Keeping it Fresh and New…

Posted by Jamie Gwilliam on Monday 13th October 2008 at 2:20pm | Comments (0)

Feeling fresh and relaxed after a week-long break from work, I want to keep this fresh, new and learning theme going for as long as possible….

So, who else better than the ‘The Fresh Prince’ to get us jigging along this week… Hit it Will - “just a little something to break the monotony, of all that hard core dance that has gotten to be a little bit out of control…”

Back to University

For me, this is the highlight of the calendar. Autodesk University (AU) runs from the 2-5 December, in Las Vegas. There are over 600 sessions which cover all things Autodesk. Let me know if you plan on attending, and I will see you there.

Tuesday, December 2 - 5, 2008
The Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino
3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South, Las Vegas, NV 89109

Capture Motion with 3ds Max

As you know the Biped system in 3ds Max/Design is extremely powerful, however, the human eye is excellent at spotting if movement is computer generated. So to solve this issue, the Biped System will read Motion Capture (MoCap) data.

But how do you find good MoCap resources? On the installation DVD you will find a wealth of files that do not get installed. These are designed to cover most scenarios, so go back and trawl through those brilliant clips. Especially when you start to add this to the MoFlow options and animation layers to build up the clips to form the animation you need. 3ds Max will handle the four most commonly used motion analysis file formats.

Its all Rigged

Should you be new to MoCap and Biped, then have a look at these PDF tutorials from aXYZ, which I personally recommend. (No online registration needed for download)

I also want to point you in the direction of Rocketbox, another great online commercial resource of textured, and animated libraries for use with 3ds Max, to add life to animations.
When choosing a library of props and furniture, try to ensure they have normal maps, specular maps and have the same models set up in various poly count states - ie high, medium, and low. Normal maps are particularily important, buy adding extra detail (for example creases in clothing) but without any of the over-heads of extra rendering time that modeled detail will bring..

A Free animated and rigged* model can be downloaded by clicking here. As you know, nothing is ever free, so you will need to register your details with the company to download the content. This is an external resource.

(*A ‘rig’ is the term for the process of adding controlling ‘skeleton’ to the mesh.)

However if you want more raw MoCap data then you should have a look at this web site from Carnegie Mellon University. They have been kind enough to post over 1 gb of free data for use worldwide in research and commercial projects.

Its Elemental my dear Watson:

Special congratulations go to the following companies for having work published in Elemental 3, the latest offering from Ballistic Publishing.

Aedas Imaging
Smoothe
AHD-imaging
Preconstruct
Neoscape
GMJ
Uniform

Another ‘M’ in the family

And last, but certainly not least, Autodesk Mudbox 2009, was released last week.

This is the much anticipated release of the intuitive and artistic modelling package that features of wealth of organic modeling brushes. This extremely powerful package is a great accompaniment 3ds Max, especially when you require more detail in your high poly models.

I have been playing with Mudbox for a while now, and strongly recommend you download the trail to see why I’m passionate about this product inconjunction with 3ds Max. The Free trial can be downloaded here.

To view what some of the existing user base have been doing then follow this link: Gallery of stunning work can be viewed here.

An Image showing work of Jacques Defontaine:

As with any ‘new’ product there is a learning curve. In the case of Mudbox, this is extremely small, and for most people I’ve shown it to they can get going on their own and feel comfortable with the UI after the first 20 minutes. However to help you along then a full set of Learning resources can be found here.

Until next time, Happy Max’ing

Posted by Jamie Gwilliam on Monday 13th October 2008 at 2:20pm

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