rigging

Simple anatomy for the artist, decent reference and simplification.

I don't generally share too much of what I teach as it's either for the Studio's or for the classes I teach at the Animation Union/American Animation Institute) and I would like to give the students some one-of-a-kind instruction and first dibs on the ideas I teach.

FaceTracker is a C/C++ API for real time generic non-rigid face alignment and tracking. Goal: Non-rigid face alignment and tracking is a common problem in computer vision. It is the front-end to many algorithms that require registration, for example face and expression recognition. However, those working on algorithms for these higher level tasks are often unfamiliar with the tools and peculiarities regarding non-rigid registration (i.e. pure machine learning scientists, psychologists, etc.). Even those directly working on face alignment and tracking often find implementing an algorithm from published work to be a daunting task, not least because baseline code against which performance claims can be assessed does not exist. As such, the goal of FaceTracker is to provide source code and pre-trained models that can be used out-of-the-box, for the dual purpose of: 1. Promoting the advancement of higher level inference algorithms that require registration. 2. Providing baseline code to promote quantitative improvements in face registration. Features: * Real time: ranging from 20-30 fps (depending on processor, compiler and use of OpenMP) * Generic: designed to work for most people under most conditions * No training required: a pre-trained model is provided * Detection based initialisation: no user intervention required * Automatic failure detection: requires no user re-initialisation * Camera or video input

Thanks Maurizio for the link!

Real world rigging.

Kinda cool

it`s just interesting how he describes the vector deltas, which are basically just blendShape. And pushing nearest points by that amount is like usual wrap. I just wasn`t getting why there is custom ICE network, maybe I missed something :) btw. I really liked the short "dog-boy" animation this guy did

It's a bit different to a wrap, more a delta look up and transfer, not a bind to of one bit of geo to another. As such you're only transferring relative motion and can manipulate that in different ways.

there`s not much here, I just accidentaly found this old video. You can see some rigging presentation from DW in cut outs as she talks about Shrek. Puss in Boots is apparently the Shrek`s most complex character :) I see, so that`s why it`s got its own movie! :)) ---> http://youtu.be/yg_z0t_H26c

Links to some decent anatomy reference.

a bit rigging off-topic but hey... :) thanks to Gabriele for the link.

The Disney paper and video on "Efficient elasticity for character skinning with contact and collisions" is definitely worth a look. http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~sifakis/projects.html

A friend of mine just finished compiling these guidelines. Hope it helps.

hi guys, this is tec-wizard Jan Berger describing his custom full IK body system he made as plugin for Maya. Streamed from live broadcast archive of Rigging Dojo, a Texas based group of rigging mentors (btw. they were originally named "Rigging Mentor", but guess who insisted with legal issues... ;)

A character TD from Image Metrics talks about various philosophies of facial rigging. He details the common mistakes seen in facial rigs, how they implement their solution while also working within the constraints of game engines and answers various questions posted by people watching online at the time of recording.

pretty cool Brad! I`m going to watch this later. I was actually wondering what and how guys in Image Metrics work. Looking forward to see all the parts.

also check out... http://cgclay.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=1

The Master Muscle List represents a quick and easy reference for accessing information on the origin, insertion, nerve supply and the action of a given muscle. Selecting an individual muscle, listed alphabetically or by anatomical region, will display an illustration of that muscle along with related functional information.

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.

I did send it a year a go, and have been looking at it off and on since it was created. As a simple base set of points it's wonderfully expressive and shows how much reads with so little adjusted. Head angle and noise plays a big part in this too.

I was playing with that. Very cool! It just shows the system, simplied as possible. What is "heas" angle?

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

- thanks for the link, Shorty! :)

We had Christian (b-ling) write a tangent space blendshape when he was still new at Framestore, and he made the comment that he made was that it was much easier, faster and more effective than the corrective blendshape.

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

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! :)