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!

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!

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!

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

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

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!

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

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

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.

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

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

A lot of people have asked me over the years where they can find the js_greasePencil script for Maya that I wrote a while ago.

This is a handy script that lets you draw on top of your Maya scene. You can use it for thumbnails, roughing out timing, drawing arcs, etc. It’s pretty basic, but handy to have!

Anyway, I’ve added the script to the downloads page.  If you’re logged in, you can download it here:

Enjoy!

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.

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.

Integrating a Creature Rig Into a Production Pipeline

1. 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
2. Definition of a “creature”
   1. Creating a node to represent the “creature”
   2. Defining Types of nodes
3. Orienting Joints
   1. Manually Re-orienting joints
   2. Automatic re-ordering
4. Animation Control Concepts
   1. Iconic Representation
   2. Limiting Selection and keyability
   3. Rotation Order
   4. Extra Gimbal Control
   5. Customized PickWalking
5. Automatic vs Manual Shoulder Control
   1. History of the discussion
   2. Constraint based control
   3. SetDrivenKey based control
6. Creating a “realistic” forearm
   1. Radius and Ulna
   2. Creating the Control Structure
7. 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
8. Procedural Animation Rigs
   1. What is a procedural rig?
   2. Creating the rig
   3. Updating the rig
9. 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

1. 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
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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

You can access them and other items in the store.

I’m often asked if these titles are still relevant in the industry today, and I have to say I still think they are. They’re obviously older techniques (they came out in 2001 and 2002), but many people consider them to be really great learning tools and I’ve had amazing feedback from them over the years.

I hope people find these useful!

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

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

Oh yeah, and happy holidays!

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

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.

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!

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

Check this out if you own a chicken!