This is a custom Maya brush which makes smoothing skin weights very fast and easy to do. Because it smooths all influences at once there is not the typical normalization problem which the standard Maya smooth skin brush has (normalize = interactive). When normalization is on post, the result gets not smooth immediatley, so you would have to switch between all influences to get it really smooth. With tf_smoothSkinWeight.py you get in both situations a smooth and correct result immediately. Benefits: - smooth weights with a few strokes - saves a lot of time - weights all joints at once - no need to worry about normalization - creates a really nice and smooth weight-transition

thanks Brad for the link!

This comes out of work I presented as a SIGGRAPH 97 Technical Sketch. The demo is mostly an experiment to isolate the minimal number of facial expression elements that will produce a "convincing" impression of character and personality. Of course this is just a subset of the full range of expression the human face is capable of. Paul Ekman's pioneering work on the Facial Action Coding System gives a functional description of the full range of expression of which the human face is capable.

... because Dave was withholding it from us... until today! ;-)

wild collection of Maya API related links from a user on linkedin.com. some might be useful.

here all links again with a new line char inserted between each link... http://ncca.bmth.ac.uk/gallery/list_by/tag/maya http://www.simplymaya.com/download_pages/ http://www.davidlanier3d.com/Maya-plugins-MEL.htm http://www.oroboro.com/rafael/docserv.php/index/maya/article/maya http://www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/mayaexporter/ http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/development_api/ http://mayadqskinning.sourceforge.net/ http://www.comet-cartoons.com/3ddocs/mayaAPI/ http://modthemachine.typepad.com/ http://developer.nvidia.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1600 http://thebuildingcoder.typepad.com/ http://www.andynicholas.com/?cat=27 http://www.tek2shoot.com/products/software-plugins/softimage-xsi/unexposed-mental-ray-shaders-v11-32-64bits/ http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems/gpugems_ch16.html http://blog.gamedeff.com/?p=78 http://www.blitzcode.net/3d_1.shtml#Lightmap_Compiler http://www.unifycommunity.com/wiki/index.php?title=SkinShader http://knol.google.com/k/koen-samyn/hlsl-per-vertex-lighting-shader/2lijysgth48w1/7#done http://www.alan-warren.com/tag/shader/ http://www.coniserver.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://www.headus.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=394 http://tamarind.free.fr/noctua/index.php/2010/03/23/a-simple-dependency-graph-library/#more-103 http://www.jb101.co.uk/2008/05/05/fixing-help-in-maya-2008/ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gpalem/archive/2008/08/20/how-to-find-the-shading-groups-for-the-given-shape-node-in-maya-api.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gpalem/ http://ludovic.chabant.com/devblog/ http://www.gogototo.com/a-post-about-maya-api-enviroment-setup.html http://dev.mokastudio.tv/taxonomy/term/4/0 http://efreedom.com/Question/1-2097306/Creating-Simple-Hierarchy-Structure-Maya-Using-Mel-Python http://coding4fun.org/?p=99 http://sayinghai.com/blog/?cat=14 http://graphics.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~drake/data/articles/ http://www.autodesk.com/us/maya/docs/Maya85/DeveloperResources/Introduction_to_Maya_Python_API.html http://www.scribd.com/login htt

A plugin version of a corrective blend shape solution for rigging in maya.

- thanks for the link, Shorty! :)

The rapid rig is a tool designed to bridge the gap between character modeling and character animation. Using the user interface, the script enables the user to set up a bi-pedal character skeleton and rig in minutes, a process which can take up to several days. The advanced version of the rig comes with enhanced features including: * customizable number of fingers and toes * stretchy and "toony" arms, legs, neck and spine * elbow and knee locking and following in inverse kinematics * orientation control for hips, shoulders, head and eyes * optional geometry created based on the user's rig set-up, as well as other animator-friendly controls. * animation interface for speeding up animation pipeline

thanks for the link, Jakub! :)

This is a simple maya collision deformer to use with any arbitrary meshes.

thanks Brad! :)

large collection of free maya rigs

interesting collection of free plugins for maya

yeah will be very cool! :) I'm currently looking a bit into qt, so maybe one day I'll also be able to program it... the qt api looks very structured and logical so far!

nice tutorial about how to easily read and interpret a 3×3 Matrix (incl. video).

Interesting modular rigging approach with Flash based UI (Softimage XSI). The connection points between different modules can be chosen on-the-fly. "Unlike usual auto rig scripts, Alive lets you build your own character, limb by limb, just like a Lego system. Because all the characters don't necessarily need the same features (stretch, arm curve, roll division...), Alive lets you specify the features to apply on each limb separately."

video footage / reference

The animation and animation-related musings of Kevin Koch. Interesting details about eye animation in the "Eye Movements" category (with references from the BBC motion gallery website).

A forum for and by technical artists in video-game development.

blog about rigging spines

nice one! did you have a chance to give the expression solver a go?
unfortunately I have no access to Maya here...
Cheers!
-M

Cool! Thanks, you too! :-) ciao!
-M

Facial animation rigs created for the "Delgo" movie. Tutorial by Warren Grubb.

deformation / articulation reference animations on a (3D) biped character.