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Creating a Creature Workflow: Part 2

Posted: 20 Mar 2010 10:29 PM PDT




Creating a Creature Workflow: Part 1

This is the 2nd part in a series of videos created by Kenichi Nishida, capturing his personal workflow in creating a creature sculpt using Maya and Mudbox 2011. Chapters covered are concept, creating base mesh, primary, secondary and tertiary form - the later three which focus on developing the overall shape and details of the creature.

CHECK HERE!




Related links:

area.autodesk.com


Conform By UV Lightwave tool

Posted: 20 Mar 2010 07:10 PM PDT


Conform By UV is a plugin for LightWave 3D developed by: Johan Steen
The concept behind this plugin is to be able to have a base mesh and conform it to other variations, even if the variations have gone through major changes. Like chopping off and replacing body parts, dramatically altering the look, size and proportions. The plugin uses the UV layout as a point of reference to find which points to match between the source and destination mesh to perform the conform. The only requirement is that the UV map layout is basically kept identical between the different meshes to be used.
By using the UV layout to make the conform, point order and point count becomes irrelevant. This is especially useful when working with sculpting applications and then bringing back variations to be used for morphs or new meshes.

Usage

Conform By UVSelect the foreground and background layer to conform between and then the UV map to be used for matching and run the plugin. It's important to have in mind that the UV maps of the meshes to conform between must have more or less identical UV layout for this plugin to generate good results.

Mode

The plugin can operate in three different modes: Normal, Cleanup UV and Morph Batch selectable from the dropdown menu.

Normal

The basic functionality, where the the foreground layer conforms to the background layer. The Unweld BG Data and Subdivide BG Data options can be used together with this mode.

Cleanup UV

Conforms the foreground layer's UV map to the background layer instead of the geometry. This can be useful to cleanup UV maps that are slightly different. Unweld BG Data, Subdivide BG Data and Unweld & Merge FG options can be used together with this mode. Unweld BG Data and Unweld & Merge FG are particularly useful to enable if there's many discontinuous UV seams that the plugin doesn't manage to catch otherwise.

Morph Batch

Lets you select multiple background layers which will be conformed into the foreground as endomorphs. The morph prefix setting can be used for a custom prefix. To speed up the process this mode doesn't use the extra options, so make sure you have well behaved meshes for this plugin in your layers before using this mode.

Tolerance

The tolerance setting is used in all modes and tells the plugin how far away a point can be in the UV space until it's not considered for matching. The UV space is calculated from 0-1, so the default setting of 0.02 is 2% tolerance in the UV space. The lower the tolerance the more accurate the matching will be. If the UV maps are 100% identical a setting of 0 could be used, but most of the time where there is slight differences a tolerance of 0.01 to 0.05 seems to work well.

Options

When to use the different options available.



Unweld BG Data

This option unwelds the background layer before doing the matching. The reason one would want to do this is if there's discontinuous UV seams that the plugin doesn't match correctly. This doesn't always happen, it depends on how the mesh is constructed but if it does, this is a useful option. Only use this option when needed as it slows down the calculation quite a lot.

Subdivide BG Data

This option subdivides the background layer to create in-between geometry before doing the matching. This can be really handy to use if the background UV matches border wise but has less geometry than the foreground. It can also take care of situations where the UV maps have too much of a difference in certain regions so the matching isn't perfect, and would then increase the possibility of making a good match even in those cases.
This option comes with a penalty of much longer calculation time, so use with caution.



Unweld & Merge FG

This option is only used in the Cleanup UV mode, and unwelds the foreground before doing the matching and merges the points back when it's complete. This is useful if the cleanup mode doesn't catch discontinuous UV seams. If you combine it with Unweld BG Data discontinuous UV accuracy should be even higher. As it adds to the calculation time, only use this option if you don't get the desired result without it.



Additional Features

  • The plugin respects point and polygon selections, so you can select an ear, head or hand etc. before running the plugin to only conform that part to the background. It's also useful to use selections if it exists problem areas that don't conform properly to include/exclude what you want to conform in the mesh.
  • The conform process can be aborted by pressing the ESC key while the progress bar is running.
  • When the plugin has finished working a report window pops up, giving some information about the result of the operation. If there were points overlapping or points not finding any matches with the background, you have the option here to create point selection sets of the problem points so you easy can select and correct those areas afterwards manually if needed. The selection sets are named UnMatched and Overlap.
  • If you need to delete the generated selection sets, you can do that in Modeler's Vertex Map Window » Selections Sets » UnMatched/Overlap » Right Click » Delete » Voila!


Download

Available downloads for the Conform By UV plugin.

Latest Release

Installation

  • Copy JS_ConformByUV.lsc to LightWave's plug-in folder.
  • If "Autoscan Plugins" is enabled, just restart LightWave and it's installed.
  • Else, locate the "Add Plugins" button in LightWave and add them manually.

recommend to add the plugin to a convenient spot in LightWave's menu, so all you have to do is press the Conform By UV button when you need to use it.

Compability

Conform by UV has been tested with LightWave 3D 9.6, 9.6.1 OB, HC – Win32, Win64 and should work fine on Mac OS as well.

Changelog

The development history of Conform By UV.

Version 1.0 – 16 Mar 2010

  • First public release of the plugin.

Related links:

artstorm.net


Foundry unveils Nuke roadmap

Posted: 20 Mar 2010 08:45 PM PDT


Version 6.1 to feature Ultimatte keyer, improved 3D workflow – and long-awaited 64-bit OS X edition


The Foundry has released details of its product roadmap for Nuke, including details of the 6.1 release expected later this quarter.

Speaking at the company's stereo compositing masterclass, held in London last week, product manager Jon Wadelton revealed that Nuke 6.1 would feature the Ultimatte keyer, improved roto and 3D workflow – and a long-awaited 64-bit edition for OS X.

Significant changes to the 3D environment include:


FBX support
Intended for exporting cameras, point clouds and similar data to Nuke.

Interactive snapping and selection of objects in 3D space
Both are accessible via Python scripting.

Ability to position geometry while looking through the shot camera
As opposed to positioning in the scene view.

3D geometry now has a bounding box
As opposed to the entire frame acting as the bounding box.


Nuke 6.1 will also feature improvements to the painting and roto toolset to speed up stereoscopic workflow, including the option to use a rotoshape as a clone region, and the option to clone between the left and right eye.

"We've already got stereo support in roto for painting on the left side or painting on the right side. What we didn't have was the ability to clone from one to the other," said Wadelton. "That should be useful for dustbusting, for example."

Other new features include better error-handling and improved tracking in NukeX; while the bundled copy of Iridas's FrameCycler that ships with Nuke will be updated to the 2009 release.

No definite release date has been announced for Nuke 6.1, although The Foundry expects it to ship in the second quarter of the year. Further details will be announced at NAB in April.


FURTHER RELEASES AND RUMOURS
Looking further ahead, Wadelton also revealed that future maintenance releases of Nuke will feature settings intended to reduce the "information explosion" created by complex shots, including the option to show only shape or transform keys in the timeline; and more selective display of information in the curve editor.

"By default the curve editor used to show every single point and every single tangent and every single feather," he said. "[In future] by default we will only show the transforms, and any points that you've selected and want to see. It makes it a lot more friendly."

Despite a slide including a tantalising mention of 'Katana features', no new details were announced of changes being made to Nuke as a result of The Foundry's recent technology-sharing agreement with Sony Pictures Imageworks. The partnership includes access to SPI's Katana in-house lighting and look-development toolset.

Asked about rumours that The Foundry is working with the developers of Neat Video on new degrain tools for Nuke, Wadelton would only comment that "something new is coming".


FURTHER RESOURCES
The Nuke session formed just one part of a full-day masterclass on stereo compositing workflow.

For the sold-out event, The Foundry organised a full stereo shoot for a music video, with presentations illustrating the process of cleaning up and adding a digital background to the live footage for stereoscopic display.

Speakers included Inition's Andy Miln, Rise|FX's Florian Gellinger, One Red Pixel's Russell Dodgson and Theo Groeneboom, Framestore's lead stereo compositor on Avatar.

Footage of the masterclass will be available on the fxguide website, while project files will be available from The Foundry as a community resource.


Related links:

3dworldmag.com
thefoundry.co.uk


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