Autodesk Webinar Now Online

I mentioned in my previous post i'd done some filming for Autodesk on behalf of Blitz Games Studios for an upcoming webinar called meet the experts. The live stream was captured and is now available to view online here - Webinar Link As it was a live stream the quality and framerate isn't ideal so I made this for people who were interested in seeing it in more detail. I cover an adjustable rigging system I have built that allows for fast generation of bipedal characters. Unlike autorig scripts the rig is self contained made completely from maya nodes. Which means the rig is always tweakable should models change and can be changed in a none destructive manner. As well as this there is a toolset I have written in Python/PyQt that allows for pose/animation management and rig utilities such as IK/FK matching and mirroring. Feedback welcome, Enjoy...

Autodesk Webinar - Meet the Expert Autodesk & Blitz Games Studios

Did some filming today in preparation for an upcoming live webinar i'll be doing on behalf of Blitz Games Studios for Autodesk. The live webinar takes place Friday April 20th between 1-2pm (GMT) and i'll be talking through some rigs and tools I have created while working in the R&D team. There will also be opportunity for me to answer some questions at the end of the talk. If your interested in that sort of thing its free to register here - http://uk.event-publisher.autodesk-service.com/7503/registration it should also be available to watch later on the Autodesk site and I'll put the footage on my blog as well for you all.

Super Bowl XLVI - Polar Bears

February 5th 2012 marked the 46th NFL Super Bowl which saw the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots. Companies use the Super Bowl to promote there products as it is a very widely viewed sporting event hitting 114 million viewers this year. I along with the Blitz R&D team created a realtime application that simulated the famous coca cola bears watching the game themselves. Game engine rigs allowed users to puppet the on-screen bears in real-time through Xbox 360 controllers. As well as reacting to the game itself for the full four hours they could interact with viewers through tweets and facebook messages. 

For the project I created rigs for the Bears themselves as well as the Baby Bear/Penguin/Coke Bottles and Scarves. I also created tools to ease the export process from Maya to the Blitztech engine the application was created in. It was a great project to have the chance to work on and think the results were very good. It was a nice feeling to know that so many people tuned in to see the bears live and think it will be remembered for a long time to come.

Adjustable Rigging - Leg

Final post for now around adjustable rigging solutions. Heres an example of a fully adjustable reverse foot setup and IK/FK leg I created. As well as being able to adjust the proportions of the leg and foot it also allows for complete control over the pivot points of the reverse foot setup. Again as with the spine and arm solutions it leaves control objects all zeroed out and oriented correctly. For now this concludes my investigation into adjustable rig setups. The idea is not to have bloated advanced rigs but to have a very solid rig that can be adjusted on the fly to speed up creation of bipedal characters for prototyping/production.

Adjustable Rigging - Arm

As mentioned i've recently been tasked with creating an adjustable rig solution for fast turnaround of bipedal characters. Heres an example of an adjustable IK/FK arm I created. It allows full repositioning and orientation of the clavicles, shoulder, elbow, wrist and fingers. As with the spine it allows for adjustment while maintaining 0 values on control objects. The arm solution also supports stretchy IK and IK/FK matching.