shhLIFE! » Animator Friendly Rigging

Animator Friendly Rigging Shelves

jason — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 05:34:12 +0000

One of the things that people have asked me about over the years is why are there two different versions of the shelves in the Animator Friendly Rigging series. There’s an OSX version and a PC version. They also ask about whether or not there is a linux version.

The only version of Maya I personally own is the OSX version, so I’m unable to test the shelves on anything else.

It used to be the case that the icons on the Mac used to need to be in .iff format, while the pc versions had to be .bmp.

I think that with 2011, Maya allows for .png files for all of their icons, but I’m not positive. I’ve attached a zip file to this post that has the shelf for part 1 of the Animator Friendly Rigging series with new icons in .png format.

Would anyone be willing to download them and test to see if they work on Windows, and/or Linux?

Thanks very much, I appreciate it!

-jason

[download id="9"]

js_createTwistySegmentUI.mel update

jason — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:51:16 +0000

Heya folks!

Sorry it’s been so long since any updates and posts on my site! As most of you know, I’ve been very busy for the past three years as Head of Character Animation on Dreamwork’s Megamind

. It was quite an exciting and amazing journey, but VERY very very busy!

Once the movie finished, I immediately started working on the short “The Button of Doom” which released with the DVD a few weeks ago.

After that I took a really lovely 3 weeks off to just relax with the family, and then came back to work as a supervising animator on another short that will be released sometime soon hopefully!

In addition to that, I’m working on some new technology at work, AND getting ready to head up the animation for another film at dreamworks that comes out in a few years.

So yeah, I’ve been busy!

Anyway, back to the Animator Friendly Rigging series! I’ve had a number of requests to find out whether or not the series works with Maya 2011. I’ve started working through it to see where the issues are, and one of the first ones I’ve resolved is a quick fix to the js_createTwistySegmentUI.mel script to make sure that the WorldScale Enable/Disable checkbox works correctly.

You can download it here: js_createTwistySegmentUI

I’m hoping to start blogging again a bit more regularly.. I apologize for slacking so hard!

AFR Discount for Animation Mentor Students and Alumni!

jason — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:21:40 +0000

You know I love Animation Mentor. Not only is it one of the best places to learn character animation in the world, but the founders and the staff are such awesome human beings that they infuse the entire Animation Mentor experience with pure, unfiltered, pure awesome. Seriously.. you just mention “Animation Mentor” to someone and immediately you’re surrounded with hugs, and smiles, and great stories.

I spoke with the friggin amazing Bobby Beck, and am now able to offer a discount on the Animator Friendly Rigging products to all Animation Mentor students and alumni!

Bobby will be distributing the information to students and alum on how to get the discounts!

Enjoy!

AFR Discount for RiggingDojo students!

jason — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:33:09 +0000

I’m super jazzed about what the awesome people at Rigging Dojo are doing to help people interested in character rigging learn more about the craft. They’re all fantastic teachers, excellent riggers, and just darn-right awesome human beings. I’m really excited to be able to offer a 10% discount on the Animator Friendly Rigging DVD series for rigging dojo students!

If you’re a student there, please contact brad, josh, or chad to find out how to get your discount!

Woot!

AFR Rivalry.. sweet!

jason — Mon, 31 May 2010 15:28:50 +0000

One of the things that I’ve always said is that the techniques I discuss in Animator Friendly Rigging can be used in almost any package. The main idea is that even though the tutorials come with all sorts of mel scripts and files and explicit instructions for Maya, what people should take away are the concepts and theories behind the results.

Why should we rig the way we do?
What are we looking for?
What would help the animator the most?
etc.

That’s why I was totally jazzed to see this post on Vimeo:

AFR Rivalry! from MTracer on Vimeo.

It’s someone doing some of the same animator friendly rigging techniques I talk about in the material, but doing it in Blender!

That’s great! I love seeing stuff like this!

Animator Friendly Rigging Walk Cycle

jason — Sat, 29 May 2010 04:38:50 +0000

A couple of years ago I posted this walkcycle workflow demo on YouTube.. it shows me using the AFR rig to do a walk.

Thought it might be interesting to put it up again in case people haven’t seen it before.

Animator Friendly Rigging Part 4 examples available

jason — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:40:54 +0000

I’ve now added the Animator Friendly Rigging – Part 4 page to the website, complete with example pdf files and links to the example youtube movies.

Here’s an example of the movie for part 4a:

Now that all of the parts are up and available for purchase either independently, or as a bundle, I’m continuing to try and make as much information available on this site as possible. Over the next few weeks I’ll be filling out the FAQ, updating the main AFR page, and hopefully updating scripts and such as they become available.

Thanks again to everyone for purchasing the material, I love that it’s getting out there!

cheers!

-jason

Animator Friendly Rigging – All Products Now Available!

jason — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:01:05 +0000

Heya folks!

I have some great news! As of tonight, the entire 8 set of Animator Friendly Rigging materials are available for purchase from my new store at fastspring.com!

You can buy bit individually for $14.99 a piece, or you can jump in with both feet and buy the entire set at once! If you buy the whole thing, you get 8 bits for the price of 7!

I’m down in LA this week, so I’ll be putting the official pages together on how to buy this stuff with example pdf’s and movies and such probably this weekend, but I wanted to get this stuff up for you all now asap!

To purchase the individual materials, please go to the following pages:

Part 1 -> Introduction to Rigging, the bouncy ball

Part 2a -> Introduction to bipeds, the torso

Part 2b -> The torso continued, and the head

Part 3a -> The arm

Part 3b -> The arm continued

Part 3c -> The hand and fingers

Part 4a -> The foot and leg

Part 4b -> Completing the rig: mirroring, ui, presentation, etc

Or you can purchase the entire bundle with all the training materials at once!

I hope this new store works well for everyone and that the material is useful!

Enjoy!

Animator Friendly Rigging – Part 3b available

jason — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:05:42 +0000

Whew! Part 3b is up and available now! I’m finding that it’s taking about 2 hours or so to convert each section to be available for download through lulu, so at this rate hopefully I’ll be done by the end of the week!

Go straight to the page, or check out the preview video:

Animator Friendly Rigging – Part 3a available!

jason — Wed, 19 May 2010 02:29:44 +0000

I’ve started working on getting Part 3 up and available. This morning I finished with Part 3a. This section discusses arms, and how to handle switching between FK and IK. It also looks at locking down elbows, and a whole bunch of fun stuff!

Go straight to the page, or check out the preview video:

There are 2 other parts to section 3. They continue with more arm work, and also getting into the hands and the fingers. I’m currently selling each part individually much as Autodesk did (‘cept for nearly 15 cheaper per part). If people are interested in purchasing entire sections as a bundle, or the entire AFR series as a bundle, I’m more than happy to do it. Just let me know if this is something you’d be interested in, and I’ll make it happen!

To re-iterate.. Currently the parts break up like this:

part 1 | parts 2a & 2b | parts 3a, 3b, 3c, | parts 4a, 4b

I can sell them all individually, as bundles for each section, and/or as a bundle for the whole.

What would you guys prefer?

-jason

Animator Friendly Rigging – Part 2b now available!

jason — Sat, 15 May 2010 22:11:17 +0000

In my continued quest to get all the Animator Friendly Rigging tutorials available, I’ve just finished uploading Part 2b – the continuation of Part 2a.

This part focuses on finishing the Torso rig, and gets into the head and neck. It’s quite a long one.. the movie file that comes with it is over 800 megs (yipes!), and is about 2 hours and 40 minutes long.

Here’s a preview of the section where I talk about the head:

And a demo of what types of controls you have with the head and torso:

Currently part 2 is broken into two bits.. 2a and 2b, simply because that’s how Autodesk had broken it up originally. I’m happy to continue providing them as a separate bits, or combining them into a single part 2 if people are interested. Let me know if that’s desirable, and I’ll do the same with parts 3 and parts 4.

Animator Friendly Rigging – part 2a available!

jason — Sat, 15 May 2010 06:48:10 +0000

Continuing with the act of getting the Animator Friendly Rigging series up and running, I’ve now got Part 2a available for purchae from lulu.com!

Just as before with part 1, I’ve uploaded an example pdf with about 13 or so pages demonstrating some of the documentation, and also provided a 6+ minute example video (low resolution, but gives you a little bit of an idea as to what you’ll be getting, presentation style, etc).

And if you haven’t seen the reference I’m talking about in this example video, you can see a low-resolution version here:

Yes. We do look like idiots.

Thanks again for all the kind words about the series! I’m going to keep uploading them as I get them ready!

-jason

Animator Friendly Rigging

jason — Thu, 13 May 2010 06:50:04 +0000

Heya folks!

As I mentioned earlier, the Animator Friendly Rigging instructional series will no longer be available through Autodesk. It’s been a great run with Autodesk, and they have done a wonderful job selling the series. However, they decided that they will no longer be selling the DVD online.

I have received such great feedback on the material, that I decided to keep selling it through lulu.com. So over the next week I’ll be making sure all the material is available online, and as a special bonus I’m going to be dropping the price for a little while!

I’ve posted the first dvd on lulu.com already, and will get the rest up ASAP.

If you go to the AFR – part 1 page, you can find a PDF and video excerpt to show you an example of what it is you will receive when you purchase the material.

I look forward to getting all the material up and available for people to see!

Thanks for all the kind words and support!

-jason

js_matchObj scripts added to Downloads page.

jason — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:19:33 +0000

I received an email yesterday from a person who purchased the Animator Friendly Rigging series and found that two mel scripts were missing:

js_matchObj.mel and js_matchObjUI.mel.

I’ve heard of others missing these as well, so I added them to the downloads page, along with js_iterator.mel.

If you’re missing them.. enjoy!

note: you must be logged in to download.

[download id="6"]

Automated “Animator Friendly Rigging” – Free Character Scripts / Plugins Downloads for Maya

jason — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:50:50 +0000

One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that it’s important to share your ideas as much as possible. That’s how innovation happens. It’s how things progress. It’s how we learn. I’ve never been afraid to put my own ideas out there because I know I’ll get back more in return.

As soon as I released my DVDs on character rigging, I started seeing them pop up on warez & pirating sites. People have been sharing them with friends, downloading them from various locations, burning dvds, etc. While it directly takes away from my own pocket, there’s nothing I can do to stop it so I don’t stress about it.

I figure, as long as people are out there using this stuff, then it’s a good thing. If they really appreciate it, then maybe someday they’ll send me a thank you email, or a postcard, or 10 bucks, or whatever. Or they’ll tell others to go buy my stuff. Or they’ll buy me a beer at siggraph.

Today I got an email from someone who actually created an automated way to create the “Animator Friendly Rigging” rig that I developed for the AFR series dvds.

Automated “Animator Friendly Rigging” – Free Character Scripts / Plugins Downloads for Maya.

Some people would probably think that I’d be offended by this, or ask him to take it down. After all, they’re techniques I developed, right? This stuff contains scripts that should really only be available through the DVD series. It’s my intelectual property he’s messing with!

But I’m not, I’m actually quite stoked that he liked my stuff enough to spend the time to try and automate it. It means that my ideas aren’t nuts and that they’re worth following.

My whole point of the DVDs wasn’t to say “this is the be-all end-all of rigging technology”, but to say “hey.. this is how I like to THINK about rigging. You should, too!”

If you just download this script and create a rig with it.. yeah, you’ll have a pretty sweet rig with lots of functionality. But you won’t have learned the point of the DVD, and that’s how to THINK about rigging.

So, here’s what I say.. download the tool. Try it out. See how you like the rig. If you dig it, or at least intrigued by it.. then go purchase the DVD and see why certain choices were made. Learn about the process, because in the end.. THAT’s what you need to do to be a good character td.

Autodesk® Maya® Techniques | Animator Friendly Rigging Part 1 Product Information – Autodesk, Inc. Online Store

jason — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:47:13 +0000

Autodesk® Maya® Techniques | Animator Friendly Rigging Part 1 Product Information – Autodesk, Inc. Online Store.

Rigging Bundle – Outline

jason — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:09:13 +0000

A number of people have asked what specifially is covered in my two DVDs – Integrating a Creature Rig Withing a Production Pipeline and Fast Animation Rigs, so here ya go!

Integrating a Creature Rig Into a Production Pipeline

Definition of a “Pipeline”
1. Examples: Film, Modeling, Shot
2. Determining how animation rig itself fits into the rest of the pipeline
3. Animation-based transfer
4. Control-based transfer
Definition of a “creature”
1. Creating a node to represent the “creature”
2. Defining Types of nodes
Orienting Joints
1. Manually Re-orienting joints
2. Automatic re-ordering
Animation Control Concepts
1. Iconic Representation
2. Limiting Selection and keyability
3. Rotation Order
4. Extra Gimbal Control
5. Customized PickWalking
Automatic vs Manual Shoulder Control
1. History of the discussion
2. Constraint based control
3. SetDrivenKey based control
Creating a “realistic” forearm
1. Radius and Ulna
2. Creating the Control Structure
FK/IK Back Control
1. History
2. Creating the spline IK
3. Adding Stretching
4. Creating the IK Control Structure
5. Adding FK
6. Adding Twist
7. Adding Stretch Warning
Procedural Animation Rigs
1. What is a procedural rig?
2. Creating the rig
3. Updating the rig
Included MEL Scripts
1. endName.mel
2. jsChannelCtrl.mel
3. jsConstObj.mel
4. jsCreateCreature.mel
5. jsDefineCreature.mel
6. jsGetShape.mel
7. jsListCreatures.mel
8. jsMovIn.mel
9. jsMovOut.mel
10. jsOrientJointUI.mel
11. jsPickWalk.mel
12. jsRenameWindow.mel
13. jsRotateOrder.mel
14. jsScaleJointsByCurve.mel
15. jsUnlockTransforms.mel

Fast Animation Rigs – Bridging the Gap between Speed and Functionality

Fast Animation Rigs
1. Global Concepts
  1. Display Layers
  2. Easily identifiable Controls
  3. Appropriate Rotation Orders
  4. Tidy Scene
2. Leg Control – fast reverse foot setup
3. Isolation of Movement
  1. History
  2. Head
4. FK/IK Arms
  1. Maya’s fk/ik toggle
  2. jsFkIKSetup – a better solution
5. Misc Speed Techniques – What’s fastest?
  1. Direct Connections
  2. Expressions
  3. Point Constraint
  4. Drive from same source
  5. Math Nodes
6. Other Speed Techniques
  1. Object visibility
  2. Shaded Mode
  3. Nurbs vs Polys
  4. Keeping track of FPS
Pipeline Methodology
1. File Structure
  1. Base Directory
  2. Revision System
  3. Resolution System
  4. Updating
2. Incremental Rigging – Blocking, Animating, Finessing
  1. Switching Between Rigs
  2. File Referencing
  3. Transferring Animation
Fast Animation Technique
1. Gather Information
2. Thumbnail
3. Staging
4. Blocking
5. First pass
6. Second pass
7. Third Pass
8. Facial
9. Secondary/External
Included Mel Scripts
1. jsAddBoolAttr.mel
2. jsAddMessageAttr.mel
3. jsAddStringAttr.mel
4. jsAlignToJoint.mel
5. jsChooseItem.mel
6. jsCopyAnim.mel
7. jsCopyPos.mel
8. jsCopyRot.mel
9. jsDuplicateControl.mel
10. jsErrorMsg.mel
11. jsFindChildJoint.mel
12. jsFindConnected.mel
13. jsFindFkIkChars.mel
14. jsFixPrefix.mel
15. jsFkIkArmRig.mel
16. jsFkIkSetup.mel
17. jsFkIkSetupEverything.mel
18. jsFkIkWin.mel
19. jsGetRefFile.mel
20. jsMakeFkIkConnections.mel
21. jsreferenceRig.mel
22. jsReferenceRigUI.mel
23. jsRigUI.mel
24. jsToggleFkIk.mel
25. moveIkToFk.mel

Repost: Walkcycle timelapse video

jason — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:19:07 +0000

Originally posted: Tuesday, 05 June 2007

So after finishing recording of the videos, I decided to record myself creating a walk-cycle with the AFR rig.

Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zrObqm4Fm0

Repost: Parkour Video Shoot

jason — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:20:25 +0000

Originally Posted: Monday, 12 June 2006

We’re making the most rediculous video of all time.. it’ll either be great, or.. well.. stupid.

Edit: I finished shooting the video & editing it together. It’s available on youtube.. and if you purchased the Animator Friendly Rigging DVD series, you’ve seen it. Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvHG0OkCWJ4

Downloads page available

jason — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:17:06 +0000

I’ve created a Downloads page that has scripts from the Animator Friendly Rigging DVD series. I’ll be adding varioius mel scripts and fixes to that page, so keep checking back!

Oh yeah, and happy holidays!

Jason Schleifer Rigging Bundle Downloadable

jason — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:32:40 +0000

Due to popular demand, I’ve made the Jason Schleifer Rigging Bundle downloadable directly from LULU.com w/out having to purchase and ship a DVD.

It’s a little bit cheaper than buying the DVD, and way more convenient!

If there is interest, I can also make the individual dvds downloadable as well.. just let me know!

To purchase, simply click on the image or on the link below!

Jason Schleifer Rigging Bundle Downloadable

Animator Friendly Rigging Fixes PDF

jason — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:54:30 +0000

There were a number of fixes on my old site relating to the Animator Friendly rigging DVDS.

Jim Levasseur was kind enough to compile them into a handy PDF. Enjoy!

Animator Friendly Rigging Fixes

Note: I’ve now added a Downloads page to the website where I’ll be putting the mel scripts and the pdf itself.

Jason Schleifer Rigging Bundle Available as Download!

jason — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:05:39 +0000

Howdly folks of folks!

After many requests and finally having a few moments to check into it, I was able to create a Downloadable form of the Jason Schleifer Rigging Bundle available on lulu.com! It’s a tiny bit cheaper than the DVD one since LULU doesn’t have to press and send dvds.

You can get it here:

Jason Schleifer Rigging Bundle – Downloadable

Enjoy!

New forum!

jason — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 06:31:40 +0000

Good news for all of you from the jonhandhisdog forum.. Javier (goosh) has started a new forum that a hope will take over where my old one left off!

Go visit it at http://rigging101.com/forum !