Rhino Beetle Rig: Test 01

A quick video of the rig I have been working on this month. It is a very nice model of a rhino beetle modeled by Tre Vital. This a was a very tedious rig due to the model having four arms. I will have to come up with a script to allow me to create attributes faster. This rig has four IKFK systems because of its four arms. Each hand has fk fingers that can be hidden and driven by attributes the icon on top of the wrist. I used orient constraints and visibility swaps for the IKFK switch so that when it is switched back and forth the wrist can be controlled using one icon. As for the feet I used a reverse foot lock system to give me my foot motions. For the face I used a simple joint based rig for the eyebrows and eyes, and I still have a lot of tweaks and blend shapes I need to make before it is complete. Please let me know what you think, critiques are alway appreciated!

-Aaron  

                                                    Click Here For Video!

Spy Animation Shot02 Passes

In my class this month, we are not learning anything new, I am fine-tuning my skills as an animator and  working to produce two shots for a short movie that we will put together at the end of the month. I was assigned shot two and five out of twelve. In shot two, spy bugsy, is attempting to reach a window that is too high for him. I had to animate him trying to reach the window.

(please note that there are about 5 to 6 different revised versions of each pass)

pass 01 - Blocking  

pass 02  - Breakdowns

pass 03 - Clean Up

Particle Simulation In Houdini

For this project, I decided to be a little random and give a turtle a shower. To do this, I used Houdini's particle emitter to simulate a shower and a model of a tortoise set to be a static object. This project seemed  to take me a ridiculous amount of time. I think mostly because my lap top isn't powerful enough to handle such a heavy load. This was not my favorite project.

Maya Fluid Fire Simulaton

This is a fire I created in maya using Maya Fluids. I wanted to create a calm cozy fireplace scene.
I enjoyed this project a lot. However I do not feel that this was my best work when it comes to Visual Effects. I feels as though my fire is too orange and too fast. I do, however, feel like how it looks over all is not bad. I think with more practice I can improve greatly when it comes to using maya fluids.

Facial Rig WIP 02

http://youtu.be/uocZQq71Yto

An update on my facial rig. I am using the text book "Stop Staring" by Jason Osipa as my guide. So far it is going pretty well I think! as of right now I only have the jaw and subJaws set up and working. I did run into an issue with naming my multiply divide node and  I have recently discovered that it is better to  place each joint individually instead of mirroring them. When you mirror a joint, the orientation gets reversed which works fine for an arm or a leg, but for a jaw when using multiply/Divide nodes in the node editor, it causes the nodes to work in reverse for translations. It was a simple fix, all I had to do was duplicate the joints and their groups from one side and just move them to the correct position. As of now, nothing is bound yet but I am getting the layout set up. That should be done soon.

Facial Rigging WIP 01

I have begun the process of learning joint based facial rigging. As of now I am working on getting my joints laid out so that I can start connecting them. I am using the text book "Stop Staring" by Jason Osipa as a guide for this project. I will be using sub jaws for the mouth movement. These will be connected to the root jaw through the use of multiply/divide node, which I will be connecting in the node editor. This is my first advanced facial rig so I am excited to see how it comes out.

Space Soldier: Compositing in Nuke

In my compositing class, we are fine tuning our skills with integrating live action footage and CG in Nuke. I enjoyed this project, but it was a little difficult since I haven't even looked at nuke in quite some time. I think my colors may be a little off for the soldier. But over all I am happy with my work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0BXrfomI_0&feature=youtu.be