation of last class’ final shot, but focusing a bit more on the lipsync and facial animation for the acting bits. I showed Kai today and he thought it was looking pretty good(and we’re only supposed to be blocking). So hopefully, I will show you tomorrow or something.
Stay Frosty,
-Bret
PS-I have still been looking into the Rigging DVD, but school comes first for now, but It’s definitely been on my mind. Still looking for ideas on what to cover.
With free time now, I aim to do some painting. Here’s what I plan on painting:
It’s a picture I took when my girlfriend and I went camping at the beach a bit ago. I just really liked the shot and so with some slight Photoshop work for some color correction and cropping, this is what I plan to paint. I think I should give a step by step of how I paint. So here we go(I make no promises I am any good).
So first I find an image, which I have done. Next, I will convert the image to Black and White. I bought a transparency projector last year, so what I do is I print the black and white image onto a transparency and then I use the projector to project it onto the canvas, because I was taught to paint big and quick, this is a great way to do it.
I like painting on wood panels because they are super easy to handle. I just run to Home Depot, OSH, or wherever and get a 2×4 foot piece of birch plywood. It’s thin, and pretty smooth so it makes for a good painting surface. I bring it home and I lay 3-5 coats of Gesso on it. SAND BETWEEN THE COATS! I used to be lazy and not sand, but you can see the brush strokes and it’s basically ruined a painting(to me at least) that I did of my friend’s at their wedding and I have no desire to re-do it now because I was so far along. So do sand, you want a nice smooth surface to paint.
Now, when you project onto your panel you need to make a conscious decision, amd I going to paint it like the old masters with a Grisailles layer, or am I going to wing it? If this were more figurative related, I would go the Old Masters route as I was taught, but I’m looking at trying out some new things, so I won’t be doing that. So when I project the Black and White image, I’m mainly using it to find the landmarks of the painting, and sometimes, if I don’t think they will be clear enough, I will just add some solid black lines in photoshop to make sure they exist on the transparency. When I’m winging it like this, I will trace the image with a pencil. If I was doing a Grisailles, I would use paint with some Paynes Gray(Grey?) and Titanium White.
Another hand trick for those artists who are not afraid of Photoshop is to make some Swatches so it’s easier to match colors, see the image below:
I’ll print this out and have it beside me to easily try to match the colors. It helps me get some of the main areas I need but I don’t follow it strictly.
That’s it for now. Hopefully, I will begin this painting today which will probably consist of tinting the panel to something other than the white Gesso, or I might just dig in. Who knows. But I’ll try to document what goes on and write about it. I was thrown a curveball when my Power cord on my laptop started sparking, so I was out of luck, but thankfully I made the images here at work, and will print them at home.
That’s how long it has been since I posted on here again. Bah! Sorry about that. I have just had nothing to really comment on I guess. I lead a dull life. But I will still tell you all about it now…
I bought Assassins Creed 2 and it was pretty good. I won’t spoil it for anyone. I would recommend it. It’s great improvement since the first one.
I also bought Modern Warfare 2 which is alright. Cool story so far. The split screen Multiplayer(offline) is fun. The new Special ops mode is cool. I dig it.
My girlfriend turned me on to P&L Burger in Thousand Oaks. It’s got an excellent club sandwhich, which is my fav.
I have finished my 4th class at Animation Mentor. It was tough, and I’m very very happy to have about 3 weeks off from class. Here is my final assignment.
MAXON had it’s annual Christmas Gathering/Gift Exchange. This year we went to MB2 racing which was fun. We also played the largest game of Single Touch which I may or may not have explained on the blog, but it’s a simple principle with a balloon but a complex rule, that is known as the level or reasonablity. More on that some other time. I managed to walk out of the Gift Exchange with a bottle of E&J Brandy with a Flask…I do not like Brandy, but the flask is sweet :).
Progress on the Rigging DVD has been slow. Many other things have been occupying my time. Plus, now with the break from Animation Mentor, I would like to do some Artsy things like Painting or Sculpture.
I made a pretty cool rig which I hope to be able to share with people in the near future. It’s a pretty good rig so far. Needs some Facial rigging which Orestis Konstantinides(possible spelling error) is handling, be on the look out for it.
Oh dang, it’s also almost Christmas. I’m sad to say, I don’t look forward to Christmas anymore. It’s kind of nice because of my niece and nephew get to enjoy it, but I don’t. Christmas Morning is just like an hour and a half upstairs where we make a mess and I go back into my room(lately, 2 gifts, and some chocolate later). It’s lost all of it’s shimmer. there’s nothing to anticipate it would seem, so I am just kind of just like…I dunno. I dont like how it’s become.
Hopefully I can get a painting prepped and ready to go this week. that would be awesome. Cheers!
First off, Happy Belated Thanksgiving Day. Things I’m thankful for:
-Being Alive
-My Friends
-My Family
-McDonalds
I know it looks weird, but seriously, McDonalds is dependable and there when you need it. It was there for me on Thanksgiving(my Thanksgiving dinner happened on Sunday when Liam and Alice were here). MickeyD’s was also there in Venice when it was raining and no one would let us without buying food. It was also there in Naples when we needed something to eat for cheap, in Versailles when I couldn’t speak any French. It’s always there for me even though I don’t much care for the food(I do love their breakfast though).
Anywho so, I’ve been puttering around with the Rigging DVD idea. So many possibilities are available, so I’ve had to sit and think about what I would like to teach, what I think I could teach, and what people want/need. So I’ve decided to do a Basic Rigging DVD to help get the basics and foundation. Somethere where at the end, you would have a solid easy to animate, quick rig, that should suit most needs and teach you the tools and some of the theory behind rigging. So now I’ve been working on what to cover. I think there needs to be a blend of Understanding how things work, and understanding what it is exactly you’re doing. So I’ve been thinking about some of the tools, tags, and objects that I would cover. Here’s what they are right now:
-Constraints(PSR, Aim, Up Vector mainly)
-IK Tag
-IK-Spline Tag
-Weight Tag
-Morph*
-PoseMixer*
*Might not add them as I want to show Rigging without MOCCA stuff(maybe).
Those are the list of objects/tools/tags that I would try to explain the settings, and the concepts behind. Then, we’d obviously go ahead and rig a Biped of course, but I want to teach the tools and theory behind some rigging stuff first so you have a good foundation.
Let me know if you have any more ideas of what you would like to see in a CINEMA 4D Basics Rigging DVD.
Also, let me know if you’d rather have an actual DVD or a Download as I’ll eventually need to plan for that stuff as well.
It’s about a quarter til 1AM here. Why am I still up you ask? No, not really to update my website. Tonight has been about getting some things done. First, I got some Dinner. Done. Then I worked a lot on my assignment for Animation Mentor this week. I got a lot, you guessed it, done. I turned in a real piece of shit assignment last week sadly. Kai has been working rather hard, and not sleeping, at Re-Rigging the Bishop Rig for CINEMA 4D(No you can’t have it unless you’re an AM student, and even then, ask me in Class 4,) because we want to be working in CINEMA. We’re both faster in CINEMA. Apparently, from what I hear/see/gather, the Rig is a nightmare in Maya, and they could apparently do with a Range Mapper Node like we have in CINEMA. Maya has it’s plusses though. Anyway, so Kai worked his ass off on it for about 2.5 weeks straight, and basically I waited til the last minute(mainly to see if he could finish it on time) before deciding to work in Maya for the assignment. Unfortunately, for me, this came at about Thursday. Thursdays I usually sleep over at my girlfriend’s apartment because I have Rugby Practice until 10PM and she lives closer to work(plus it’s nice hanging out with her :D) so I usually cannot work on Thursdays. That left Friday during Work for me to do my assignment because Libby and I were going to go camping at the beach. So, yeah the assignment I turned in was crap, but I’m happy to say we have the Bishop Rig in CINEMA working pretty well, and I’ve reblocked my shot and worked up to where I should be now.
Then, I decided, I’m sick of my Internet situation. I have this crappy Satalite adapter thing, and it goes out on me if I move my legs. So I decided to see if I could get my old Range Expander to work again, and low and behold, IT DOES! STOKED! I don’t even need a second one! So, marveling at the fact that I have true wireless internet again, I thought, well maybe my PS3 could finally hook up to the Playstation Network again…and it DOES! YES! So I’ve been sitting here, waiting for the system update(which just finished) and I was also working on setting up some stuff for a Website for the CLU Rugby Team.
Soon, I will post some pics from our camping trip which was relaxing, fun, and actually great weather for Mid November at the Beach, but for now I’m going to try playing some online games! WHOO HOO!
So, work has been work, and school has been school. I went to Vegas for Halloween. That was interesting. I never felt so sleezy than I did on Halloween in my PE Coach uniform. It was fun though. Good times, and I didnt lose too much money!
Rugby has been going alright. Unfortunately due to class schedules I can’t go as much as I would like to. I can only go to one practice a week. It’s a bit of a drag as I want to keep getting better and hopefully earn a starters spot, but we shall see. We had a friendly match against some of the Boys of Asuza Pacific University. Good, odd, match. Questionable officiating(especially on the definition of a straight throw on the line outs) made for hot temperatures amongst the players, but in the end we managed to win 15-10, or 21-14. I’m not sure if we were playing with conversions or not. I did ok, nothing special. I think I got some good rucking and tackles but my endurance is not where it should be. gotta fix that.
Lately, I have been checking out Digital Tutors tutorials, and wondering why there’s no CINEMA 4D tutorials there. I’ve been watching some of the rigging tutorials in Maya and XSI. Most of it seems easily transferable to CINEMA which has lately gotten me to thinking about creating a DVD on Character Rigging in CINEMA 4D. I know we kind of have two already with the WiPix DVD, and the R10 disc, but hey why not another one? If you’re interested let me know and maybe it will happen. Anything you want it to cover let me know.
It got me to thinking about how I got to where I am with rigging. I think I’m getting to the point of actually knowing what I’m doing and being able to explain what is going on as well, which is good because it helps me figure out what I need to do. So how did I get started in Rigging in CINEMA 4D?
Well, I started using CINEMA 4D with Version 8.1. It wasn’t prime for Character Rigging or anything, although Captain3D did Pump Action with less I think. So my school had CINEMA and eventually I got an internship with MAXON. While I was there I saw a DVD about Rigging that I don’t think ever got released. It was for R9, and I believe it was from 3D Guru. It was pretty informative, and it’s what really got me started.
While I worked at MAXON(the first time) there was a guy named Scott who had worked at some Game Houses so he was a jack of all trades including some rigging. He helped get me into the Alpha Team when MAXON was developing it’s Character Rigging tools for R10. So I worked with that and all was well. I learned some of the tools but still didn’t really know any rigging.
So that was all up until about…January of 2007 I think. During that time we were developing an idea for a Short Film I had at CLU. It was pretty daunting and it never got done(…yet…) but It required me to learn some Character Rigging. MAXON decided to have a 2-day Rigging Master Class at SIGGRAPH in San Diego(which would mean it was 2007 I think.) I believe I had just gotten back from Europe(I could be mixing up my years as it’s common for me to do), and Paul was awfully nice to let me join it for free. Paul Babb is an awesome guy and has treated me very well through the years, and I can’t thank him enough for it.
So I went to the class and it was taught by Kai, who I think knew I was kind of getting into the Rigging field. Unfortunitely for his class, most people there were not interested in Rigging or were not up to speed with CINEMA so it kind of just became a mixture class of rigging and beginning CINEMA 4D. Sadly, no other master classes have been done since, but I hope that can change.
So that’s how I got started. Kai then gave me some suggestions like checking out Jason Schliefer’s Animator Friendly Rigging Series. However since I was a poor college student I could only get some, and they were quite good actually, I would still recommend them. His hand Rig is quite good. So Kai and I sort of kept in touch and I kept at rigging. The rigs were attrocious. They probably arn’t all that bad, but the whole Short process was a nightmare and it never got done.
Then after school I went back to work at MAXON. Kai was working there at that point, and so when I got there we kind of went over a lot of rigging stuff back and forth. We went through the process of creating the Taquito Rig for R11 and NLA demos, and it was a pretty good rig. Since then we’ve checked out a lot of other things, like the Farenheit Digital DVD’s and more. The Taquito rig we did for R11, was a bit more complex than the CINEVERSITY tutorial, but still not all that basic.
Since then, though, I’ve been more familiar with rigging, analyzing rigs, and explaining what’s going on. I’ve also gotten pretty damn fast at building rigs(and making tutorials about them which is why I’ve been doing so many tutorials on CINEVERSITY). I’ve had to build No-Flip Knees all the time, I mastered what was going on, and did a tutorial about it. Mastered? How arrogant sounding haha.
I’ve also began to pick up on some of the REALLY hard things like Priorities and such. Helping users with their Rigging problems has been good too, and doing Animation Mentor, it’s shown me what I want/need in a Rig to animate as far as features and appearance. So it’s helped me understand so much more.
So that’s why I kind of want to get a DVD together. It worked pretty well for 3D Kiwi and it was very useful for lots of people. The other DVD’s have all been very helpful to people. We will see how things pan out. I doubt I’ll make one but who knows. I have been working on some characters and just building some rigs. There’s some new features Kai has been making for a rig for Animation Mentor, that I will have to sit down and look at how it’s been done.
Rigging and Animation is fun and I like doing it and I like teaching it. Now I’m tired. So I am going to bed.
If you want to learn rigging, I’d suggest finding Cactus Dan’s tutorials and the Intermediate Biped Rigging on CINEVERSITY. Then I’d suggest checking out videos on Constraints and other things on CINEVERSITY, then ask to see any cool rig that you can and begin disecting it. Eventually you can begin looking at other rigs from other programs and understand what they’re doing and apply it elsewhere and in most cases I find it much easier in CINEMA, but I am pretty damn quick in the program nowadays. Imagine if I actually didn’t work in the Default CINEMA layout/shortcuts. I would probably be flying, but since I have to support people I find it easiest to just work in all the defaults. But I do pretty well especially when you consider I work on a Macbook Pro with no mouse and while lounging on the couch most of the time :).
I'm Bret. I'm a student at Animation Mentor, and I work at MAXON. I like to animate and to make art. I also like Rugby, riding bikes, drinking beer, and blackjack.
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