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 !!