Tag Archive for '3d'

Fluffy rabbits in combat

Imagine fluffy bunnies in SBO with rifles and pistols, and speaking japanese. yeah only the japs can do that

http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/2009/03/oh-my-god/

Basic 3d Tracking

Basic 3d tracking, Its actually quite easy when u have a clean footage.

Character in maya, tracking with boujou, composite in After effects. I know I’ll be having more fun with this soon.

Fallen Art

In an old forgotten military base far from civilization, a group of deranged military officers nurture their insanity.

Directed by Tomek Baginski in 2005

Amazing Character Rigging Showreel

Check out Christopher’s reel on character rigging and animation at http://www.christophercrouzet.com/showreel.php

Maya Full Body IK

After the rigging a few characters using IK chains in maya, its hard not to wonder when maya would have a equivalent of 3d studio max’s Biped. Well it happens that Maya HAS one, and due to my ignorance I had only just discovered the cool FBIK.

Full Body IK (FBIK Solver) was a feature from Kaydara MotionBuilder that got integrated into Maya when Alias bought Kaydara. It simulates complex real body kinematics that is hard to achieve using manual IK. An example would be having your character reaching down to pick up an apple from the ground. With FBIK, the whole body follows the hand movement, creating realistic bending of shoulder, spine, hips and knees. With traditional IK, you’d probably need to key all the aforementioned handlers by hand.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find any good tutorials online, the closest I could find was Mastering Maya 8.5 on google books. However a detailed explanation and tutorial can be found on Maya’s help, although a tad more difficult to follow, nonetheless provides all the information you need to get a working rig.

I’ll post my adventure with FBIK when I have time during the holidays.

Some tools to help you work with FBIK

FBIK CharacterControl – simulates Motion Builder’s native character control UI
BipedFactory – Helps you build your skeleton in minutes

Another Tutorial on how to setup a FBIK
http://tutorial.jcwcn.com/3D-Graphics/Maya/Character-Setup/2007-06-23/1437.html

Hokusai’s Great Wave in 3D

Interesting image, good example of how technology can add new dimensions to ‘old’ art: a 3d version of  Under the Wave off Kanagawa that Hokusai wouldn’t achieve even if he lived through a hundred (sorry Hokusai =D). See it here, and the original here.

Hokusais Wave in 3D

Hokusai's Wave in 3D

ZBrush to Maya and back again

It is common to want to bring your model out of zbrush to do up the uv’s (although it is always a better idea to deal with them BEFORE getting into zbrush), but importing the edited .obj back into zbrush can be a hassle, esp when your model ‘explodes’ inexplicably when you move up the subdiv level.

Example of a exploded model:

Exploded model

Exploded model

To save a few souls, below is what worked for me and you can try to take note of the following when nothing seems to work:
(Tested with ZBrush 3.1 and Maya 2008)

In ZBrush

When exporting from zbrush, make sure you are at the lowest subdiv level.

Under Tool->Texture, make sure you have UV enabled:

Enable UV

Enable UV

Under Tool->Export, turn off the ‘Grp’ option and on the ‘Mrg’ option as such:

Export from ZBrush

Export from ZBrush

In Maya

Go to File->Import Options, and set the settings as below:

(Note: When editing DO NOT move the vertices in maya, only edit the UV’s)

When exporting, go to File->Export Selection Options. Select OBJ and off all the File Type Specific Options in the last section:

Back in ZBrush

Import the .obj while still at subdiv level 1.

After import, move up a level to check if it explodes.

Feel free to leave any comments whether this worked for you and also for others to benefit from your experience =)

The Pencil

This is a short animation I created a few years ago, about pencil and a sharpener. Its called The Pencil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CGTczACYw

Spent around 6 months on a P3 system running 3d max 4 or 5 I can’t remember.

(Update: Audio is disabled by youtube due to copyright issues, well done Youtube!)

Texture Tutorial Links

A set of great tutorials on texturing at CG Talk that should not be missed. For beginners and the average mapper

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=46&t=77484