This is my 2007 Character Rigging Demo Reel. It contains a good portion of my work through my time at ILM, minus “Spiderwick Chronicles”. I need to add that, and once the Clone Wars stuff from LucasFilm Animation comes out, I’ll make sure to add it in, too.
I’ve finally decided to learn ZBrush in earnest, and I’ll be posting my results here.
My tutorial that I’m using to dive into ZBrush is one of the latest from the guys at The Gnomon Workshop, Introduction to ZBrush:Interface & Workflow with Ryan Kingslien. So far so good. I opted for the digital download. I have to say, it’s a major pain in the ass to attain instant gratification. The tutorial is broken into 33 separate downloads obtained from a password protected site that allows access for only five days. So if you go that route, act quickly. I still have a few to download. Once I have them all, I’m going to burn a DVD backup, just in case.
Here is a work-in-progress based on the first few lessons. Don’t blame the tutorials for my crappy model. The tutorial is just teaching the interface and uses a head as the first exercise. The sculpting is my responsibility.
I just pulled this model out of my butt and will go back and look at some reference so that it’s a bit more anatomically correct. Again…WIP.
This is a quickie example of a dynamic skirt rig made for Snow Clone Troopers on the TV show Clone Wars. It can blend between keyframed and dynamic, with the motion of the keyframed animation affecting the dynamic motion to whatever percentage you want.
This technique was adopted to a number of other subsequent skirt/dress rigs.
There’s no sound with the video, so don’t bother adjusting your speakers… 
A small update to my object renaming replacement for 3DS Max.
There are two important upgrades:
One, I added in functionality from the original renaming script that allows the user to delete characters from the beginning or end of an object name, but in my own way. Highlighted in red, there now exists the ability to delete any number of characters from anywhere in the object name. By defining a beginning and ending point, those characters will be deleted (actually, I just thought of an idea — putting a text box in there so you could replace the old characters with new — next version).
If you check the “End of Word” box, then you’ll notice that End is disabled. In this mode, Start becomes the number of characters from the end of the word. I don’t like changing a UI’s functionality mid-stream, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Let me know if it’s too confusing.
Two, the script is now intended to replace the code called by Tools|Rename Objects….
You’ll still use Tools|Rename Objects, but once you follow the instructions below, calling Rename Objects will launch newRenamer instead. I might need to make it more elegant or auto-install itself, but that will come when I learn how to do it.
Installation:
(below, replace “3DS Max 2008″ with whatever version you have, although I’ve only tested it in 2008)
1) Rename C:/Program Files/Autodesk/3DS Max 2008/ui/macroscripts/Macro_RenameObjects.mcr to Macro_RenameObjects.bak
2) Copy Macro_AFnewRenamer.mcr to C:/Program Files/Autodesk/3DS Max 2008/ui/macroscripts/
3) Relaunch Max
After installation, the next time you select Tools|Rename Objects… you’ll get the new and, I hope everybody will think, improved object renaming tool.
Let me know if you find any bugs or would like to suggest additional functionality.
Alec
OK, I’ve been looking over MAXscript (MXS) for the last three days now and decided to jump into rewriting a portion of Max that’s bothered me since the first time I saw it (8 days ago), the object rename tool.
newRenamer is a cleaner version that just makes more sense to me. I’m used to the great renaming tool in Maya written by Michael Comet, and I had to have something similar to ease my transition to Max.
I think everything should be self-explanatory, but if not, feel free to drop me a line or reply to this post.
THE SCRIPT: newRenamer.ms
Thanks,
Alec
Hey all. Tomorrow I start working at 2K Marin, a video game developer in Novato as their Character TD. It’ll be an awesome experience. 2K Marin, back when they were in Boston known as, strangely enough, 2K Boston, made the award winning Bioshock and we’re going to continue in that fine tradition on Bioshock 2.
I’m coming from the Maya world into the 3DS Max world, so that hurdle will be the toughest, I think.
Writing the tools, coming up with ideas, and general rigging will be the easy part. The mind shift needed to translate my knowledge into the Max world is actually exciting to me, since learning anything new is what keeps my aging brain at least somewhat pliable.
More to come as I dive headlong into the making video games for one of the coolest companies around.
Alec
