HUGO vs LINO Character Workflow

August 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Maya Muscle again!!!.This time not just in the form of a test to explore the features Autodesk has provided, but a case study on the project HUGO Vs LINO which proved out to be a huge challenge in terms of the quality expected. Even though I had got used to the Muscle tool set Maya provided, incorporating new features in to the existing character pipeline proved to be a tough task. The decision to go with Muscle System for HUGO demanded all the geometries to be cached out before being forwarded to the lighting and the Fx departments. The next stage was to automate the caching process. With a couple of tools for batch export and import of the cache, the process was well under control. Use of smart collision for the arm pits and elbows helped us get believable collision effects. Added to that self collision and smooth attributes were painted on shot basis in order to tackle the mesh artifacts that were encountered in extreme poses.

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Feel the Punch by DNA INC BATCH III

July 24, 2010 by 2 Comments

A mind-game between a beggar and a commuter waiting to board a bus takes a startling turn as the commuter realizes he is outsmarted. The experience leaves him wiser as he discovers that the good-old trick of shooing away beggars is no good anymore.

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HUGO Vs LINO by DNA INC BATCH II

July 22, 2010 by 2 Comments

A lopsided fight between two consenting unequals. An arena where the rules of fair play aren’t applicable. The sheer audacity of a frail android to challenge the herculean might of a formidable hulk. Pride, trickery, frustration and vengeance are all at play as the battleground turns murky. Hugo, a hulk with rippling muscles all over his frame responds to Lino’s open invitation in a newspaper advertisement to beat him in an arm-wrestling bout. The booty: One million dollars in cash. Hugo is gung-ho about winning hands down as Lino is not even half his size. Post the bout, Hugo goes berserk, Lino’s not impressed and all hell breaks loose. Watch this exhilarating fiction plot.

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Bee in the Bonnet by DNA INC BATCH I

February 17, 2010 by 1 Comment

This is the first High-Definition short film from batch I of DNA Inc. And also my first assignment as Mentor since I got associated with DNA Inc. The task handed over to me was that of supervising and reviewing the asset building process and also setting up an efficient pipeline at par with the one available in high-end production houses.

The execution of the project in the scheduled time frame was indeed a challenge with 70-plus shots spanning across a duration of 4 mins. But I am glad that the effort was paid off in the end with the successful completion of the film as scheduled and also an amazing portfolio for every student who was involved in project.

The film was done entirely in Maya 2009 and rendered using Maya Software Renderer.

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Qcalendar widget for Maya GUI using PyQt

December 7, 2009 by Leave a Comment

QCalendar widget is one of the handy widgets provided by PyQt that can be included in your maya custom UI for the user to deal with date information.Apart from providing current date information to the user, Qcalendar widget can be used to get valid date inputs from the user.It includes a set of signals like selectionChanged() and currentPageChanged() which can be used to update the information based on user selection.

The selected date can be retrieved using the method selectedDate() which will return a Qdate.The day() and month() methods of QDate can be used to get seperate day and month values. Similarly longMonthName() method can be used to get the long names of the month since the method month() gives the month in number format (12 for December).

The usage is as follows:

myDate = myCalendar.selectedDate()

month = myDate.month()

day = myDate.day()

monthName = myDate.longMonthName(myDate.month())

The calendar grid visibility can be set for east readability using the setGridVisible() method which will accept a boolean value.

myCalendar.setGridVisible(True)

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The Flawless Arm Rig Challenge at CGTANTRA

December 5, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Flawless Rig???If u feel skeptical about the possibility of such a rig, head on to CGTANTRA. The first among the Monthly Rigging Challenges that started in CGTANTRA will leave you speechless with innovative setup techniques from students and professionals alike. I have been handed over the task of moderating the challenge which has proved to be a double edged sword that restricts me from participating in the challenge. So planning to follow the same guidelines as that of the challenge and post my work in this space so that it doesn’t go against the rules of the challenge.Watch out for flawless arm rig from Virual Puppeteer.

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Subscribe to Pragmatic Artistry

November 27, 2009 by 1 Comment

One more addon to favor the frequent visitors to this page.Now you can sign-up with your e-mail to get live updates of new techniques and tutorials covered in this space in your mail inbox. I just loved this new widget that wordpress introduced couple of days back which will help you keep track of your favorite blogs. Enter your e-mail address on the subscription widget and hit the Sign me up button and there you go!!!!

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Autodesk Backburner job submission using cmdjob.exe

November 26, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Autodesk’s decision to ship Backburner 2008 with Maya2010 has leveraged  the utilisation of resources across the network for executing batch rendering task from a single node point. Backburner jobs can be easily created from within Maya 2010 using the Create Backburner Job command under the Render menuset as shown in the  figure below.

This will bring up a window similar to the one shown below.

Here you can specify the job name, frame range, number of tasks, Renderer and also specify the IP address of the machine in which the backburner Manager is running.

But the real power of backburner is revealed when you get under the hood and explore the power of the command line based utiliy cmdjob.exe. This is a handy tool for adding jobs to backburner manager for  literally any version of maya and not even just maya even Softimage, Aftereffects, and Nuke projects with a change in the passed arguments.The cmdjob utility can be accessed from within the backburner installation directory.

The basic syntax for the cmdjob is as follows CMDJOB <Options> executable to run <executable parameters>

By specifying the executable for the specific version of maya and passing the arguments for the maya batch we can trigger renders across multiple machines in the network and still monitor the progress using the backburner monitor.For example:

cmdjob.exe -jobName myRenderJob -jobNameAdjust -manager localhost -priority 50 -numTasks noOfTasks -taskName 1 -leaveInQueue “C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\Maya2009\bin\Render.exe” -r mr -s 0 -e 196 -of tiff -proj projectPath -rd renderDirectory fileName.ma

will add a job named myRenderJob to manager running in the same machine(localhost) using Maya2009 batch using renderer mentalray(mr) for frame range o to 196 with file format of tiff to renderDirectory location for file named fileName.ma.It will distribute the job to noOfTasks number of machines in which backburner server is running.

You can get a list of all the valid parameters accepted by cmbjob from the list below

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Performing arts with shiamak’s winter funk’09

November 25, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Like always, there is a valid reason for the prolonged silence in this space. This time I am not getting away with the excuses of hectic work schedule, because thats never a new thing in our industry. I got myself enrolled for the Winter Funk’09 conducted by Shiamak Davar’s Institute for the Performing Arts.After delaying the plan for more than a year I finally made up my mind to join for the same. Getting trained by professionals who got trained by Shiamak himself has been a really wonderful experience. Last weekend turned out to be even more exciting for me with participation in the Hyderabad 10k run representing Shiamak’s Victory Arts Foundation.

VAF is a non-profit organisation with a mission to spread the power of of the performing arts to bring joy to the less privileged, specially challenged, visually impaired, terminally ill children and young adults, and all those infected/affected with HIV/AIDS, committing to making dance a meaningful experience for everyone.

So these days more time has been set aside for activities apart from work, which means less experiments in the digital space. Will get back soon with more updates on character setup techniques.

Here is a promo of Shiamak’s Winter Funk’09

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Awesome PIXAR Intro parody featuring killer luxo

November 2, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Came across this awesome video on the famous PIXAR Intro.Thought of sharing with you all.Must watch for all luxo fans.

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