Revolting Rhymes

Here a sneak peak at what I've been up to this year :D

Stick Man Teaser is out :D/

Here's the short I've been working on this year....

  

Ta daaaaa

Made in SoftImage 2011 O____O Yes you hear me right... 2011.

:D

Maya....

.....after a six year sabbatical into Softimage.

So I'm crossing over to the dark side(Autodesk Maya) for my new project here at work. To be honest it hasn't been as hard as I imagined it would be... O_____O for now.

Just a screen grab of work in progress.

Also applying my limited Python knowledge now. He he he 

I have found that Maya seems improved since I last used it(version 8.5 or some thing) but it still feels less "visually friendly" then Softimage.

Maybe its just cos I'm still sad about Soft going the way of the Dodo.

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KARIBA!!!

Some of my friends are doing some really amazing work! Have a look.

A teaser trailer made by a group of friends; The Blue Forest Collective.
The end goal is to produce it as a feature length film.

Created by Daniel Clarke, Jac Hamman, Charl Collocott and Daniel Snaddon.

Story/Director: Daniel Clarke
Animation Director: Jac Hamman
Compositing/vfx: Charl Collocott
Animation: Daniel Snaddon
Backgrounds: Daniel Clarke
Effects animation: Mind's Eye Creative mindseyecreative.co.za/
Music : Pressure Cooker Studios pressurecookerstudios.co.za/
Sound: Matthew Gair

Special thanks to Kwabena Sarfo, Sarah Scrimgeour and Zolna Minik for helpoing us with colour when it came to crunch time!
Also a special thanks to Thea Nicole De Klerk for her expert advice and support regarding Zimbabwe and specifically Lake Kariba.

facebook.com/karibafilm

Fun with MD3 and dresses again :D

Been working on a small personal project for cloth and this is one of the dresses...

\:D/
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Wave Rig for blocking in hero waves....

Created a little wave rig to help animators block out "hero waves" in their animation shots.

They had too look something like the deep ocean swell waves that you get... but obviously animate able. So easy to change without having to "re-sim" or move a ton of nulls around.

How it looks in scene everything visible:

* A,B,C,D are just for DisplayInfo attributes,
* the top circle is for rotation,
* the square for movement.
The spheres and lower circles are for shaping.
Large pink control is the main SRT or COG.

What the Rig and ICE Trees look like:

Rig as seen by animation.

Here is a demo of how it works:

After you have animated your waves, you can use that mesh to add all the nice detailing(ocean sims and foam) on top. I used the xOcean node for this example.
Something like this:

and then a render for the lolz.

How to install and use Symmetrice hair by booyabase...

So here is a video showing how to use a .py file off the net in XSI

*Note that every .py file is hand made and the maker can place his user menu where ever he wants*

Anyway... hope this video helps you out Mario :D

P.S this .py said it was made for 32 bit but it worked perfectly well on my 64 bit xsi... Win.

*By the way, this is a great little tool Booyabase*

Some dancing Cloth with marvelous designer 3....

Had a really cool dance sequence to simulate at work last week, here are some captures. Hopefully, I will have some renders to show you guys as well, in the near future. 

*Oh yeah, please ignore their bold alien heads O_O*

And then the end sequence.....

A LOT of touchy feel-ee stuff going on at the end there... Collision heaven!

Tadaaaaaa.... \ :D /

Learning Houdini with help from Softimage ICE

Voronoi Diagram

So seeing as Softimage is going to be "put down" by Autodesk, I have started the processes of going over to Houdini. To make it as easy on myself as possible I'm doing Softimage Tutorials and finding their "equivalent" Houdini tutorial so I can compare and judge(just kidding Houdini I wont judge).

The first of these Tutorials I've found is on the Voronoi Diagram. The Tutorial for Softimage is done by Nika Ragua ---> Voronoi shattering and explains the math behind the effect.

For Houdini I'm using the Digital Tutors - Controlling your fractures in Houdini Tutorial. 

Both these Tutorials deal with Voronoi Diagrams and how the math deals with splitting up volumes in 3d and 2d space. 

Here is what that looks like on my screen O_O

Click to enlarge

Moving over to a new software is never easy, and losing ICE saddens me :C But Houdini seems like it might just be able to distract me from the pain....

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Basic block Clothing with Marvelous Designer.

So lately I have been busy building garments and simulating cloth. 

 Using "basic block patterns" form real clothing is key to building a good fitting and realistic looking garment, which then translates into great looking simulated cloth. \:D/

Found a great collection of free sample patterns at ----> http://www.ralphpink.com/

Here are a few of the basic garments I made while rapping my head around cloth.

Click on Images to enlarge...

An example of simulated cloth done for an add...

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