Bret Bays Animation

I’ve been so busy at work, with Kai and Amanda leaving, and other projects that I never got to post any Pics from my trip to New York City. I had a blast. I loved it there. CCW was pretty good too. Anyway, here’s some choice pics from the trip.

Me and Libby in Times Square

No Mugs for us

Radio City Music Hall

Playing the Big Piano

Grimaldi's

Hey! BB, that's me!

In addition to CCW, I also had a blast at SpiNYC or the MAXON Mixer. Totally cool place. I also got to meet Mike Stamm, head of The Ottoman Project(www.the-ottoman.com/blog) face to face which was nice. Wish I had more time to hang out and chat with Mike who’s a great guy.

Speaking of the Ottoman, I’ve gotten in an insane rigging mode for the Ottoman the last 2 weeks. When Mike mentioned it took almost half a year to Rig The Ottoman Character, I was baffled, because I know it doesn’t take me that long to rig. But you know what? The Ottoman rig was a serious learning project that took a lot of time to solve particular problems.

Now that those problems have been solved, I pretty much said I could rig the remaining 3 main characters in 1-2 days each. I’m happy to report that The Rider was done over the course of 2 days, the Wife in one, and I’ve spent about 5 hours on The Son rigs. The Wife and Rider will need more weighting focus, but the rigs are ready. The Son needs a few things in the Arms, then Hand Rigs, Mirror, and auto-weighting. Then all primary character rigging is essentially done. Exciting!

I plan on finishing the Son tomorrow, but I might have a Rugby Tournament in Santa Barbara so it could put a hinder on that…

OK, it’s about 2:50 AM I should go to bed. Be on the look out for some interesting Python experiments. I’ve been learning Python in CINEMA 4D like a madman and coming up with some cool stuff.

That’s right folks, as of 5PM Pacific Standard Time this evening, MAXON US’ staff size has shrunk by two. Today was the last day for Kai Pedersen and Amanda Knight. Kai was the Technical Support Manager, Cineversity Live, and general C4D Know it all. The two of them are heading back to Vancouver Canada to pursue other options I suppose is how it would be said.

Kai’s presence at MAXON was one of the reasons I returned to MAXON in ’08. Being one of the few experienced riggers in CINEMA 4D, and him being in Newbury Park put him within a 20 mile radius. So he brought me in, we talked with Paul and got me back to MAXON.

I owe a lot to Kai for convincing(or at least suggesting) me to come back to MAXON. Number 1: it’s given me a few cool opportunities being back at MAXON. I’ve gotten to go to Siggraph twice, seen Wicked,  gotten to go to New York City. In addition to that, It brought me to Libby. So I owe a lot to Kai getting me back to MAXON.

A lot of fun times have been had at MAXON during what I will call the Pedersen Era. There have been Blood(from Air Hockey), Sweat(from Air Hockey and One Touch), and Beers(Poker Night) at the MAXON office after hours. I know he and Amanda(who’s one of the nicest people on the planet) will be sorely missed at MAXON, and Monday will be a very surreal day to walk into the office and see two empty seats, and to know  that they are like 24 hours of driving away.

With Kai and Amanda gone, it changes how technical support will be handled for a bit. My role has changed now because of it, for the better. So it’s the end of an era and the beginning of a new time at MAXON.

Kai and Amanda, I wish you both a safe trip and good fortune back in Canada. Hopefully Libby and I can go see you guys in Vancouver at Siggraph or something. Keep in Touch.

I’ve been puttering around with Python as of late and I wanted to try to make a little script of something I find useful, which is to split joints evenly by a certain number. So I set out to make that script, and it’s turned into 4 scripts now.

The way it works is you select the two joints you’d like to insert the joints between(check the demo movie). Then you click on any of the scripts to execute.

SplitJoints3.py-This will take the selected joints and divide it into 3 joints(although it’s really just inserting 2 more joints, but now it’s visually 3 joints where it was one before)

SplitJoints4.py-This will take the selected joints and divide it into 4 joints

SplitJoints5.py-This will take the selected joints and divide it into 5 joints

SplitJointsCustom.py-Opens a little window for you to specify how many joints you want, up to 100.

Below is a Demo Video and the scripts for you to enjoy. Unzip them into your User Preferences Folder under Library>Scripts.

Easiest way to install, open R12, Choose Edit>Preferences. Click the button that says Open Preferences Folder. This should open your Preferencs folder. Go into Library>Scripts. That’s where these need to go.

Thanks to Rick Barrett, Charles Wardlaw, Sebastien Rath, and Per for their help along the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nznw_UE3Kc

You can download the script from the CGTalk Thread:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=47&t=928108