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Fast Animation Rigs / Integrating a Creature Rig

Jason Schleifer Rigging Bundle (Downloadable)

Download: $70.00 Pay What You Want!

Fast Animation Rigs 

Fast Animation Rigs will teach you the skills you need to create fast and efficient character rigs for your production pipeline. This DVD will help you build rigs that balance functionality AND speed. Avoid the pitfalls of cumbersome rigs that slow down your process, while still permitting the level of control needed at the animation stage. Fast Animation Rigs will provide examples on building complete animation rigs, with a close eye at rapidity and efficiency. For use with Autodesk Maya.

Integrating a Creature Rig Within  a Production Pipeline 

Presented by Jason Schleifer, Animator/Creature Technical Director at Weta Digital, this material was taped during a Siggraph 2001 MasterClass Seminar. Advanced MEL knowledge is not necessary for understanding all of the material presented in this DVD, but is extremely beneficial for utilizing these concepts to their fullest potential. Included with the 90 minute DVD are approximately 80 pages of valuable notes in PDF format, MEL scripts and many useful tips, tricks, and examples. For Autodesk|Maya.


Animator Friendly Rigging

Part 1 – Introduction To Rigging

What is “rigging”?  How should I approach it?  What does the animator want?

This section discusses all these things, and dives into creating your first rig.. the bouncy ball!

Part 2 – The Biped – Torso and Head

Now that we have a good idea of what rigging is and how to systematically approach it, let’s get started on what everyone wants to rig – a human!

This section is broken into two parts and discusses how to rig a character’s torso and the head.

Part 3 – The Biped – Arms and Hands

Continuing our discussion on Bipeds, we move on to the arms and the hands of the character.  Arms can be creatively challenging since they need to gesture and move naturally, as well as grab onto things and support the character’s weight.

Broken into three parts, the first two sections cover forward and inverse kinematics, shoulder control, removing counter-animation, and more.  The third section delves into hand controls with simple yet powerful rigs.

Part 4 – The Biped – Legs and Presentation

Broken into two section, part 4 of the series finishes up the biped. The first section creates a intuitive and powerful leg system.  We also get into more of the animator-friendly aspects of setting up your rigs, such as matching, UI, and more.

You can also purchase the entire bundle with all the training materials at once!

41 Responses

    • Sreemanendu Bhatta says:

      Hi,
      Jason , I purchased the above files but I can’t open it in Maya..I’m using Maya 2010 x32…the file is in OS X format whereas I’m using windows xp SP3…is there any way you could alter the version ?..editing in notepad doesn’t work..and it’s not .mb file which you can open by checking the “ignoreversion” checkbox in maya…any solution to that ?

      Regards
      -Sree

      • jason says:

        Hi Sree,

        I’m surprised the files aren’t opening.. is there a particular one that you can’t open, or is it all of them?

        -jason

        • sree says:

          Hi,
          Jason , none of them is opening..I tried my best 🙁

          -Sree

          • Jason schleifer says:

            This is strange.. I haven’t heard of any other folks having this issue.. Can you save an ma file ou of maya and them alter the header of the file you aren’t able to open to match the one you saved and see if that works?

  1. Prince says:

    Hey Jason,

    I was just wondering what year each of these lecture DVD’s were made?

    p.s. I asked the guys at speakingofanimation.com to perhaps consider you for a podcast sometime. It’d be a really cool edition for sure. I’ve kinda followed your stuff for a while now, you may not remember me but a few years ago I was trying to get in touch with you and I accidentally mistook you for Jason Busby? ahh, well it’s still past.

    but yeh, about the DVD thing…

  2. Hohepa O'Donnell says:

    Hi Jason,

    I started downloading your AFR bundle but then realised that I would go way over my 2gig monthly allowance. Yes, 2gig, and I’m paying, via student loan, about $100 a month. I paid by Mastercard. I cancelled all the downloads except AFR_01. Can I get it on DVD and how much extra would it be? From all the comments I’ve heard, I couldn’t wait to get it. So when I saw I could download it, I jumped at the chance. I’m a student at Te W?nanga o Raukawa in Otaki, doing year two computer animation. Maya is the main programme. If you’ve ever wondered what the natives of New Zealand do when they’re not rigging, come and visit. We’re about an hour and a half north of Weta. When not in class, I’m a security guard there. Call 0800 Wananga x 870. Later.

  3. Ngai says:

    Hell Jason, could you please list the detail contents of <>, I want to know what it was presented in the tutorials before I purchased it. thank you very much. by the way, you could send this table of content to my mailbox. I appreciate your help!

  4. jason says:

    Heya Ngai, I’ll respond to your email as well, but wanted to make sure others knew, too! There is an example pdf for each tutorial on the page that displays the table of contents for each section. It also gives you an example of the type of instruction the tutorials provide to make sure you like it before you buy it. There is also about a 10 minute preview clip available for each tutorial so you can see if that makes ya happy. 🙂

  5. […] Schleifer “Maya Fast animation rigs”. The DVD is well over 5 years old and only 1h20 but still is a must for someone who want to be […]

  6. […] face shapes.  Break them out to left and right and by section.  Mouth, eyebrow, ect.  Look up Jason Schiefler Dvds, Digital Tutorials DVDs, or search around on CGTalk’s Rigging […]

  7. Derek Jones says:

    O.k. I’m confused, I just tried to order the rigging holliday bundle and when I went to complete my order nothing happened. No email comnformation, no history of any payment being sent either. I’m so confused on what’s what on this site. Sorry, I’m new to it.

    Any help would be much apprietiated.

    Thanks,

    Derek

  8. John says:

    Hi, I don’t seem to have any luck using your contact form, so I thought I would ask a few questions here about the Rigging Bundle. Do you cover rigging stretchy arms, legs and spine? Do I need a lot of Mel scripting knowledge to follow your lessons?
    Please respond to the e-mail listed. Thanks, John

    • jason says:

      I do cover stretchy arms, legs, and spine! you don’t need a lot of mel scripting knowledge, but it certainly helps as a rigger to have the ability to script! 🙂

  9. Frank says:

    Hi Jason,

    One more question. I bought the AFR, and it showed that 4b was part of the bundle download, but I didn’t see it in the download page as a link. I was able to download 1, 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 3c and 4a

    Thanks,

    Frank

  10. jason says:

    Heya frank!

    I’ve heard of that happening before.. I’ll contact support and see what I can do! 🙂

  11. sameer says:

    If i buy AFR series. Can i use it with Cinema4d. Mean its more of a principles behind rigging or totally Maya based? (if there is a work around MEL scripts)

    • jason says:

      You can use the same concepts with cinema4d.. in fact, I think someone posted about that a while back. There are definitely methods that are based on maya.. and a number of mel scripts that are obviously maya-based. But you should be able to translate the ideas and techniques to other software packages.

  12. shani says:

    hi jason (people should stop saying this)
    i like your teaching style and either that dvd ,, ( i am not gonna buy it)
    well gr8 job.. and my Q .. you really think that mocap is not good then the old fashion way?

    • jason says:

      hi shani! thanks very much!

      as for your question, what do you mean by “the old fashion way?” I think mocap can be very useful, but I think that’s important to recognize what it takes to bring a mocap performance to the level required for communicating true intent and emotion. Quite often it’s assumed that just taking the mocap directly will work perfectly.. but that is almost never the case. Certainly for a performance of the caliber of gollum, king kong, avatar, etc there must be animators behind pushing and exaggerating and clarifying the performance.

  13. Arthur says:

    Heyy, I just bought your set of tutorials. I was wondering if your mel scripts are allowed(usable) in the office on the job. Or should we try to make our own? I’m just wonder, so if I use it for a production, would it be copy right?.

    Thanks, Arthur

    • Jason says:

      You are welcome to use them, and I would suggest using them as a basis for writing your own scripts that are suited to your own pipeline at work. 🙂

      Thanks for buying them! 🙂

  14. Kostas Strevlos says:

    Hi Jason,

    I am trying to buy the tutorials via the downloadable route but everytime I click on the link Im forwarded to lulu.com website while I’m getting the following message. “We’re sorry, the item you requested is not available.” Is there something wrong with the link?

    Thanks,

    Kostas

  15. jason says:

    oh fun! looks like lulu.com stopped selling downloadable dvds.. I’ll have to see if I can add them to fastspring.com where I sell the fast animation rigs.

  16. Viktor says:

    Hi Mr. Schleifer AKA rigger’s God
    I just realise these tutorials are not available at lulu.com any more, could you please provide us the fastspring link to process online purchase?

    Also, is there any quick peek at “Integrating a Creature Rig” available anywhere?
    Much appreciate your help.

  17. Lewis Satini says:

    Hello Jason,
    Will you cover facial rigging in the future?

  18. dale cannon says:

    I unfortunately can’t find any of your products on fastspring.com

  19. Hey Jason !

    high quality stuff, thanks a million :)should become a must-read in my opinion as an animator :)looking through the “integrating” video, I realized that the downloadable version doesn’t come with the pdf for that lecture ? Is it anywhere else to find ?

    cheers !! 🙂

    • jason says:

      Heya! thanks! 🙂

      the pdf that comes with the video should contain both Integrating and Fast Animation Rigs.. both docs are there! 🙂

  20. pavith says:

    hey jason i bought ur dvds and i really liked the way u explained the rigging … i tried to skin the character with that setup and i was not able to … which all joints should i use if i have to skin a mesh to it……

  21. yagna says:

    hi, jason i try to use mel scripts came with dvd but its not working can u tell me how to install scripts? please

  22. Arnold says:

    Hi Jason! I know it’s been a while but I placed an order for the entire tutorial and paid extra for those two old dvds. while I’m enjoying the tutorials very much, I haven’t received those dvds yet. Could you double check and let me know please? I placed my order in Jan,8 according to the paypal transaction history 🙂

    Cheers,
    – Arnold

  23. David Yañez says:

    Hi Jason,

    About a year ago I purchased the full animation friendly rigging package and used it on maya 2009. Now I recently updated my software to maya 2013 and tried to install the scripts but I can’t seem to succeed in doing so. I followed the instructions in the Read me file but the AnimationFriendlyRigging shelf appears empty. Could you help me out please?
    Cheers,
    David.

  24. Mark says:

    Hi Jason,
    I purchased the rapid rig material a while back. There is a particular script that I am trying to use that I received from you either through that purchase or earlier. js_setUpMultiConstraint. I have read about a fix on line however I am still having some problems with it. Any help would be appreciated.
    regards,
    Mark Stein

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