redesigndavid.me

Demo Reel 2010

Animate Blendshapes Weights per Vertex

I found a way to animate blendshapes’ weights, without any plugin, merely using connections. I’m posting a tutorial soon. You think you can figure out a way to accomplish this? I will post a tutorial in two weeks time. The technique would be applicable to more than just weights for blendshapes. It might even be possible to control weights for skinCluster joints too (if that helps for anything? Yeah, it should.) Some other possible applications would be blendshapes for the way Eddie Murphy turned into Nutty Professor. Thanks everyone!!!! :) Hope to hear from you!

Add Joints Per Vertex

There are two methods to make an a mesh follow the vertexes of another mesh. One is to use a wrap deformer or add the influencing mesh as an influence in a skinCluster with use components enabled. The problem with wraps is it could get a bit slow. The problem with the next is somehow the post normalization available in Maya2011 doesn’t work with it. I decided to write a script that create joints and make the follow each vertex on the influencing mesh. Theoretically, you’ll have the best of all words. proc jointsOnVerts (string $polygon) { $grp = `createNode transform -n ($polygon+"vtxGRP")`; $size = size(`polyInfo -faceToVertex $polygon`); for ($i=0;$i<int($size);$i++){ $trans = `createNode transform`; $pos = `xform -q -ws -t ($polygon+".vtx["+$i+"]")`; xform -ws -t $pos[0] $pos[1] $pos[2] $trans; $fol=`createFolliclePolygon $trans $polygon`; delete $trans; $joint = `createNode joint -n ($polygon+"vtx"+$i)`; parent $joint $fol[0]; setAttr ($joint+".t") 0 0 0; setAttr ($joint+".r") 0 0 0; setAttr ($joint+".jo") 0 0 0; parent $fol[0] $grp; } } proc string[] createFolliclePolygon (string $posTransform, string $nurbsSurface) { // make vector product nodes to get correct positions of the transform node $vecprod = `createNode vectorProduct`; setAttr ($vecprod+".operation") 4; connectAttr ($posTransform+".worldMatrix") ($vecprod+".matrix"); connectAttr ($posTransform+".rotatePivot") ($vecprod+".input1"); // connect the correct position to a closest point on surface node created $cpos = `createNode closestPointOnMesh -n ($posTransform+"_CPOS")`; connectAttr ($nurbsSurface+".worldMesh") ($cpos+".im"); connectAttr ($vecprod+".output") ($cpos+".inPosition"); // create a follicle node and connect it $folTransform = `createNode transform -n ($posTransform+"follicle")`; $fol = `createNode follicle -n ($posTransform+"follicleShape") -p $folTransform`; connectAttr -f ($fol+".outTranslate") ($folTransform+".translate"); connectAttr -f ($fol+".outRotate") ($folTransform+".rotate"); connectAttr -f ($nurbsSurface+".outMesh") ($fol+".inputMesh"); connectAttr -f ($nurbsSurface+".worldMatrix[0]") ($fol+".inputWorldMatrix"); setAttr ($fol+".parameterU") (`getAttr ($cpos+".parameterU")`); setAttr ($fol+".parameterV") (`getAttr ($cpos+".parameterV")`); //create a blend between two attributes, a constant and the parameterU output of the cpos to control the follicle's parameter U $blendU = `createNode blendTwoAttr`; setAttr ($blendU+".input[0]") (`getAttr ($cpos+".parameterU")`); connectAttr ($cpos+".parameterU") ($blendU+".input[1]") ;…

Blending Spline IKs and Ribbon Setups

I was unhappy with the controls I was giving the tentacles of our squid/octopus-looking monster. I decided to recreate them. This time, I’ll avoid as many constraints as I possibly could. And I’ll notate as I go through everything. Right from the start, we wanted to give each tentacle an ability to pose in all sorts of ways. The control types that came to mind were either a spline IK or a ribbon controller. There are pros and cons for both. The ik spline is awesome. It is widely used for lots of setups. I’ve seen cat tails and pony tails set up in this manner. Essentially, ik splines (like most ik systems) handle the rotations of your joints. It handles them so that they would always fall exactly where your curve is. My problem with using this for our tentacles is its lack of ability to twist in a detailed manner. If you wonder why CG systems haven’t developed enough to meet this requirement, you are asking the wrong question. The lack of proper twisting for spline IK’s makes sense. Splines, after all, cannot twist–just as a point contains no information of orientation and a line has no idea of where its flat surface may be. This lack is solved by a ribbon setup. A ribbon, after all, is what you get when you extrude a spline in a direction giving it an ability to twist. A ribbon setup is also awesome. There’s a gazillion things you could do with a ribbon setup and it all depends on how much you control you want to have. In essence, you’ll have a bunch of joints or transforms follow specific points on a surface in position and orientation. If you twist that surface, those joints would all twist for you. And…

All the Different Blog Editors

I have had this blog for more than a year. It used to be called redesigndavid.com. But I wasn’t diligent in making payments and I lost the rights to that URL. (I set up special services that would get me those URLs back) I digress. What I’m trying to say here is I’ve been blogging for more than a year, but I haven’t been updating the blog as regular as I can. There are reasons to this. Most of the time, I get too engulfed in work. Sometimes, it’s a book that absorbs my attention too much, it monopolizes every spare moment. Sometimes though, I’m just too lazy to login. For this reason, I had been testing different methods to make posts to your blog. An off shoot of this endeavor is the new and handy JD redesign Images. It’s my first attempt at making a plugin. Only later did I realize, it’s functionality isn’t so unique as I thought. LOL! I digress again. I’ve made many switches on my favorite blogging method. My least favorite is using wordpress’ default web based posting feature. It’s slow. Unintuitive. The only cool thing about it is oEmbeds. Basically, you just put the URL of the site where the embedded media should come from, and wordpress would work on it for you. That’s it. When it comes to web-based posting, I don’t think anything comes close to the ease tumblr does things. You just specify what kind of post it’s gonna be and it does the rest of the work for you. So I’ve tried using Flock, plugins like Scribefire, some blogging softwares on windows, osx and iphones. They all for short, somehow. Or maybe…

Notes On My Desk

My grandma once said you can gauge the quality of the grey matter between your ears by examining the works your hands produce. It can be writing literature, drawing, or solving Math problems. If there is output, there is activity up there. And if there is activity, there is quality matter. I was looking at the notes I had on my desk. Scribbles and and markings that doesn’t surprise me. My desk generates about one rim of scratch paper covered in gibberish every month if I’m not careful. The notes mean zit to most people, but they mean conquered problems for me. Occasionally, I’d need a schematic that would help me understand an issue. Sometimes, I solve equations I need for my rig. Sometimes, they’re plain notes. Sometimes, they don’t mean anything. LOL! But I thought it would be cool to have the recorded on my blog too. They are little recordings of battles waged on technical issues, often ending in victory.

Beautiful Monsters

The octopus is an intelligent animal. The video shows how next to the chimpanzees, these guys are pretty handy with tools. I haven’t had the chance to see these guys in real life. But I’d add it up to my bucket list. I am tasked to rig a monster with tentacles. I don’t have the privilege of revealing how it will look and frankly, I have no intention of doing so. The video is a research of how we want it to walk. It is a rigging challenge, something that warms the heart. The goal is to give the creature tentacles a blend between IK spline with “intelligent up objects” and a simplified ribbon that acts more like an FK. Then, each control would have dynamic parents, namely: Body, Up Parent, World. The body would be done using two parts. There will be a tiny body that simply house the connection between tentacles and then the head. Lips and mouth would be flexible. There will be a ribbon set up for the lips and the teeth within. Eyes would be squash-able as it extends, optionally. I’ll keep posting about it. For now, this creature resides in the heads of the artists that work in my office.

Download Beta Version JD-redesignImages

The images has, of course, nothing to do with the download. The download contains the latest version of my first plugin, JD-redesignImages. Learn more about it from this post.

Jonno teaching us Blender

We were having a class on Blender. Jonno was teaching us.

JD redesignImages

WordPress has never been so amazing! With JD redesignImages, you can avoid hotlinked images on your site. Cuz if we all play our part, we can make the world a better place. Let’s say, you have a blog. You won’t spend all your time reading your own blog’s articles. That’ll bore you to death! You probably know all of them by heart anyway, unless you stole those too! Instead, you’d probably be reading somebody else’s blog. And often, you’d like to write something about somebody’s artwork and in the process beautify your own drab blog with a sample image (or gallery depending on how low your morals are). Then, you have two choices. One, you either download the image–or gallery, we talked about this already–unto your HD and re-upload them unto your blog. This takes time. After which, you lay them on your post, write your thoughts (pretend you are original) and publish. If you are lucky, the images would fall snug fit in your theme’s layout. If you are not, you’ll have adjust things by either forcing them to display with an akward image resolution. Or you resize them with your favorite image editing program, and upload them a second time. See my hassle-full point? Having a hotlinked-image-free site has been top New Year Resolutions for bloggers (maybe? if they care). But they all succumb to the alternative, a much simpler “Just Hotlink It” motto. JD redesignImages primary objective is to rid your sight of this sacrilegious practice. And with all good things, they come with bonuses. Not only will it cleanse your site, it will also resize your images proportionately, and apply optional filters like grayscale, brightness, contrast, tint and blur. Why would you wanna do something like this? Well, it…

Today’s Daily

Director, concerned while modeler explains his position. This is today’s “daily” daily drawing. On scrap paper. Finished before the first five minutes it took us to update our SVN.

Auto Image Size Reduction Using PHP

Bravo! Bravo! I knew I can do it. Stayed up late last night, learning PHP code. Haha! I’m no George Malley (from Phenomenon, John Travolta), who devoured an English-Spanish dictionary on a 20 minute drive to a sick lady they all thought was possessed (stomach flu can be the devil), but last night, I set out to accomplish something and today I woke up to find out that it actually worked. I am very much in love with my plain and simple theme. But what readers do not see is underneath this smooth exterior, there’s a violent monster ruthlessly cleaning up content, a.k.a. wordpress’s plugin system. To give you a brief picture, let me explain how images are handled in my blog. First of all, I am extremely lazy. I hate downloading images off unassumming websites, just to re-upload them into mine. I find this completely unnessary. If we are to steal images, I say, why not do it in style? So I spent hours and hours (ironic huh? lazyness pushing me to work for hours! happens all the time) looking to a plugin that would automatically download remote images. The answer? wp super images. I know I out moved a lot of you guys. I had been searching for the plugin and most of the forums show unresolved queries for a such and such plugin. I found it. Here it is. I think, it’s lack of popularity might be due to its EASL developers, Chinese if I’m right. So that’s one part that’s cool! The plugin downloads images from “img” tags and links to images (eg a href equals blah blah). It treats both queries separately too. So if you wanna have a hand on things like me, it’ll be easy for you. Secondly,…

Most Original Burgers

Do not fall for those crafty five dollar bills they are doling out to innocent passers-by from the escaltor (picture below). They turn out to be discount certificates for the worst burgers ever, from a resto that coincidentally goes by the name Most Original Burgers. I had “goodfellas.” Both my fellow victim and I agree that the bread is stale. The service was excruciatingly slow. And everything came in installments–one too many installments. And, the burgers were nothing special. If you are considering to eat here, heed my advise: This place has bad burgers and bad service. And they don’t come cheap. The only thing going for them? The five dollar bill that attracted us in the first place. They also try to distract you from the truth with a multitude of choices. But everything is obvious on hind sight. Am I ruthless for forming such harsh judgments on my first visit? Maybe so. But you can’t go wrong with stale bread. Stay away!

Running Like A Hamster

If you are like me, you love the sound of your feet pounding the pavement. Sadly, I’ve been stuck running like a hamster lately. I used to despise running on a treadmill. At one point, I could run two hours on winding foot paths until my knees hurt and still crave for more, and just run 5 minutes maximum on a treadmill. And after 300 hundred seconds–golly, that’s the 5 minute equivalent–I’d get down and look around to wonder why nobody is applauding my valiant run. Running on a treadmill gives me the creeps, the same kind I get when I need to have a dentist work on my once forsaken molar. Things changed after an article I read (from quick and dirty tips get fit guy) about the efficacy of mixing resistance with cardio workouts to lose weight. A 2008 study at the University of California asked this very question, and had one group do cardio, another group do resistance training, and a final group do a concurrent training workout in which they ran for 30-60 seconds after completing each weight lifting set. Even though each group did the same amount of work, the combination group experienced the following: a 35% greater improvement in lower body strength, a 53% greater improvement in lower body endurance, a 28% greater improvement in lower body flexibility, a 144 % greater improvement in upper body flexibility, an 82% greater improvement in muscle gains, and a 991 % greater loss in fat mass! Did you see that? That was a whopping nine-hundred-ninety-one percent! That’s close to ten times more effective loss in fat mass. I’m not really trying to lose weight. I just like running. But if I could lose the extra tub of fat around my waist–like…

John Maeda

I received a tip from a comment about a guy named John Maeda. I googled him. I learned that he is a TEDster. I’ve learned that just like me, he is into simple things. I wonder what he’ll think with my theme’s design. And just like me, he is also a programmer and a designer. I’m a huge fan of MUJI. And one of his mentors is the designer of MUJI. 20 minutes of googling, and I am a big fan. I want to know more about him. Watch his talk from TED.com. Read wikipedia’s entry on him. Visit his studio’s website. Visit his blog. And last of all, read his book, the laws of simplicity.

BLDGBLOG

I have had this new fascination for the color white. Simple is soo beautiful! I’ve been blind to see the all the other pigments before white. And then I saw this BLDGBLOG website. It mirrors the simplicity I would want to have within. It is beautiful! And it’s a blogspot blog. My golly! And I realize, it is for architecture. Hmm.. Maybe, those who look for good structures, also look for simplicity. Like them, like me.

Morning Problems

We had were having our “dailies.” Just as in any production, we’ve got problems to solve. Hence, Jonno’s pose. Haha! This was done using a blue ball point on scratch paper from the administrative department, hence the notes on the lower right corner (or upper left, if you put right side up).

Prosthetic Technology

So I just saw Repo Men last night. Prosthetic hearts and other internal organs being repossessed. Poor citizens with bad credit. My heart went out to Lady Gaga and her prosthetic leg (if you remember her famously debunked rumor about her leg being amputated for fashion’s sake). But not all prosthetic technology is bad. In TED Talks, there are at least two prosthetic based talks that just fattened my heart. Watch them, they are amazing! The first is Dean Kamen. He is an inventor. He is an inspiration to all scientists, programmers and other people of the like. Soldiers who’ve lost limbs in service face a daily struggle unimaginable to most of us. At TEDMED, Dean Kamen talks about the profound people and stories that motivated his work to give parts of their lives back with his design for a remarkable prosthetic arm. This is Aimee Mullins. Athlete, actor and activist Aimee Mullins talks about her prosthetic legs — she’s got a dozen amazing pairs — and the super-powers they grant her: speed, beauty, an extra 6 inches of height … Quite simply, she redefines what the body can be. BTW: The late designer, McQueen seems to like Lady Gaga a lot. They’ve been having lots of collaborations. Hence, when McQueen started making fashionable prosthetics for Aimee Mullins, Lady Gaga jumped into the band wagon. But it’s really Aimee Mullins who advocated the fashionable prosthetics.

Repo Man Review

Repo Man is one action packed cringe fiesta. It’s not your typical movie. No clear cut heroes against villains. The stage is an akward future with hints of exaggerated present social ills. And the ending may have been predictable if it weren’t for the distraction the blood and violence gave. Those who live rigid, boring lives and who want to escape all the monotony may enjoy this flick. I’ve met an innocent looking petite or two who come alive when talking about Saw movies; this flick might be for you too. There were fight sequences that may have been pulled out from the movie 300. And the look of the picture is reminiscent of Fight Club, although instead of suburban New York, we are looking at computer generated futuristic cities, toned down versions from Minority report. Elements from 300 and Fight Club? Were they trying to get male audience’s testo levels up? Maybe. Problem is men don’t respond to cringe scenes. They pretend they have no reaction. Conventional girls, on the other hand, would take their cue to scream or to hug their male companions. Then, there’s the twist in the end that I will not talk about. It was a novel idea, repossessing artificial organs. It could have delivered a harder hit if they had given the story more focus. But the story was a little all over the place. It was a little bit of everything. Fight club, 300, man movie. Saw, petite lady thriller. Shymalan, you think you get it until the last minute, weird ending movie. Too eclectic for my taste. And I don’t mind eclectic, so long as it’s eclectic for a reason and with good taste.

Splitting XYZ from BlendShape Targets

I was reading an article about an awesome book about facial character setup titled Stop Staring. It’s pretty old. Definitely worth the buy! It describes a method of having to divide the axises of displacement caused by targets. It works simple. Consider a blendshape deformer that makes a vertex move from point A to point B. We will instead make 3 versions of the target shape. With each copy containing displacement coming from only one axis.
This step is achieved using a script. global proc isolateAxisBlend (string $base, string $ini_target, string $axis) { $object = `duplicate -n ($ini_target+"_dup_"+$axis) $ini_target`; $obj = $object[0]; for ($i=0;$i<4570;$i++) { $xform_base = `xform -q -t ($base+".vtx["+$i+"]")`; $xform_obj = `xform -q -t ($obj+".vtx["+$i+"]")`; switch ($axis) { case "yz" : xform -t $xform_base[0] $xform_obj[1] $xform_obj[2] ($obj+".vtx["+$i+"]"); break; case "xz" : xform -t $xform_obj[0] $xform_base[1] $xform_obj[2] ($obj+".vtx["+$i+"]"); break; case "xy" : xform -t $xform_obj[0] $xform_obj[1] $xform_base[2] ($obj+".vtx["+$i+"]"); break; case "z" : xform -t $xform_base[0] $xform_base[1] $xform_obj[2] ($obj+".vtx["+$i+"]"); break; case "x" : xform -t $xform_obj[0] $xform_base[1] $xform_base[2] ($obj+".vtx["+$i+"]"); break; case "y" : xform -t $xform_base[0] $xform_obj[1] $xform_base[2] ($obj+".vtx["+$i+"]"); break; } } } Usage: To use this procedure, copy, paste and run it from the script editor to load the procedure into memory. You’ll need a base shape and a target shape. In MAYA’s MEL command line (or through the script editor), type isolateAxisBlend “nameOfBaseMesh” “nameOfTargetMesh” “axis”. For example: isolateAxisBlend "baseMesh" "targetMesh" "x"; isolateAxisBlend "baseMesh" "targetMesh" "y"; isolateAxisBlend "baseMesh" "targetMesh" "z"; Try this: Create two polygon spheres named “baseMesh” and “targetMesh”. Select “targetMesh” and go to component mode. Select all vertices and scale it so it is twice bigger in all axises. (Remember to do it in component…

Small Developer, Big World

Programming is all around us. Developers fuel the iPhone and it’s competition, Android. Developers also are the ones responsible for jailbreaking the iPhone. We need developers to write programs for our work, for our banks, for the games we play and for movies we watch. Their work is ubiquitos. And it fattens my heart to know the written word is no longer just a means to communicate between humans, but it is also a means to control applications and, by extension, worlds of organized knowledge. I am a developer with no formal training. I love it. I breath scripting and taste it in my sweat when I run. And the more I program, the more I realize that everything I’ve done, doesn’t even come close to the world of possibilities. Heck, everything created by all of humanity is still insignificant. Especially in comparison to the bench mark set by reality. Developers can only attempt to go to the correct direction. The feeling is as big as a googolplex. If you don’t already know, a googol is a number starting with one an followed by hundred zeros. Big, huh? A googolplex is another number again starting with one, but this time followed by googol of zeros. A philosopher/scientist once supposed it was practically impossible to write one googolplex on paper because there isn’t enough room in this world to fit it in. I think that’s dumb. Haha! But the world of possibilities is to me just as big. Carl Sagan wrote in his book, “a googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number one.” That’s how I feel. Each language I encounter is a beckon call to attempt the impossible. And yet for every success, you realize that even the word “impossible” is…

Hence, Plain White Themes

I have had this blog for some years now. I can not remember the number of times I’ve changed it’s theme. It could be close to fifty. And even for those themes that stuck for a while, I was never satisfied. Don’t get me wrong, I try my best to put as much of me as I can in any of those fifty plus themes. I spent hours modifying them. I’ve probably spent more time modifying themes than writing posts. I’m more savvy with CSS and PHP than writing because of that. And I’ve been thinking why this is so. I think I’ve gotten it. When I scour the net for my next theme, I compare them, one against the other. This could take hours, sometimes days, depending on how strong-minded I am on that particular theme-searching-spree. And eventually, I will find a theme that I’d like. For a while, I’ll cherish it. I’d concentrate my thoughts on its beauty. But later, those very points I used to like would start to annoy me. I used to think I was fickle. Now I understand, there is something wrong with my mindset when checking themes out. When I look at themes, I should look at how they could best present my content. I should look at how it could make my works look good rather than how good the theme looked. As an artist, how my content is delivered is very important. Outside weblogs, there is a job post that handles this job. A curator is a highly respected profession. Imagine if some of your favorite museums or galleries are “too” themed, or too colorful that it steals the spotlight for the artworks, then you’ll get what I mean. I remember one of the most important…

Tokyo Marathon 2010

I was once cooling down at the gym, and I saw ESPN’s coverage of the Tokyo marathon. I saw the last 2 kilometers of the race winner and I was soo inspired. Their was a leading pack made up of different races (by saying races here I meant races as in human genetic races), all colors represented. But there were two nationalities standing out, the ethiopians and the japanese. Everyone in the leading pack were competitive. They were tightly knit. They all ran close together, never letting anyone run ahead of the rest by more than two feet. None of them wanted to get left behind. An imaginary string attached to their waists kept them all together. And their faces were all close to crying. I swear I could feel their pain through the screen! Then they passed the forty kilometer mark. They were just above 2 hours. Just 2 clicks more. All of a sudden they start throwing things on the ground, like visors, shades, belts and all other non-essentials they had on them. They threw with force, like boom!!! Games faces were on, as if the current suffering they’ve been enduring isn’t enough yet. Then the group starts breaking up. My gawd!!! I was stading there beside the hamsters, close to crying myself! The face of the leader was screaming in pain! My golly! I was glued! What a run! The awarding ceremony started immediately after the race. A Japanese guy won. On a small corner of the screen, there was another panel showing what another camera was covering. There was a japanese lady who’s legs just gave up around 36 kilometers. She just started walking and her legs bent like jello. Then she stood up. Crying, I bet.…

Bataan Death March

I just had an epiphany. I want to run 60 miles, in the Philippines, in re-enactment of an epic event in my country’s History, the Bataan Death March.
The march, involving the forcible transfer of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war[1] captured by the Japanese in the Philippines from the Bataan peninsula to prison camps, was characterized by wide-ranging physical abuse and murder, and resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon the prisoners and civilians along the route by the armed forces of the Empire of Japan. Beheadings, cutting of throats and casual shootings were the more common actions—compared to instances of bayonet stabbing, rape, disembowelment, rifle butt beating and a deliberate refusal to allow the prisoners food or water while keeping them continually marching for nearly a week in tropical heat. Falling down or inability to continue moving was tantamount to a death sentence, as was any degree of protest. Prisoners were attacked for assisting someone falling due to weakness, or for no reason whatsoever. Strings of Japanese trucks were known to drive over anyone who fell. Riders in vehicles would casually stick out a rifle bayonet and cut a string of throats in the lines of men marching alongside the road. Accounts of being forcibly marched for five to six days with no food and a single sip of water are in postwar archives including filmed reports. The exact death count is impossible to determine, but some historians have placed the minimum death toll between six and eleven thousand men; other postwar Allied reports have tabulated that only 54,000 of the 72,000 prisoners reached their destination—taken together, the figures document a rate of death from one in four up to two in seven of those on…

modCharSetup version 1

First release of the modCharSetup (short for Modular Character Setup) for Maya is now available for download. Please peruse modCharSetup 101 to learn how to use it. To download the file click here: To install, just unzip the download. Inside you will see a file named autoinstall.cmd. Run this file by double clicking on it. It will install and place all the neccessary scripts in their proper places. In Maya (after a restart, if autoinstall.cmd was invoked while Maya was running), just look for the command line. Make sure you set it to MEL, instead of Python. Type modCharSetup. Press enter. Anytime in the future you wish to run modCharSetup, just type the same command or turn it into a shelf icon. The modCharSetup window should now appear. The last icon brings you to the modCharSetup category in this site. Please fill me in everything regarding your experience with the script.

modCharSetup (v1) 101

modCharSetup is a Maya Character Setup set of scripts that allows a rigger to automate the setting up of characters in a manner that is modular. Parts of the character are divided into multiple different parts that are independent on their own. Because of this, creating a character with more than two arms or even arms that aren’t connected to the body and instead to the head, probably, has never before been this easy. The entire suite of tools from the script is designed to allow a rigger to finish setting up controls within 30 minutes per character. 1. Create Placers Step one is create your placers. Placers allows us to input the positions of joints and controllers to Maya without necessarily creating th . Everything will be done automatically by the script. You have three kinds of placers that you could use. Each of th representing a specific kind of setup. The first is the Three Joint Limb. The TJL, is the setup for most limbs. You would typically use this for your arms, legs and other similar body appendages with two segments or three joints. Hence, the name. Usage: Click on the Three Joint Limb icon. Provide a name for the set up (e.g. rightArm or leftBunnyEar). Then position each placer created where roughly you’d like to have the joints created.
The TJL, when set up, is…

I’m Running Home

Why do I run? One of my mentors once asked me, if I had the chance to know the exact time and date I’ll perish from this planet, how would I choose to spend those moments? I thought long and hard. Others offered their own answers. They go for the usual saying goodbye in the arms of the people they love. My answer was non-conventional. I said before the appointed time, I’ll already say my goodbyes. After which, I’ll run–not jog, but run–as fast as I can. You could say run towards meeting my Creator. But my real reason is I want to deplete my body of all energy so that at the precise time of death, nothing He gave is wasted. I wasn’t a runner then. When I gave this answer, I have yet to run my first mile. But the idea of consuming all earthly energy seemed to me a good way to pass away. Kick the bucket when it’s empty. Running is physical, no doubt. But there is a spiritual aspect to it that eludes many a philosopher’s understanding since time immemorial. Take Dean Karnazes for example. Pissed at life, he decided to hurt himself. He ran. He was reckless with his body. Imagine using Krazy Glue to secure your blisters and and open wounds! The problem is, unlike us, the body doesn’t return evil with evil. The more Dean ran, the better he felt. So he ran more and became a better person. Partly, the reason I started running was because I was angry at myself for failing at the one thing I shouldn’t have. I hurt the one person I cared the most about. I disappointed so many who care about me. They still love…

Pepsi Refresh Project

Pepsi is doing an amazing campaign! Nope! It’s more than just an AD campaign. It is very altruist. I am very very impressed with them. They just went up in points in my book. EACH PEPSI REFRESHES THE WORLD!!! Just think of your own IDEA. Pitch it to them. If you win, they’ll give you the moolah!!! I’m thinking of pitching an animation story, they’ll fund us and we’ll work. Are you gonna join?? LOL!!! What do you guys think?? The story has to be altruistic, as well. Maybe something that will uplift an entire generation to become better than the generation before it. It has to be meaningful. The story has to bite!!! None of those cuddly-duddley, cutsey-putsey, let’s-all-be-happy flics. I’m not against being happy. I’m actually frequently happy. But we need to shove some sense into our heads nowadays. We can’t just stare at possibilities and potential, hoping good things would seep into our heads. I sooo loooove
this campaign!!!!
I wanna be a part of it. You have any ideas? I’ve always wanted to be a hero–a superhero, if I had the choice. This campaign may not make that fully possible, but it’ll bring me close to it. Let’s all do some good!!! Let’s all be a part of this!!!

UP for V Day

Awesome art from a favorite movie, UP.

We All Read

I finished two books this weekend. Not your typical reading material nowadays as the picture above would show.

Bedok Reservoir Runner’s Heaven

Today, the eve of Chinese New Year, me and my friends planned a 12KM run that became just 8 but it was well worth it. Today is also the birthday of Kuya Ariel, the guy who out runs everyone almost every time we workout. We ran in his home turf, Bedok Reservoir. This made our run beautiful! No cars, no stoplights, scenic environment, clean air, classic sunset. I was first to arrive and my first impression was this place is runner’s heaven. Look at that! The picture I gathered was from wikipedia. That’s how gloomy it could be with a storm threatening it. When I first saw it, it was close to sunset. It was breathtaking! One round is about 4.3 kilometers. The tracks are covered with sand, absorbing most of the impact coming from your feet. This is great for most shoes. But I was using my lunar glides. These shoes are supposed to make it seem like I’m running on the moon. Running on sand sorta makes it look like you are on the moon, making the lunar gliders redundant. It was an effort for me to run on the sand. I had to run on the skirts of the track where the beaten grass lay. I had side-stitches. I blame the super-dog I had an hour before the run. Next time, I’ll stick to yoghurt and/or fruit juices.

Wave and Buzz’ Potential Over Facebook

Google will make sharing actually seem like sharing. The problem with Facebook is for a social network that swears its business by the generosity of its members sharing things, Facebook is stingy. If you haven’t read my A Sad Decentralized Social Network and Loïc Le Meur’s My Social Map is Totally Decentralized but I Want It Back On My Blog, you’d see the importance of having your activities back where you want them. It’s the place where you live, the place you call home. Home-Sweet-Home-Page. Also known as your personal blog. All bloggers would understand this. If you think about it, it is funny. You share your status updates using twitter, you share using Facebook. But blogger’s true personal profile should be on his personal site, not in a social network. The person’s membership to social network is a lot like a person’s membership to any group. If you are a member of your high school’s dance club, you know what I mean. Aside from the after practice pizza and occasional movie hangout, what you get is another set of friends–a.k.a. social network. And just as what your parents have been telling you, you don’t befriend people just to become someone else. You are who you are. You becomes friends with people you have similar interests with. In a manner of speaking, Facebook is trying to define who we are by the limitations it’s own philosophies has set on itself. And we’ve seen this happen many times in the past. FB is trying to be better, sure. But what I don’t understand is, as it moves towards a certain direction, why must everyone else be dragged along with it. For example, if I wanted to use a certain…

Dear JD, To Go Or Not To Go

Today’s Dear JD comes from an aspiring VFX artist who is seemingly down on his luck, but may very well be approching a career opportunity that he might miss if his eyes are open. Dear JD,
I don’t know if you would be able to help. My problem is weird. Someone set up an interview for me for a job I’m not prepared to do and definitely not what I’m looking for. I want to be a Visual Effects Artist and the job is for a junior technical director. I can rig characters, but not in the software they are using. Should I still go for the interview? Or should I start looking for an excuse. Sincerely,
Stuck-Between-Two-Uncool-Places When I read the letter, I remembered a clip from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Elizabeth was trying to convince Jack Sparrow to change his ways. Elizabeth Swann: There will come a time when you have a chance to do the right thing.
Jack Sparrow: I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by. Dear Stuck-Between-Two-Uncool-Places, You think you are in a bad position with no where to turn to. It could be very profitable if you just look at it from a different angle. I won’t be against having the interview. Interviews go and should go two ways. It should benefit both parties. You could learn from the company and the industry as much as they’d learn from you if you ask questions. But you should be honest. Don’t pretend to be good at things when you are not. Tell them you are proficient in rigging…

Officially Registered and Training for Sundown Marathon

I am officially registered in the Sundown Marathon 2010. Whheeewwww!!!! Not for a 42 kilometer run. I’m not ready for that. I registered for the half-marathon. And even for that, the 5 months of running I’ve had might not be enough. Yes, I am scared. But I’ve always been scared whenever we venture into a longer than normal run. The initial fear makes the run special. According to the McMillan Running Calculator–even though I haven’t run as far as 21 kilometers ever–if I do, I’ll be able to finish in 2 hours and 48 minutes (and 16 seconds). I could hardly believe that. I hope they didn’t just get my speed and use that to see how fast I’d be able to run my 21km. They are supposed to calculate my finish time while considering my definite slow down because of the distance. I scoured the internet for a training guide. To date, we’ve got just a couple days over a hundred before the big day. 29-5-2010. That’s not much time. Things have to go serious. I found the training guide that best suites me. The ULTIMATE HALF-MARATHON TRAINING PLAN from Runners World Online. It has profiles for all sorts of runners, from beginners to seasoned runners. It’s a nine week program. Rest days already scheduled in. The only pre-requisite for 21km runners is weekly mileage of 30 miles. I could work my way up to that. And I’m gonna have to follow the nine week schedule exactly. This is a make or break thing. The strict and detailed regiment is important for a beginner like me. I’ve no one to tell me when I’m over training or when I’m being too soft on…

CG or Non-CG?

Look at this picture. Look at all the little parts. Answer this question. Do you think it is:

a) a real photo of a tornado
b) a real photo a volcano
c) traditional painting at it’s finest
d) digital matte painting
e) a real photo of a man walking his dog
f) none of the above
g) all of the above

Okay, too many options? How about just answering this? Is this CG or not? Once you are sure of your answer why don’t you click on this photo to see whether you were correct or not . No cheating!!!!! That’s Matthew Albanese’s work. If you’d like to know about his stuff, check this page out.

Choosing Your Career: Rigging, Animation or Something Else?

This morning, on my way to work, I received the most unlikely email. Dear JD, I am [name with-held] an aspiring animator from [hometown with-held]. I have heard a lot about you and your work. You are just perfect. Currently I am studying one of your rigs, so I thought it would be better to seek your advice regarding my future career. I am in a dilemma trying to choose between RIGGING and ANIMATION for my specialization. I am interested in both fields. Please guide me! Sincerely,
Dilemma-Between-Animation-and-Rigging The compliments, however far-fetched, made my day. I remember what I went through when I had to answer this very same question. Rigging or Animation? I recall the first lines of Romea and Juliet. Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life,
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents̓ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-marked love
And the continuance of their parents̓ rage,
Which but their children̓s end, naught could remove,
Is now the two-hours̓traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. It’s a fair question. Rigging or Animation. Both lovers and haters. They have one goal in the end and as they work hand in hand, they are still world’s apart. Yet, one would not exist without the other. They are kindred souls. Dear…

Intelligent Running Calculator

I saw this calculator for runners in McMillanRunning. You start by inputting information: the distance you run on average, your best time, mileage, age and gender. Then it’ll make educated estimates on how you’ll probably fair running other distances. It’ll also give you a list of what pacing you should use in your workout runs, for whatever kind of workout you wish to use, to get the best results possible. For an example of the results, check this out.

Ending Sprint

Yesterday’s run was a short one. Just 8 KM for our team’s usual Tuesday night 12+ runs. We decided, to ensure the future of our running endeavors, we needed to first secure another endeavor we have in life, specifically the endeavor that finances our running, our daytime jobs. And as much as we enjoy running–in fact, continually adding the numbers every week–we’ve been going home later and later on Tuesday nights. Not a very good thing, considering we pride ourselves for setting good examples for our fellow country men. Our decision was not an all reduction policy, though. Dropping our 12K Tuesday to just 8 is really just part of the story. Our Tuesday nights was redubbed, “maintenance night.” Eight kilometers, we think, should be enough to keep the blood flowing until our “New Day of Reckoning,” Saturday. That’s when we go for kill. And because we our not bound to stay at work til after 7pm, we could start early. Maybe before the Sun is down. My excitement does not waver one bit. Last night, knowing our run was a short one, I left no reservations. On multiple times, approching intersections I saw the blinking green man. I’d normally slow down and allow myself to wait for the next one, resting a little bit. Last night, I always ran for it. Sprint! A couple of times, in fact, the red man appeared while I was right at the middle of the road. But that’s fine. Civilized countries give pedestrians more lee-way than others. And towards the end of the last kilometer, I decided to speed up. It was the first time I realized how much energy I had left. So I gave it my all, sprinted for about 200-300 meters (after about 7…

Colored Animals

I stumbled upon this book called Chroma: Design, Architecture and Art in Color (Glasner, Barbara; Schmidt, Petra (Eds.)). They talk about color. Nothing but color. To be honest I have yet to open the book. But I like what I see so far. The goal of the book is to show how important the role of color is to a designer. In other words, color shouldn’t be an after thought. It should be an integral part of the design. Most of the time, when artists learn to design in schools, the first parts of the classes is to use the graphite pencil (a color less medium) and they start designing. They make sure proportions are correct, shapes are right, positions precise. They even add in texture and value when there is time. Once all these are laid out, only then do they think about color.
The photos I stole of oddly but beautifully colored animals came from the book, but I got them from we make money not art. I love that site. They are honest. The same way I want to be. Look at that cute little rhino. Now remember, color is an integral part of design, not an afterthought! Happy designing!!!!

First Colored Shoes

This morning while wearing my socks I saw all the shoes I had. They were all either grey, black, or black and white. The first ever pair I bought since I’ve been staying here in Singapore that has color are my new Nike Lunar Gliders. That it over there in the picture above. I bought the pair specifically because my 80kg weight was giving me hell when I run. I was using PUMA’s, 173 gram shoes, LIFT. It was light. Really light! But I needed cushioning for my running. I spent 3 days in agony, my feet’s soles felt bruised blue, learning the lesson. I bought my new runners before the pain in my soles left and not two days after that I was back on the road running.
LIFTs were never really designed for running. They are more street-fashion shoes, I think (don’t quote me on this, I’m really unsure). So when my feet were crying in pain, the Nike’s ad came to mind, “actually, it is rocket science.” Their ads were all men and women running. It was a beckon call. They did not disappoint! Lunar Glides are wonderful!!! My only qualm is the cushion I get from the shoes subtract from my leg’s power. This was made apparent when I saw that my fastest run 10k+ run was the same run with my LIFTs. But I’m never going back to them, not even for short runs. The soles lack the necessary profile to provide grip on the road. When I’m walking, and the surface I’m on is ever so slightly slippery, I look like a kid trying to…

The Long Road Home

I just finished John Grogan’s second best-seller, The Longest Trip Home. It was no Marley and Me but the book had similar bio-rhythms. I read for 2 weeks, laughing most of the time, and only in the last two days reading the last quarter of the book, when the story started winding up the two weeks worth of invested stories, did things change and every page was a tear-jerker. I remembered my family, especially my Dad, most of whom I only see a couple of days a year. Marley and Me was similar. For the better part of both novels, Grogan would continually regal you with stories, casting his fishing lines long, as long as it takes. Then, right when you least expect it–usually when you can’t wait for the next laugh trip you’ll get–he gives those lines a quick effective tug and you are hooked. Then he reels you in. All the comedy he put in was an investment. He was setting you up (almost mischievously). He was making sure that as certain events happened in the end, you’d know the emotional significance. When robust people change or even passaway, you feel it. He doesn’t need to write when is is sad that it was sad because you know it’s sad. You know because you know the characters intimately. You’ve been spending the last two weeks laughing at them, and sometimes with them. I was being reeled in these last two days and wheeew! What a story!!! Now, I understand. For the rest of the books I’ve read and most of my reviews of them check out my goodreads profile.

January’s Ending Note

function scro11me(f){f.contentWindow.scrollTo(0,0); } This will probably be my last run for January. I’ve a total of 88.24 kilometers of running logged in runkeeper. I have a student who used to do 40km a week. My golly! Will I ever be able to do that? I’ll aim to.
I was aiming to increase my speed when I ran this evening. I jogged for about a kilometer then I bent forward and sped. I thought I was running my fastest tonight. But when I checked, my fastest average was still the first run I had this year. I wasn’t expecting that. That run was the run that almost debilitated me from walking for three days. But it was also one of the most spiritual runs I’ve had. I felt like dying so many times but there was a source of energy that continued to overflow through me. And when I arrived home, there was an email from myself. It was no coincidence. There is a conductor of life’s orchestra.

Why Do I Run?

function scro11me(f){f.contentWindow.scrollTo(0,0); } On the last kilometer of my first 13k run, my vision began to dim, the tips of my fingers were numb and prickly. I was dragging my feet like dogs who want to take a leak on a fire hydrant. The sidewalks were empty but for me. I was denying the pain my legs were screaming about. All of a sudden, a kid no taller than my belly button, ran out from no where, cut my path then ran back behind me. The kid had a smile and a look of mischief on his face. Half, he wanted to race me; half, he only wanted to show he could run faster. I didn’t look back to see where he went. I knew there won’t be anyone there. The kid, after all, was just a figment of my imagination. Or much rather, a part of my childhood’s memory. I was that little boy, once upon a time, and my role today was of my dad when he was training to run a marathon. It actually happened. I don’t remember how exactly, but it did happen. My dad was doing rounds around our village and my mom brought us out to walk to the grocery. We saw our dad running. We cheered him on. I dashed to his side, raced him and pulled back when I got in front to end my three second lead. In my immature mind, I thought I proved once and for all that I could run faster than any man on earth. Twenty years later, things have changed. My body has changed. Running takes effort now. Gravity is no longer a friend but rather an arch enemy constantly trying to get me. Twenty years later, I learned that life is a constant struggle…

What’s Wrong With This Bear?

What is wrong with this picture? Is it too the number of motion capture markers on the bear? Is it the pose of the bear? Is it because the top mocap point that should have been an apple? Is it the tummy of the bear? The grin? Let me know. BTW picture was from yed3d’s blog.

Quickly Batch Mocap Conversion

In my thrill in the discovery of the mother load of free motioncapture data, I downloaded all the animations, which were made up of ASF files (skeleton setups) and matching AMC files (motion captured animation). The total download was more than 2 gigabytes. The promised 4 gigabytes might have been due to the multiple versions of the same data. I only downloaded one type. The type I could import into Maya, the ASF’s and their matching AMC’s filetypes. Converting these files meant using programs already made available by CMU from their website. There are two DOS executable files available for download. The first is asf2mel.exe which converts ASF files into a MEL script that builds a joint hierarchy for you. The second is amc2mov.exe which creates another MEL script that sets up the joint hierarchy just created to accept the animation contained in the second file, an MOV. The commands to use the two files are easy to learn. To learn, just peruse the documentation page from MCU mocap lib. You won’t have a hard time. The only difficulty I had was the 2,500+ files I wanted to convert. I knew there was no way in hell I’d be typing commands 2.5 thousands times. Instead I developed a batch sequence that would, in a sense, scan the its own folder for ASF files (files containing skeletons) and then scan the same folder for matching AMC files (files containing motion) and convert them, plus segregate them into folders. Took me about 30 minutes figuring the nine-line script out. But it was well worth it. The computer worked for me for the next three hours converting file after file. If you downloaded a bunch of ASF files and AMC files from CMU Mo-Cap Library and you want to…

Motion Capture

I discovered a wealth of motion capture data from Carnegie Mellon University’s website that is free to use (commercial or noncommercial), convert and redistribute with no need for permissions. Wait a minute… Carnegie Mellon… Why does that sound so familiar? Yes! It was host to one of the most famous lectures delivered in our time by mere human (The Sermon on the Mount, even minus the booming voice, doesn’t qualify). I am talking about “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. It was made popular by Oprah. A book was also created to better spread its message. If you are about to watch the clip, make sure you’ve got something to wipe your eyes with, the air strangely dries up when Randy Pausch delivers his jokes. I know Mr. Pausch isn’t solely responsible for the free motion capture data, but I am positive he is involved in one way or the other. This page hints towards my hunch. Regardless of whom to thank, Carnegie Mellon infuses the same kind of generous spirit we adore in the Randy Pausch. An entire database worth over 4 gigabytes of motion captured data. To be honest, I’m no mocap fan. But I do acknowledge a lot of its advantages. One need only mention one word. Avatar. After that movie, James Cameron placed “motion capture” on an even par with key animation, making it a worthy alternative. The mocap data from CMU Graphics Lab Motion Capture Database would fail in comparison to the mocap of Avatar. But that shouldn’t be anything anyone should be ashamed of. It is usually through similar endeavors…

Slow Running, Sure Running

I had a slow and painful run today. The cross-training I did last Friday did more harm than good. Because the basketball court was filled with people by the time we got there, I did neither stretchings nor warm ups. Whenever the ball would go out of bounds pausing the game, I’d feel my leg muscles tighten. But I was stubborn. I neglected my own advice to my students “We are no longer young. Our bodies will be in-shock with the sudden activity.” Mine, especially. My legs have always been sluggish to start work and have been consistently prone to injury due to lack of stretching. When I reached home, I iced my knees and my ankles while writing stitches. The next day I swathed them in a poultice of hirudoid and analgesic balm, sleeping most of the day to allow them rest. They weren’t really painful. I just wanted to take care of them. Part of their recuperation, in my quack-doctor mind, is to allow blood to flow through them or, in other words, allow them to have a light workout. I ran a considerably short distance with a considerably slow speed. 6 kmh. I couldn’t go any faster because I knew I might re-injure my knees real bad. After about 3 kilometers, I could feel my knees performing better. So I let them. I’d up my speed for a couple hundred meters then drop again. I feel none of the slight discomfort I had before the run. I hope it’ll be completely gone by tomorrow. I don’t mind slowing down. Maybe my younger self would have been very much frustrated. There were a hand full of runners who sped pass me like they were…

Russian Go All Heaty to Combat Colds

I was reading europeantrotter, a European travel blog and found something incredibly interesting. The Russian remedy to colds is something the Chinese (well at least in my understanding) would consider completely stupid. Now, I’m not trying to start a war between these two (once-)communist countries, so before you start your judgment allow me to share my findings. I’m no expert, but in my understanding of Traditional Chinese Medicine, things are split into two competing concepts that need to be balanced much like Yin and Yang. When it comes to food, there is heaty and cooling. When you eat types of food that fall under the category of heatiness (like peanuts, pepper, ginger, soybean oil, red and green pepper, chicken, apricot seed, brown sugar, cherry, chestnut, chive, cinnamon twig, clove, coconut, coffee) certain symptoms start to emmanate. These include short temper, fever, constipation, sore throat, pimples outbreaks and mouth ulcers.
I’ve witnessed these from my classmates. I am a sucker for peanuts my entire life. One time, I brought a pack of Chocnut (a Filipino snack made up of peanuts, milk, cane sugar, cocoa powder–all heaty ingredients) so that my Singaporean classmates could try it out. Most of my friends declined the offer. Mumbling something about heatiness I didn’t understand then. One of them indulged himself. Took a quarter of the amount I had myself. The next day he couldn’t speak much because his mouth was bespeckled with ulcers. While I had neither pimples, colds or ulcers. So, when my friends have colds, they stay away from heaty foods. But what about the just-as-effective Russian method of…

Stitches

I was invited to basketball by some students. Since basketball could be a chance for me to crosstrain, I said yes. True enough, not ten minutes in the court I felt like giving up. My breathing was worse than when I run. But the game wasn’t the highlight of that night. JZ, a good friend and student, slipped while chasing after a ball to prevent it from going out of bounds. He lost his footing and sent his feet flying forwards until his back hit the ground. His shin caught the sharp edge of a planter surrounding the court, scraping it and cutting deep in some places. He said he was fine. We continued playing while he sat on the bench and the rest of us were breathing our lungs out. Before going home, JZ disappeared to clean his wound. He was gone longer than usual. And when he came back he said there was a cut that was too deep for mother nature to handle. For one, there seemed no slowing down to the blood’s profusion. It was obvious, he needed stitches. Since it was too late by then to use any bus and/or MRT and he lived near my place we decided to take a cab together so he could go down to a hospital on the way. On the way, I told him a story. An anecdote I know he’d be able to relate to was when I received the scar on my left leg. You see, on my left leg is a scar the shape of the letter i (in italicized times new roman, to be accurate). I received it when I was in grade 2. I was playing with my friends. On this particular day, we were playing tag…

VFX Students Batch 14

Another quarter in the life of a 3dsense lecturer. I’m advising another set of students who want to specialize in Visual Effects. I asked them to blog all their updates (a discipline I, myself, am trying to learn) and to help them out I’m sharing their links here so you guys could encourage them or look at their stuff. http://brainnivfx.blogspot.com/
http://nowayasway23.blogspot.com/ One of these days I’ll compile all the works of all the students who worked under me into a single page for the blog-o-sphere’s appreciation.