Got 99 Problem and a ...

So I was asked by someone about the problems and the short comings of the Maya smooth-skinning.

It is times like this, that I realize how little I know about rigging...and after some research and asking "real" riggers about it, these are what I came up with...

Problem of smooth skinning:

When using linear-blend/smooth skinning the main issues is the

limitation of geometry deformation, smooth skinning in (Maya)

manipulates vertices using a

weighted average of transformations.

All possible positions that the vertexes

can travel to lies between the influences. The problem is that a set

of vertexes can't be weight painted to achieve shapes that doesn't

fall within the subspace determined by the influences.

In common situations such as shoulders and

elbows the desired deformation does not lie in this subspace, hence

no amount of adjusting the algorithm weights will produce good results.

Normally I will have funny pic to show here but ... DO NOT...Google Image..."skinning" at work

Solutions:

1. corrective blend Shape:

If the production does grant the use of (Maya) blend shapes, using

tools such as "B Spirit", allows the rigger to

sculpt out corrective blend shapes that can be apply before the smooth

skinning layer in deformation.

Using joints within the rig to drive

the weight of the corrective blend shape. By using both a blend shape

and smooth skinning it gives the most control on the final

look of the geometry, giving the best result artistically.

2. helper joints:

Creating a system of joints that are driven by control joints, working

with the base skinning joints.

The helper joints convert the motion of the control joints in

ways that aid the skinning process (a bicep helper joint for example might

convert the elbow rotation to a translation).

The helper joints are skin to the

same skin cluster as the base skinning joints but gets moved to help

the smooth skinning joints to create a desired shape when control

joints are posed. Similar to how the corrective blend shape is driven

but without the use of blend shapes.

Here is a link to my Rig Demo that shows how I solve the problems describe above

learning the Python

Well I started to take a class on CG-talk about python
seeing that most riggers know a programming language that's causally a real programming language besides just knowing mel. I know I need to learn more stuff. And also I need to do something while looking for work.

I heard great things about python on how it's fairly easy to get into and used often in maya
So far I think python is pretty cool, and way cleaner than mel and alot easier to read and write the syntax is more simplistic which great for starters like me

Here is a homework from the class which I need write a script which create objects randomly
So when the script is run it creates sphere equal to whatever the user inputted and then creates boxes between each sphere




Link to the Script Here

While that is happening I have a lot of mel script I need to covert to python script
Ugh...The 'Fun' begins!!!

UP UP DOWN DOWN

So I got handed a really cool script written by THE MAN...Steve man, that can move user made attributes in channel box so it can make reading control channel more clearly for animators. I took his idea and twicked I think Steve's script might be a little more elegant. But being still kind of "FRESH" to this coding thingy I made it so it's more readable and simpler for myself just to learn from and use.

So this script makes a junky UI that lets you select an channel (user made) on the transform of an object and lets you move that channel up or down the channel box. The way of doing this only has the draw back of not being able to do vector attributes I think...so if any you experts out there who has a better way of doing this please share

Link on the bottom is to my own web host I don't have a finished site yet but you can get it from there

LINK HERE

OH...please let me know if it has problems or cause problems once again with all scripts

use at your own risk - highEnd3D old saying.... aka...creative Crash

Mid Summer Update

So been doing some freelance lately back at Nathan love

Did them rigs for them monkey dudes : )

Just got a new phone and got myself a twitter

so...yea...you can follow me (@zhenpanda178 )

Monkey Quest "Guardian Knights" from Nathan Love on Vimeo.

Jungle Ballerina

Wow it's been awhile since my last update...damn I need to update more often, I spend the last few month freelancing at framez, but as of now I find my self with more free time than "ever" before...needless to say I should "try" to use this time more wisely before I find my next gig...any how what we have here is...



A rig for the thesis team dual Duce and alejandra. What I tried to do is have on face controls work with blendshapes I made some basic expression blendshapes, but also gave the freedom of letting the animator go in and move any part of the face they wanted even at this "stage" of my rigging "journey" I am still not sure how to do a "good" face rig, all I can do is try and see what others have done before me and learn from that. If any one out there knows how to make face rigs
"PLEASE" help me...before it's too late!!!

Last days of the Summer

This summer has been fun and game while I run around the city doing internships of all kind
Right of the bat I was at Nathan love making a trailer for a 2D Chinese RPG game(video below)
After a month of that I stayed at Rhino effect...which is now called Gravity worked on rigging stuff there...And starting next week I'm kicking it into hyper driver when I start the apprentice-ship thingy at Framestore...and I also promised some Senior from S.V.A that I do their rigs for thesis...I will be posting that once I finish...
Lots more stuff to come soon...

"Fantasy Westward Journey TV" from Nathan Love on Vimeo.

It's About Time!

Long time no post!

No I did not get kidnapped by ninjas or anything, after all my kung fu is... still pretty strong. I was working on "THESIS" the most fun senior activity at S.V.A. and surviving it. So finally after first output I get a little bit of my life back, taking showers again, sleeping at night and going out side and seeing the sun. If you didn't make it to last Friday's screening at the S.V.A. theater, or worst you came LATE and didn't see my piece. Here is a link to check out my..."fail thesis" hope you like it!

http://zhenart.blogspot.com/2010/04/firstthesisoutput.html

So finally our beloved system Admin Steve got Maya 2011 installed on some the senior lab computer and I was having the an awesome time playing with it! There is so much improvements in 2011 for rigging they should rename it to...Maya 2011 (rise of rigging)
I mean the these improvements is going to change how rigs are made and really make Maya the program to use for rigging. After looking at 2011 I have to change the way I rig and change some of my rig building scripts because a lot of thing I have to do before is just going to be out dated.

First off, no more twist joints! Dual quaternion skinning takes away the need for twist joints in the rig for wrist, arms, legs. Point on poly constraint is finally here after using the rivit for like years, mirror deformer weights can mirror weights on blend shapes which is pretty cool, weight hammering and ramp color feedback is also pretty cool if you just started rigging and have no idea how to correctly paint weights. With the Sick looking new UI and awesome rigging improvements Maya 2011 is going to be my new toy.