BG v3.3.04 Beta Release!!

Wha wha WHAT!?!! A new release!?!?! Yes, I am happy to say that Basic Guy is ready for you all to animate. He's currently still in "Beta" (meaning, that I'm only posting this in limited places), but he should be good to go.

As I mentioned in my previous post, he is currently limited to Maya UNLIMITED users only (Maya v7.0+). However, I'm still looking into ways to get all the "bendy" limb stuff supported when using Maya Complete. So, I apologize to those of you that are not able to use this latest release. But, by the poll results, that isn't that many of you...

Here is a list of v3.0.04 changes:
1) uv's and a generic texture (I included the Photoshop files for those of you that want to edit further). The one there is pretty "basic"... but, should get you all started.
2) I edited his ability to make an "OO" shape some. I received quite a few comments that it was really hard to get that shape. Hopefully now, it's easier...
3) Bendy limbs (select the BGCtrl_Switchers to turn them on)
4) Different way of squashing and stretching the head (select the "BGCtrl_Head" and turn on "SS_Vis")

Known Limitations:
1) You CANNOT change the name of the controls (i.e. reference the file). This will make the fk/ik matching not work (I'm looking into ways to fix this).
2) Settings work best when set to "centimeter"
3) MAYA UNLIMITED only (I'm looking into ways to fix this).

Here is where you can find him:
Zip file
or
7-Zip file: smaller file size

Anyway, that's about it. Sorry once again to those of you that are Maya Complete users. But, I am looking into other solutions for the bendy limbs. I may just take the bendy stuff out for now so that you all can at least have the rest of the "new" features...

Cheers and happy animating!
Tim

About Time I post something!!!

Well, it sure has been a while since I posted something huh!?!? Sorry about that. I mean to post WAY more than I ever get around to. But, life for me has been extremely busy these past few months. In January, my wife and I had our second son! So, we now have a 7 week old and a 2 year old... Needless to say we're very tired;) But, things are slowly getting back to some kind of routine. I am finding some (if very little) free time before work and even some time after the family has gone to sleep (though, lately, I'm WAY too tired to keep up my late night routine) to work on Basic Guy and my other personal projects...

Anyway, I have some good news and some bad news about Basic Guys next release.

Bad News:
The new Basic Guy release that's coming down the pipe only works in Maya UNLIMITED. It has to do with how I handle the bendy limb stuff... I'm using "follicles" and that is a Maya Unlimited only feature. Above this post you will see a poll that I set up (about what version of Maya you're using). Please answer truthfully (though I dont know why you would make up the answer...). To be honest, I don't know how many people actually use Maya "Complete". For some reason my gut tells me that the vast majority of people are using Unlimited. So, the following image probably isnt that big of a deal (what BG looks like when opened in Maya Complete...gha!):



However, if a lot of you are using Complete then maybe I'll need to re-think the bendy arm/leg solution. Or, maybe I'll do a release that has the old rig but will include the other new "features".

Ok, now the good News:
As you can see in the image, Basic Guy is finally uv'd! I was waiting for a co-worker to paint a texture for him, but well, that's just taking WAY too long. So, I'm making my attempt at hacking something together for you all. I will release the Photoshop images for you all so that you all can easily customize and paint your own textures for him if you want.

Also, I want to release a "beta" version of him very soon (hopefully in a few days or so...). This way all of you who stop by my blog can play with him and help me make sure that he is ready for a bigger release.

Here's to a new Basic Guy release very soon!

Cheers and as always happy animating!
Tim

BG version 3.something...

When I finished BG v3.0, my goal was to start animating again. It's been WAY too long since I actually set some keys on a personal project... So, I set out and I started to story board out some ideas. I was also reading the comments from you all about BG v3 and what improvements/additions you all wanted. Most of them were already on my list of things that I wanted to add...especially the bendy limb stuff. So, a bit begrudgingly, I decided that I would go back and work on the rig a bit more. These updates to Basic Guy will be more fun to animate for me too!

So, the first thing that I decided to implement was the bendy limb stuff. It took me a bit to figure out the best way to do this. I played with spline ik solutions, expression based solutions, utility node solutions...pretty much anything that I could think of. Unfortunately, nothing was working the wayt that I wanted it to. I would get everything set up and then I would run into issues such as spline ik twisting issues, fk/ik snapping issues, etc. Needless to say, I lost handfuls of hair during this!

The solution that I ended up going with was based off of Aaron Holly's ribbon spine. If you have never heard of this solution, it basically uses hair follicles to use as the deformer! This seems to be by far the most versatile solution. Perfect it is not, but I am very happy with it right now. The only down side of this solution is that I think you must be using Maya "Unlimited" to have the bendy stuff work. However, since I'm not really using much of the "hair" side of things, I may be wrong about this....

I also added more finger controls. Or more specifically, I added the "carpal" bones. This will allow you to get more realistic/less rigid hand poses.

Now this next announcement is really exciting to me. A co-worker has agreed to lay out his uvs for me!!!! Yes, Basic Guy is FINALLY getting uv'd! He also said that he would paint a texture for him as well. I'm also toying with the idea of modeling "clothes" that would be swappable on him. This way, BG will be way more customizable than he is now...

Also in the works is a more robust GUI. However, since MEL and me are not the best of friends, this process is taking some time. But, in the end, I hope to have a GUI where you can select rig parts, the ik/fk matching, maybe some pose buttons, face rig, etc...

Anyway, there is a small update as to what I've been doing lately.

Thanks to all of you who have emailed me with priceless feedback and also all the kind words!

Cheers and happy animating!
Tim

Tutorial: FK/Ik matching

Oh my, what's this!?!?! Another post in the month of July! That makes for a total of 3 whole posts this month (a loud gasp is heard from the masses)! Yeah yeah yeah, I'm as surprised as the rest of you;) Who knows, maybe I'll become a "good" blogger after all. Hah! I doubt that very much...

Anyway, I just finished a tutorial that I have been meaning to write for a while now. It's a tutorial on how I do the fk/ik matching in my rigs. It's about 7 or so pages long. I quickly cover how I create my arm rigs as well as the MEL code that I use to match one rig to the other. Hopefully, it is clear enough (and not too boring) to follow along. Of course this is just one way to do this task. But, it seems to work well for me. It also seems to be very quick for Maya to evaluate.

The download consists of:
1) A Maya scene (created in Maya 7.0.1, but should work in Maya 7-2008)
2) the tutorial (".pdf" style)
3) the MEL scripts

Go ahead, sit back with a big, hot cup of (strong) coffee and read on...

Here is the direct link:
Tim's fkik_snapping/matching_tutorial

Cheers and enjoy!
Tim

And then there was version 3.0.1...

Hey all,
So, after a few minor complaints about the face rig location, I decided to do a minor rig update. Version 3.0.1 now has the ability to shift Basic Guy's face rig to the left or right side of his face. I guess people were having "a hard time posing him with the rig there". I'm not sure if I understand that completely (you all know that you can turn the rig(s) visibility on and off... right?). Or, were they having a hard time animating the face with the rig there?

Either way, you now have more options! I should have thought of that initially, but I didn't...doh!

Anyway, thanks for all the great feedback! I hope that you are all enjoying the latest update! I can't wait to finish my friggen work deadline (I'm at the end of "crunch" right now on our latest game title... gha!) so that I can take a stab at animating him again!

Here is the new version:
Basic_Guy_v3.0.1.rar

Here is the link to the rig overview again (for those that love boring camtasia videos;) ):
BasicGuy_v3_overview.mov

As always, enjoy and happy animating!

Tim

Basic Guy 3.0.0 Released!!!!

Wow, I have finally put the final touches on Basic Guy v3.0.0 (I believe that a pig JUST flew by my window)!!! I'm not sure if you can tell, but I'm REALLY excited about it... I actually have butterflies going on in my stomach. What initially started, almost a year ago, as me simply adding a mouth to him is now a fully rigged face. I took a long time rigging and re-rigging his face (There were also a lot of model changes... which led to re-skinning the face over and over again...ugh). Unfortunately, I had a very hard time finding "free" time to really sit down and focus on him (long hours at work, playing with my son, and hanging out with my wife and friends are my excuses). Anyway, the rig is more or less based off of the ever so popular Jason Osipa style face rig. The way that I have it set up makes it pretty easy for me (or whoever) to add more controls or to refine the shapes/sliders that are already there. I really do hope that you all like the new additions. I'm even posting him before I have really animated him myself (gasp!)! I did, however, spend a lot of time pushing and pulling on him to make sure that he holds up in most situations (3d characters all have their breaking points).

I also went through and tried to clean up any bugs that people had reported. The biggest one that I have (hopefully) resolved is the fk/ik matching when he has the world node anywhere other than 0,0,0, and his scale set to anything other than 1 (Thanks for finding that and reporting it Gino!). Honestly, I am not sure how I overlooked that in the previous versions! Anyway, I apologize for any inconveniences that created.

Instead of writing a rig manual, I created a video "rig overview" if you will. It's about 25 minutes long and about 60 MB. I wouldn't call it the most exciting video that you'll ever watch (I did it early in the morning and without a lot of coffee in the veins!)...but, I hope that it covers a lot of the questions that some of you might have. Also, I apologize if the audio is low. I tried to punch it up after the fact, but I may not have punched it up enough.
Here is the link to the video (takes a little bit to load):
BasicGuy_v3_overview.mov

Anyway, I'll stop writing because I'm sure that 90%+ just want to see the next link ;):
Basic Guy v3.0.0.rar


As always, enjoy, and happy animating!
Cheers,
Tim

Tutorial #1: Basic Guy Dress up

While putting the finishing touches on Basic Guy v3.0 (not pictured... the one pictured is the "old" version), I decided to finally start a tutorial section on my site. The first tutorial that I've done is rather basic in nature. I have received a few emails asking me how to change Basic Guys geometry so it appears that he is wearing clothes. Some people have already figured out how to "dress" him for their animations, and in doing so have inspired others around the world. I felt that this would be a great place for me to share some of my knowledge and also play with some other software other than Maya.

I have never laid out the uvs for him, but instead I apply different colors to different geometry faces. Sure, this isn't anywhere near as cool or powerful as an actual texture, but it does help change basic guy's appearance. He is after all... Basic Guy;)

I actually had quite a bit of fun creating this video tutorial. I plan on finding the time to create more in the future (unless the masses tell me to never make another one!). God knows that there is TONS of better material out there to teach you Maya, animation, modeling, or whatever. But, I also love to share the knowledge that I have learned over the years. Maybe someone will learn something while watching my videos. It's also a fun way for me to document things that I can look back on years later and laugh at!

Anyway, I'm sorry that this isn't the post announcing BG 3.0, but I do promise that it will be very soon. He is actually about 99% done. I am just making sure that everything is as clean as can be before I release him to the world.

Here is the link to the tutorial section of my site:
BasicGuy Dressup Tutorial

Cheers and happy animating!