T0339 – Simplymaya – Chef Ramsay

This tutorial is bought to Simply Maya by Jason Edwards, who was one of the character/caricature modelers on the Headcases TV show.

In this new tutorial from Simply Maya you’ll get to learn character/caricature modelling techniques like those used in major TV productions. Based upon character styling used in the Headcases TV show Jason has designed and drawn a caricature of the infamous foul tempered chef, Gordon Ramsay!

The tutorial begins with a look at reference material followed by basic creation of the character/caricature image planes within Maya. Instead of ploughing straight into the modelling of the characters facial features, we begin with the creation of the more simpler elements of the model that serve their purpose as a ‘warm up’ exercise using mainly polygons and Maya’s standard modelling tools and then gradually building up to the more complicated task of creating a characters head from a polygon cube.

Once various parts of the model are complete the uv and texture mapping process is then covered , then its straight into Photoshop to create some ‘light’ and uncomplicated textures in order to keep to the cartoon styling of the character. The tutorial concludes with all parts of the model being finalised then brought together to form the finished character.

This tutorial can be purchased with points or via our new Instant Checkout system

T0338 – Digital Tutors Maya in Production Vol 1 s.d 5

Maya in Production Vol. 1 : Pre-Production

“Maya in Production: Pre-Production” presents the concepts, methods, and tools used for each process in clear and easy to follow steps with an array of interactive training exercises. You will learn ground-breaking drawing and sculpting techniques that will enhance your creativity and production work including: sketching the concept, creating bounding boxes for proportion, drawing the images with detail, drawing the environments, creating storyboards, overview of sculpting tools, wire framing, creating anchor points, base coverage, shaping the surfaces, smoothing the surfaces, sculpting the details, and countless added techniques necessary to create sophisticated and visually fascinating artwork with professional magnitude.

Maya in Production Vol. 2 : Advanced Modeling

“Maya in Production: Advanced Modeling” focuses on advanced modeling techniques using Polygon and NURBS tools. The concepts, methods, and tools used for each process are presented in clear and easy to follow steps with an array of interactive training exercises. You will learn award-winning techniques that will enhance your imagination and creative production work including: prepping and setting image planes, establishing volume, shaping and building appendages, tweaking vertices, assembling the halves together, building stand-in objects, modeling the environment, patch modeling, and several additional techniques necessary to create work with intricate and striking realism.

Maya in Production Vol. 3:Advanced Texturing

“Maya in Production: Advanced Texturing” focuses on advanced texturing techniques using an array of tools and techniques. This training kit presents concepts, methods, and tools used for each process in clear and easy to follow steps with a number of interactive training exercises. You will learn cutting-edge techniques and key concepts that will increase your creativity and artistic detail including: UV Layouts, base textures, skin coloring, working with custom brushes, Photoshop texturing, building Bump Maps, creating Specular Maps, using Ramp Nodes, using the Connection Editor, building Alpha Channels and Color Maps, building custom shaders, using 3D paint tool, filter shaders, and several additional techniques necessary to create work with intricacy and startling photorealism.

Maya in Production Vol. 4 : Rigging

“Maya in Production: Advanced Rigging” focuses on advanced rigging and binding techniques using tools. The concepts, methods, and tools used for each process are presented in clear and easy to follow steps with an array of interactive training exercises. You will learn award-winning techniques that will enhance your imagination and creative production work including: working with Clusters, creating Blend Shapes, skeleton rig setup, skin weights, custom rig controls, and several additional techniques necessary to create work with intricate and striking realism.

Maya in Production Vol.5 – Fundamentals of Animation

T0337 – 3D Palace – Next Generation Game Development – For 3dsmax (4 DVD)

The ED209 Game Development Project is a video learning set from www.3d-palace.com that covers advanced game development character building, preperation and insertion into a game both as a static textured mesh and as a fully animated and realised asset. The set covers some unique concepts in game development model development, including a new Scaffold Methodology to allow a much faster approach to modelling.

You will start this set, as usual, with a completely empty scene in 3ds Max, no photoshop files and no game assets – by the end of this mammoth FOUR DVD set, you will have a fully rigged low polygon ED209 with high polygon normal map, actually inside the Unreal Tournament 3 game with every step of the process along the way demonstrated!

WHO ARE THE TUTORS?

Cris Robson – Industry respected mechanical 3d specialist and founder of www.3d-palace.com
Greg Dowding – Leader of the Games Masters Degree Programme at Staffs University

FAQ

q. Is the tutorial end to end? Does it show everything or are there going to be massive cuts, sudden prefabs and so on?
a. The entire modelling process is end to end, as is unwrapping. Normal mapping has been broken down to only demonstrate the process on three seperate areas as the process is repetative and would drive the cost of the set up for an extra DVD. Optimization is demonstrated in full however for the same reasons as with the normal mapping it is demonstrated not on the entire ED209.

q. Are there any timelapses?
a. Yep however theres only one and it is an accompaniment not replacement for the entire unwrapping segment – this means you can if you want watch and learn from the unwrapping 11 hour marathon in real time, or you can watch a 1 hour sped up version if you choose. Both are on the DVDs.

q. Is postage free?
a. Yes

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DVD 1
Scaffold Mesh Building – creating a surrounding approximation mesh that allows us to make sure that everything is going to be built to scale and the right shape and that all the major shapes of the model will lie correctly whilst also allowing us to ascertain what the basic shapes that make the piece are.
Foot
Lower Leg
Upper Leg
Upper Body 1
upper Body 2
Weapon Arm
Finishing the low poly scaffold
High Polygon Mesh Building – This will be used to create normal maps as well as being used for optimizing into the low polygon model and for any beauty passes – high poly renders and so on.
The front toe
The side toes
The Rear Toe and Piston
The Lower Leg One
The Lower Leg Two
The Lower Leg Three
The Lower Leg Four
The Reverse Knee
The Upper Knee
Upper Legs
The Hips
Starting The Torso
DVD 2

More High Polygon Mesh Building
Torso Part 1
Torso Part 2
Torso Part 3
Torso Part 4
Torso Part 5
Torso Part 6
Torso Part 7
Torso Part 8
The Shoulder
The Upper Arm
The Elbow
The Gun System
Appendixes
Assignment of base materials
Creating carbon fiber for the visor
Metalwork
Epilogue and Rendering
DVD 3
Optimization Overview – explaining the principles and demonstrating practice of optimization of the ED209 model to make the high polygon version Game Suitable.
Unwrapping Game Low Poly ED209
Timelapse Version (1 hour)
Full versions follow;
Unwrapping Toes
unwrapping The Foot
unwrapping lower leg
unwrapping knee
unwrapping back knee
unwrapping upper leg
unwrapping upper leg two
unwrapping the hips
unwrapping the torso
unwrapping arm one
unwrapping arm two
unwrapping gun
Duplication of limbs for mapping (Unreal 3 allows us to share UVMaps between duplicated limbs, meaning that we only need to make for example one front toe, map and duplicate to the other leg.)
Normal Mapping (The application of mapping the details of the high polygon ED209 to the Low polygone one using dot3 matting via the texture bake and projection)
Normal Mapping the Front Toe
Normal Mapping the Side Toes
Normal Mapping the Arms
DVD 4
Static Mesh into UT3
Creating unified textures in rough to apply to the low polygon ED209
Importing ED209 as a static asset with materials into the UT3 Engine
Rigging – a complex process due to that inverse knee.
Rigging ED209 – pivots and Links
Rigging ED209 – HD and HI Rigging with IK and FK
Animated assets in UT3
Creating a walk cycle in max for export
Creating PSK and PSA Files
Importing PSK, PSA and Textures
Putting ED209 into a level with Dynamic Lights
Unreal 3 – Matinee, Actors and Kismet
Ed209’s conveyor – the new walk
Ed209’s conveyor – the new matinee part
Additional content on DVD 4

All Max Files
All wip files
All UT3 assets
All texture files and PSDs
A selection of specially made ED209 reference images
High res ED209 renders

Rocketbox Libraries: Complete Characters (3 DVD)

Complete Characters is a library of 104 realistic human 3D Characters, especially created for real-time environments like computer games, simulations and other virtual worlds.
Included are:
104 characters for 3ds Max or Maya
100 ready made animations
Each character in 3 different polycounts
complete bone skeleton, skinning and 100 animations
2048 x 2048 pixel textures as Photoshop psd files
Customizable layers + normal bump maps and specular maps

T0336 – I3D Tutorials-Introduction To Polygon Modeling

In this training series we will be starting out with learning what polygons are and how to manipulate them in different ways. These basics will pave the way to modeling advanced objects in SOFTIMAGE|XSI. After learning all the basics of polygon modeling, we will exploit all of the powerful tools in SOFTIMAGE|XSI in order to model out a detailed and realistic scene. You will model nearly a dozen different objects from the real world in incredible detail, all the while using and learning special techniques that are normally learned from years of modeling experience. You will be shown modeling techniques that emphasize speed, efficiency, and ease.

Designed for beginners, hobbyists, students, and people learning modeling with SOFTIMAGE|XSI; this training series takes you step by step through the entire process of populating an entire scene with models based off of real world objects. This training series is right for you if you are a student, beginning hobbyist, professional with 2 or less years of experience, or a professor looking to pick up some new techniques to show your class. If you are looking to get serious about becoming a polygon modeler, this training series is perfect for you.

T0335 – Gnomon Workshop: Intuitive Animation

In this DVD Robert Kuczera guides you through his character animation process from beginning to end. He first describes how to prepare the Maya Workspace to improve and optimize your work- flow. Next, he shows how to prepare a scene for animation and animate the character. He discusses the timeline, Graph Editor, Dopesheet, layers, shelves, hot keys and MEL scripts. Robert demonstrates how to use filmed reference material to identify the key poses and place the breakdowns and in- betweens. The lecture is focused on showing you how to animate precisely and quickly through the camera. Robert presents an insider’s view of how professional animators work, showing workflow and techniques with supporting discussions on the principles of animation.

01: Introduction
02: Preparing the Maya Environment
03: Acting out the Scene
04: Staging and Blocking – First Pass
05: Adjusting and Optimizing the Key Poses
06: Breakdown and Inbetweens, Part 1
07: Breakdown and Inbetweens, Part 2
08: Getting into the Details, Part 1
09: Getting into the Details, Part 2
10: Getting into the Details, Part 3
11: Finalizing the Animation

T0334- Gnomon Workshop – Master Classes

Join the Gnomon School of Visual Effects for two weeks of new exclusive classes in an interactive, online event. Each 2-3 hour class focuses on a different element of the VFX industry and allows individuals to discuss the content with the instructors throughout the event. One ticket purchase gives you access to all 18 classes!

Motion Control and Flashlights

Instructor: Grzegorz Jonkajtys

In this presentation Grzegorz talks about the inspirations and creative process of his award winning shorts Ark and Legacy.

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A Generalist’s Guide to VFX from Production to Delivery

Instructor: Andrew Orloff

Join Andrew Orloff of Zoic Studios while he examines the process of producing effective VFX shots.

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Matte Painting and VFX Art Direction

Instructor: Jonathan Berube

Use mixed media to create visuals used to support art direction and look development for films.

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From Concept to Film: Digital Characters and VFX

Instructor: Maks Naporowski

This workshop demonstrates a shot from a live-action fantasy short film that involves actors interacting with a CG character.

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Character Modeling for Production: ‘The Villian’ Bust

Instructor: Ian Joyner

In this workshop we will start from a generic head and create an iconic villain character using Zbrush, Photoshop and Max.¨

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Concept Sculpting

Instructor: Ian Joyner

Use Zbrush and Photoshop to concept characters on the fly.

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ZBrush for Character Artists

Instructor: Ryan Kingslien

In this workshop we focus exclusively on the tools and techniques that will make you a better artist inside of ZBrush.

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ZBrush for Environments

Instructor: Ryan Kingslien

This workshop demonstrates ZBrush’s advanced sculpting toolset for environment artists and looks at creating backgrounds for next-gen games.

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ZBrush 3.1 In Production

Instructor: Ryan Kingslien

Take a look at how to get your sculpting out of ZBrush and into Maya 2009.

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Creature Head Texture Look Dev

Instructor: Alex Alvarez

In this workshop Alex will show his techniques for designing the texture style for a creature head.

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Mudbox 2009

Instructor: Marcel de Jong

In this workshop we will discuss the principles and workflow of Mudbox 2009 and how to integrate it into a Mudbox and Maya pipeline.

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Vehicle Rendering: Retro Russian Skimmer

Instructor: Christophe Desse

In this workshop Christophe Desse will demonstrate the creation of a Russian Skimmer, with a focus on his artistic approach and simplicity.

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Mental Ray: Production Practices

Instructor: Matt Hartle

Examine the steps necessary to produce a finished VFX shot from conception to the final composited rendering.

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Mental Ray Lighting Techniques

Instructor: Jeff Patton

This workshop will focus on various lighting scenarios using the Mental Ray rendering engine.

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Architectural Rendering

Instructor: Jeff Patton

This workshop will discuss lighting, texturing, and rendering an architectural interior and exterior scene.

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Efficient Cinematic Lighting

Instructor: Jeremy Vickery

Using principles from his Practical Light and Color DVD, Jeremy will focus on simple, fast and efficient ways to light a scene.

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Texture Painting: VFX Style

Instructor: Ted Davis

During this demonstration Ted Davis will outline various tips and techniques for developing texture maps for use in VFX.

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Fluid Simulations in Destruction

Instructor: David Schoneveld

Use fluids to simulate dust/smoke created during a demolition, demonstrating Maya’s fluid simulation attributes applied to destruction.