Artists

yeah this news seems to be preading everywhere i look. huge news for 99% of the games industry, where companies either use max or maya. will the merge them or keep them as seperate products? merging would offere great benifits from both, but they work in very diferent ways, the result of which means that some of the cool things about max or maya cannotbe easily replicated in the other. I guess we'll find out in max9/maya8...

MAXA !

3D Studios MAYA 9!

Scott.

$182 million seems pretty dirt cheap.

Do you think Autodesk will be merging the two programs?? Maya is so ingrained in the film industry that doing a Max/Maya hybrid, which takes the best of each programs, would seem like a step backward. Actually, I don't think a hybrid would make sense anyway since the two are so diffrent to each other. I'm making a guess that Autodesk will continue Max and market it for game developers, and Maya for the film industry.

Anyway, agreed that this is pretty big news. Adobe taking over Macromedia, Apple using Intel, and now this. You'd never predict this a year ago O_o

I agree Souri, never predicted it at all.

I dont think they will merge the 2 programs - though I think it is definately possible that in future versions of both maya and max they might mix it up a bit and introduce max stuff into maya and whatnot - who knows really. At the Discreet presentation a few weeks back - the REP said they have the next versions of max already mapped out and planned right up until max version 11. So I wonder how that changes things....

Microsoft purchases EA... on the cards maybe ? [:O]

i dont kow if even Microsoft could afford EA. considering how their profits rely on mass saturation of units over all consoles, it would have to be a pretty big offer for them to publish exclusivly to one system - and a system that dosnt hold the dominate market share. thoughif it happened, it would probably spell doom for sony, since xbox and playstation are so simular and have basically the same ported titles. the bulk of the sports, movie and other licences moving to one console would snatch with it a huge persentage of the userbase. nintendo wouldnt suffer as much in that way, since nobody buys a nintendo system becuase for EA titles, but it would be a massive shift in the market that's for sure.

ok, a little off topic, but it was an interesting thing to think about.

I'm so very sad...hold me.

Oh well, its off to XSI with me then. :P

I don't think they will merge, but I hope they do. If they combined would be the ultimate 3d package.

I'm with that. If they did merge we might get to see some of the great features from each in the other. And see some of the more outdated features improved on. But if they stay seperate products they should both benefit from shared knowledge and tools. And perhaps this will help more Max studios support Maya and vice versa. Personally Maya is my program of choice so I'd be pretty disappointed to see it venture into a more film only world, and see Max regain more of the game market. Comes down to personal preference too. One ultimate package that loads as either Maya or Max for the same cost and with the same file formats etc... I'd be for that!

I don't think they will cobine the two. But it would make sence to bridge the two. By which I mean create an effective application that will alow crossover, importing and exporting (of more than just mesh).

yeah I would say so danmill,

I wonder what that means for mac users, I'm sure they'd keep them going... meh macs...

It's a good thing though, hopefully the price wont explode, since there isn't much competition now.

Something that I don't see anyone mentioning is Maya run on Windows, Linux, MacOS, and IRIX, whereas Max only runs on Windows. What's happening to the Real OS (tm) support for Maya?

likewise i wonder what will happen to the maya PLE - it's much better than 3dsmax's student versions (which costs money you can only get if you are a full time student, and only last about 8 months) or Gmax. a fully featured 3d app for free is great for learners - almost every beginer i've spoken to on one forum or another uses mayaPLE becuase it's freely. a great way to promote your product if you ask me.

2 years for the student version of Max at the moment livewire :)

Interesting point though! Hopefully the PLE will stay as is, maybe even a full version Max PLE rather than GMAX?

Looks like the merger has already begun..

[URL=http://img26.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3dsmayaunlimited6ad.jpg][IMG]ht…]

Made by one of the artists at work.

Hahaha, that's hideous.

quote:In the immediate term, no changes are planned for both companies, which will continue with their respective product releases while the acquisition takes place over its 4-6 month period of settling. It was also said that the products in the immediate term were to remain separate and autonomous, with a development focus on integrating workflow and interoperability between the previously competing products.

For the Autodesk Media and Entertainment Division, attention will be given to making 3ds max and Maya complement each other through ?improving the operability and workflow between 3ds max and Maya?. It was made clear that there are currently no plans to drastically change any feature sets in Maya or 3ds max, and no mention of an immediate product integration/merger (though one would expect the technologies to be unified in future).

From [url="http://features.cgsociety.org/story.php?story_id=3166"]CGNetworks[/url]...

Well I can talk from our point of view which I imagine would be different from most development houses.

Generic or typical FPS character -

Modelling & Unwrapping: 3000 Tri character - Day and a half max.
Texturing: per 1024 x 1024 - 2/3 days max.

Next Gen Monster ala Doom3

Modelling & Unwrapping: 8000 - 12000 Tri, 3-5 days.
High Poly Source: 5-10 days
Textures: Per 2048 x 2048, 3-5 days per sheet.

Almost no two jobs are the same, Its all based on style and detail level to be honest. A 3000 Tri, multi headed and tentacled beast would take longer than a human.

Even more so for next gen stuff, as weve worked on models everywhere from a clump of grass that has 500 tris and used 1024 textures, right up to super high detailed characters that required about 6 weeks of time to complete, the variation is just getting so big.

Lastly I'd just like to add, these times are based on our individual levels of skill and what we feel comfortable with while maintaining a high level of quality.

First and foremost advice I would offer is dont worry about how long it takes you to accomplish something, focus on achieveing a high level of quality first, because speed will come with repetition.

don't know, but it's running on the Doom 3 engine so it might be simular to that, though it looks a little more detailed than doom

Hmm, this topic is a month old but this seems to be a quiet forum anyway so I don't think bumping this up matters. ;)

The Q4 engine shares most of the D3 console commands. To see how many tris are in a given scene bring down the console (ctrl-shift-tilda from memory) and enter the command

r_showprimitives 1

That will start keeping count in the console of various stats, including how many tris are in view.

To get an idea of how that detail is used in a scene type

r_showtris 1

That will outline all the tris in view with a white line.

To turn those features off you just re-enter them but with a 0 instead of the 1.

Now for the weapons and suchlike.

If you have a modelling program that is capable of opening lightwave and ase files, then you can simply open them in your modelling program and look at their stats (the pack files all the game files are in are simply renamed zips)...if your modelling program of choice CAN'T open those files natively then you will have to go the long way round.

Open up the editor (if you are planning a mod I assume you already know how to do this)

Rightclick in the canvas area of the editor and select the newmodel option.

Select whatever model you want to examine and place it.

From the toolbar click Selection-Export-Export to Obj

You will now have that model converted into a .obj file that almost any modelling program should be able to import.

If you don't have any modelling program whatsover just goto http://www.blender.com and download a copy of that since it is freeware and will do the job.

Any more questions? :)

quote from the q4 sdk website-
"You are going to need to model your character in both high poly and in low poly. For the low poly, our creatures ranged from 500 polys on some of the lower range creatures on up to 5000 to 6000 polys for some of the bosses. The high poly models ranged anywhere from a few thousand polys on up to millions of polys"

http://www.iddevnet.com/quake4/ArtReference_CreatingModels is an excellent resource for creating normal mapped characters

Thankaz for that Tron and Makk, going to helps heaps.

Glad to be of help.

Of course, Makk had to take the sensible option and find the information already listed without all the malarky I was going to put you through! ;)

For any Q4 related technical questions you would be best off heading towards iddevnet.com (which Makk linked to) or http://www.doom3world.org/ which is a massive forum on the D3 engine with sections for Q4 specific stuff.

Sweet, thankaz once again Tron, going to help emensly.

Burne Hogarths 'dynamic' books are quite handy. They don't really cover skin so much though.

Get yourself a nice cup of coffee, sit down, and read through a few of Loomis's books, available online. http://www.saveloomis.org/

yup, both of the above suggestions I highly agree with recommending. Here's a few others:
- Art of Drawing the Human Body (Sterling)
- Anatomy for the Artist, the Dynamics of the Human Form (Capella)

The first one is more on technique and method, focusing on proportions and base rules to apply. The second is study after study of anatomical referance, built up from the myological layers and finally analysing sculptures and paintings from the old masters.

What I recommend is if you're serious about learning, then focus on learning by itself. Don't draw characters, draw studies. Instead of sitting down and trying to draw 1 finished piece, just take that same amount of time to draw 50 hands from referance, effectively learning the shapes and formations. The second book I recommended, if you're able to get it, or something like it, I recommend going through page after page and copying each and every drawing twice. By the time you're through that, you should've taught your brain the fundamental shapes and interactions between form enough so that it becomes second nature.

thanks heaps for the info.

ill be hitting the library tomorrow and hopefully i can get started.

Oh for reference as well i had a look round on the web for the Anatomy of the Artist... i found a book By Tom Flint with capella as the publisher or editor i think... so just for interests sake i thought i'd let u know it was available on there... (or appeared to be at least) quite cheap i might add aswell :D

thanks again
Pete

Hey, post your images in the exhibition section of the forum, or even your Sumea profile if you have one. I'd love to see your progress.

Ok, you'd be better off just putting an Unwrap UVW straight on top of your base mesh, going into face select in your Unwrap, select a face, then click the Planar map button on your unwrap, this will keep the proportions of your selected face intact.

thanks for the info, I tried your method but which works for one side of the mesh, but when I the other side of uvs and click planar map my unwrap looks as though it has changed to the left postion. and cannot keep them all flat as I can do with the other method???

What am I doing wrong?

hmm u need to post some pics of whats wrong... sound like u dont realy understand mapping fully.. maybe [?]..or u could try this just add uunwap to the orig file click edit amd in the tools menue select pack UVs.. just use the defult setting for now [;)].. and all the mapiing u have applyd will be layed out for u to see clearly.I think this is your problem ..hope this helps , if not pics please [B)]

I GOT IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Adie I have been trying to figure this out for a long time and sincerely appreciate it.

Pack uvs, then select flatten mapping!

YEOWWWWW!

Im now going to mapp the world...mwa hahahaha!

cool.. glad i could help [8)] and im glad u could read my bad typing too.. have fun

cool.. glad i could help [8)] and im glad u could read my bad typing too [xx(].. have maptapulous fun

thanks again dude.
Ive mapped half of my clothing bin and its all fine.
A couple of things you might be able to answer.

1. When its flattens the mapping it pull it all apart , can i then while in the uvw edit mode stich up the various bits and retain the mapping, so i have less seems?

Can I use this method for characters etc?

Any advice or tuts that you know of that can help me do this kind of mapping would be great.

yes u can stich the bits of mappin together.. using the stich tool and edge selection ..Its probly best u read the tutorial on uvunwarp in the max help... it shows u how to use the difernt tools it has...using the stich tool is one of them..sory got to got to bed now dont have time to go into it now .. maybe tomorrow if u havent read the help by then

photoshop and painter are pretty much the main ones. theres open canvas which is nice to, and free i think?

I couldn't imagine painting with a mouse really, not if you want to be serious. Just like everythingelse you still need the right tools to get good results.

i have a graphire at home, and it works just fine. not as smooth as the intuos i use at work, but still does the job well enough.

There's nothing wrong with Graphire's! A bad artist is one that blames his tools, and getting the top of the line tablet isn't going to make you a better artist faster. I'm sure the Intous are more smoother/responsive, much more expensive, and can detect the tilt of the nib etc, but if you're just starting out, then a nice $200 Graphire 3 is a great introduction, I reckon.

If you have the time, download the Painter IX 30 day trial from Corel's website. That is one sweet program. If you do get a Graphire, you'll probably get Painter Classic with the tablet which, again, is a nice introduction to digital painting.

Umm you should try finding some art short courses provided by either TAFE or UNI, which are open to the general public. I've been doing a beginners arts course at ANU. Though doesn't go to much into theory part, most of it is practical. You might want to play around with sensitivity setting for your tablet thru the tablet setup program to fix that up.

Hmm i dont know of any courses over here that cater to concept art so exclusively. You're more likely to find courses that are related or have a few subjects that skim the surface, but nothing that actually teaches 'concept art for games and film' in a full package.

If you want something like that, go to Art Center in California and pay tens of thousands for tuition!

My advice would be to take some technical drawing, figure drawing, painting classes etc at a TAFE or something similar. Most of the classes will skim the surface and start you on the right track. They're good for getting feedback and interacting with other artists.

But really, no matter what you do, you'll learn the most by how much you study/practice in your own time.

I agree totally with Jasons final words.

I would invest a few hundred bucks into the Gnomon workshop dvd's by Feng Zhu and a few of the other blokes from gnomon on various concept related studies and get stuck in on trying your hardest to replicate the skills of master artists, and then use the techniques in a way that suits and works best with you Souri! [:)]

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/

Or if you really want to learn from the masters i would recommend importing some Feng ZHU dvd's from http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com This guys is a legend when it comes to concept art.

[img]http://www.fengzhudesign.com/char/char_feng_image06.JPG[/img]
One of his many cool art works

I think it would be wise to begin with the "quick sketching" dvd first. They also provide a 10 % discount from your complete order. so if you get 2 or more dvds, they will take 10 % of total amount.

To learn more about Feng ZHU and how he got to where he is now, you should read the Meet the Artist: Feng ZHU thread at cgtalk http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=234608

I love these threads because Feng gives out so much advice on how he got to where he is today. Hope this helps

oops .. you bet me to it ..

Some great advice there, guys. Will have to look into those Feng Zhu DVDS when I have some cash.

I don't know if any exist, but a short course in industrial design focussing on visualisation would be essentially a concept art course under a different name.

re the wacom tablet... just a thought, might be the pen that is cactus and slightly sticking in the 'on' postion? Might be worth trying someone elses pen... and if that works give them your's back, and say the problem fixed it's self ;)

...I didn't really say that last bit.

There might be some interference coming from somewhere. Have you tried it out on a computer in a different location?
And goodluck finding a decent short course for ID. I would say grab some DVD from gnomon workshop instead, you be learning from highly skilled professionals.

quote:Originally posted by JohnN
re the wacom tablet... just a thought, might be the pen that is cactus and slightly sticking in the 'on' postion? Might be worth trying someone elses pen... and if that works give them your's back, and say the problem fixed it's self ;)

I got really peeved with it and ripped the nib out after nudging it here and there. I placed it back in and now it works fine. [:0]

I don't really have a method as such since I haven't really modelled/textured in ages, but have you see the latest unwrapping method in [url="http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=5903856"]Max 8[/url]? Seems like a breeze! Just select some seems, unwrap and relax. Check out the demonstration video.

[:D]Pure Gold!

thanks for the link Mcdrewski.

So true.. so very true [:D]

ha ha ha aaaah thats great, an absolute treat for any 3d artist

heh, yeah saw that at work the other day. very creative, i like it a lot.

That's great!!! [B)]

Hiya Kratos,

A cheap (but only sometimes helpful) fix is to use the sharpen filter in PS - that might help clear up some edges but there really is no substitute for getting in there with 1 - 2 pixel sized brushes and taking to it like it was pixel art - especially for 128 --> 256 sized textures.

Edit: If your loosing detail completely - then its probably best you rethink your texture, ie 512 dropping to 256 means you can pretty much forget those tiny little wire details that maybe be only 1 - 2 pixels wide in the 512 - as quite rightly when shrinking down you'll loose them completely. If you really are going for the maximum detail and sharpness, paint at true res *IF* the 256 has really minute detail.

Thanks for that HazarD. I've noticed that when you work with such minute texture maps , using a paint brush always gives you a feathery approach no matter how small the brush, so i paint with pencil brush .. though this leaves very hard edge. Would it be a matter of using the pencil with a low opacity to blend from one pixel to the next ?

Sharpen, contrast and simplify!
As was mentioned the unsharpen mask filter can be quite handy in sharpining up small textures that are blurry, but its also handy to go in with a pixal brush and tighten things up manually.

When doing this its also a good idea to get some nice contrast in there. Having good contrast can help define things a little better and make things pop a little more. Strong shadows can help separate different things in the texture. Be carefull however, if its too strong it may start too look a little cartoony, so make sure it looks natarual!

Simplfying detials is pretty obvious. Youve only got so many pixals to work with so dont expect to be able to get heaps of detial there. Only use the colours you need to suggest the detial you want, no more.

Finally, if you have got quake 3, look at some of the skins in there be Ken Scott. They are amazing to look at and in my opion are some of the best game textures ever to be produced. Even with todays technology the still hold up amazingly well.

One thing you could change is the compression when you scale down, found at the bottom of the resize image options window.

Its normally set at bicubic, try sharpen bicubic or nearest neighbour.

Also make a few copies of of your texture using different compressions and the unsharp mask filter, then layer them on top of each other, then delete the bits you don't want and keep the other bits you do want. :)

Like Hazard said, paint at the 256 resolution, the whole paint double thing is ok when going from 1024 to 512 and can work from 512 to 256 but generally lower resoltion console games need a bit of pixel painting.

Anyway 256 is heaps, Try keeping a 128 indexed looking nice. :(

Hey Souri,
Big thanks for the comments and support!

Rowan

We should definately pick your brain a bit for an interview on Sumea. Whaddya reckon?

*awaits the brain picking session like a ravenous intern*

Hey Souri,
Been a while since being online.
As for a brain picking session...Im all for it! Pick away anytime[:)]

oops hit enter....
My question is how should I develop my skills for a start out model/texture artist position?
Ive have been focsing on modeling and texturing props and stearing away from just making slick looking illustration type renders.

I work on max when I get home from doing my day job and really want to focus my energy on doing something productive to create a portfolio thatll give me chance at a position.

Your guidance is needed......

Well, having used Max for so long I'm guessing your technical skills are up there. And if your into illustration your eye for design is good as well.

Particularly for game artists though (and I can't really talk cause I'm not in the industry) I'm thinking you also have to have really good skills in fine art, and I mean a very very good knowledge of it.

You can get away with whacky colour schemes, or non - proportioned figures in graphic design and illustration, but game art is not so open to stylisation.

So I think for a good foundation in game art you have to study drawing/painitng etc. It will complement your exisiting skills well.

Well it looks like you have the drive to transform a hobby into a career... smart thing is you've realised that you can methodically approach this instead of blindly going off and doing the "biggest and coolest thing EVAH" which most people starting out do. That's a good start.

My reccomendation is to find as many online portfolios you can of professional artists. Try and keep a ranking of them in terms of employment viability by thinking of things like skill range, presentation, quality of work, content, and even things like viability of the types of models they're making in relation to the types of companies around you. It's honestly not much point submitting the coolest ultra detailed blood soaked space marine mesh to a job at a company that exclusively does toon work... that becomes a question of relevance. Although the space marine butt kicker may be good quality, perhaps you submit it to a predominantly fantasy developer, the model is great, but if someone else submits an equally good but more relevant elven archer then it's more relevant and direct and they have that initial extra step over everyone else clamouring for the job.

Anyways, think about these things, think about it from the perspective of an employer running a business producing a product to sell, who needs employees to create content for said product... it is a business, and there's other contributing factors than the coolest space marine. After just a few hours of digging around the net, you should have a bit more of a firm understanding of where you should focus your energies, and have a bit clearer path to reaching that goal. Research is key [:)]

If I could just add to that - Kenneth was working on stuff like that way back in 2001-2002 (check the dates on the pics) imagine what hes up to at the moment [;)]

Actually, unless I'm mistaken some of that stuff is from the Doom 3 expansion, Ressurection of Evil. I've never acually played it but I'm sure I saw some screenshots or concept art with similar designs.

Its some damn pretty stuff to be sure, though. I've really got to give Zbrush a whirl one of these days.

Just downloaded zBrush yesterday finally after a friend recommended I give it a look. Currently making my way through tuts and 3dbuzz vtms about it all. Really interesting stuff. Need some local classes on it @:-)

i heart dpf

;)

quote:Originally posted by Azazel

Actually, unless I'm mistaken some of that stuff is from the Doom 3 expansion, Ressurection of Evil. I've never acually played it but I'm sure I saw some screenshots or concept art with similar designs.

Wasn't most of the Ressurection of Evil stuff done by Nerve Software? I haven't seen those creatures in ROE, although I admit to not seeing or reading much about ROE. Kinda lost interest in the expansion pack after the gameplay let-down of Doom 3.

And yeh [:0] If those are from 2002, it boggles the mind to wonder what he's at now. I'm sure he has a tonne of tricks up his sleeves.

I actually own this book, and while I have read through it, I've never actually followed the tutorial, as I've been using Max 3.1 @:-P It is well written, but having never actually followed the tut, I can't give a real recommendation on it. I have Steed's earlier book on character modeling, and that was nicely done, so yeah... *cough* Wasn't worth posting my opinion really, was it? @;-D

My opinion on steeds books are that they're both good resources for someone beginning out in modelling or animation (respectively), however they do need to be taken with a grain of salt and not as gospel... steeds books teach a number of bad habits which are generally looked down upon in a professional environment, and having known a number of people still struggling to let these habits go, you need to recognise that these books aren't the be all and end all that the author eludes to. So although it may be a good starting point to learn from for the beginner, make sure you source your material from other places as well, and be prepared to be flexible.

ive heard a lot of of that kind of talks about steeds books before having never read them myself just out of curiosity could you clue me as to what kind of practices for example you think fit that bill?

Big Boobs, Big Boots mostly [:P]

A couple of years ago I found Pauls books a great reference, and I copied them vertex by vertex. But like most books whoevers involved or presenting the tutorial - you have to remember that:

*Its their way of doing things, not the only way of doing things*

I think as long as you remember that, and try to learn why they made something the way they have, take that, and use it in your own way - youll be much better off in the end.

Books are great - absorb as much knowledge as you can from lots of game gurus and game artists as possible and pick the bits that you like and apply them, muck around with them and improove them in a way that works best for you.

as a non-artist, I would hope that the answer is that you use the smallest possible map size which will look ok.

depends on your texture budget, how close it will get to the camera, how big it is, and how promintaly it features.

I've read somewhere about texture measurements, where a centimeter would be 2 pixels, so if a wall is 3 meters high it would occupy 300 pixels in texture height. Similarly if a table is 1 meter high it would have a texture height of 100 pixels. Would this be the way to go ? So if we use this method, we then give the object thats 300 pixels in height the closest texture map size like a 512x512 map ? and the 100 pixel object a 128x128 map ?

quote:Originally posted by LiveWire

depends on your texture budget, how close it will get to the camera, how big it is, and how promintaly it features.

How is the texture budget determined ?

how much memory you have to play with basicaly

I see .. thanks for that.

if you're looking for a uniform approach... you should already have a texture ratio defined for your game. HalfLife 1 used a 1:1 ratio, which means a 128x128 texture covered 128x128 game cubits. A single cubit is generally 1 inch. Quake3 used 2:1, UnrealEngine3 boasts 16:1!

So that makes it easy to determine! :)
If you were using an 8:1 ratio (8 texels to 1 game cubit) it would mean your base texture tile is 1024x1024 and it would perfectly fit a quad in game that is 128x128 units.

What LiveWire mentioned should be the determining factors in the ratio you chose... UE3 is planned for PS3 and Xbox360, so a 16:1 is fine... Quake3 was aimed at PC's years old now, so its 2:1 worked well with regards to the target hardware.

Sorry not very good with inches. What would a 128x128 game cubit be in max in meters and centimeters ? what size would this cube in max be ?

if you set up max to use Generic Units under its unit settings, then 1 unit in Max = 1 unit in game. It's best to setup Max to mimmic your game engine scale.

quote:Originally posted by Kratos What would a 128x128 game cubit be in max in meters and centimeters ?

[url]http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=inches%20to%20meters&spell=1[/u…] [:)]

I know that Krome in Brisbane uses Maya, and [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/sarticle.asp?art_ID=16"]this article[/url] from april 2004 suggests that THQ does too...

Both Krome and THQ Aus do console work (Ty for Krome and a number of Nickelodeon franchises for THQ) so good luck.

Cheers!

thats two then, anyone know of any others?, looks like im going back to 3D Max school if I want a bigger choice.

Anyone know any good tutorial sites for the absolute beginner?

thanks

I think the tutes in Max are the best place to start for a beginner to the package. They are very thorough tutorials. And if you?re already familiar with other packages, it shouldn?t take long at all to come to grips with the Max interface.

Looks like I need to get into Max too. It's extremely well favoured over here in Aus.

I'm so rusty too... not worked on a game since July 2004! Sheesh.

Now, can someone remind me what a poly is?

Team Bondi in Sydney is another PS2/3 developer using Maya.

quote: Proficiency in Maya and Photoshop are a must for all of the positions.

Takern from their website, http://www.teambondi.com

you can group the sword and constrain the group only... make sure you effect the pivot of the group to the wrist bone of yor skeleton.. this will allow you to animate the sword seperate to the group.. or you can animate the influence of the constraint.. you should be able to get away with just a parent constraint (maintain offset is off)..

theres probably a few different ways of doing this..

Thanks Me109.

Maya 7 is going to be the bomb.. can't wait..

How do you guys get these programs. I know you don't buy them. Where can I get these 3D programs? I want 3D Studio Max and Softimage.

discussion of pricay and 'warez' is not tolerated on this forum.

Out of interest, what gaming companies in Australia actually use Maya? I know of only 1 company, but others seem to go for Max or Softimage?

ussmc: How do we get these programs ? We purchase them from the vendor of course. It will only take a few months of saving - you can even purchase education versions of most of these programs from little more than the price of a game or two.

don't forget Lightwave 9

[url]http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/lw9featureprelim.php[/url]

ussmc: Maya PLE is free for non-comercial use and is the full version of maya complete, Softimage is dun dirt cheap, and 3dsmax has cheep student versions - otherwise you could get Gmax, which is free but is really only useful as a tool to learn 3d modeling and the max interface.

Ironhide: i don't know exact numbers, but i've heared of a lot that use maya. in brisbane Krome and Pandemic use it, and i think THQ. When i was looking for work i noticed that a lot of Melbourne and Canbera based companies also mentioned maya experience when advertising jobs.

IronhideNT - In Melbourne: IR Gurus & Torus. If you know more please tell me. Maya is the only 3D software I know.

[url="http://www.sumea.com.au/snews.asp?news=1218"]Krome's made the switch to Maya[/url]. Atari Melbourne House use XSI.

Fuzzyeyes uses both Maya and 3dsmax...

So theyre the guys responsible for all the lesser sequels. Its a bit sad to see that facet of disney dying off (not to mention people loosing their jobs and such) but i can sort of side with the reasoning as to why.

the real reason as im told from someone who knows these things was a pure lack of communication between the american studio and the australian stuido. the content made form the australian studio was somewhat inconsistant to the original material. (ie: watch alantis and then it's australian made sequal and you'll know what im yapping about)

and for the record. Disney has also closed its other "out of the USA" studios around the world and is now hermiting in it's mother country..

then again as a cartoon fan the last "good" series they came out which was gargoyles.. after that the..standard of both storyline and drawing quality has been degrading. in the end it's always economics.

Man, what a bummer. I really hope those animators find a way to keep on using their talents and pass on the skills they've learnt rather than letting it all go to waste. I can imagine a tonne of [url="http://www.biteycastle.com/html.shtml"]Adam Phillips[/url] (ex Disney Australia animator) quality people from there. Perhaps they could group up and work on animated shorts, an animation series (ala South Park) or something. I guess the only good thing to come from all this is that they won't have to work on lame Disney sequel projects anymore.

I know I'm not alone on the sentiment that Disney have got it all wrong with 2D animation. Their most recent feature animations look fantastic but just didn't have good stories to go with them. My main gripe is that they're mostly rehashing of older stories (Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Pocahontas, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan etc. How about getting some good writers and creating some new stories? o_O

2D animation isn't dead. Far from it. Maybe Disney should take a look at Japanese animation and create stuff that is aimed more towards adults. And Disney's 2D animation is/was *incredible* (they've closed down a lot of their US studios as well). I can only dream of that Disney kind of quality on a science fiction movie aimed at adults ala Akira.

It was probably over a decade ago but I remember reading news that a Disney Studio was opening up in Sydney and they were expanding with over 50 positions. It seemed like exciting times for local animation back then.

Brilliant [:D]

Just watched it the whole way through (warning for those browsing at lunch, its rather long) and thats just tops, love it! reminds me of a neistat brothers project.

Totally agree, awesome video!

You could setup an action in photoshop to do that which means you only need to press whichever key you assign the action to, for each resize & save. Youd need to record the action only once ( hit the record button on the action box, then bash away all your keystrokes, then stop recording ) and then all you need to do would be to open the pics and select them 1 by and hit 'F2' once on each document and it will do all the fiddly stuff for you....just an idea.

As for program to do it - not sure on that one [:(]

photoshop lets you run an action on all files in a directory. look in the menus on the action toolbox.

Mcdrewski: Your right! champion! [:D] ... although I havent found a use for it yet.

Infraview has an excellent batch conversion utility
[url]http://www.irfanview.com/[/url]

as well as being a brilliant image viewing program it is waaaay quicker than using actions or a droplet in photoshop...

give it a go dude.. :D

since ive no massive need for infranview (ive had it before but uninstalled it after not touching the program for many many months) and allready own photoshop ill try and go with the action thing. Ok ive made my handy little action (funny, ive never actually used actions before. you learn something new everyday) but a quick tutorial on how to actually do the all files in a directory thing would help :P playing around i couldnt discover how

To do a directory, all you have to do is to choose a folder (and desitination!) when you start your batch process (file/automate/batch), making sure you choose your action also. This should show you how to do it.

http://www.creativemac.com/2002/04_apr/tutorials/psbatch.htm

This is one situation where an MSDOS program might make
things easier - it'd be possible to write a batch file that would
go through all your image files applying the program to each
one. This could be worth considering as a last resort.

ha ha, worked a charm and when batch processing i can disable the save as commands so i dont even have to be keeping a constant check on it. Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated.

quote:Originally posted by WiffleCube


This is one situation where an MSDOS program might make
things easier - it'd be possible to write a batch file that would
go through all your image files applying the program to each
one. This could be worth considering as a last resort.

Spoken like a true programmer :)

quote:Originally posted by mcdrewski

quote:Originally posted by WiffleCube


This is one situation where an MSDOS program might make
things easier - it'd be possible to write a batch file that would
go through all your image files applying the program to each
one. This could be worth considering as a last resort.

Spoken like a true programmer :)

It might be an interesting idea to write some code that
allows drag-and-drop batching on any programs that
you write; you could highlight a group of files and just
drag them onto your application (like recycle bin does).

actually - you can already basically do that with windows. just drag the files onto some DOS executable and it'll pass the filenames as parameters.

Didn't know that - useful. [:)]

You should post questions like this in the artist discussion area rather than general chat.

moved to artist discussion.

bowlr: you haven't really given anything to work out what you fiddled with and how it affected it. You could've done any number of things really to make it volatile like this (eg, put the tiling to 0, 0, or given it funky uv's, rotated it in depth so it's only looking at a single pixel, etc). My advice would be this:
admittedly, you are new to max. Take it as a learning experiance, hit the little X button in the material editor and make it again, this time paying attention to what you're fiddling with and how it effects it.

Sorry only a quick description before i head out to get some groceries but heres what i do.

1) Work out where my seems are going to be - usually right up under the chin and on top of the head.
2) select the polygons around the neck and cylinder uvw them.
3) select the face ( from about 1 polygon wider than the eye ) and if youve got some nice topology going you should be
able to folow that line from the forhead all the way around past the eyes / cheek bones and down around the chin. i usually planar map this.
4) Invert your polygon selection ( to grab the left over polygons and kill off the neck polygons ( which youve already unwrapped ) i would usually cylinder map the remaining parts.
5) in the UVW window once youve tweaked each of the 3 parts, if youve done a good job you should be able to stich those 3 pieces together quite well leaving only 1 seem which would be right up above the adams apple ( although you can get rid of this one too if you like but most likely youll get some wicked stretching.

By the looks of that head it would be really easy to cylinder the whole thing from the word go - im presuming the only overlappign areas would be behind the ear ? if its not what you do is play with the cylinder gizmo resize it to suit the shapes size etc ( or whichever size gives the best and most even distribution of squares on your checker map ) then you move the gizmo so the centre of the cylinder is in line with the centre of the face - by default if your only unwrapping half, the centre of the gizmo would be centred within that piece, and that could be whats causing the modifer to fill up your UVW window with pointy jaggy bits.

After a wee while you should be able to get it to a point where it takes about 15 - 20 minute for a head unwrap. Or even faster once max 8 comes with its 'on the fly' relax tool.

Hope that helps in some way... [:D]

i usually planar map the front and side, depending on the shape of the head and where i want the seems, and stitch them together. then again i do everything with planar maps.

what ever you do, delete any symetrical parts and unwrap only half the face, making sure to leave the seem that runs down the centre a straight edge in the UV editor, that way once you mirror the model you can element-select one of the face elements (sitting on top of each other) and mirror the appropriate one. if the seem was a straight line then then will fit together prefectly to be welded.

Got her mapped! :)

[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/officer02.jpg[/img]

Used cylinder for neck and planer mapped the front, side and back. Then just weilded them together. There is some distortion, especially on the neck but overall it went ok.

can we see the unwrap? and maybe a mesh with a checker map on it

sure.
[img]http://members.optusnet.com.au/~rowanfamily/officer03.jpg[/img]
AS you can see the neck is pretty screwed and hte back of the head also has warping. I think the uv layout is good though.
Any crits on the mesh and texture are also welcome

yeah the neck is kinda skewed but that's ok cos there's not to much detail on necks generally. the UV layout is nice and tight. next time consider leaving the ear as part of the head unwrap so you dont get an ugly seem around it - you will get a bit of seeming on the back of the ear, but you'll never see that (nor will there be any detail there) but it's better than a seem.

Hey Makk,

I disagree that the neck isn't important, you could have gotten that alot better.

I also generally chop the ear out like you have but I think in this case you could have left it in there.
For a higher poly ear with a real back I find seams are much easier to fix than a big stretchy ear.

I also blend the colours from the edges more instead of having a black background, you hardly ever get bleeds on anything above 128 x 128 textures but I find its good practice just in case. [:)]

On the whole its a pretty clean map/mesh, just work on your poly flow a little more, especially around the side of the head, eyes and the crease from the nose to the mouth, oh and dont be to lazy with necks next time. [:D]

a good way to avoid bleeding is to export two images with texporter - one with the wires on a black background, but another with the polygons filled with a flat colour. in potoshop you can select the section of colour and expand the selection a couple of pixels, then fill it with your base colour for that section. then you should put a simular colour as the background just in case anyway, but this stops most instances (just be careful not to expand over the top of another section if your UVs are very close).

Hey guys,
Firstly I consider unwrapping to be the ass end of moddling. There has got to be a better software side solution to unwrapping. Its non creative and boring, but somewhat satisfying when u are done. Another trick is to use reactor cloth to unwrap, works really nice for some projects.

Basically u select half the object, detach.

1.Apply a reactor cloth modifier, (tweak the settings, aviod colision, and some other depending on the complexity)
2. Make a box (like a flat slab)with has a rigid modifier on it.
3.Now a FFD4x4, onto the top of the stack. move ther object over thew top of the box. You want the object, e.g a chest area to be face down. So it fold out. once the object to be unwrapped is in palce over the box, flip the reactor cloth modifier ontop of the FFD. (the FFD assists with the unfolding)
4. Apply a cloth modifier to the object. The icon looks like a shirt, its in the left hand side coloumn of max.

5. Goto preview animation. (left hand side column, may have scroll down) Start the animation. U want the object to fall down onto the box and fold out to be completely flat. You may need to tweak the reactor cloth settings.

6. Once u have a flat object in the preview animation window, Update the scene, (menu option in the preview animation window)

7. Now in max u should be looking at a flat object ontop of a box. Apply a edit mesh/edit poly, to the stack, then an unwrapUVW modifier. Unwrap the object, then turn off the FFD & reactor cloth, It should be in the place where you originally detached it. Collapse the stack, the UVW info will be stored.

I'm probably writting jibberish to some/most people. Ill try find a tutorial..

OK found it.
http://www.max3d.pl/art-other/video-tutorial.php

This descibes the above process, better than the measly words im typing in my short lunch break.

Have fun

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