Maya 2018.5 has been released !!

Be aware that a full uninstall and install are required for installation.


Looks like mostly bug fixes


release notes here:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/sites/default/files/Maya_MayaLT_2018.5_ReleaseNotes_ENU.htm

Epic Games announces over $800K in grants

What better way to spend all that fortnite money !
 Unreal doles out grants to creators and developers using unreal engine. While most recipients are game and tool developers, there are a few films and projects focused on creating film.  One name you may recognize , being Matt Workman, Who has been tirelessly developing Cine Tracer, a realistic cinematography simulator. 

Learn more about the grants and the recipients here:
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/epic-games-announces-over-800k-in-unreal-dev-grants?utm_source=launcher&utm_medium=chromium&utm_term=showcase&utm_content=DevGrants&utm_campaign=communitytab

Allen McKays' Venom Crash Course Tutorial

Mostly known for creating award winning fx for feature films, and creating great podcasts and tutorials about it, Allan Mckay has put out a new crash course "Venom" for creating fx for an action shot with Venom . 

Exect flash bangs, saliva, atmospherics, tentacles,  and then lighting it all up with vray .  

  Allan is very in depth about how everything is done, and includes alembic caches  for the scenes. And although he shows everything in 3dSMax , and ideas and practices are great for any software. 

 https://www.allanmckay.com/venom

FUSE FX NY Open House

FUSE FX NY is having an OPEN HOUSE !

It looks like they are looking to fill a few positions and add people to their talent roster.  

They want you to also add your area of expertise and any openings you'd be interested in 


On their site they have the following openings listed:

• FX Artist
• General Inquiry
• Nuke Compositors
• Office Coordinator
• VFX Coordinator
• VFX Supervisor

RSVP here for the event :

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe01l3i4MlxTWpT_N1DRv6HP2i2BLqTgmIgPkY136u1xbdWzw/viewform

Siggraph now: Bringing Coco's skeletons to life

This is a great look into the technical and artistic decisions made developing the looks and movements of the characters in Coco.  

Synthesizing human dressing Motion via deep reinforcement learning:

Good reference for the next time you are dealing with nCloth or Marvelous Designer for your character.. 

Autodesk's intro to Render Setup

  I've yet to meet an artist who is thrilled with the new render setup. Which to me is a little strange. As they all seem to like the legacy render setup more, even with it's quirks and reference issues, and lost links, and all the things that everyone has complained about for the last ... well since Maya was created.

   I think it mostly comes from the devil you know. We've all had those late nights of trying to fix a broken layer , until we finally said, "screw it" ,  and just deleted all the layers and started over.. or decided that that pass wasn't all that important and just fixed it in comp. 

   It also comes from simplicity. The legacy render layers couldn't be simpler. Put things in a layer, add some lights, change some textures and shader settings, and 7 times out of 10, you get what you expected with no hassle. Also a lot of studios have developed simple tools to make most of the issues go away. 

   While autodesk was listening to everyone complain, they decided to roll out an entirely new render setup to replace render layers. And in doing so, came up with something super powerful and flexible, and generally easy to debug. But also, a lot more daunting than the three or maybe even four steps that are needed to work with legacy layers. 

I think Autodesk may have been listening again. As they've just release a 7 part series for "Intro to Render Setup for Autodesk Maya 2018 update 4" 
(by the way,, if you are not on update 4, please do so. there are some nasty bugs that appeared in update 3) 

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And here are the links to the rest of the parts.
part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu_cd6U-zCw 
part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc7PnS9Fp-w
part 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j9kkZptEww
part 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGW_RY_4nsg
part 6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FZJbjqqNRU
part 7 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiGN4erCXNE



In all honesty , I haven't watched them yet. but I will.

Richard Lico's Animation Workflow : Siggraph 2018

Been following Richard Lico's work for a little while now, and I really love his approach to rigging, pipeline, and animation.. 

Unreal Engine : Virtual Production

Unreal Engine ( EPIC) has created a new site and podcast to discuss all the news and latest with podcasts, articles , and tutorials . 

Go check out the latest podCast with Mike Seymore on "What is Virtual Production?" 

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/programs/virtual-production/what-is-virtual-production

Node Calculator add-on

Mischa Koibe has released his second release of the node calculator. Which basically is like an expression converter from script to nodes. Nodal networks vs expresssions can not only run in parallel ,but also tend to play a lot nicer with references, and with in-evitable name changes of controls and geo etc, ( which expressions tend not to ) 

 I really like his way of building on previous code and making modules that cna be re-used in the nodeCalculator.. I have tried writing a converter before and it does get pretty hectic quick, dealing with order of operations especially, so I can only imagine the amount of time it took to build this all out. 
 I haven't tried it out yet, but I definitely like the idea. 

NodeCalculator Script: github.com/mischakolbe/node_calculator

NodeCalculator Documentation: node-calculator.readthedocs.io



NodeCalculator - Introduction from Mischa Kolbe on Vimeo.


This is a great use case of using the nodeCalculator to set up soft IK


NodeCalculator - Example: Soft Approach from Mischa Kolbe on Vimeo.

Fundamentals of V-Ray For Maya

Yes, V-RAY!  

  My good friend Dariush Derakshani has put out a new series on Plural-Sight 

The Fundamentals of V-Ray 

 https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/maya-vray-fundamentals

Dariush is known for his book series Introducing Maya: 3D for Beginners and Maya: Secrets of the Pros  . He also teaches at USC film school along with working as a VFX and CG supervisor in LA.   He is also just an all around good guy... 

UNREAL ENGINE FOR VFX ! @ SVA SEPT 29th

SVA is hosting the EPIC enterprise team in a training session for using UNREAL for VFX!
I'm super excited for this event.. as I keep putting off my unreal intro training and this looks like a great intro.

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DESCRIPTION
Real-time production techniques are driving bold new innovations in the VFX industry. Are you ready to discover how today’s cutting-edge creative teams in the VFX world are using Unreal Engine to revolutionize the film and TV productions of tomorrow?



Learn directly from the experts at Epic Games at the School for Visual Arts in New York City on September 29th! The upcoming Unreal Engine for VFX training event is an in-depth primer on the powerful tools and techniques at the center of real-time production. You’ll explore how the Epic team sets up real-time pipelines for major projects, learn how to set up Unreal Engine for cinematic shot production, and much more!



Don’t miss out on this exciting training event! The full schedule is below:



Schedule / Talks

9:00 a.m. - Registration, Networking w/ Pastries and Coffee

10:00 a.m. - Media and Entertainment Case Studies

11:30 a.m. - Connecting Maya to Unreal Engine with Live Link

12:30 p.m. - Light Lunch

1:30 p.m. - Advanced Look Development Techniques for Real-Time

4:00 p.m. - Sequencer Training and World Setup for Cinematic Shot Production

5:00 p.m. - Closing Reception



Hurry, space is limited! Register today to reserve your spot!


https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/unreal-engine-for-vfx-training-event-pro-techniques-for-real-time-production-pipelines-tickets-50125828703

Path Finder from Felipe de Jesus

Pretty interesting tools from Felipe de Jesus. 
   
Path finder is a tool to help with retargeting your animation to follow along a curve. At first glance it seems easy enough, but in the demo I like that this tool has functionality to keep the feet from slipping, as well as a nice bank control. 
  What I'm curious about, is how it controls the rig, if it's constraining on top of the controls? or it it needs to inject a parent over them for added offset animation. It does appear to be baking the animation out, so my guess would be it converts the animation to world space, and then constrains those controls to the baked animation.. 
 Since this tool works on any rig, it looks of it it uses a loaded selection for which controls to "control" , and which ones to "control, but ignore banking" .. but I'm not sure. 
 but for $50 it may be something worth adding to your toolkit 
https://www.highend3d.com/maya/script/pathfinder-home-edition-for-maya 


Pathfinder Home Edition from Felipe de Jesus on Vimeo.

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The second tool Felipe has posted is his "water jet rig" . Which looks to be a water sim that has been cached and then sent thru a spline rig..I've done this a lot in commercial work, as it's a great way to affect a water sim, which takes  a long time, and be able to tweak it quickly to fit your needs..  Great idea to make one and sell it to the public.



WaterJet Rig from Felipe de Jesus on Vimeo.

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Both these tools were released recently, so my guess would be there are more to come. If anyone out there tries these out, I'd be interested in their feedback

-=s

interesting technique for driving normal maps

If you don't have access to soup , fstretch, stretch mesh, or ideform  I thought this tutorial from rigging artist Ana Uzhovska   was an interesting approach to driving normal maps on  a character.

nVidia RTX and realtime rendering

So one of the biggest news items from Siggraph this year is real time ray tracing. Nvidia is really pushing some amazing, albeit expensive , cards. 

I'm trying to figure out if this latest Demo is a play off the starcraft 2 trailer? or just coincidence.   ( also some obvious ideas taken from Iron Man "suit up" scene" )  

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nVidia also put out this Speed Of Light trailer, featuring the 911 speedster concept.. 





but I was most impressed by is seeing these realtime Arnold in Maya videos from the show floor from this attendee..

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... and when you get an hour or so be sure to watch this Keynote from nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. 

• 19:55 for the real time raytracing star wars scene 
• Porsche speedster demo 
• 2018 release video ( character build) 
• 
  

Renderer QuickStart from Create 3D characters

This looks like a really great intro into rendering from Create 3D Characters.  Not only does it have tutorials for Arnold, RenderMan, and RedShift, but it also includes an amazing "Pleased Dragon" sculpt to light, but it's all FREE. 

 I've seen a few of Create 3D's offerings before, and they are all really good and easy to follow. 

here is the link to their quickstart page:  http://create3dcharacters.com/maya-renderer-quick-start-2018/

Twitter Account for NYMUG

 I've found that not everyone wants to follow on Facebook, and I need to start joining more social media.. so here it is a twitter account for the NYMUG ... 
follow here:  
@NYMAYAGROUP





( I couldn't get NYMUG ,, as that was already taken ) 

Summer Meeting ReCAP

      Just wanted to thank everyone for coming out, and of course to Lee Fraser (  SuiteishBlog ) and Roger An (alphaFish )  for presenting and to SVA for hosting.   And especially to Autodesk(Lee) for Providing the pizza and refreshments.. ( *the delivery guy is okay ! , just a little traumatized) 

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    The hdri resource Lee Mentioned was https://hdrihaven.com/    , It looks pretty awesome, and I'll be sure to be checking out it soon.  

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   Based on some of the conversation, here is a someones compiled list of on-line Render Farms.   https://rentrender.com/all-render-farms-list

If you are running deadline  it has  a great connection to the Amazon Cloud network. They have on-demand pricing https://marketplace.thinkboxsoftware.com/collections/arnold-render

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( ai toon render) 

(AI scatter .. keep an eye out for a tutorial from Lee) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmqBa_t2_QI

(Keep and eye out for Alpha Fish to get "released" on vimeo soon ) 

As always , please let me know if you or someone you know is looking to present, and if you have ideas of something you'd like to see.   I'll try and move away from Facebook to this blog a little more as time goes on , and if you like what you see, please let me know !

 thanks 

-=s

Maya Users Group Summer Meet up July 18th

NY Maya Users Group  Summer Meet up ! 

Lee Fraser , Sr. Technical Specialist for Autodesk , will be in town to show off some the latest news and tricks with Maya. 
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/profile/O37DF4517DE632EF

 and 

 Roger An,  Graduate of SVA and local 3d artist, will be presenting a look into  his film "Alpha Fish" , and how he created it on a very limited budget, and got it not only into but winning in several festivals around the world. 

 https://www.alphafish.tv/

July 18th 

6:30 to 9:00

133 W21st Street 

Room 301C 

Refreshments provided as well

  be sure to RSVP on the facebook  invite.
or to nycmayausersgroup@gmail.com

Top Tips for improving you UVs from Flipped Normals

From Maya 2016 to 2018 Autodesk has spent a lot of time improving the UV tools in Maya, most notably the 2017 addition of the UV toolkit 

The Guys from Flipped Normals show off some of their favorite UV tools in Maya

• setting and matching texel density
• straightening uvs and shells
• improvements to cut and sew (turn distance to 0 ) 
• shift+click to edit tool preferences in the UV toolKit 
• brush style "Sew" tool 
• auto-seams feature !! 

Connected workflows: Maya Mudbox & Arnold : Zombie

Zombie - connected workflows for character creation from Autodesk Media and Entertainment on Vimeo.

Maya Ideas on the area

  Small annoying things is dead.... Long live Maya Ideas.

 Autodesk has moved it's small annoying things, bug posts, and ideas all to one place under the Maya Forums on the area.

  Like before you can post ideas and vote on them, but you are no longer limited to the number of votes. 


https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-ideas/idb-p/968

Maya 2018 . 3 now available

Looks like a bunch of performance updates:



link to what' new:
http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-0975B1CE-71E8-4889-810A-D27AF6B97414

Wednesday April 25th Ziva Dynamics Meet-up at SVA

 Come check out the latest in Muscle Rigs and simulation from the team at Ziva 
Dynamics. 

 Ziva creates some of the most amazing muscle and character dynamics plug-ins for Maya available for Studios and Indie Creators.  Ziva VFX for dynamics, Ziva anatomy for simulation ready characters, and Ziva character platform for procedural interactive character tools.  

https://zivadynamics.com/

6:30 to 8:30 

133 W21st Street 

Room 301C 

Refreshments provided as well

  be sure to RSVP on the facebook  invite. 
http://nymayausersgroup.blogspot.com/2018/04/wednesday-april-25th-ziva-dynamics-meet.html

or email at : nycmayausersgroup@gmail.com

PSYOP JBL chameleon

Not only is this a great spot from Psyop, but the tech they added to create the look of the chameleon is amazing..  
 Unfortunately there are no credits to the artists. so I'm not sure if it was NY or LA or ..  but I'm gonna guess not NY ..
 (update!) 
 Just heard from one of the animators on the job,  So it was done in NYC!

Lead Animator: Pat Porter
animators: Doug Rappin & Chris Meek 
Rigging TD: Lukas Wadya



JBL "Chameleon" from Psyop on Vimeo.

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JBL "The Making-Of Chameleon" from Psyop on Vimeo.

introducing Arnold 5.1

Arnold 5.1 !

• two new denoisers 
• integraded NVIDIA OptiX Denoiser
• standalone "Noice" denoiser
• adaptive sampling
• advanced toon shader
• operators for material overrides
• native Alembic procedurals!
• ... and more 

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and Arnold GPU rendering... 

Technical Preview Maya 2018

Tj Galda shows off some upcoming tech for the future of Maya..  shouldn't be that long til we see these improvements released.



spoilers: 

• massive speed improvements in VP2.0 ( like wire deformers) 
• cached playback 
• parallelize more nodes ! 

animators go here for beta of the new caching system 

https://area.autodesk.com/events/gdc-2018/

also be sure to jump back to 24:50 for the new interop updates with Unity 

   Wes Mcdermont has updated and released the next installment of the PBR guide..

 If you haven't been texturing and shading anything lately, you may have missed that pretty much every artists is moving over to Substance ..  It's a great program and free for students..

check out the guide, and links to tutorials etc for substance here:
https://www.allegorithmic.com/blog/pbr-guide-revised-and-expanded

Mudbox 2018.2

  That's right! Mudbox is back , and with it's all new dynamic tesselation on it's tools it's looking pretty amazing.

Principal Product Designer Trevor Adams has just announced eveything that is new in MudBox on his page.  The biggest improvement is dynamic tessellation that allows tools to dynamically update the models tessellation on the fly, and only where the detail is needed without stretching out the polygons into a big shearing mess.

Rather than rehash Trevors page I'll just post some of the short videos. ( there are 10 minute example movies) and a link to the original article


Beast Concept time lapse using Dynamic Tessellation

 

Horse model study .. .starting from a sphere: 




Dynamic Tessellation Tutorial

link to full press release: 
https://area.autodesk.com/blogs/thebuzz/announcing-mudbox-20182-update-and-introducing-dynamic-tessellation/

MtoA 513: using Cryptomatte with Arnold Maya & Nuke

In Arvid Shneider's latest youTube series he walks thru using Cryptomatte with Arnold and Nuke. 

Be sure to follow Arvid on Youtube,
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1KDwEVBlxr4ew7xqLOhu9g
 and support him on his Patreon Site:
https://www.patreon.com/arvidschneider