Contest postponed

You know, I was afraid that I'd jumped on the contest idea a bit too soon.  Sure enough, I haven't had time to even wrangle the details together.  Conceptually it's all there, but there are several things that need to be put into place before I can kick it off, and it's just not gonna happen right now.  Heck, I haven't even had time to work on the update in a while.

My apologies for the premature announcement.  When it's actually to roll, you'll hear more.

Contest announcement delay

I thought I'd have the earlier part of this week to get ready for today's official kickoff of the tweenMachine Design Contest, but then life happened. I may have time to work on it before the weekend is out, but if not, it'll have to wait 'til next week. My apologies for the delay.

Announcing...

You know, I was thinking that the tweenMachine Facebook page needs some art.  I was also thinking that with the new Python version of tweenMachine coming, maybe it's time to get a new shelf button icon as well.  Thinking about those two thinks spawned another think, one that I hope will be fun and interactive.  So without further ado, it's time to announce...

The tweenMachine Design Contest!

The tweenMachine Design Contest will present a unique challenge for graphic designers, and a unique opportunity to have your designs seen in multiple locations, both in Maya and on the web.

What's so unique about it?  Well, the contest centers around the creation of two images, each serving a dual purpose...

• Image 1 will be used as the new official tweenMachine shelf button icon in Maya AND as the profile image on the tweenMachine Facebook page.
• Image 2 will be used as a header graphic for the new "About" dialog in the upcoming tweenMachine update in Maya AND as the cover image on the tweenMachine Facebook page.
• Both images will also likely be used in other places as well: web sites, documentation, etc.

The images will need to be created based on very specific guidelines, so don't start on anything yet.  I will announce the full contest details when it officially kicks off on August 1st.  Stay tuned for more!

AnimSchool!

Okay, I feel just a little embarrassed.

In the last post, I ended with a teaser about a possible teaching opportunity, saying that I would share "more on that later."  I guess that I got so wrapped up in actually doing it that I forgot to come back later and write about it.

In early April, I began teaching the inaugural Intro to Maya class with AnimSchool.  I was approached about the opportunity by my friend Tony Bonilla, who works as the curriculum manager for AnimSchool in addition to teaching several classes.  It didn't take much prodding for Tony to convince me that this could be a fun opportunity, so I took the plunge.  As of this writing, the term is nearly over, and I can definitely say that it's been a great experience, and I'm looking forward to the next term, which kicks off in July.

One of the perks that the students get at AnimSchool is a full recording of every live class lecture.  Little did I know that Tony and friends would take one of these lectures and turn it into a short promo video for the course.   I guess I should have seen it coming.  ;)

Joinin' Jamaroos!

It's funny...when I switched from 3D animation to technical development at Reel FX several years ago, I was pretty much ready to just let animation go and never do it again.  Even though several friends and colleagues responded to this change with comments like, "Once an animator, always an animator," I wasn't convinced.  I mean, animation at that time had sorta become an artsy synonym for "stress" in my book.  Why on earth would I want to pick it up again?

I bet you know where this is going.

Yup.  I'm animating again.

You know what else?

It's fun again!

Zap the zebra from Jamaroos

Early last week I sat down with Dale Carman, one of the co-founders of Reel FX, who had approached me about possibly contributing both creatively and technically to a side project of his called Jamaroos.  It's a series of interactive books for the iPhone and iPad (and related iDevices) that aims to entertain and engage young readers with fun stories and characters.  The first book in the series, Z is for Zap, is already available for the iPad on the iOS app store, with an iPhone version coming soon.

I quickly became interested in the project, and joined the Jamaroos team as a freelance animator/developer.  For now I'm helping to complete animation on the next book in the series, J is for Jag, but I hope to get a taste of the development side of things in the future.  And yes, I'll probably do a little voice work as well.  :)

So what makes animating on Jamaroos so fun?  After working on it for the past week or so, I think it has to do with simplicity: the characters are very simply designed and drawn, and the animation tool we're using has very simple controls for animating them.  This forces us to keep our animation simple, but don't think that simple means boring.  These books are all about rewarding kids' touches on the screen with entertaining moments, and I'm blessed to be creating these moments alongside my friend Barrett Lewis, one of my former Reel FX compadres and a creative lead on the Jamaroos project.  We're constantly throwing ideas back and forth, and are pouring all of our animation knowledge into these characters to make their performances as lively and whimsical as possible while working within the constraints of the animation tool.  I'm constantly amazed at what we're able to come up with using nothing but 2D images assembled into simple hierarchies, and animated mostly using position, rotation, and scale.  It's forcing us to think much more creatively, which just adds to the fun of it all once we see what we can actually pull off.

So yeah, I'm animating again, and I'm having a blast doing it.  What's more, I'm only doing it part-time, so I can do other work as well, like VO and acting...

...and maybe teaching?

More on that later.  ;)

Winnin' with minions, part 2

Dang, this just keeps gettin' cooler.  :)

Last night, another award was bestowed up on "Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem," the 3D ride film that was produced at Reel FX for the fine folks at Universal Orlando and Illumination Entertainment.  This one was from the Visual Effects Society, another of the major names in award-giving for the CG/VFX industry, and was for Outstanding Visual Effects in a Special Venue Project.

To win both an Annie Award and a VES Award in the same year may not be that big of a deal for some studios, but it's a huge deal for Reel FX.  Unless my memory is fading prematurely, the studio has never won an Annie Award, though several of its creations have been nominated in past years.  I'm not as clear about the VES awards.  I know the studio has submitted material in the past, and I think received nominations, but I don't recall if any VES awards have followed.  If someone at the studio sees this and can correct the record, I'll update the post accordingly.

Memory-fuzziness aside, to receive awards from both organizations in the same year is a major achievement for Reel FX, and I applaud my formerly-fellow studio minions for their amazing work on this project.  Even though I'm no longer with the studio, I was very deeply involved in the project while I was there, and couldn't be happier about this pair of awards.  While the bestowal of awards is never (or shouldn't be) the goal of any effort of this kind, it's wonderfully gratifying when one is received.  When that one becomes two, it's a double helping of awesomesauce.

Winnin' with minions

One of the final projects that I worked on at Reel FX before making the jump was "Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem," a ride film for Illumination Entertainment and Universal Studios.  It was a blast getting to work with Gru, the girls, and of course the ever-present minions, but it was quite a challenge at several levels, and many of the technical hurdles came across my desk at various points throughout the project's production.  I specifically remember spending several incredibly-late nights at the studio, feverishly cranking on code or troubleshooting problematic playblasts.  To say that I've got mixed feelings about the project is an understatement, so it was quite gratifying to surface from fixing some elusive technical issues on a freelance programming job to find reports that "Minion Mayhem" won for Best Animated Special Production in the Annie Awards!

Congratulations to all of my friends and former co-workers who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into the job.  Y'all done good, gang.  :)

"Animate a Face" now online!

Wow!  It's been a while since I've written anything in this blog.  Not terribly surprising considering my career shift, but anyway, I've got some awesome news to share...

My "Animate a Face" tutorial videos are now available online!

For those who may not have heard of this product, the original was released in 2004, and was a 2 CD-ROM set containing 15 videos -- nearly 4 hours of fully-narrated screen-captured material -- all about the wonderful world of facial animation, including a couple detailed lip sync demonstrations.  As I was reviewing the videos to get them ready for uploading to MindBites, it was a little weird seeing such outdated animation software (I used Animation:Master v10.5, per my contract with Anzovin Studio).  However, as I've said numerous times about this product, it was created with a focus on principles over programs.  The core material is all about animation, and is just as useful now as it was then.  And now, it's a heckuvalot cheaper!  The original CD set made its debut at about $50 if I remember correctly, but on MindBites you can buy individual lessons for a buck or two, or the whole collection for less than $15!

If you want to really dig into facial animation, check out this material.  Happy animating!

Frames Per Beat Calculator

Shahbaaz Shah is awesome.  How awesome?  Well, for one thing, he's working in-house as a contract animator at Reel FX.  For another thing, he just passed along the link to this nifty little tool by Rich Reel that gives you a frame count (and a bunch of other spiffy figures) as you tap out a beat on the keyboard.  If you've got to animate anything that involves rhythm, this could come in pretty handy.

Kudos to Rich for making it, and thanks to Shahbaaz for passing it along!

I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat!

Entertainment Weekly has posted a sneak peek at I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat, a new CG animated short film featuring Sylvester and Tweety.  The short is one of three new theatrical Looney Tunes shorts that Reel FX has produced for Warner Bros, and one of two that feature revived audio of classic cartoon voice talent, Mel Blanc.  June Foray, another legend in the world of cartoon character voices, was brought in to voice Granny.


I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat will play in front of Happy Feet Two this coming weekend, while the other two shorts -- one featuring Daffy and Elmer (again with Mel's stellar vocals), the other bringing back Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner for more mayhem -- will appear in front of other WB features in 2012.

Auto-placing Toolbars

I fiddled around with Maya 2012's toolbar options a bit more today, and learned a few interesting things. The most interesting of all was the discovery of a way to auto-load a custom toolbar when Maya opens, and have it appear in the same position that it was in when you last closed the program. (This is all in Python, by the way; I'm not sure if it would work the exact same way in MEL.)

Saving Toolbar Positions

The first thing I had to figure out was how Maya saved toolbar placement. When I wrote the other day about fixing a co-worker's missing tool settings panel, I mentioned the discovery of Maya's startupMainWindowState settings file. I also found some flags on the windowPrefs command for saving and restoring these settings. Today I learned that when using those flags, the full absolute path to the file should not be passed. Maya only wants the name of the file; it already knows where it lives. So to save, it's as simple as this:

import maya.cmds as mc

mc.windowPref(saveMainWindowState="startupMainWindowState")

Maya also saves the toolbar settings automatically when it closes, and we'll take advantage of this as we move forward.

Restoring the Toolbar
Immediately after you have built your interface and wrapped it up in a toolbar, restoring Maya's window state settings will move the toolbar back into its original position (assuming it had an original position when the settings were last saved).  Here's a quick example:

import maya.cmds as mc

window = mc.window("myWindow")

column = mc.columnLayout(p=window)

button = mc.button(p=column, l="Click me!",

                   c="print('clicked!')")

toolbar = mc.toolbar("myToolbar", content=window, label="Clicker",

                     area="top")

mc.windowPref(restoreMainWindowState="startupMainWindowState")

Naming the toolbar is important, as this is what will allow you to re-position that toolbar automatically between sessions.  If it doesn't have a consistent name, it won't work.

Obviously the last line won't do much the first time that you run it, because there is no saved position for this toolbar.  However, move the toolbar to some other position, then close Maya, which will save the toolbar's position.  Open Maya, run the same code, and the toolbar should re-spawn in the same place where you moved it.

The next step is to make Maya auto-load your toolbar each time that it starts.

Auto-Loading the Toolbar
Maya looks for  -- and executes the contents of -- two files each time that it starts: userSetup.mel and userSetup.py.  If used, these files should be placed in Maya's "scripts" folder.  In this case, we're going to use the Python startup file to kick off our toolbar.

First, we'll need to wrap our code inside a function, and save it in a file.  Copy the following into a new file in your favorite text editor:

import maya.cmds as mc

def main():

    window = mc.window("myWindow")

    column = mc.columnLayout(p=window)

    button = mc.button(p=column, l="Click me!",

                       c="print('clicked!')")

    toolbar = mc.toolbar("myToolbar", content=window,

                         label="Clicker", area="top")

    mc.windowPref(restoreMainWindowState="startupMainWindowState")

Save this file as "myToolbar.py" into Maya's prefs/scripts folder, which is one of the places in the sys.path setting of Maya's embedded Python.

Now start a new text file, and add this to it:

import maya.cmds as mc

import myToolbar

mc.evalDeferred(myToolbar.main)

Save this file as "userSetup.py" into Maya's scripts folder.

The reason we're using "evalDeferred" is because Maya needs to wait to execute the UI code until it has a UI to work with.  If you don't defer the execution, Maya will crash before it even opens.

Close Maya and re-open it.  Your custom toolbar should automatically appear where you last placed it.

Notes on bird flight

A few days back, one of the guys at work posted a link to a really great page on Brendan Body's web site that has a LOT of awesome observations about bird flight and how to animate it. Brendan was a lead animator on Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, and "had a large role in developing the style of the bird flight for the film." You can see his application of these flight principles in his showreel from the film (inserted below). According to Brendan:

I'm responsible for all animation apart from a couple of shots where someone else animated the background characters - where Nyra says "Owlet, that one says you're his brother" and also where Ezylryb says "Soren, you did what was right". All cycles used in the flying shots are my own.

Awesome work, Brendan!

Legend of the Guardians Showreel from Brendan Body on Vimeo.

New iPhone App: Coach's Eye

Earlier today I received an email about an interesting new iPhone app that was just released by the folks at TechSmith. It's called Coach's Eye, and while it's being primarily marketed as a tool for coaches (of various types), I think it has some definite potential in the realm of animation.

In a nutshell, Coach's Eye is a simple video review tool. You can load a video clip (from one of several possible sources), scrub through it, add annotations (or "telestrations" as the TechSmith folks call them), and even record vocal comments. Once you're done, save the whole thing and share it using the app's sharing tools.

So how could Coach's Eye be useful for animators? Here are just a few thoughts...

• Record a video critique of a piece of animation sent to you by a friend/colleague/student
• Create a series of action analysis clips where you break down animated or live-action footage
• Record reference footage for a shot you're animating, and make notes on specific things that you want to make sure to incorporate into your work

Right now they're offering Coach's Eye at a special introductory price of 99 cents. This deal won't be around forever, so swing on over to the App Store if you want to learn more.

And no, I'm not getting a kickback for plugging it. I just think it's cool, and wanted to pass the word.

Devils, Angels & Dating - Teaser Trailer

Over a year ago, I made contact with the director of an online collaborative animated film, and was cast as the voice of the two male characters. Later I was asked to record a Wonder Years-esque narration that would be woven throughout the film. The project has been progressing nicely, and a teaser trailer was just released that shows off some of the stellar work that's been done by the team, all of whom are volunteers. Take a minute (literally) and check it out!

Interview with Dorian Soto, Part 5

In part 4 Dorian talked about some of his suggestions for new animators, and in this final part Dorian continues in that vein by answering the question, "Would you recommend that someone pursue a career in animation?"

Interview with Dorian Soto, Part 4

In part 3 Dorian talked about some of the differences between his first two jobs, and we begin Part 4 with another common question...

Interview with Dorian Soto, Part 3

In part 2 Dorian talked about some of the work he did on Green Lantern at Sony Imageworks, and we kick off Part 3 with a question that crosses the minds of all new animators as they approach their first job.

Interview with Dorian Soto, Part 2

In part 1 Dorian talked about his introduction to animation and some of his training, and we begin part 2 talking about his first job...

Interview with Dorian Soto, Part 1

It's been a while since I've been in here, and I apologize for the lapse in chatter. Frankly, I haven't had many ideas on what to post here, but knowing how I tend to over-edit these things when I finally get around to putting them together, I think I've largely been avoiding it when the ideas have come because I knew that I just didn't have the time.

However, something has come up lately that just may change all that. I recently started recording little vocal bits via the Audioboo service. A lot of it is just talk with friends, but I also plan on talking about various things related to animation, and will toss those up here from time to time. It's a lot easier to babble for five minutes, add some tags, and publish the recording than it is to sit down with the intention of writing a "simple" blog post (which is what this was supposed to be) and not take a half-hour to actually get the thing done. :)

One of the things that I got the bug to do with my Audioboo recordings is interview some of the folks at Reel FX. The first interview that I recorded was with Dorian Soto, who came on board as a contract animator for a couple months. Here's part 1 of that interview. Part 2 should be released shortly.

For more of my Audioboo posts, stop by my Audioboo profile page, where you can listen to them directly, and also find RSS and iTunes links for tracking them via other tools.

tweenMachine 2.03

tweenMachine 2.03 is published. It fixes a problem that has prevented Maya versions in the 200X series from using the special tick color feature. If you run into any issues, drop a note here (still haven't got the contact page on my site updated yet).