Our Film "Keeping Station" is Live!

Finally our 48hour film, Keeping Station, is live and available for you all to watch.

It was all done with paper puppets, after effects sets and a bit of 3D here and there.

We’re proud of the style on this one! Next year we'll work harder to get the story across.

Toowit Toowoo Intro from Toowit Toowoo on Vimeo.

sIBL: Fast, Free and Fabulous-looking Image Based Lighting

Today it's my birthday, and what better way to celebrate it than to give you all a present!

I found this neat little program/script/plugin for 3D applications called sIBL.

Image based lighting is a great way to integrate your 3D models into a real-world photo and create a realistic lighting environment for your CG work. Unfortunately, while it’s not hard to set up (in Maya at least), neither is it easy to get it looking great while still rendering very quickly.

sIBL is an external tool, independent of any 3D software which creates fast and splendid looking scripts for various 3D packages to encorporate image based lighting. Best of all, it’s absolutely free.

The team at HDR Labs also have a big library of free HDRIs tailored for use with sIBL that are easy to use and look fantastic.

I had a brief play with it for our paper puppet film, Keeping Station, and it worked perfectly. So at the risk of sounding like their marketing department is paying me, check it out!

A Quick Tip for Faces

Today I wanted to share something that one of my workmates showed me. Whether you’re doing 2D or 3D art, faces are really important to get looking right. We stare at them every day of our lives and we notice when they look a little bit off.

Dean made a great observation about hue shifts through the face. Due to the way blood vessels are grouped, colours are different in various areas. The bottom jaw and lip area takes a slightly bluish tinge, the nose and cheekbones a pinky red tone, and the forehead (being mostly bone) is slightly yellower.

Here’s a quick paintover to illustrate my point. This is one of my older characters. On the left, she’s been painted in a standard way with a skin shader. On the right, I’ve overlaid a slight hue shift through her face, which instantly gives a lot more life and volume to it. It’s probably a bit strong but I wanted to make it easier to see.

Try it out with your own work and see how you go!

Toowit Toowoo Team Intro

Still not allowed to upload the film yet, but here's the intro. We enjoyed making this and will try to do something cooler for next year. Film is coming up this weekend hopefully, so here's the intro for now:

Toowit Toowoo Intro from Toowit Toowoo on Vimeo.

Keeping Station: Behind the scenes of our new film

As you may or may not know, last week I was involved in the annual V48Hours Film Contest here in New Zealand, which gives you from Friday evening to Sunday evening to make a short film using a number of compulsory elements. There is to be no story making or shooting prior to this weekend, which makes it a huge challenge, and a lot of fun!

Our team, Toowit Toowoo, consisting of about 11 core members, did a mixed-media film largely based around marionette puppets made of paper! We also incorporated 3D and lots of visual effect.

The 2 minute long film we made, 'Keeping Station' will premiere at the Academy theater in Auckland during the 21st heat of the competition on Sunday. A few weeks after that, we will pop it online and I will link it from here.

Here's the poster:


And for now, enjoy some Making Of photos we took during the weekend:

Maya Shelves as Marking Menus

I've been sitting on this one for some time to be honest, since March last year! Why have I been holding out on you? Because it's one of those things that you only really set up once and then you forget about it.

I was on CG Society a while back and I asked if anyone knew of a way to store all your shelves as some sort of marking menu. Well, CGSociety's NaughtyNathan obliged me, and here's what came out of it:

Use the instructions below to create custom hotkeys, or this script to do it automatically:

{
// define the command strings
string $pressCmd = "if( `popupMenu -exists tempMM` ) deleteUI tempMM;popupMenu -sh 1 -mm 1 -b 1 -aob 0 -p viewPanes -pmc buildShelvesMM tempMM";
string $releaseCmd = "MarkingMenuPopDown;";
// create the runTimeCommands. this isn't absolutely necessary, but it gives the hotkey
// a real command attachment so it can be seen and edited in the hotkey Editor:
runTimeCommand -ann "Press hotkey for shelf MM" -category "User Marking Menus" -c $pressCmd "hkShelfMMpress";
runTimeCommand -ann "Release hotkey for shelf MM" -category "User Marking Menus" -c $releaseCmd "hkShelfMMrelease";
// create the nameCommands (this is what the hotkey attaches to):
nameCommand -ann "hkShelfMMpress" -c "hkShelfMMpress" "hkShelfMMpressNameCommand";
nameCommand -ann "hkShelfMMrelease" -c "hkShelfMMrelease" "hkShelfMMreleaseNameCommand";
// define the actual hotkeys:
hotkey -keyShortcut "X" -n "hkShelfMMpressNameCommand"; // SHIFT-X
hotkey -keyShortcut "X" -rn "hkShelfMMreleaseNameCommand"; // SHIFT-X
}

Hotkey Instructions:

Open Maya, and from the menu go to Window, Settings/Preferences, Hotkey Editor.

Down the bottom to the right, click New (next to the Name box) to create a new command, and call it "hkShelfMMpress". Change the category to User from the rollout, and in the command box, paste the following:

//----------------------- if( `popupMenu -exists tempMM` ) deleteUI tempMM; popupMenu -sh 1 -mm 1 -b 1 -aob 0 -p viewPanes -pmc "buildShelvesMM" tempMM; //-----------------------

Click Accept.

You will notice the Assign New Hotkey box on the upper right is no longer disabled. In the Key box, type shift + x (it will appear as X in the key window, as the shift is expressed as a capital of the key). Click Assign.

Click the New button again to create a second hotkey. Name this one "hkShelfMMrelease", make sure the category is still 'User' and paste the following code into the Command box:

//----------------------- MarkingMenuPopDown; //-----------------------

Click accept, and make sure the right command (hkShelfMMrelease) is selected in the Commands window. With this selected, type shift + x again into the key box in the Assign New Hotkey box on the right. Change the direction to "Release" and click Assign.

Save and close.

Now when you hold shift + x and left click and hold in a viewport, a menu will pop up. This menu is a list of all the commands in your shelves. Note that at first, only one or two shelves will appear in this menu. Only the shelves you have opened in the session will be available. To activate additional shelves in this menu, you must click the corresponding shelf tab normally at the top of the Maya window and it will become available. Commands added to the shelf will be immediately available in the hotkey menu.

Note: Not all hotkeys will work with this script, the one given in these instructions will. Please remember to restart Maya or rehash after placing the file in the appropriate directory.

Once you've got that setup, save the following code in a file called buildShelvesMM.mel and put it in your \My Docs\maya\scripts\ or wherever your default scripts folder is:

// uses the internal tempMM to display all your shelves
// and their contents on a hotkeyed Marking Menu
// Original Script - Naughty Nathan - 24/03/10
// Disabled shelves not loaded from marking menu - Leon Woud 25/03/10
global proc buildShelvesMM()
{
menu -e -dai tempMM;
global string $gShelfTopLevel;
if (!`tabLayout -ex $gShelfTopLevel`)
{
menuItem -en 0 -l "Global ShelfLayout does not exist!";
return;
}
string $shelves[] = `shelfTabLayout -q -ca $gShelfTopLevel`;
for ($shelf in $shelves)
{
string $buttons[] = `shelfLayout -q -ca $shelf`;
if (`size($buttons)`)
{
menuItem -sm 1 -l $shelf;
for ($button in $buttons)
{
string $label = `shelfButton -q -l $button`;
string $cmd = `shelfButton -q -c $button`;
menuItem -l $label -c $cmd;
}
setParent -m ..;
}
}
setParent -m ..;
}

And voila! Shelf marking menus.

Note: This script ONLY loads the shelves you've already accessed in your current session into the marking menus, this is just to keep stuff neat and tidy. If you'd like a version which loads all your shelves, check out the original thread here:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=7&t=865857


Original script by Naughty Nathan, CG Society - 24 March 2010
Shelves not loaded will not be displayed functionality by Leon Woud - 25 March 2010
Documentation by Oana Croitoru - 25 March 2010

Messiah Studio $10 challenge

http://projectmessiah.com/x6/shop.html

I stumbled on this the other day. pmG's messiahStudio is an Animation and rendering package that's really made for tough animation. It's been used in films, ads, games etc for awhile now, and costs around $500-$1200 USD. They're currently trying to get a lot of people to buy it, and so are offering it for $10 (standard) or $40 (pro).

Here's the challenge to the 3D industry:

We're doing an unprecedented viral test marketing campaign where your success in sharing this offer will allow you and others to get our amazing award winning animation and rendering software ( messiahStudio5 ) for the unheard of price of just $10 (regularly $499) or choose the Pro version for just $40 (regularly $1195). When this experiment ends, the prices will return to normal.



This is the same software that studios and individuals, in more than 60 countries of the world, have been using to create visual effects for some of your favorite movies, commercials, games and music videos; and now you can get it at a no excuses price, if you "Dare To Share™". People using our software have been nominated for Academy Awards, and changed their lives creating things they'd never thought possible on their own. CG Animated Features, Visual Effects, Consumer Product and Architectural Visualization, Simulation, Plugin Development, Smart Phone App Animation and Game Development Export; What will you do?



Everyone needs a chance to show what they can do. That chance is more often limited by money; maybe that's you, maybe that's someone you know; a parent, a friend, some students of yours. We got a chance to prove what we could do starting out, and now we're giving one to you. It's the best deal we've ever offered, and a chance you'll probably never have again. Order now to reserve your copy; we will accept no crying if you miss out : )



Rules: Everyone can only receive their license when the goal is met. That's your incentive to spread the word and share the offer.

This offer is open to: Individuals, small businesses, hobbyists, starving artists, the unemployed, schools, students, CG studios, game developers, plugin developers, architects, tinkerers, compositors and aspiring movie makers, in any country. Limit 4 copies per customer, mix and match.



We will update the progress bar so you can see where you're at in reaching that goal. When the bar reaches the end, we will close out the offer and no further orders will be allowed; no exceptions. In the event the goal is not met, we will simply refund everyone. Whether you get the software for this amazing price is up to you, and how well you get the word out.



If you need to purchase licenses of the software to use right now for a project, you can purchase them normally HERE -> Buy Normal, and if the goal is met from this offer, you will be refunded the difference in price between the equivalent version you purchased, and the Dare To Share™ special.

http://projectmessiah.com/x6/shop.html