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! 🙂
15 Responses
Welcome back to the blogosphere Jason.
Thanks chad, it’s good to be back! 🙂
Welcome back! 🙂
Can you tell us more about creating of Megamind? Brilliant work!
Thanks!
What kind of information would you like to know? I’m happy to talk about whatever I am legally able to! 🙂
Aloha, Jason! I just got back from a Disney Cruise where Megamind was a featured movie on the ship. My son loves to watch the end credits and lo, there’s your name! In big letters! How awesome for you and how fun it was tell my kids that I knew you! So glad to see you’re doing well, and doing great work. Megamind was soooo good, technically, artistically, cinematically. Woot! – Glady (from ucsb)
Aw, thanks glady!!! so good to hear from ya! 🙂 I’m really glad you liked megamind & I hope you’re doing well! 🙂
Thank you!
My brother in-law gave me AFR.
I am learning from it by rigging some of my characters.
cool!
Hi Jason
I know you’re really busy, and i’ve asked before, but i was wondering whether AFR is good for rigging characters for use in Unreal? Ie, Unreal doesnt like scaled joints, nor multiple skeletal riggs. Just one rig, skinned, with the diversity needed to create dynamic body poses. Is this achievable with your AFR tutorial?
Thanks!
Heya!
I thought I answered before, but I’m happy to answer again! 🙂 The AFR characters do indeed have scaled joints (actually joints that translate, simulating scale) and multiple skeletal rigs.. so if you take the rig exactly as we create it, it won’t work for Unreal.
However, there is more to the AFR series than just a rig. The whole series is really about how to go about creating an animator friendly rig. It really speaks to the whole process. This is why the first course is geared towards creating a bouncy ball rig. Everyone can create a ball rig, but can you create one that suits the animators needs? What’s your process for creation? The course teaches you a systematic approach to rigging that will help in any situation.
I have successfully used the AFR rig in Unreal. If you create a seperate bind rig and parent constrain it to the control rig it works just fine, essentially converting everything to translations and rotations (that Unreal supports). The squash and stretch works but the volume will not change but this can be achieved by linking morph targets to your rig (if you so wish). Unreal requires that you mark much of the rig with a _NoExport or _ignore suffix for controls so you may want to rejig things a little to keep good controller names.
The only feature I found troublesome were the twisty segments but I’ve used a different solution for these.
more information about AFR,thanks in advance
What kind of information would you like?
Wow Jason. I wish I could build a working time machine! I have been rigging and animating for years and only recently discovered your excellent videos!. At the time AFR came out we just had a new daughter so it seems my focus was a little more family orientated at the time. I apologize to all the rigs I’ve ^%&** before. Ha , seriously. I am glad I finally found this info. Mixed with what I was cobbling together I should see some real progress quickly I am sure!.
Thanks again for sharing!. Welcome back to the blogosphere.
Sir,i am in serious trouble. I have the DVD package of animators friendly rigging but the MEL scripts or the shelf does not open no matter how i try. I followed the READ ME file but does didn’t help very much.I have Maya 2011.Every time i copy the files and try to open maya the shelf comes but its empty and a error comes telling me to quit maya. HELP ! HELP !