Getting back on track..

Sooo I decided this morning to switch back to my original plans..

I'm still going to mel script, but I'm gonna go back to doing my rig tools. The reason being I want to continue my TF2 plans, but before I do that, I need to do my rig tools and autorigger I would like to tackle. Once I have those things done, then I can rig up the characters and start animating them. I could rig em up now by hand, but the whole point of this project is to create pipeline tools from start to finish..

Did I ever post what my full plan is? Here it is I guess in bullet form!

TF2 Project
Aim: To recreate a whole animation pipeline from start to finish, as if I was a TA working on a big team project. In particular I'm recreating the TF2 pipeline.

Steps to success!
1. Grab Valve's characters
2. Create rigging scripts and Auto Rigger
3. Rig TF2 characters using my new scripts/AutoRigger
4. Create new animations for TF2 (game and film animations)
5. Create export tools to get my animations back into Source engine and TF2.
6. Learn to use my animations in conjunction with Valve's other software, especially their facial animation program, Faceposer.
7. Bring animations into Source FilmMaker, either the hacked version or release when Valve gets around to it.

As to why I want to do all this and specifically TF2?.. Aside from TF2 is one of my all time favorite games.. Well all these steps aim to teach me new things. I've always been tech savvy, but have never shown it. At FIEA, I was always one to tinker and enjoyed figuring out the pipeline stuff for our small games, including Gamebryo and Panda. I coulda created rigging scripts ages ago, but never gave myself time.. I just wanted to keep animating.. and I still do.. but I also enjoy this stuff. Animating exercises my creative side, while scripting and pipeline stuff exercises my problem solving side. I figure now is the best time to do it. I'm trying to revamp my portfolio and this is a great way to start. I want to be able to show that tech side, along with my animation side.

With this project I get both. First I'm finally delving into mel scripting and making my rigging life easier.. I shoulda done this a loooong time ago! Then once that is done, I'll start animating these characters. Some of it will be in game animations, like run cycles.. Others will be more film oriented.. All of it will be new portfolio pieces to show off. and hopefully a short film can come out of it.

Once these new animations are completed, I'll figure out how to bring them into the Source engine. At the same time, I hope to make pipeline tools to help me get these animations in there with little ease. I have not looked into what support Valve offers for that, but whatever it is, I want to streamline it and make some tools, like what you would give artists at a studio.

And that is just getting my stuff into Source. I still want to figure out how to mix my animations with Valve's Faceposer. That would be awesome.. Then finally bring it into Valve's FilmMaker, figure out cameras and make some badass renders for this.. That's the ultimate endgame.

I don't know if other people have done this.. Surely they've created new animations, or people have made machinima with Garry's mod.. but to go to the extent I'm going.. I don't think so.. So I want to do it. and I'm hoping to learn alot along the way. :)

As for a schedule.. I plan on finishing this rigging stuff in two weeks.. From there I'll be animating for about a month.. By the start of may I should have a good group of animations to draw from.. That is what I have planned so far at least..

Object Replace Tool finished! Pose Tool Next!

Hey I finished the Object Replace Tool over the weekend. I pretty much had it done on friday. Then I decided to once and for all figure out procedures. I've done some programming before, but everytime I dealt with local procs in Mel, it always screwed me up, and I never had time to actually figure it out. In the past I just turned it all into global procs to get the work done, but I knew that just wasn't the right way.

Well it took me a couple of days but I finally learned how to make local procs and also pass along arguments into them. That help reduce the code size in in about half of what I had.. and made it cleaner.. I'm just dealing with a couple of kb now, but I had to figure this stuff out if I really wanted to start handling the larger scripts I have in mind.. So anyhow, cleaned up that code and then decided to go back to my earlier scripts. They're all clean and commented out now.

I started a new tool today, one for us animators! I'm building my own Character Pose Tool. Nothing orignal, I'm just gonna take Motionbuilder's Pose Tool and make a maya version of it. I can already tell I'm biting more than I can chew. I started today and I just finished up the window for it. Half the time though I spent on figuring out how to handle the image thumbnail..

This tool will definitely be teaching some new stuff. Need to figure out how to handle both ascii files and images, connect them to my tool, and be able to update it how I want. I also want to be able handle multiple chars, bones and control rigs.. I'm hoping to finish it by Friday though.. So I might save that last bit for 2.0...

Funny I keep pushing my other rig tools back, but these just seem cooler :)

Window roughly done.. I'm keeping space incase I decide to add another button or two..

Object Replace Tool progress!

As you can see below, I'm progressing with my new tool for artist. The Object Replace Tool.
I only have the window setup. Took me all day, but I'm finally figuring out how all this window layout stuff works. Tonight I'll start working on the actual procedures for this tool.
Should get it done by friday I think.

As the name suggests, it takes care of replacing objects. If you're an environment artist, I'm sure you've run into many times where you had to replace tons of objects with a new model.

This tool will..
1. Replace many objects at once(bolt on a car?)
2. Provide offset options to correct transforms(flipped object?)
3. Ability to randomize offsets(imagine random rocks)

I may add more later, but I want to roll this out first.

Back in Orlando!

Back in Orlando this week.. Slowly setting up my stuff again.. As well as getting back to my portfolio work. I had to put things on hold the last couple of weeks as I had some family emergencies happen. I was in the ER and doctor's office way too much the past few weeks.
So I couldn't get to work on those bone/IK tools.

Anyhow, I'm back in Orlando and ready to work!

I'm continuing to tackle the scripting work I want to do. I went back first and finished up the two previous scripts I had done. I had pretty much finished them up before, but was having trouble with window resizing.. Apparently Maya saves window preferences, including sizing. So I just to add some code to check for this and delete it if found.

I also cleaned up the code for both and added in checks/feedback for the user. Took me about half the day to do it, so it was worth it.

I'll start putting these scripts up so people can download them and use them. Have to figure out a good way to do it. and to whoever reads this stuff.. Give me some feedback on them please! I want to see if they work and what else you'd like to see done.

The next part for Rigging scripts is Bone/IK tool.. I'll be doing that this week, though I kind of want to detour and work on an environment tool. A lot of times artists have to replace objects with other objects and I want to make a tool for that. I'm sure its been done before, but I want to make my own. Soo I think I'll work on that tonight. :)

Work is on hold for now :(

I keep saying it, but been busy last couple of weeks.. I been in and out of doctor's offices for the past few weeks for both my grandma and father.. :( but they're healthy now which is good :)

Inbetween I been making new "Scene Clean Up " scripts.. I'm adding to it as I go. simple commands you can find aroudn Maya, but I wanna have it all in one window for me to grab when I'm rigging.



Anyhow I'll start back up with this and the IK scripts next week when I back to Orlando