Ramp Weights from Brave Rabbit !

    Ingo Clemens ( Brave Rabbit) has been putting out amazing tools for some time.. I'm sure some of you have used his "shapes" plugin, which is fantastic. 
 He recently released a new tool to handle blendshapes , that uses a Ramp to control the weighing of the targets.
 Not only does it look amazing, but it is also "free" ! 


  

rampWeights - Split deformer weights from brave rabbit on Vimeo.

From Ingo's vimeo page:



Node for Autodesk Maya to control blend shape weights or weighted deformers with an axis based ramp for various effects.

Download rampWeights here: braverabbit.com/rampweights/

The ramp weights node gives fast access to splitting blend shape targets or weighted deformers along any axis.

The split can be controlled by a number of attributes defining the split width and position which even can be used for animation effects. Each ramp weights node allows for controlling any number of deformers. The resulting deformer weights can be inverted, either globally or individually per output. For advanced control it's possible to create a placement node or even use a custom control to refine the split.

When disconnecting the ramp weights node from a deformer or even deleting it you can choose between keeping the generated weights or discard them.

The ramp weights node also has a couple of presets to create centered or mirrored results which cater for a greater variety of effects.

The open source release of the plug-in is mainly to give people easier access to the node without having to fully commit to using the blend shape editor SHAPES.

The rampWeights node is also part of the SHAPES plug-in braverabbit.com/shapes/, our advanced blend shape editor for Maya. If you have the SHAPES Blend Shape Editor installed it's not necessary to download this newer version of the plug-in.


rampWeights is under the terms of the MIT License

Arnold 5.1 Denoiser overview from atdsk

There are 2 new deNoisers added to Arnold 5.1
Technical Specialist Roland Reyer does an overview of using both, and their pros and cons.

• nVidia Optix denoiser
• superfast
• interactive
• un-stable
• runs on nVidia GPU hardware
• Arnold batch denoiser
• slower
• non-interactive
• stable !
• runs in batch mode
• runs on software

Better VP2.0 and in view Arnold rendering

The arnold standard shader has been updated for Maya 2019 so that it not only performs better in shading.. but also VP2.0 can better reflect the final result.

• realtime reflections from Area Lights in VP2.0 
•  ... so.. yeah,, faster, looks more like final....
•  *( wheres GPU RENDERING !) 

( just watch the video..)

Macro Pupil Constriction in Slow Motion

Next time you have to do a detailed pupil dialation, be sure to check this video out.  Very great reference for how the pupil moves and the fibrerous construction of the iris itself.  And much better than watching those LASIC videos.
 Most people are familiar with the general structure of the eye ball, and how it all works, but I don't know how much study has been done, or recorded of the actual iris itself. 
 Makes you wonder if a hair render solution might give you the best results, or just a few overlapping stretching textures. ( also gives you something to think about the next time you go to the eye doctor ) 

Cached Playback in Maya 2019

A quick overview of Cached Playback in 2019
couple things to note:

• blue line in time line shows you progress , and which frames are cached
• constantly updates as you work 
• Users can set a target frame rate for playback, and choose whether caching targets the CPU or GPU. Rig evaluation is based on OpenCL, so GPU processing should work on both AMD and Nvidia hardware.
• you can move the camera around and review and it wont affect your cache
• Dynamics simulation, Non-linear animation (such as Time Editor, and Trax), and XGen-related features do not support Cached Playback.
• Here is  a list of unsupported nodes : http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2019/ENU/?guid=GUID-EF1C2D0C-622D-4FBB-B761-54E0A9765CE1
• Animated visibility is supported, but does not take full advantage of the caching system. 
• Animated geometry topology is supported, but does not take full advantage of the caching system
• Caching Smooth Mesh Preview in Maya Catmull-Clark mode does not work correctly, However, Open Subdiv smoothing modes work with caching.
• Switching display modes (wireframe versus polygons, smooth-shaded versus flat-shaded, and so on,) is unsupported. Once the display mode is changed, the cache needs to be rebuilt.
• Smooth Mesh Preview slows down Cached Playback significantly due to the amount of memory used by subdivided meshes.Workaround: Use the following Python script to disable smooth mesh preview for all meshes in your scene:

• import maya.cmds as cmds
  
  for mesh in cmds.ls(type='mesh'):
    cmds.setAttr('{}.displaySmoothMesh'.format(mesh), 0)

Also of note for animators. there are two new curve filtering options in the GraphEditor.

• ButterWorth  filtering for smoothing out curves
• Key Reducer  a sort of smarter key reduction that tries to get rid of unnecessary keys 

Full what's new docs here:
http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2019/ENU/?guid=GUID-C9DB1549-B9C0-4FC2-B984-91B7DCE3141B



unsupported nodes(of note) :
some of which you can turn on caching for with "unsafe" modes

• bifrost                                   MAYA_CACHE_IGNORE_UNSAFE_BIFROST
• BOSS
• Dynamics (hair dynamics & nucleus)
• hair dynamics              MAYA_CACHE_IGNORE_UNSAFE_DYNAMICS
• nucleus
• Grease Pencil
• jiggle
•  MASH  *( most of the nodes)
•  MUSCLE *( most of the nodes)
• Texture Deformer
• Time Editor *( not to be confused with Graph or Time Line)    MAYA_CACHE_IGNORE_UNSAFE_TIME_EDITOR
•  TRAX
• XGEN
• 
  

and a review for animator Brian Horgan

Maya 2019 Animation Caching from Brian Horgan on Vimeo.

Check out this awesome looking Turkey for the Mill NYC team.




Chantix "Slow Turkey" from Hank Kosinski on Vimeo.

A deeper look into the polyRemesh & polyRetopo commands in Maya

A well done overview and real world use case of Maya's new polyRemesh and polyRetopo, be sure to stay till the end for the "bonus" material of ensuring symmetry with the tools.

From what I can tell, the two commands are still just in their infancy stages and that is why they don't have full blown UIs to go along with them, aren't in any menu sets, and are not available on Mac OS.

The polyRemesh tool is a simple remesher of your geo.. and is mostly guessing at what you want the results to be in a uniform triangularized surface.. Not exactly clean for DCC use. The polyRetopo command is a very simple retopo 
of your model, attempting to give a decent re topo based on edges and curvature. 
 Just FYI,  you can run the polyRetopo without reMesher, but you tend to get cleaner results reMeshing first. 




also, the "custom script" is probably just using the poly selection tools under Select | Use Constraints  which is a pretty confusing UI. but very powerful.

and the end result tends to come from the polySelectConstraint command.
ie:  polySelectConstraint -m 3 -t 0x8000 -sm 1 ;




I've never seen any other videos from PlayCreative, and this appears to be the only one visible so far.. but if the rest are as informative as this,, I think it would be worth subscribing

 -=s

Intro to Marvelous Designer : making a chef's hat with Alex Cheparev

   Modeling supervisor , CG supervisor, & CG artist Alex Cheparev walks you through your first interactions with Marvelous Designer to make a "chef's hat" for A kid robot style character.

 For those of you that are unfamiliar , Marvelous Designer is a clothing design stand alone app that has become a staple in creating Cloth models, and cloth simulations for animation.  Although originally intended for couture, MD is incredibly fast and simple to create all your clothing needs. 

It runs as $50 a month, $190 a year, or $240 for a perpetual license, but you can also get  a 30 day trial. 
https://www.marvelousdesigner.com

While not creating commercial , film, and vfx work at Method Studios,  Alex also teaches at SVA , and loves to talk about modeling, and building sliding wooden doors. 

Face Swap from David Gadali

Director, and VFX supervisor David Gidali ,created the face swap using "deepFakes" to create this thought provoking short..   
  warning: Contains mature themes and content. 


FACE SWAP from David Gidali on Vimeo.



Link to a behind the scenes interview with David on creating the short

https://directorsnotes.com/2019/01/07/david-gidali-einat-tubi-face-swap/

Danny William's "fast retopo"

Danny Williams shares a bunch of tips , tricks, and techniques in this great overview of how to retopo your models in Maya. ( & some zbrush ) 

  After teaching a class ( in a local NY school) Danny noticed a lot of different ideas coming out about how to retopo and decided to create a tutorial  series to show on how he tackles the re topo task.

( and be sure to follow Point Pusher, and let him know any questions , comments, critiques ,  or other tips you want to share with him) 


Here is part 1 of 5 !  ( introduction) 

fast retopo in Maya: 01_Intro from pointpusher on Vimeo.

Part 2:



fast retopo in Maya: 02_decimation_import_export from pointpusher on Vimeo.