… and eat all that we kill. Inspired by some sections that I saw in last night’s showing of Samsara.
Monster Roll from Dan Blank on Vimeo.
A better quality HD version can be found on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/54531136
Tag3D
I just gotta respect the crazy amount of work that goes into these one-man projects. Some moments look great, others still need quite a bit of work, but considering the length of level of detail of these clips, I’m letting it slide. Plus, how else are you going to see this DC character battle the Marvel bad-ass? Michael Habjan has more of his work on Youtube.
They meet.
They fight.
…and fight some more.
I was recently introduced a Firefox extension that allows you to visualize your website in 3D. Tilt, is an amazingly powerful tool that can help you immediacy see the nested layers of CSS elements.
Ok, not really. No cameras that powerful, so Drew Berry had to use what we know about DNA in order to recreate the process in 3D. Back in 2003 I had seen a talk with Drew Berry and he had primarily used Maya to make the animations. I wonder if he’s moved on and is now using more appropriate tools for this kind of work.
Another reason not to stress too much about things. Think about what happens to traditional system “stress tests”. Imagine what kinds of chaos it wreaks on these little guys.
A Microsoft sponsored talk that was presented at SIGGRAPH 2011 in Vancouver.
As Ben Staples says, “This whole clip is amazing, but long… If you only check out a portion watch at 3:42“. It creates geometry and textures in real-time. They also use this geometry information for dynamic collisions (which is what Ben is referring to at 3:42). Also checkout the object tracking on the teapot.
Only question remains is, “When can I get this working at home!?“
Real quick, I wanted to point out the many recent uses of voxels demonstrated at Siggraph. I can’t help it, but I get pretty excited every time I hear about voxels. Even the developer at Atomontage states that we need a voxel “revolution”, and I couldn’t agree more.
Apparently Blue Sky’s “Rio” used Voxels for terrain and the rendering of large crowds. I hope the talk is released soon so I can see the details, first hand.
I was made aware of a game engine called Atomontage, which uses voxels [thx Ruslan]. In the video below, you can see the potentials of (for example) truly destructible terrain, as the user unearths rocks from the sand or strips the plaster from the walls, revealing the bricks underneath.
SideFx’s release of Houdini 11.1 allows for the integration with Sony Imagework’s open source project, “Field3D“, a format for working with 3D voxel data.
Amon Tobin’s newest live show is a stunning musically driven live projection celebrating the release of his ISAM album. Below is an extended trailer via Vimeo.
Though it is no longer downloadable for free, the ISAM album is still available for preview on SoundCloud.com (including commentary).
I recognize Aaron’s flight patterns work, but I love seeing some of his collaborative works. The Johnny Cash project and the The Wilderness Downtown are impressive. My eyes have been opened a little more to the unlimited possibilities. Note: I had trouble getting The Wilderness Downtown working in Firefox, but it worked fine in Google Chrome. It will open multiple windows, so be warned… but there’s nothing to fear. Is the interface really the message?
Tons of great water effects and compositing in this visual effects breakdown reel for Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter.
I love seeing innovative leaps in software upgrades. Companies willing to take the gamble of creating grumbling purists in order to freshen the product… makes my heart melt. It seems like you can feel out dependencies better, which should help get the big picture, quicker. I’m guessing this would also be a great help to those that are collaborating on projects. FLStudio 10 has even added a little module where you can render out musically driven 3D effects. Your VJ will love (or hate) you.
This reminds me of what I love so much about LoiLoScope, which I use for editing my home movies.
Why I love this program. I cannot remember the last time, if ever, I made a mistake in a 3D application and got usable results. However, in Houdini, it happens almost daily.
I cannot look back and cannot image even trying. Sorry.
This Saturday, Oct 30th CGMovement presents another Anomaly.
Anomaly H2O is a dynamic showcase of talented artists from across North America, a fusion of an art workshop and party that brings 2D/3D artists together to share inspiration and creativity. Come prepared, this event features some of the most talented artists, showcase live art demonstrations, and keynote speakers across North America. This is THE opportunity for artists mingle and exchange ideas from this lineup of artists as well as from everyone attending.
I’m really looking forward to being inspired, once again. The list of artists is amazing. I will be posting some photos, afterwards… though wouldn’t it be better to see the demonstrations in person?
It’s been awhile since I last wrote anything about voxels, and I’m cooking up another update. In the meantime, I just had to share this beauty of a vid.
“Playing”? Did I really just say “PLAYING”? It must have been due to the time I had off today. Working on legal stuff (wee), therefore I was away from the PC for most of the day. After completing my errands, I sat down at my desktop machine, booted up Linux and started playing around with 3D Coat. It’s similar to ZBrush, in that you can use a drawing tablet to sculpt 3D geometry. BUT, there’s a key difference. This uses voxels. That means that you can literally scupt like clay. There are non usual polygon limitations. When you’re done, it’s got plenty of simple retopologizing tools. Seriously, this has been heaven.
I was curious to see what others have done with the tool. Like myself, people don’t taste it and just walk away, they dive in! This has created a full on 3D sculpting addict out of us. For example, while looking at this thread, I thought, “Yeah, this is neat and that’s ok.” But then I saw the image below and had to take a step back. It doesn’t feel like your classic ZBrush results. The results from 3D Coat seem to have a more dynamic feel.
Then there’s Ondrej Svadlena, who is praising 3D Coat with, “the voxel sculpting and quadrangulation saved me a lot of time and made things possible that I would probably have never achieved with any other software!” Looking at the images from his short, “Mrdrchain”, I can see what he means. I hope I remember to check back in to see the completed short. In the meantime, you can watch his bizarre short, “Sanitkasan“.
3D Coat doesn’t just sculpt. This voxel stuff is actually relatively new to the package. Apparently it’s primarily used for texturing. Brett Simms has some stunning results in the forums.
While tooling around, I discovered some people using Silo to model, then bringing the resulting models into 3D Coat. Silo? Whassat? That will probably end up in it’s own entry one day. So many products out there that I’ve not been aware of.
Houdini
Installing Houdini 10 on Ubuntu 9.04 was pretty simple. Extract the TAR file and run the installer with
sudo houdini.install
The options let you decide which license server to install, as well as whether or not to create the start menus for you.
Once Houdini is running have to remember to disable the Alt hotkey in the Window Manager control panel, otherwise your Alt+clicks will not work. This can also be completed with the Compiz Settings Manager in 12.10, but it needs to be installed first.
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
Shake 4.1 (64 bit)
Here’s the stripped down simple instructions for installing Shake 4.1 on Linux, specifically, tried this on Ubuntu 10.10. More details can be found here.
mkdir -p /usr/nreal
cat shake-linux-v4.00.0607.tgz | (cd /usr/nreal; tar zxvf -)
ln -s /usr/nreal/shake-v4.00.0607 /usr/nreal/shake2
install getlibs from…
http://frozenfox.freehostia.com/cappy/
sudo getlibs -32 libXext.so.6
sudo apt-get install csh
Besides the libX11.so.6.2.0 => libX11.so.6, you will also need libXi.so.6 => libXi.so.6.0.0. You can get this from the libxi6_1.2.1-2ubuntu1_i386.deb package. Details here.
/usr/nreal/shake2/bin/shake
Keyboard & Mouse Setup
After a reboot and test of the new key, I remapped my mouse buttons with some help here.
I first use “xinput list” to get the name of the device.
I next use “xev” to find out what my mouses Middle and Thumb button positions were (2 & 9). In the command below, positions 2 & 9 have a value of 2, which is equal to my middle mouse button. Yup, I want two middle mouse buttons, so I can alternate when I feel like it.
xinput set-button-map "Evoluent Vertical Mouse 2" 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 2
And for my IntelliMouse Optical (best mouse EVAH!!)
xinput set-button-map "Microsoft Microsoft 5-Button Mouse with IntelliEye(TM)" 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 2
To save my wrists from tension, I’m lowering the mouse speed.
xinput -set-prop "Microsoft Microsoft 5-Button Mouse with IntelliEye(TM)" "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 1.5
Trackball settings for left and right-handed use. Hmmm… a shell script file for switching hands would be even better…
xinput -set-prop "Logitech USB Trackball" "Device Accel Constant Deceleration" 1.5
xinput set-button-map "Logitech USB Trackball" 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 2 1
Joystick / Gamepad
Found this link which contains info on how to install Microsoft SideWinder digital joysticks and gamepads (along with many others.
sudo modprobe sidewinder
Microsoft xbox controller then the command is
sudo modprobe xpad
then
jscalibrator
Skype
Next step… getting Skype to work properly. I can use my microphone, but noticed that Skype isn’t receiving any input. I’m hearing that I should first install Pulse Audio.
Hmmm… so now I can still record (luckily) but not in Skype. Gah! K, now for Skype’s Linux sound FAQ.
More specifically, I”m going to try this thread that talks about Skype V2 and PulseAudio support (the solution seems to be downgrading..
Wacom Intuos4 drawing tablet
Lastly (I hope) I needed to get my new Wacom Intuos4 tablet working. The Wacom drivers built in to the 9.04 build work with all devices, prior to the Intuos4. Luckily, I didn’t have to run through the full install of the latest drivers supplied at the Linux Wacom Project. I only needed to compile some of the files and replace existing ones. This info was very helpful in getting everything working. Specifically I used the “animone” post to get the Wacom pen working. However, I have not yet setup the pad.
Running a dual monitor setup, I wanted to restrict the tablet stylus to the left screen. According to this thread (thx Ben Simmons), I had to do a matrix transform. Luckily, I didn’t have to do any math to get it to restrict it to the primary monitor.
xinput set-prop "Wacom Intuos4 6x9 stylus" --type=float "Coordinate Transformation Matrix" 0.5 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
or, if you want to use your Wacom on the right monitor:
xinput set-prop "Wacom Intuos4 6x9 stylus" --type=float "Coordinate Transformation Matrix" 0.5 0 0.5 0 1 0 0 0 1
You can even get a little creative by having the eraser control one monitor and the stylus controls the other. Just use “Wacom Intuos4 6×9 eraser” instead.
Firefox
First, gotta get the middle-mouse scroll enabled so I can casually slide down the pages. You might have to first disable the auto lookup URL thingy. While lookin around also found out about the middle-mouse paste. Nummy : middlemouse.paste
Synergy – Control the Desktop of Two Computers.
To install it I just ran apt-get synergy to install it. I then used these instructions to setup and run the server.
Simon – Simple Speech Recognition
Hmm, judging by this demo, it doesn’t look like it’s really “speech recognition”, but “voice commands”… ? Will have to look into further.
Plastic Animation Paper
Trying to get Plastic Animation Paper working on linux is going to be a bit tricky. I can see that already. There are minor issues with the Wacom tablet, but much larger issues with the sound drivers. Also, noted that with 9.04, PAP couldn’t find the libstdc++5 libraries, but I got the package here and all is good.
So, with the sound stuff, it appears that I’m not the only one having issues.
I think I’ll just stick with Pencil for now at is suits my animation needs… on Linux. Just came across this MyPaint app too.
USB Network Card (DLink DWA-130 v B1)
Used this link in order to download the necessary ndiswrapper packages from another computer that had internet.
DLink had the drivers on their website, including 64 bit versions.
Then made sure to blacklist the built-in drivers that might conflict, using this link, and this one.
echo -e "blacklist bcm43xx\nblacklist b43\nblacklist b43legacy\nblacklist ssb" | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
blacklist rt2400
blacklist rt2570
Not sure if I needed this, but I put the below lines in, based on this thread.
sudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf
under [ifupdown], change managed=true
Copy CD/DVD
Fire you must unmount the drive that you plan to copy, i.e. :
sudo umount /dev/sr0
next you can use readom to make an iso image of the drive.
readom dev=/dev/sr0 f=~/Desktop/myImage.iso
Shared Network Folders
When right-clicking a folder on the server machine and trying to share it, it will automatically ask you if you want to install the services for sharing. Do it!
Next, you will need to install smbfs on the client in order to mount to this new share.
sudo apt-get install smbfs
Finally, we will need to create a folder then mount to this newly created folder.
mkdir ~/othertunes
sudo smbmount //192.168.1.14/music ~/othertunes -o username=bill,password=nooneknows,uid=1000,mask=000
So that both machines have the same relative references, I can make a symbolic link. For example, on the server machine I would type the following command.
ln -s ~/music ~/othermusic
This thread seems to be a good location for tips on mounting shares and securities.
Zipped Files – Staying Compatible with Windows Systems
sudo apt-get install p7zip
Compiz
Compiz is installed by default in 10.10, but you have to activate the extra plugins in order to get the sphere of awesomeness.
sudo apt-get install compiz-fusion-plugins-extra
For Ubuntu 12.10 (specifically to disable the Alt-Click window movements) I installed the compiz settings manager.
sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
terminal shell cheat sheets
http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html
http://files.fosswire.com/2007/08/fwunixref.pdf
Donating a copy of the Dragonlance Chronicles to our studio library. In my search for images, I discovered that the first book was made into an animated movie, back in 2007. Can’t believe I hadn’t heard of it.
Eric Goldberg directed 2 shorts in Fantasia 2000. He animated the Genie in Aladdin. He’s currently animating on the upcoming “The Princess and the Frog“. He is also author of the Animation Crash Course. What else? His credit list is huge, look it up.
Although it came out last year, I just listened to Part 2 of Goldberg’s podcast interview. Many animators would say that this stuff is common knowledge, but as a technical 3D guy who doesn’t deal with this kinda stuff on a daily basis, it helps to hear it from someone with such experience. What are some of the bits I’ve learned?
- About how, in 2D, you can capture the feeling before you have to worry about the anatomy. The importance of gestures, again, rears it’s head. Capturing this in 3D is a bit tricky sometimes. Another reason to pick up pencil once in awhile and/or work on a 3D solution to simulate this. 😉
- In regards to FX or secondary animation, in 3D, with everything we get for free, we loose control over key story telling elements. He gives the example of the fur in Monsters Inc. It’s all controlled dynamically, but if it’s dynamic, we cannot use the fur as a tool for enhancing the movement, or even the emotion.
- He notices how rigs are usually animated via the torso first, and how this makes CG walk-cycles feel very floaty and difficult to feel the energy.
- He sometimes approaches his animations from the eyes outwards, drawing the eyes first, then the nose, then the cranium around the eyes. The expression builds the shape.
If you want to hear about Goldberg’s recollection of animating Robin Williams as the Genie, or directing Pocahontas, check out the podcast over at AnimationPodcast.com. I’ll have to go back and listen to Part 1, as I’m sure there’s great stuff there also.
Finally, I have to include a link to a clip from the Magic Lamp Theater @ Disney Sea in Japan. I had the pleasure of working with Teunis de Raat, who worked with Goldberg in order to make this 3D version of the Genie come to life. That must have been one hell of an experience. Maybe I can convince him to divulge some details.
Back in 2005 Shane intruduced us all to his stitched and zippered ragdolls in his short film entitled “9”. Tim Burton soon took interested and has assisted Shane in turning the short into a feature film. Starz, based in Toronto, was the 3D animation studio responsible for the work. Not too long ago the film trailer was released to to the public.
I worked with Shane on one of the initial film tests. The guy is still an animator at heart and he knows what he likes. It’s rare to have a director critizise the technical aspects of your work (in my case, the character rigs). I haven’t heard more than bits and pieces of how the final production went, but I am pretty excited to see how everything turned out.
Biggest kicker… the film is being released on my birthday. It also means I can finally put the work I did on my demo reel. That’ll be a nice birthday present to myself.
I recommend watching the original short:
And then, here’s the full film trailer (or the HD trailer on the official site):
Many remember the 3D animated instruments from Animusic, that were showcased on the Mind’s Eye DVDs produced by Sony. Due to my renewed interest in 3D animation triggered by audio, I went to see what they’ve been upto recently.
It looks like they’ve been keeping themselves busy. They’ve released the Animusic 2 DVD and are working on an Animusic 3, which is going to utilize Pixar’s Renderman.
Make sure and go to Animusic.com to download 2 HD video samples.
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