Showing posts from category: Animation
Maya Frame Offset
Howdy folks! Here is a quick expression that uses one object to drive another with a frame offset. It’s pretty straight forward and it’s applications are broad. Enjoy!
nParticle rendering problems in Renderman 21
Howdy y’all, So, I’m working on a little some’in that required nParticles inside a glass shader. Basically I wanted milk in a bottle. The particles rendered outside the bottle but not within. Turns out RfM sometimes unchecks a couple little boxes (Reflection and Refraction) in the Render Stats of a shape. Turn then back on…
xGen Renderman issues
Howdy all, I’ve spent nearly two months trying to overcome the glitchy compatibility issues between Maya 2016’s xGen and Renderman 20. Geometry/polygons would render but the hair systems would not. I tracked down the few people on the vast interwebs who figured it out but none of them could remember. I call BULLSHIT! Here’s the fix…
Maya 2016 Renderman Displacement mapping
Howdy folks, I wanted to make two short shorts to show how displacement mapping with Renderman shaders would look. The first is a walking ball without displacement and the second is with massive displacement. I didn’t realize it would look so chubby when I set it up but I like the outcome.
Maya 2016 + Renderman PxrLMSubsurface Displacement
Howdy folks, I decided to make a quick video on using displacement mapping with Renderman PxrLMSubsurface shaders. Basically, the bump mapping for their subsurface shader is lack-luster… sort of. It definitely has its place but in general it’s more of a subtlety than anything else. When using displacement mapping with their subsurface shader you have…
Maya 2016 Random nParticle Instancer
Howdy folks, By request I’ve put together a quick silent film on creating random nParticle instancers. It’s pretty self explanatory. Enjoy
Twilight Zone monkey in Zync
Howdy folks, I’m still playing around with different cloud rendering services before I dive into fully animating my sock monkey Twilight Zones. What’s the point in spending the time to animate if the calculated render time on my laptop is 37 years? Google purchased a pretty nice cloud rendering patch from a small production studio…
Funky Rigging Glitch – Maya 2016
Maya 2016 Renderman rigged body glitch Howdy folks, I’m still relatively new to Renderman for Maya but it looks like I may have stumbled upon an abnormal glitch. When I clear history on a rigged geometry the skin is unbound from the rig. It looked pretty funny so I rendered it out. Basically, I’m fiddling…
Maya 2016 nParticle Emitters
Howdy all, So, I’ve been playing around with Maya’s nParticle emitters. If you check out my video on particle instancing it shows you how to quickly replace emitted particles with your own geometry. In the video I made an emitter that pours cereal that looks more like donuts. In this one I replaced…
A pig for a monkey
In an effort to practice creating more low-poly characters for my Twilight Zone recreations, I present Oinkers. He will most likely play the general conducting the space isolation missions in the Pilot episode. the UV presence masking needs a little TLC but I like him! His primary shader is a PxrSubSurface shader set to white, pink…
Monkey & Stingray
My Twilight Zone monkey is coming along pretty well. After having built up the shader networks in REYES I up and decided to switch to RIS. Though I miss Slim, I regret nothing! This scene took 7 hours to render. One scene… 7 hours. New strategy: animate the scenes, upgrade my hardware then final render….
Slim for Renderman
In my endless efforts to develop a sockmey-Twilight Zone series I’m forced to learn the inner workings of Renderman’s Slim. Before this I really didn’t have much experience building shaders, but from what I’ve read, this shoooould give me more control with faster render times. In my efforts to learn it I’ve come to this…
Adding the Squish
I’ve decided to take a monkey break and try to develop a better rig. Since my monkey has an unusually high amount of polygons I’ve decided to do some testing on a simpler form. After doing some walking drills with my monkey I decided that he looked waaaaay to stiff and rigid so now I’m…
Army Monkey
My monkey is finally looking how I want him. I’ll spend a little more time working on the fabric, and the sets are definitely a work in-progress, but for now, it’s time to animate the opening scene. I’ve noticed the opening scene has a very light amount of fog so figuring that out is important….
Twilight Zone – Where Is Everybody?
Sock monkeys can fly too! For my grand exercise I have decided to recreate the Pilot episode of the Twilight Zone: Where is Everybody?. Something like this takes more planning, experience and skill than I have, but I’m doing it anyway. Breaking this project down into section is probably the best way to tackle this….
Getting started with Maya
Getting started… Step one: Download Maya from Autodesk. They offer a free version for students, and aren’t we all students in life? Or if you’d like download Blender instead. Blender is a free open-source program that I’ve never personally touched but the reviews I’ve read (after having already developed a decent familiarity for Maya) say the Blender is…
Introduction to Maya Animation
Animating the Twilight Zone Howdy all! I’m new to the world of Animation. What better way to learn something new than to bite off more than you can chew?! Am I right… or am I right… or am I right… or am I right?! I am going to recreate the Twilight Zone… with a sock…