Mayaloge

Test

2007-02-10T12:32:00.000-05:00

test

Test

2007-02-10T12:27:00.000-05:00

2006-04-21T16:46:00.000-04:00

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Back in Action

2005-11-15T10:27:00.000-05:00

After a much needed break from the Mayaloge I am back in action. Per usual, I plan to use Mayaloge as a repository for interesting links to Maya related content and a place to share personal projects and Maya related discoveries. For example, today I have this link to an interesting article explaining how render engines handle NURBS rendering vs Polygons. I thought It was pretty insightfull and thus I am suggesting others take a look.

Allthough I have not been posting for a few months I have been staying active with Maya. Some of the things I have been exploring recently are command line renders, Vecter Rendering. More on this in the future.

Alias! Sold out to the man! For Money!

2005-10-07T20:56:00.000-04:00

Who knows if anyone even reads this site, but just so folks know, Alias just got themselves bought out by Autodesk, who I'm pretty sure make 3d Studio Max.

http://www.alias.com/glb/eng/press/press_release_details.jsp?itemId=3600004

Who knows what this means for fans of Maya. You could soon be using 3D Studio Maya Max. I'm sure it will add more serial numbers, and a few dongles to the copy protection.

Shreds of Robot Wars

2005-08-22T21:43:00.000-04:00

Over the wisdom of Pabst Blue Ribbon, Jay and I decided to end, or at least pause, our robot war. Hopefully in the future it will return.

Here's what I have so far. It's large large large, so please right click and save-as this file. Unless you're running duel T3 lines right into your desktop, your connection just ain't gonna cut it.

Robot Wars, Act 1

Don't wanna brag, but R2 would totally own that fight.

Maya 7 Unleashed Today

2005-08-01T15:29:00.000-04:00

Maya version seven was announced today. Sounds like there could be some cool improvements.

My test animation for random blendshapes is a little retarded right now but it gets the idea across. I just goes too slow right now. Imagine it about twice as fast and continuing infinetely.

First MEL Script

2005-08-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

I wrote my first MEL script last friday. The script is designed to randomly modify a blendshape. The script has four descrete steps:

randomly adjust the blendshape influences

create a keyframe

advance three frames

repeat

For those who are not familiar with the blend shape concept, it is essentially the morphing from one main shape to one or more target shapes with varying degrees combinations of influence. It is often utilized in facial animation. The blend shape would be the standard head and the targets would each have a different expression. Once that is set up you can operate the facial expression using sliders that affect the influence of each target over the blend shape.

So the thinking behind my script is that it could be used to randomly cycle through near infinite combinations of facial expressions rarely if ever repeating itself. I will load the test animation later today. the code is here .

Hello World

2005-07-23T03:44:00.000-04:00

It's like 4:00 on Saturday morning and I can't sleep so here is an update on my programming escapade. I am almost half way through my class (it is only like a month long) and although I have not done all that much programming yet I am becoming comfortable with the syntax. Thanks to Matt, I have successfully acquired and installed Visual Studio.net and produced the requisite "Hello World" program. For those who don't know, writing a program that tells the computer to print "Hello World" is like an initiation or right of passage for programming. I suppose the Maya equivalent would be rendering a sphere or something.

In addition to keeping up with my C homework I have been trying to read up on MEL scripting. I was glad to find few substantive differences between C and MEL. The biggest difference so far is that MEL requires a $ before all variables (Im sure there are more differences). For those interested in MEL, Bryan Ewert has a great site dedicated to both MEL and API. The documentation that comes with Maya has also been very useful. In my latest complimentary issue of HDRI (thanks guys), Robin Scher has an article called "Uncle Robin's Mini Guide to MEL volume 1:". He does a nice job of laying out the basics of programming in MEL. I am looking forward to Part 2 of the article as it will get into writing actual scripts.

All this programming talk is bringing me back to my LOGO days. Back in the 80's I took a class in LOGO, I was like 7 or 8. All I can remember is that we worked on the Apple2e and spent weeks making digital spiralgraphs. Some things never change.

Learning C

2005-07-15T00:15:00.000-04:00

So for a while I stop posting because I was being lazy and enjoying the good weather. More recently I have not been posting because I have been too busy with work and starting my new class. I am taking intro to programming with C at UMASS Lowell and so far so good. I know it is kind of stupid to commute all the way back to Lowell, a block from were I lived for the last two years, but that's where the class is being taught. The Prof seems cool and I am eager to see if I can implement any of my new programming chops in Maya and Flash.

I have been doing a ton of 3D at work so my desire to work on Maya at home has waned over the last month or so. One of these days maybe I will get clearance to post pics of my work product. I imagine Mayaloge will pick back up after my wedding/honeymoon. For now it is going the way of Gute Nacht Roboter

Another Render Test

2005-07-06T14:56:00.000-04:00

FX Car Crash Challenge

2005-07-05T16:21:00.000-04:00

The Submissions are in for the FX car crash challenge and there are some pretty cool entries.

HDRI Image

2005-06-24T17:07:00.000-04:00

I spent a little time messing around with HDRI and rendered out this image.

Reflections

2005-06-20T10:04:00.000-04:00

The other day I noticed that some of the photos I was using as reference for a model I was building were being reflected on to the models surface during render. It was just an accident but it got me thinking that it may be usefull for things like environment reflections on a vehicle. I did a quick experiment and came up with this image. It is sort of like a poor mans version of HDRI. I have been meaning to figure out HDRI for a while but find it a little intimidating. I think I will ask Erik to help me figure it out because he knows more about photography and computers than I do. By the way, the model I used for the image above is from 3D world Club, a fantastic site for getting models.

Meny Hilsenrad

2005-06-15T16:42:00.000-04:00

I stumbled across Meny Hilsenrad's web page today, he does some really cool work. He also explains some of his techniques on his site.

My Processor runs a little hot

2005-06-14T20:09:00.000-04:00

I've been a dilequant with Maya as of late.... the PC that it's on is in our living room, which we've kind of sealed off for the summer because it's about 97 degrees in there. Third floor livin' is fantastic. We have AC, but not in that room due to the fire escape. Nothing moves the design process along like sitting in a puddle of your own sweat.

Thankfully the iBook comes out into the kitchen with me, where the AC is on full blast, so I'm at least connected to the outside world, but it's a wee bit underpowered (and, er, under-licensed) to be running Maya. Maybe if I could find a version of Maya 2.5 to play on, I'd be set.

Willard Scott has claimed a bit of coolness is coming our way this weekend, so maybe that will grant me a little time to work.

Jay you been working on robot wars at all?

Deep Paint 2.0 Free Download

2005-06-08T09:25:00.000-04:00

Deep Paint 3d (version 2.0), an interactive paint and texture tool from Right Hemisphere, is now available as a free download. I had looked into this tool a while ago as my teacher at RISD mentioned that it is very usefull tool but its cost was around $500.00. Seeing that it is now available for free I will definitely give it a shot. It appears the download version 2.0 is not increadibly limited when compared to the current version 2.2. My guess is that Z-Brush has been dominating the market for this type of paint and texture program forcing to Deep Paint 3D to try a new strategy. Maya has also added better compatibility with Photoshop making some of the features of these 3rd party programs obselete. To my knowledge they do not offer Deep Paint 3D for the Mac.

More about Intel in Mac's, or how Steve Jobs got an iPod shuffle lodged in his brain

2005-06-07T19:00:00.000-04:00

Here's the lowdown. Right now, IBM manufactures mosts of the processors used in Macs.... PowerPC G4's and G5's. I think Motorolla may still make a few. This isn't the first time Apple has switched it's processors... and it pisses off developers because they esentially have to write two different versions of the same program to accomidate old users and new users.

Apple's decision to switch to Intel, based on the hearsy and rumors I've created, is based on cost and availability. Intel processors are less expensive, and under constant development. IBM processors are more expensive, and are on a slower development scale. Right now IBM is swinging its efforts to develop the processors that will power the new Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo Revloution, leaving the G5 processer largely ignored. Not good if you're Steve Jobs promising 3.0ghz processors in your G5 Laptop (which don't exist, and probably never will). Intel is already at 3.0ghz, and soon to be at that speed in laptops (if not already).

Will you be able to put your Windows XP install CD in a Mac and have it work? Probably not. Will Alias save a boatload of development cost on the next version of its software? Possibily. Will they pass savings onto the users? Uh, no.

More here, at News.com

I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing. Intel is not in the best shape of its life, and Apple already pissed off a lot of people when it swiched from the older OS9 to OSX platforms. Eitherway, my iBook is still a pimp computer.

Intel in Mac's

2005-06-07T09:45:00.000-04:00

Apple to use intel microprocessors in 2006. I am not going to pretend to understand the ramifications of this. Allthough I do know this, my pc at home uses an intel processor, my Macs at work don't (or at least they didn't).

Cool Walk Cycles

2005-06-01T09:35:00.000-04:00

Check out this demo reel from my buddy Rich over at Group Six Design. Looking good.

Houston, we have droids

2005-05-31T20:42:00.000-04:00

Well it has been about a month since Pat sent me his robot and I finally figured out a way to open it up on my ancient version of Maya. I ended up opening it in a trial version of Rhino that I have at work and saving it out as an .iges file. For what ever reason, when I opened it up and saved it out R2's head shifted about 3 feet to the right (thats becoming a common problem with robot models), his right arm disappeared and there are no shaders. I duplicated and mirrored his left arm and I am re-creating the shaders to the original specs as best I can. I cant wait to finish rebuilding Pat's model so I can rip it back apart again. Let the games begin.

Siggraph Trailer

2005-05-31T14:23:00.000-04:00

Check out the trailer for this years animation festival at Siggraph. For those who don't know, Siggraph is the most important conference there is for graphics professionals. For CG geeks like me, going to Siggraph is akin making the pilgrimage to Mecca. I have yet to make this right of passage but there is a good chance I will be attending next year. Several of the clips from the trailer come from Shane Ackers animated short "9" which ended up taking best in show.

HDRI3D Update

2005-05-26T23:28:00.000-04:00

I had a very interesting phone conversation today with Charles Edgin, Editorial Director of HDRI3D. He was very enthusiastic about the new directions that the magazine is taking and I look forward to reviewing the latest issues. One change that has already been implemented is the addition of a reader review section on their website. This allows readers to rate articles in past issues giving them say in what content will appear in the future. While I am no expert in running a magazine, I would say that the extra level of attention the folks at HDRI3D give to their readers should serve their publication well.

Pat pointed out to me today that he has added a site meter to Mayaloge (thanks Pat). It will be interesting to see what kind of traffic we get. It would be great if we could increase our traffic and other people learning 3D were able to make use of the links on Mayaloge.

Small World

2005-05-24T14:13:00.000-04:00

I had always assumed very few people read the Mayaloge but it turns out that I under estimated the power of the blog. A couple weekends ago I recieved a nice email from Matt Estela, founder of the Mayawiki complimenting us on the site. He also offered to give me help with any questions I might have about Maya. There sure are a lot of nice folks in the 3D commmunity.

Just today I recieved an email from Dariush Derakhshani, the new editor in chief of HDRI3d magazine. He read my review of the article on transferring CAD files and while he did not agree that the article was fluff, he was very pleasent. Here is an excerpt from his letter "I wanted to let you know you're feedback is very valuable to us. My name is Dariush Derakhshani, I am the new editor in chief of HDRI3d, and I wanted to let you know that we are renewing our focus at the magazine, trying to stay away from fluff pieces, and tutorials that just tout the commercial viability of a software. I'm not saying this is the case with Jason's article, but I do care very deeply that our articles are solid, well put together, and interesting and resourceful to read.". He also offered to send me the latest issue of HDRI3d before it hit the stores. That kind of customer service is pretty rare so I will gladly take Dariush up on his offer.

Strength in numbers

2005-05-21T21:48:00.000-04:00

Seeing that promo photo of R2 with his peeps has inspired the Rambis-Toast-Bot to get his own army of mercenaries.

The force is strong with this one!

2005-05-21T21:16:00.000-04:00

I just got back from watching Episode 3 and I must say I have under-estimated R2. I had no idea he could shoot ink at people. This could mean a complete redesign for Rust-Bot. At least Rust-Bot's self ejecting head will save him from getting an inky face. I may have to study up on the dark side of the force to get the R2 model into Maya version 4.5.

FBX!

2005-05-19T14:45:00.000-04:00

R2.fbx

stumped

2005-05-17T20:29:00.000-04:00

click to enlarge

Jay! Why does your robot's head shoot off to into the void whenever I move the whole body around?! It's downright wacky!

I'm stripping the robot down piece by piece trying to learn it's secrets.

Oh, but don't you doubt it, this Robot Challenge is still most definatly on.

New FX Challenge

2005-05-16T17:04:00.000-04:00

The folks at CG Talk have anounced that the latest FX Challenge will be a car crash simulation. I totally wish I had the time to build something for this one. Unfortunately I have a million half-finished projects and zero time, ah well. I will watch closely as this is pretty much what I do for a living and I am sure to learn a thing or two.

Article Updates

2005-05-14T09:12:00.000-04:00

I recently bought the latest issues of 3D world and HDRI to read on my flight to Kentucky. I did not end up having much time to read through them, but I made sure to read the article on transferring
CAD models to DCC applications. Frankly, I was disappointed. While I have no doubt that the author (Jason Clark) is probably very experienced at bringing files back and forth between programs, I felt the article fell flat. As I have posted
before, I spend a lot of time dealing with CAD files of various kinds not opening correctly in Maya, so I was hoping this article would contain the magic bullet to stop my woes. Really the article is little more than an advertisement for Okino Polytrans, an expensive piece of software that essentially transfers the files for you. While using Okino Polytrans may be a fine solution to bringing models between various programs, its cost is prohibitive for many folks, and there has to be an alternate way to transfer files. An appropriate analogy would be an article on character modeling with polygons that reads "Buy Maya." The worst part is he doesn't really discuss how to use Poltrans either. The bulk of the article is spent assessing the problems involved and offers few solutions.

I have not yet had a chance to read the 3D World Magazine, but I was interested to see that the cover story involves Real Flow. Some of you may remember my brief attempt at using Real Flow for a Fluid Dynamics project at work. Ultimately I decided it was over-priced and poorly supported and opted for another solution. I am curious to see if such a highly publicized tutorial (Front cover/Major magazine) can guide [the user] past the broken English in the instruction manual.

I don't want to be all negative, so I will point out that Eric Keller had a sweet article in the last issue of HDRI on retro-futuristic computer displays using Maya's Paint Effects. He seems like an interesting guy in general; his background is in medical animations. He has a brief version of the tutorial from the magazine on his website. Also be sure to check out his Tron-style animations.

Back from Kentucky

2005-05-11T09:15:00.000-04:00

Hi all, I am back from Kentucky but there is crapload of work on my desk so my Robot Battle animation will be delayed even more :( That's right; emoticons are totally called for in a situation like this. Pat, I hear ya on the long waits for rendering. I do have some suggestions. Try and figure out what parts of your animation are the most expensive in terms of causing long render times. One mistake a lot of people make is to turn on raytraced shadows for everything in the scene when they could get away with using just a few selected shadows. I would also try to keep your lights simple as more lights equals longer renders. This doesn't mean your lighting has to be boring, just try to maximize the efficiency. Another time saver is to preview your animation before you render it in full quality. I sometimes make play blasts of my scenes to preview them before I commit to a long-term render. The most important factor in long render times is your computer. If your scenes are built efficiently and your render times are still mega-slow it may be time to upgrade your hardware. But in the end it is best to remember our fore fathers who would spend days to render out a static sphere on a checkered background. Now that’s dedication.

Waiting is the hardest part

2005-05-09T21:58:00.000-04:00

Waiting for these freeking images to render is a pain. You take ten minutes to adjust the camera, move some polygons around, click "batch render" and wait overnight for like 80 frames of animation. I guess this is how its done. Jay is there a better way?

Right now I'm exporting individual .jpg frames, and then popping them in as a sequence in After Effects. Seems like the way to go.

What's the method to your madness?

Update: Robot Wars

2005-05-08T09:08:00.000-04:00

I've got my set fully constructed now, and have discovered the larger = slower. Layers are a godsend, allowing me to keep things organized. Lighting has also been a learning experience... you think everthing will work a particular way, and when you render the frame, it looks like crap.

I've rendered my first test scene, and 120 frames took all night to render! Insane!

I've layed out my story board, and it looks like I'll have 10-15 small scenes altogether, so I'll be leaving my desktop on for the next week or so.

Too Cool For School

2005-05-04T22:35:00.000-04:00

I decided I am going to wait until fall/winter to take any more classes. Work is crazy and my wedding is fast approaching and I already spend too much time at the computer. I am thinking about getting a couple of books and some back issues of magazines on 3D. I have been looking specifically for books on Mel programming. I remember seeing "Complete Maya programming" at Barnes and Knoble and it appeared to be very extensive. I am a little leary about learning programming from a book but I figure I can at least become a little more familiar with the vocabulary and the more basic concepts. The cheapest price I have have found is $31.00 at Amazon.

About a month ago I picked up the 2nd issue of HDRI 3D magazine. Over all it looks kind of amateurish but it had some interesting articles. Apparently it is the replacement for the Highend 3D magazine that used to be offered by the same publisher. I checked the table of contents in all of the back issues and found articles on topics I am especially interested in. I find Magazines are good at covering more obscure topics in greater detail. For example the latest issue of HDRI 3D has an article on using CAD models in Maya. I wrestle with that crap all the time at work and have found no good documentation on the topic. Another article of interest is "working with Macromolecular Data in Maya" in issue 4 of Highend 3D. Who knows maybe the articles are not all that great, but they seem worth checking out.

I also found the Maya help files to Maya 4.5 on the Parsons College website. The images appear to be broken and most of this material is available for download in PDF format already but there is some new stuff here and it is easy to access.

Particles on Parade

2005-04-30T17:07:00.000-04:00

It's Saturday, it's rainy and I just got back from work. This would have been a perfect day to start animating my robot battle but I am getting bogged down at work again. My latest project calls for the use of particles in motion. Frequent readers may recall that I spent some time investigating the use of particles to simulate fluids for an earlier project. I never really found a satifactory way to produce the effect with particles and instead used an animated paint effect to get my desired results. This time I think particles may do the trick. As usual I looked at few different sites to find info on animating particles. This tutorial on filling volumes with particles was helpful and this more advanced particle tutorial seem full of good stuff that may be over my head for now. I also noticed RISD is offering a class on using particles in Maya. I am also learning quite a bit about fields.

Lazy Jay

2005-04-27T00:20:00.000-04:00

Nice updates on the site Pat!

So I have in fact been lazy, but I feel like I have excuses. First off, I have been spending a lot of time outside because it has been nice out. Second, I am a huge Basketball fan and I have been watching as many of the playoff games as I can. After all it is a well documented fact that CG Geeks can spend too much time at the computer leading to the detriment of all else life has to offer (beer/basketball).

But don't worry, despite the distractions I have been keeping up with my studies and I am just as geeky as ever. Over the last week I have been exploring the difference between solid modelers (Auto-CAD, Solid Works, Pro-E) and surface modelers (Maya, 3D Studio Max) and methods of passing files between them. I have a trial version of Rhino that I find intriguing because it functions both as a solid and surface modler. More on this later.

I have not done much with my animation because I still need to convert R2 into a file format I can use at home. I don't think it will be that difficult but it will be hard to explain to my co-workers why I am playing around with an R2 D2 model. I am hoping to get in early or come in over the weekend to set up the file with out pulling time away from work projects.

Preparing for war

2005-04-26T19:38:00.000-04:00

Haven't seen Jay post in a while. He's either busy, bored, or deeply concentrating on the impending battle.

I've begun work on my battle movie. My computer's lack of RAM is making itself clear, as I'm confined to working in wireframe mode if I want to get anything done.

Jay's robot file was about 50x the height of my bot, so I had to spend some time making them similarly sized. No doubt an intimidation tactic by Jay.

Re-did the logo here, nothing like a little Photoshop to calm the nerves before battle.

Mayaloge.org

2005-04-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

Mayaloge.org lives!

THC

2005-04-21T18:24:00.000-04:00

You know, I was all set to have a relaxing afternoon, but then I see Jay talking smack about my robot. Of course I don't have Maya at work, so I speed home, crack open Maya...

... and decapitate Scrap-Bot's head, stuff it's rusty-ass skull with weed, and smoke that shit up through it's eyes. See what you made me do Jay!

Set my robot on fire, will you?

p.s. Jay, what do you think about mayaloge.org?

R2 D2 you're on fire!

2005-04-21T07:16:00.000-04:00

Scrap Bot Reporting for Duty

2005-04-19T22:43:00.000-04:00

This Zip file should have everything you need for scrap bot. If you have trouble with the textures or questions about animating the joints let me know.

Sick Cycles Server Down

2005-04-18T21:51:00.000-04:00

So I post all my images and video clips on my brothers server and it appears to be down. I can't complain because I get the space for free and it usually works fine (thanks dude). There is a link to his site, Sick Cycles, on my side bar. If you visit his site be sure to check out the Ninja Cart. I think I may need to investigate a back-up plan for times like this when his server is down. Hopefully my bot will be posted in the next 24 hrs. I know there are places to post for free but I am not familiar with any of them at this moment.

With the Robot Battle taking center stage the last few weeks and the nice weather drawing me outside, I have failed to keep up to date with industry news and generally interesting Maya stuff. For example I just found out today that Adobe is in the process of buying Macromedia. I will be interested to see what comes of that, as I am sure all CG types will be.

Are, Too

2005-04-18T19:12:00.000-04:00

My entry, submitted for battle. Right-click and save-as!

R2.zip

Tron Guy's on Board!

2005-04-17T09:50:00.000-04:00

Thats right, Tron Guy has agreed to judge our Robot Battle. This may be Mayaloge's finest hour. The battle is that much more legit. Thanks Tron Guy, we will let you know when the bot battle animations are ready for judging.

R2, the first animation

2005-04-17T00:58:00.000-04:00

Click for animation. My first attempt, after finally figuring out the whole Maya keyframe scheme.

Tron Guy is Famous

2005-04-15T14:49:00.000-04:00

I did not realize that Tron Guy was a celebrity when I asked him to judge our contest. I thought he was just a guy with a cool Tron suit. He will probably be too busy appearing on shows like Jimmy Kimmel live to judge our Battle. Oh well.

Better Animation

2005-04-15T00:06:00.000-04:00

Here is a more interesting animation showing scrap bot's locomotion.

Judges

2005-04-14T23:17:00.000-04:00

I am in the process of finding impartial judges for the Battle, so far this is the only guy who has the necessary qualifications.

Scrap Bot Animation Test

2005-04-14T21:14:00.000-04:00

So it took me a while to remember even the basics of rigging but I think my bot is almost ready for animation. Here is a test sequence. The file is just over 1 Meg so give it 3 or 4 minutes to download. I will try an optimize future video postings for the net.

In other news, upon further investigation, I have decided to let Matt back into Robot Battle 2005. Matt's fans have started a letter writing campaign by which they are accusing me and the Mayaloge federation of racial discrimination. Apparently the ratio of silver bots to fleshy toned bots is out of balance so we are forced to reconcile by admitting the Rambis Toast-Head into the competition. The federation will ask that a mustache and black glasses be applied to the toast head so as to increase the likeness to Kurt Rambis. There will be no penalty for failure to meet this request.

Matt's Late Entry (Disqaulified)

2005-04-14T13:24:00.000-04:00

It has come to my attention that Matt Bailey (my own brother) has broken several rules of the Robot Battle 2005 Competition. First off, he did not submit his Robot within a timely manner, secondly he utilized off the shelf parts (Capsela) to leverage a clear advantage for his bot. These minor infractions could be over looked but the fact that he tried to submit what is clearly a cyborg and not a robot into the competion knocks him out of this and all future robot battles. Clearly the use of Kurt Rambis's legs is a give away that this robot is half man and half machine and therefore a cyborg. I can only hope that Matt was fooled into believing that Rambis was infact a robot based on his jerky-robotic-style of playing basketball. It is a sad day for the sport.

My Robot brings all the Droids to the yard...

2005-04-13T20:31:00.000-04:00

Mad respect to Jay's robot, and his mini-tutorial there. Robot Challenge 2005 will truely be a battle for the ages.

With that said, I submit my contender. His name is R2, and he's here to bust yo ass up:

R2 is composed of the finest polygons, and is a true playah. I was tempted to make an original robot, like Jay's, but I had already been working on him before the contest started and felt that I'd be good with that... plus there are tons of pictures of Mr D2 online, so modeling was a little easier. I'll put together an original robot during Robot Challenge 2006

Time to start moving my Center Points around.

Simple Bot Motion

2005-04-12T17:07:00.000-04:00

Here is a quick tutorial on simple animation for non-deforming characters (such as robots). First create 3 poly cubes and 2 poly spheres spacing them roughly as shown in the picture below. Open the outliner found by going Window/Outliner. Your outliner should look like the image below. If it is a little different that is OK. Next, change the center point on the two right most cubes so that they are centered on the spheres to their left. To change a center point, select an object, choose the move (translate tool) and press the insert key (the home key on a Mac). The curser will change and you can now move the center point freely. Now go into your outliner and select "Sphere1", after you have it highlighted middle mouse drag Sphere1 on top of pCube1 (do this inside the outliner not with the actual objects). This establishes a parent child relationship between pCube1 and Sphere1. Do the same for the other objects until your hierarchy looks the same as the image below. Once you have your Parent relationships set up, select Sphere1 and notice that it selects all of the objects beneath it. Those objects are considered children to sphere1 and will rotate or translate based on the motions of their parent. This parenting of objects combined with keyframing is the basis for simple animation of non-deformable objects. Deformable characters utilize rigs made from joints and splines. The concept is not all that different from the methods used in this tutorial, just a lot more options to choose from.

Presenting Scrap-Bot 2005

2005-04-11T23:47:00.000-04:00

Here are several views of my scrap-bot. He is the product of what little free time I have had over the last couple weeks (OK, so I had this past weekend off but it was way too nice outside for building robots). I think he came out all right. I created him mostly out of Nurbs and tried to compensate for a lack of modeling detail through excessive use of texture mapping. He may look wimpy but don't let his office chair legs fool you. This guy is ready to kick some Ass, well he's almost ready. I am going to suggest that we take an additional week to set up the rigging of our characters. I know you don't have a ton of animation experience Pat but I figured if we set up simple rigs of our own characters it will make animating a little easier. Doesn't need to be complicated at all and I suspect it will be a learning experience for both of us.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords...

2005-04-07T21:47:00.000-04:00

Mr Jay has been one busy mofo, with his "job" and whanot. Surely he is assembling a team of animators to fight my robot in heated battle. All I can say is bring it

Here's part of the robot I'm modeling these days. I'm still adding ultra weapons, and super-mint armour. Perhaps it will have a bow-staff.

Snap!

2005-04-03T08:56:00.000-04:00

I've been working pretty hard on my robot, and hope it will be ready for combat. My animations skills are non-existant, so this should be a good exercise for me.

Oh shit it just got personal!

2005-04-02T22:04:00.000-05:00

2005-04-02T16:20:00.000-05:00

No light at the end of the tunnel

2005-04-01T18:16:00.000-05:00

So I was too quick to think my schedule was slowing down. I do have tomorrow off though which is nice. I am not shure when the robot battle should start or end. I guess if we say robot exchange is a week from this monday and robot battle shots/animations are tentatively scheduled a week after that then we should have enough time to make some cool stuff. Let me know what you think Pat.

Twice this week I have come across satelite photography in conversation or on the web. Death fall has a link to free software from Nasa called World Wind that I am dowloading to check out. Earlier this week my Dad suggested that I check out a couple other sites that have aerial photographs for refference material on the accident scenes I do at work. I think this may have been one of them Terra Server. It is a pay site but you can look at any image you want with the watermark inplace. I will be adding these resources to the side bar when I get a chance.

Light at the end of the tunnel

2005-03-31T10:55:00.001-05:00

After working 20 + hours over the weekend and another 17 hours yesterday my animation is almost complete. So after spending day and night working on this serious project, I am now craving something more lighthearted and fun. As such, I am officially challenging Patrick (thats right, you) to a Robot duel. Here is how it works, there are no rules, all you have to do is make a robot character and send the maya file to me. I intern, will do the same. We then import each others robots into the same file as our own and animate them kicking each others asses. I don't plan on spending a lot of time on this, and you don't have to create a melbot or anything, just thought it would be fun to have a quick, silly project that would be enteraining enough to actually finish. By the way the movie poster is from one of my favorite robot movies, Silent Running with Bruce Dern. He is an enviromentalist with two little robot buddies, why can't I get a job like that?

While Jason is away...

2005-03-30T21:28:00.000-05:00

Hello, Maya fans! Erin here, standing in for Jason while he works his butt off on a crazy 3D project. He'll probably be staying most of the night at work, and we'll see how much headway he makes. Right now he tells me he's working on light linking. I don't know what that means, but I found a link to it (I think). So I can't say too much about the project, but it looks neat and he's working very hard. He should be back in a few days.

Hmmm pretty cool

2005-03-29T23:16:00.000-05:00

Death Fall is back up. Check this animation out. Begining is kind of lame but stick with it. Back to work or sleep.

Intensity Curve

2005-03-27T20:12:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter all. While others were hunting for plastic eggs I was at work hunting for a way to control decay settings on spot lights. The good news is I figured it out. Light decay has been one of those mysterious and frustrating settings for me since I started Maya. For those who don't know, decay describes where the light stops and how it fades out (useful for things like headlights). The preset options for decay have always resulted in no light at all for me. So out of frustration I began messing with the Intensity curve options and I got what I needed. This image is illuminated by a light with varying decay. It is intense, then subtle, then intense and finally negative light is cast. There obviously needs to be a tutorial on this as I could not find one anywhere. I will write something up when things slow down.

Inner Space

2005-03-26T09:42:00.000-05:00

Check out these cool medical animations, from Hybrid Animations. They remind me of the movie Inner Space with Martin Short.

JB is back

2005-03-25T10:41:00.000-05:00

No, not Jason Bailey, Jason Buzby patron saint of 3D animators and creator of 3D Buzz. 3D Buzz has had had a complete face-lift and looks great. The site appeared to be stagnant for the last few months but it appears that was just in preparation for the rebirth of a sleeker 3D Buzz. There is even a 3D radio program. Thanks again to Pat for taking the torch while I am in the work camps. Also thanks to Erin for picking my ass up from the airport at 3:30 in the morning. That’s all for now, back to the grind. All work and no play make Jason something... something....

Today's Homework

2005-03-23T19:26:00.000-05:00

Well, it appears that Jay is still gone, so I offer you this short homework assignment. Your task is to review Pixar's RenderMan software. Apparently the cool kids who make all sorts of money use this software.

If you read further, they appear to have a little ditty that works with the Maya software program.

And, since I'm a nice substitute teacher, I'll let you watch some movies until Jay gets back. Made with Maya? Who knows? Cool? Oh yes.

Where has Jay poly gone?

2005-03-22T22:08:00.000-05:00

This blog is lonely while Jay is off doing his traffic survey thing. I hope his frequent posting returns soon! I have no idea what his work project is, but it will do doubt be cool. Maybe he's trying to create a 50-car pile up in Maya. Luckily lots of people drive Honda Civics, so you can just use the ol' Duplicate and Transform to shave a few minutes off your modeling. Lots of Civics people.

Speaking of modeling, and cars, I've momentarily given up on modeling my celica, as it's just redonkulously complicated and a little beyond me right now. I'm instead focusing on modeling a robot, which will hopefully steer my in the right direction.

Wow, That's Slick

2005-03-19T23:42:00.000-05:00

Great job on the upgrades Pat! That's just the kind of shot in the arm this site needed. I especially like the use of the XYZ translator. Mayaloge actually has some style now. You the man.

They announced the new FX challenge over at CG Talk. The challenge is to animate a space craft mission to the moon (how cool is that?). I am especially interested because they have divided the challenge into a fantasy category and a more realistic category for animations based on hard science. I will probably be following the threads for the more realistic animation entries pretty closely. An animator by the name of Daniel Maas was recruited to help judge the accuracy of the scientific submissions. Here is a link to his animation of the Mars Rover. I would say he is a qualified judge.

Play in Traffic

2005-03-19T08:36:00.000-05:00

Hey all, so I have a crazy new 3D project at work that requires me to fly to the city of brotherly love and stand in the middle of a busy highway at 4:30 in the morning and take pictures. Per usual I can't say much more than that but it should keep me pretty busy, night-and-day for the next 2 weeks (I will only be in Philly for 2 days). I may not be able to post with the frequency I have up until now. I know what your thinking, you just can't go 2 full weeks with-out hearing about PDFs, .FBX, MPRs and how much I want to buy Z-Brush. I will do my best to add posts when I can, maybe if I learn some Maya tricks on this new project, I can share them here. Coincidently, I have made Pat D an administrative member of mayaloge. So in addition to his occasional posts I have been shamelessly leaning on him to spruce up the site a little (cause he got skills).

FX Challenge

2005-03-16T08:06:00.000-05:00

Not a lot to talk about today. I have been busy pouring over my recently acquired Maya PDF's. I did check out the winner of the latest FX Challenge at CG Talk. The FX Challenge is a contest to use special effects to simulate things like avalanches, Roller coasters and volcanoes. The first FX Challenge was to build a trebuchet. I starting to make something to enter but I had zero knowledge of dynamics and quickly realized I was out gunned.

Crazy New Zealand

2005-03-14T22:49:00.000-05:00

Update: In addition to Pat, I have the Elam School of Fine Arts to thank for my recent Maya windfall. Apparently copyright laws hold no ground in New Zealand as their educational institutions see fit to electronically distribute volumes of books over the internet. In addition to making all this information on Maya available they also provide material on other software, such as Aftereffects, DVD Studio Pro and Final Cut Pro. It is all probably out of date but may be useful.

Holy Freakin Crap!

2005-03-14T22:21:00.000-05:00

When I was a kid, me and my brothers use to dream about winning the Toys-R-Us shopping spree. We would discuss the finer points of how to get the most toys in the shortest period of time, how to optimize the space within the carriage to accommodate the most stuff and so forth. Alas, we never had the chance to implement our well crafted plans. Tonight may be the closest I ever come to making that dream a reality. Pat found the "Mother Link" to the nurbs guide I posted about earlier and my God is there a lot of stuff there. I am talking about thousands of well written pages on everything Maya has to offer. From character animation to rendering and subdivision modeling. You could honestly spend over a thousand dollars at the bookstore and not get half of the info I just spent the last hour downloading. I am not really sure where to start reading, I guess I will just use it as a reference for anything I would need to find out about. At first I thought maybe it was just a PDF version of the Maya help menu but it is way to useful to be that. It appears to have been published by Alias, maybe it was made available before Alias decided it could rip off Maya users by charging a ton of money to explain how there software works? It is slightly out of date, the files are dated 2002 and it is written for Maya 4.5, for Mac OSX. However, most if not all of the content should still be relevant. Im going to stop writing now or else might never stop talking about how awesome this is.

Free nurbs guide

2005-03-14T16:42:00.000-05:00

I found this link to download a PDF on nurbs modeling. It may actually be a PDF version of the Maya help for nurbs, I will check on this, but it is still very helpful and the most complete explanation of nurbs in Maya that I have come across. Most importantly it is free.

This PDF is a perfect example of why Mayabloge is a good thing. I found the same PDF months ago and forgot to book mark it. Now that I am modeling in nurbs more frequently I thought "hey, where did I see that PDF on nurbs?". Now I know I can find it at Mayaloge if I ever need it again.

In Soviet Russia, Maya sucks you

2005-03-13T23:02:00.000-05:00

Stay strong Jay. All design software sucks at different times. I cite Quark, Freehand, Director and Photoshop. Yes you Photoshop.

Here's a down and dirty render of a Celica Rim I through together from that Focus tutorial.

Maya Sucks

2005-03-13T09:13:00.000-05:00

I just got back from spending 3 hours on a Sunday at work trying to make progress on a big project. There is a total love/hate duality between me Maya. The program is capable of so much that it can be impossible to get the one thing done you really need to accomplish. I won't blab too much, but here is the problem. I was trying to create a texture for a quarter mile stretch of roadway and the problem was that it needed to look clear both far away and close up. If that's not bad enough, the same texture needed to look clear when a small section of the roadway is printed 40" x 60". After working at building the texture for a few hours I realized that the texture would have to have a print size of like 400 + inches to cover the entire stretch of roadway. So maybe its not so much Maya I hate as it is this project I am working on. And just like that I have forgiven Maya.

Yesterday was the first day I did not post on Mayabloge since I started about a month ago. We lost power and when it came back on I was lazy. Friday I went to see Robots with Erin, Pat and Kate. It was fun hanging with Pat and Kate but the movie could have been better. There were a lot of cool animated effects, maybe too many. You know its a bad thing if a 3D geek like me thinks there are too many animated effects in your movie. The story line was boring and predictable, the characters lacked personality.

Lastly, I did get a chance to work on the Audi yesterday. I decided to start a Nurbs version. I figure I will develop the Poly version and the Nurbs version simultaneously.

Addendum

2005-03-11T09:12:00.000-05:00

Erin and I would love to have people join us at the movies tonight. Just let us know via phone, email, blog, fax, courier pigeon or bicycle messenger, yodel, smoke signals, Morse code, interpretive dance (please, only one of these options per person).

TGIF

2005-03-11T08:05:00.000-05:00

Its Friday, and I am ready for the weekend. I think Erin and I might see Robots, the animated movie tonight. Not a lot to talk about today but I wanted to put a link to Hiroshi Yoshi who makes some crazy 3D characters. They are simple looking but very fresh looking for 3D. They remind me a little of Jimmy Maidens work from Boring 3D. They also remind me of Takashi Morikami with a slightly more Nintendo meets Hello Kitty feel.

If I get a chance, I hope to work on the Audi model this weekend. I may have to go in to work and finish a work project so we'll see how keen I am to work on 3D when I get home.

Kudos to Alias (Maya)

2005-03-10T08:08:00.000-05:00

Remember when I posted that Alias/Maya had purchased Kaydera and now had the rights to the .fbx format? Well yesterday, Alias announced that the software development kit for .fbx will be free to anyone who wants it. Initially I was worried that Alias would stifle the use of .fbx by making it a proprietary format but they have done the right thing here. Anybody who has to bring 3d files across different software platforms should be really happy about this. In addition to freeing up the .fbx format, Alias announced the release of a personal learning edition (PLE) version of Motion Builder. Motion Builder also developed by Kaydera and acquired by alias is a sophisticated motion capture software that allows you to animate based on data retrieved from real life. This sort of animation is used all the time in Hollywood most recently in the Polar Express (Yeah, Iknow that movie sucked). I will be downloading the PLE this weekend, I will post more thoughts then.

I feel like my posts have become a little to tech-oriented so I thought I would add a link to a dancing Robot to keep folks interested. That’s right, read the boring stuff and then you get to see the dancing robot.

Airbag

2005-03-09T15:09:00.000-05:00

I didn't model this car or this figure but I did make the airbag. I actually have been thinking about how to animate an airbag for a while. I couldn't find any tutorials but I think the the technique I developed on my own works pretty killer (no pun intended). first I created a sphere and turned it into a soft body. Then I applied gravity to the soft body and animated it scaling from a small sphere into a large sphere. When the soft body hit the figure it molded to the his shape but it was reall ragged looking. To smooth out the edges and give myself more controll over the animation I set up a blend shape comprised of several stages taken from the dynamic simulation. OK, that doesn't even make sense to me and I am writting this. Maybe I will write out a tutorial on this one when I get some more time as I think it is a fairly original concept. Anyway, here are two playblasts of the animation movie 1 movie 2

.fbx to the rescue

2005-03-08T14:51:00.000-05:00

So after looking for the better part of this morning for a viewer that allow people with out Maya to view 3D files, I found a solution. More accurately we (my boss and I) found a solution. Maya/Alias recently purchased a company called Kaydera known for amongst other things developing the .fbx format. This format allows you to bring files back and forth between all major modeling programs. They also developed an .fbx viewer plug-in for Quicktime and it works awesome. You can completely navigate your 3D file with zoom, pan and orbit features. You can even turn on and off wire-frame modes and jump from camera to camera. This will revolutionize the way I do my job. It's pretty dam cool.

3D file viewer

2005-03-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

I was finishing up a project at work yesterday when one of the Engineers told me he wanted to be able to navigate the 3D model I built him with as much freedom of movement as I have in Maya. Having heard about third party viewers I decided to investigate but I didn't come across anything that looked really solid. Everything is either too exspenive like Polytrans from Okino, too cheap like Quick 3d, or lacks good documentation like Deep Publish. I tell ya, sharing files is not Maya's strong suit. I have yet to bring in a file from Autocad, Rhino or 3D Studio cleanly. Anyway, if someone knows of or finds a viewer that can display huge files in a Maya exportable format let me know.

Update

2005-03-07T11:55:00.000-05:00

Here's and update on my polygon Audi A4. I am using this tutorial on modeling a ford focus for a refference. Ultimately I think I will re-model the car in nurbs to see if I can achieve more accurate curves. This tutorial for building a nurbs Subaru WRX looks very detailed and usefull.

Audi A4

2005-03-06T21:35:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest challenges in designing my restraints presentation will be building a 3d vehicle complete with interior. I had a hard time deciding which vehicle to use. I knew I wanted a current car that performed well in safety testing. I was hoping to model a Ford as the company I work with has done work for them before. The thing that really made me choose the Audi was the availability of solid blueprints and photo referrence material. I have tried to model a car before and it was not easy. Here is what I have so far.

Restraints

2005-03-05T11:58:00.000-05:00

Erin is looking at wedding dresses with our Moms and her Sis right now so I decided to stop into the office. I opened a project I haven't touched since last summer on restraints that I want to canabilize for the Science challenge project. The models are all right but I think they need a lot of work. When I made them I had not yet done much with texturing, lighting and animation and I think they would look better if I made them with nurbs instead of poly's. The first model is a typical seat belt locking mechanism. In the animation it shows an exploded view and then closes and latches.The materials look too similar and fake-ish but I think it gets the idea across well. The second piece is what is called a tensioner. The tensioner is what keeps your seat belt from giving out any slack during an accident. It is actually a pretty simple device, there is a weight connected to rod with a plate on the opposite end. The enertia from a sudden stop causes a weight to swing forward the plate engages and stops the gears from spooling any more slack. Again the model and animation get the idea across but I think they could look a lot better. The last assembly I modeled is called the pre-tensioner. Like the tensioner, the pre-tensioner stop the seat belt from spooling during impact. In the pretensioner a small explosion sends a plate into the gears milliseconds after the impact and effectively locks the belt. I am excited about cleaning up the pretensioner because I get to animate an explosion.

Mental Ray

2005-03-04T23:36:00.000-05:00

Particle Morphing

2005-03-04T10:39:00.000-05:00

Last night I was thinking about how it would be cool to morph the shape of hundreds of particles as they bounced around the screen. I have never read anything a bout using blendshapes (Maya morphing tool) on particles but I tested it out this morning and it works great. I made a playblast (quick and dirty animation using screen capture) of the morph and you can check it out here. The file is 100 k but shouldn't cause any problems. Hope to use this effect for something more interesting in the future.

I also had a chance to go through the MPR tutotrial. I could see how it would be really usefull if you were going to produce a lengthy animation but it seems like a lot of work for the stuff I make. essentially you go in and hand code attributes using mel scripts. You use two scripts for each attribute, one to turn on the effect and another to terminate it. If you consider an average scene has hundreds of attributes to key you are looking at a lot of time here. The advantage to all this is that you can adjust things like shadows and specularity inside a compositing program like After Effects instead of making those changes in Maya and having to re-render everything. If anyone wants to check it out and gets stuck let me know and I can help'm out.

6.5

2005-03-03T22:34:00.000-05:00

After installing another hard drive and a smidge more ram into my station last night, I decided to run the installer upgrade for 6.5. Man that thing took forevar to install! But once it was done, and I had finished entering the now-familiar codes and registration keys and activation code keys and registration activation key code keys, I was up and running.

I have no exciting photos to post yet, but started to play with the mental ray thing like Jay suggested. I noticed it takes an extra special long time for it to render with the mental ray, compared to the other rendering options. More to come soon for sure.

Paint Effects

2005-03-03T08:18:00.000-05:00

It probably sounds like I want to buy some new software, plugin or book every time I write a new post (because I do). But I really need to find a way to get Z-Brush. I tried to get the demo version but they never sent me my activation code. Everytime I read an interview with a 3D artist they can't stop talking about how great Z-Brush is and how it is changing the industry. Here are some really cool videos featuring well known artists explaining the sweetness that is Z-Brush. Check outs Meat's Video if you only download one.

I finally found an easy way to solve my flowing water problem. After messing with particles and plugins I tried using a simple animated paint effect and it it looks really convincing. I will build a non-project version when I get time and post it for others to check out.

Katamari Damacy

2005-03-02T12:41:00.000-05:00

For like the last 3-weeks I have been the first person out of the game at Dennis's Tuesday night poker game. Once again, I was the first person out last night but it gave me a chance to play Katamari Damacy for PS2. From what I understand, you are like this intergalactic prince who rolls everything on earth up into a ball to send to his parents to make stars or something? So I mention it on Mayaloge because it was fun to play and although fairly simple, the graphics were really phat. Especially when your ball picks up children and fishing rods and stuff.

Congrats to Pat on getting the $800.00+ upgrade from Maya 6 to 6.5 for FREE. I have a copy at work but I envy that you have it at home.

Welcome Casey

2005-03-01T07:45:00.000-05:00

Casey finally signed up as a member of Mayaloge. That makes three official members, and at least one or two other people that stop by and check out the pictures. Casey hooked me up with my home copy of Maya 4.5, for which I will be foreever gratefull. He also gave me some advice on graphics cards. So if your out there reading this Casey you should feel free to post anything you find that may be of interest. Same goes for you Pat. As I have allready noted, yesterday kind of sucked in terms of maya. However, I did find some cool stuff on the web last night. Here is a free tutorial on MPR (Multi-Pass_Render) that uses the same plug-in that was mentioned in the $60 tutorial I wanted to buy for my birthday. I think I will Check out the free one first. I also decided yesterday that I am going to enter the Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. I want to focus on vehicle safety restraints and try to explain the inner workings of seat belts, airbags etc.. I have already done a lot of this kind of work in support of the restraints experts at my work so I should be able to leverage some existing graphics and knowledge. I will be able to post updates on this project as it is nor directly for a client or litigation. Not sure if I will finish in time for this years contest but I am excited about putting something together.

Maya Malfunction

2005-02-28T21:28:00.000-05:00

So when I came into work this morning I realized non of the files I had saved on Friday would open correctly. I was really bummed out and confused as to what happened. I am still not sure what went wrong but I think it either had something to do with the 6.5 upgrade I installed on Friday or the mjpolytool's plug-in I use. I think complex models built with mjpolytools slow down maya because you may not be able to delete the history. For this and other reasons I would suggest anyone on a PC purchase Byron's Polytools for fast polygon modeling. It does the same job as mjpolytools only it is more stable. Unfortunately, Byron's Polytools is not compatible with Macs. In more positive news, lastnight, Chris Landreth won an Oscar for his short "Ryan". I have not seen it yet but if shows locally I would like to check it out. Also winning awards were Spiderman 2 and the Incredibles.

Mayaloge

Test

Test

Back in Action

Alias! Sold out to the man! For Money!

Shreds of Robot Wars

Maya 7 Unleashed Today

First MEL Script

Hello World

Learning C

Another Render Test

FX Car Crash Challenge

HDRI Image

Reflections

Meny Hilsenrad

My Processor runs a little hot

Deep Paint 2.0 Free Download

More about Intel in Mac's, or how Steve Jobs got an iPod shuffle lodged in his brain

Intel in Mac's

Cool Walk Cycles

Houston, we have droids

Siggraph Trailer

HDRI3D Update

Small World

Strength in numbers

The force is strong with this one!

FBX!

stumped

New FX Challenge

Article Updates

Back from Kentucky

Waiting is the hardest part

Update: Robot Wars

Too Cool For School

Particles on Parade

Lazy Jay

Preparing for war

Mayaloge.org

THC

R2 D2 you're on fire!

Scrap Bot Reporting for Duty

Sick Cycles Server Down

Are, Too

Tron Guy's on Board!

R2, the first animation

Tron Guy is Famous

Better Animation

Judges

Scrap Bot Animation Test

Matt's Late Entry (Disqaulified)

My Robot brings all the Droids to the yard...

Simple Bot Motion

Presenting Scrap-Bot 2005

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords...

Snap!

Oh shit it just got personal!

No light at the end of the tunnel

Light at the end of the tunnel

While Jason is away...

Hmmm pretty cool

Intensity Curve

Inner Space

JB is back

Today's Homework

Where has Jay poly gone?

Wow, That's Slick

Play in Traffic

More links

FX Challenge

Crazy New Zealand

Holy Freakin Crap!

Free nurbs guide

In Soviet Russia, Maya sucks you

Maya Sucks

Addendum

TGIF

Kudos to Alias (Maya)

Airbag

.fbx to the rescue

3D file viewer