Free Siggraph 2007 Passes

Tue, 2007-04-24 22:30 — akseez

Well, Siggraph is almost here again. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Siggraph is THE annual computer graphics and animation conference. This year Siggraph will be in San Diego at the San Diego Convention Center from August 5th - 9th. As always, most of the big names in the industry will be there exhibiting. You can get into Siggraph for free thanks to the people over at Digital-Tutors. They are offering free Exhibit Only passes to Siggraph 2007. Just go to:http://registration.expoexchange.com/ShowSIG071/Default.aspx

Click on the "Attendee" link.
Select "Exhibits Only" at the bottom of the page and click on the "Next" button.
Enter “Dig1162” for the "Exhibits Only Code" and click on the "Next" button.
The rest should be self explanatory.

This will give you a free Exhibits Only pass as well as the option while registering to upgrade to the Exhibits Plus pass for $40 (normally $75 - $95). The Exhibits Plus pass allows you access to see the featured speaker via closed circuit television as well as getting into the Art Gallery, the Animation Theater, and a number of other things. It should be a lot of fun.

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Hand-Drawn 2D Animation

Sat, 2007-03-10 13:18 — akseez

I've recently transfered to BYU (Brigham Young University) so that I can apply to their animation program. I'm hoping that others will find the process that I'm going though useful. To start off I decided to post a short hand-drawn animation that I did as one of my assignments.

It's made up of a total of 55 drawings, it's 6.20 seconds long, and the frame rate is 24 frames per second (fps). Most of the animation is drawn on twos, meaning that each drawing lasts two frames. This is traditionally how most animation is done. Film standard is 24 fps so when you draw on twos you only have twelve drawings for each second of film rather than 24. That cuts your drawing in half without much loss of quality. There are some parts that a drawing will last longer than two frames and other where it's on ones (one drawing per frame). For instance, I animated on ones for the flip at the very end so that it would look smooth without causing the action to be too slow.

My setup for hand-drawn animation is as follows:

Peg Bar to mount drawings on. This is used to hold the pages in place both as you draw and shoot each frame. At BYU we use the standard ACME style peg bar, but If you're on a budget you may want to look at a round peg bar because you can use any old three-hole punch on your paper rather than having to buy an expensive specialty one.
Lightbox so that you can see your previous frames through the current drawing. There is a large range in price on these. One thing you'll need to know is what size paper you'll be using. I'd suggest 10F, which is standard 8.5" x 11", because it's inexpensive and easy to come by. To save money you can go with a small lightbox with a peg bar on it, but if you can afford it, it is nice to have one with a rotating disc.
Digital Video Camera and a Tripod to shoot your frames. Using a tripod is sort of the poor man's pencil tester, but it gets the job done.
Pencil Test Software is what brings it all together. I've been using DigiCel's FlipBook software. They have versions for both Mac's and Windows. Right now they're having a Spring sale and the software is 50% off. If you miss the sale you may want to check to see if you qualify for educational pricing.

So here's 2D hand-drawn animation of a bowling pin:

Please feel free to leave your comments and criticisms below.

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Free Maya 8 Tutorials

Sat, 2006-08-12 14:24 — akseez

Digital Tutors
Digital-Tutors just released five free video tutorials for Maya 8:

Check them out!

Maya Hotkeys ( Keyboard Shortcuts )

Sat, 2006-08-05 22:00 — akseez

Here are the most common keyboard shortcuts or "Hotkeys" for Maya. These shortcuts/Hotkeys work in Maya 6, Maya 7, and Maya 8. I've also put them into a one-page printable PDF file that you can download from here for free.

1	Display Smoothness Low
2	Display Smoothness Med
3	Display Smoothness High
4	Display Wireframe
5	Display Shaded
6	Display Shaded and Textured
7	Display with lights
8	Paint Effects Panel
q	Select Tool
w	Move Tool
e	Rotate Tool
r	Scale Tool
t	Show Manipulator Tool
y	Last Tool Used
a	Frame All
f	Frame Selected
z	Undo
Shift-z	Redo
g	Repeat Last Action
F8	Toggle Object/Component Mode
Ctrl-a	Attribute Editor
Delete	Delete
x	Snap to Grid
c	Snap to Curve
v	Snap to Point
p	Parent
Shift-p	Unparent
Shift-w	Key Translation
Shift-e	Key Rotation
Shift-r	Key Scale
s	Set Key
-,+	Manipulator Display Size
Alt-LMB	Tumble View
Alt-MMB	Track View
Alt-RMB	Dolly View

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Autodesk Launches Maya 8 at Siggraph 2006 [Updated]

Mon, 2006-07-31 17:38 — akseez

Maya8
Autodesk released their first major upgrade since they purchased Alias last year. The big push seems to be going 64-bit (you can still run a 32-bit version if you don't have a 64-bit processor). Right now the 64-bit version of Maya is only supported on Windows and Linux since there hasn't been any Mac's released with 64-bit processors yet (That should change come the WWDC on Monday, Aug 7, 2006). Also, for the Mac folks, Maya 8 is still a PowerPC binary. I'm working on getting information about a timeframe for a Universal binary and I'll post as soon as I find anything out.

Anyway, here's what Autodesk has posted as the main new features:

Key New Features & Enhancements

64-bit Release (Windows and Linux platforms)
Maya 8 marks the first full release of Maya with both 32-bit and 64-bit (Windows® and Linux®) executables. It allows you to address considerably more memory than you could in the past, enabling you to handle larger and more complex scenes than ever before.

Performance
Maya 8 has been optimized to provide superior performance across many areas of the software, both through algorithmic speedups and scalable multi-threading to take advantage of the latest generation of workstations.

Transfer Polygon Attributes
A new Transfer Polygon Attributes feature allows you to transfer UV, color per vertex (CPV) and vertex position information between surface meshes of differing topologies. This proves particularly useful when working with two different versions of an object/character (e.g., one high resolution and one low resolution). You could then transfer existing UV sets that have already been laid out to the lower resolution model. The feature also lets you create a “shrink-wrap” effect as they transfer vertex positions from one model to another.

Streamlined New Polygon Tools and Workflows
New and improved tools such as polygon bridge, multiple edge loop insertion, and enhanced UV layout, and new workflows, such as the ability to interactively create, position, and scale primitives in a single operation, maximize productivity for the most common tasks.

Geometry Caching
You can now cache deformations on polygon, NURBS (including curves) and subdivision surface geometry, allowing for faster playback and rendering of scenes. Caches can be edited and blended in the Trax Editor, letting you blend the results of various vertex animations together in order to form a new animation: for example, you could correct deformations by remodeling and replacing particular frames and then smoothly blend in and out of the changes.

Override Viewport with Renderer of Choice
You now have the option of overriding the Maya viewports with a proprietary or third-party plug-in renderer. This will enable you to review your scene as it will appear in the target renderer–such as a game engine–while maintaining the ability to interact with the scene in the interactive view. Two example Windows® plug-ins are provided with the Maya Devkit: one for OpenGL® and one for Direct3D® drivers.

Toxik Interoperability
New as of Maya 8, information about a Maya scene can be exported to Autodesk® Toxik™ collaboration software thereby greatly improving the workflow between the two packages. A Toxik composition can be generated from within Maya based on the render layers in the scene. The exported compositing graph includes the associated image sequence filenames, Maya blend modes, and specific render settings. Iterative updates on composition elements can be created and passed to the Toxik application, enabling you to collaborate on specific elements without starting over each time. Additionally, multiple versions of a composition can be kept for comparison and changes can be easily reverted at any time.

mental ray 3.5 Core
Maya now uses the mental ray® 3.5 rendering core which has been optimized for superior performance and memory usage.

Commercial Pricing
Maya is available in Complete and Unlimited versions for $1,999 and $6,999 respectively; upgrades start at $899.

Educational Pricing
Maya is also available to students in both Complete and Unlimited versions for $289 and $369 respectively.

Download Maya 8 Overview PDF

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Siggraph 2006: Free REALVIZ MMTrack Plug-in

Sat, 2006-07-29 09:55 — akseez

Mmtrack

REALVIZ will make the MMTrack Plug-in for Autodesk 3DS Max and Maya available for free in conjunction with Siggraph 2006. The deal will be running from August 1, 2006 - August 1, 2007.

The MMTrack Plug-in allows you to matchmove (track) live footage with your animated scene.

You can download the MMTrack Plug-in for free from here.

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VFX: What is Compositing?

Fri, 2006-07-14 07:20 — akseez

This is something that I've been learning more about lately, so I thought I'd pass it along.

For those who want to apply your 3D animation skills and talent to the special effects field, you should at least learn a little about compositing. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:

In visual effects post-production, compositing refers to creating complex images or moving images by combining images from different sources – such as real-world digital video, digitized film, synthetic 3-D imagery, 2-D animations, painted backdrops, digital still photographs, and text.

Compositing includes everything from what your probably normally think of as special effects, where things explode, evaporate, morph, etc. It also includes stage extensions (making the scene stage larger digitally in post production), to environment creation (anything from buildings to complete worlds), to blue/green screen replacement (shooting in-front of a blue or green screen and then replacing the background with digitally created footage or footage shot elsewhere). Basically, the art of taking live footage and blending it with computer generated footage would be considered compositing.

Software

A few of the big compositing applications out there are Adobe After Effects ($999), Autodesk Combustion ($995), and Apple's Shake (recently slashed to $499). There is also a free open source compositing program called Jashaka (FREE). With the exception of Shake (Mac only), all of these apps are available for both Mac OS X and Windows.

Learning Resources

A couple of great resources I found are a podcast and a book. The podcast is called "The VFX Show" and the book to check out is "Digital Compositing for Film and Video" by Steve Wright. You may also want to check out VFXTalk for news and forums.

Hopefully this information will help you find out if compositing and VFX is something you would like to dive deeper into. It's an interesting field to use your animation skills in.

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Autodesk/Alias Siggraph 2006 Event

Wed, 2006-07-12 10:52 — akseez

S2006Logo

Rather than the annual AGUA event at Siggraph 2006 in Boston, it looks like Autodesk (who bought Alias this past year) had decided to combine the Alias and Autodesk events into one. They'll be showcasing Maya, Motion Builder, and 3DS Max. As always this will be a free event.

Here's what they have to say:

Join us for the Autodesk Media & Entertainment user group event at SIGGRAPH 2006 as we showcase our suite of 3D products, including Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® Motion Builder®. Get a sneak peak of new technology and look for an exciting line up of special guest demonstrations from Frantic Films, GMJ, Industrial Light and Magic, and The Orphanage. We look forward to having you join us for this event, and encourage you to register early as seating is limited.

FREE registration for the Autodesk event can be done here.

And don't forget to get your FREE Exhibit Hall Passes to Siggraph 2006 Boston.

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Cartoon Network To Launch Toonami Broadband Channel

Wed, 2006-07-12 08:55 — akseez

Toonami Jetstream

Though it's not 3D related, for fans of Cartoon Network's anime block "Toonami" you may be interested in the online channel that they are set to launch on July 17th. The broadband channel is called Jetstream and will feature full-length episodes of a number of different anime series. From the webpage it looks like the titles will be:

Naruto
Samurai Jack
Hikaru no Go
Megas XLR
The Prince of Tennis
MAR

Check it out.

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Blender & Wings 3D

Fri, 2006-06-09 08:06 — akseez

Today's software picks are both free, open-source 3D packages.

Blender

Blender is a free, open source 3D modeling, animation, and rendering application. There are versions for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Here are some of the highlight features:

Non-overlapping and non-blocking UI delivers unsurpassed workflow.
A range of 3D object types including polygon meshes, NURBS surfaces, bezier and B-spline curves, metaballs, vector fonts (TrueType, PostScript, OpenType).
Animation curves/keys, outliner.
Armature (skeleton) deformation with forward/inverse kinematics, auto skinning and interactive 3D paint for vertex weighting.
Very fast built-in raytracer
Oversampling, motion blur, post-production effects, fields.
Environment maps, halos, lens flares, and fog.
Toon shading.

There are also a lot of free python scripts that add functionality like import/export capabilities for a variety of formats, though there is no FBX support yet.

As far as learning resources go, check out the free online Wiki Book, Blender 3D: Noob to Pro. It's a great resource that has been put together by the Blender community.

Also of interest there is a short film called Elephant's Dream that has just been released. It was created completely with Blender. It's being distributed over the Internet as the first open source film.

Wings 3D

Wings 3D is strictly a 3D modeling program. It's very minimalistic for those who want a work environment dedicated to modeling. It's still in beta, but is being used by fair sized community nonetheless. One of the thing I like is that it supports OBJ and FBX formats right out of the box.

Wings 3D is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. The Wings 3D: User Manual is available online as a free Wiki Book.