Must have gotten a toenail caught in my throat!

My pumpkin for this year is.....Marshie!!!




for more information watch this informative video

Autodesk Acquires XSI

The best parts of this new arrangement:

- Less competition among 3D developers means less incentive to create new features that work yaaaaay!
- Now the Autodesk User Group meetings at SIGGRAPH will be even more rushed and become even more of a corporate pep rally yaaaay!

I hope eventually Autodesk acquires ILM, Disney, Microsoft, Apple, and Genentech. Maybe eventually they will feed entertainment directly into the back of our skulls.

I guess I need to start learning Blender...

Joe the Coonhound

Meet Joe the Coonhound...




He's the newest edition to our house. Named after Joe (the) Strummer (NOT Joe the Plumber! he's an idiot). Joe is a rescued Blue Tick Coonhound, he's a great guy but a little skinny. We're fattening him up as much as possible. He loves people and dogs. Daisy is still trying to decide how she feels about him....

Maya 2009 WTF? Case Number 3

Maya 2009 WTF? Case Number 3: MIA Materials + HDRI = Yuck

Problem: You're out with your friends one night, having a good time, maybe a few drinks, inhibitions are relaxed. Suddenly one of your friends suggest you try using those cool MIA Materials (mental images architectural) in a scene that uses an HDRI dome for lighting. You have Final Gathering on, what's the worst that could happen? You render the scene and to your embarrassment, the whole thing looks underexposed and just plain horrible. Did your friends steer you wrong? Were you misled? No, you just forgot about Tone Mapping.

Solution: You need to apply a lens shader to the rendering camera to correct the exposure. Open the camera's attribute editor and under mental ray, attach an mia_exposure_simple node to the lenses slot. The mia_exposure_photographic nodes works even better but has many more settings to worry about. If you're looking for a fast solution, use the mia_exposure simple node. This is often true when using any kind of physical lights or HDRI or MIA Materials or any combination.

The image below shows the problem. Top image before using the mia_exposure_simple lens shader, bottom image after applying the mia_exposure_simple lens shader. The lens shader is applied with the default settings, image quality can be improved by adjusting the settings. For info on how the setting work, check out the mental ray architectural guide that comes with the Maya docs. The model uses all mia materials and the lighting is an HDRI probe image from Paul Debevec's site. Color's are a little off due to JPEG compression but you get the idea.




So what's Tone Mapping? Simple stupid answer: As you've no doubt heard a million times computer monitors can't display a physically accurate range of values. The MIA Materials are physically accurate and usually work best with HDRI or physical lights. The problem is their range goes beyond what can be displayed on a monitor so they often look like the xposure is way off (dark colors are REALLY dark, whites may be blown out). The exposure lens shaders help fix this problem by remapping the values to a display that looks good on your monitor. For more info, consult the mental ray architectural guide that comes with the documentation (the what? open the help files dude! RTFM!). You can also bug one of those snobby render nerds that's hanging out in a Cornell box, be prepared for condescension ("you mean you don't have an advanced degree in physics? maybe you should stick to Sketchup...").

When you create the Physical Sky and Sun node network in the Render Settings one of these shaders is applied to all the rendering cameras. This is why its important to remember to update the cameras in the scene when you add a camera to a scene that uses Physical Sky and Sun (use the Update Cameras button in the Render Settings after adding a new camera).

Case Closed!

Remember! Don't Drink and Render!

Maya 2009 WTF? Case Number 2

Maya WTF? Case Number 2: nCloth simulation grinds to a halt after you make an nCache

Problem: You have a scene with one or more nCloth objects all simulatin' like crazy. So you figure you'll create an nCache for all this awesome nClothy goodnes. You create the nCache and play back the simulation and things ...get .....gradually .........slower ....... grinding ..........to .......a ..........................halt.

Solution: Most likely you still have the nCloth objects enabled so Maya is trying to calculate the nCloth and use the nCache at the same time. Disable the Enable feature in all the nCloth objects or on the Nucleus solver (or both) and see if this fixes the problem. Results may vary but this s the first thing you should check if you're having this problem.

Case Closed!

Maya 2009 WTF? Case Number 1

OK, I'm starting a new feature on my site designed to help Maya users (and eventually ZBrush users) with those annoying head scratching problems that are poorly documented (or they are well documented but you're just too lazy to open the help files ;) ). You , know, the ones you end up wasting an entire evening on. You've tried everything, it should work, it used to work, but now it doesn't work. Since I'm working on a fairly comprehensive Maya 2009 project right now I'm bumping in to these a lot. I'll try and share what I've learned in the hopes that it makes everyone's life a little easier. Of course, when in doubt, RTFM!

Maya 2009 WTF? Case number 1: Participating Media No Render, WTF?

Problem: You've set up participating media to render using mental ray. Everything is correct you know this because you've done it a thousand times (what are you addicted to fog or something?). You've got your cube or planes enclosing the scene and the light. The transmat material is applied to the enclosing geometry, the mib_parti_volume is connected to the transmat material and your light has a physical light shader applied. But when you render you get bupkus. The scene looks good but no participating media. The same set up works just fine in Maya 2008, so what's up?

Solution: In Maya 2009 you have to activate the Auto Volumes option in the Features tab of the mental ray render settings. I'm sure there's more to it than that but this is the short answer. This option is off by default.

Case Closed!

I need theme music....

small update

Here are a few odds and ends I've been working on...

The greenman model:






A generic female head started in Maya:




And a space suit I've been working on in Maya 2009:




Original design for the space suit was created by Chris Sanchez (AKA The Freshmaker)