Next Gen Animation Dev - Dev Update 3

As promised, here is a video updating showing off the current state of the Pose Sculpting and Pose Sketching tools, and how they can be used for a more fluid animating experience.

Next-Gen Animation Dev Sneak Peak - Teaser Pic

Woohoo! Tonight I finally got stage 1 working at last!  More details about the entire grand plan here will follow in due course, but let's just say that what you're seeing here is just like the tiniest/most basic little stepping stone of the full set of things I've been dreaming about and working towards on and off for a few years now... I'm planning on recording a little demo video of the current state of all this stuff later today/tomorrow, which should help make it a bit clearer what's possibilities this brings. In the meantime, feast your eyes on this little teaser screenshot I grabbed of the tools in action:

Rig: "Basic Animation Rigs" by Beorn Leonard/CG Cookie  (CC-BY-3.0)

Even in the primitive state that things are in now, it's clear that these tools are going to be every bit as amazing as I imagined way back in 2010 as I stood in the bookstore reading Richard Williams' famous "Animators Survival Kit" book and getting quite inspired to push the state of animation tools into a new era :)  

Now, back to work!  Hehe :D

Elephants Dream - 10 Years of Open Movies

What a neat mashup - the Cycles renders look gorgeous!  (I have to say though, that the more you think about the dialog in this little shot and the rest of the scene, the more confusing it gets, and the less it all makes sense... hahaha)

EDIT: On rewatching again a few days later, a new interpretation that somewhat makes sense does come to mind... hmm... 

Pose Sculpting - Dev Update 2

To clarify any confusion, the previous post (about "bendy bones") is NOT Pose Sculpting. That said, I absolutely intend to do some experiments with combining the two later down the track :)

What then is Pose Sculpting? This latest update might give you a clue...


In this video, I demonstrate one of the latest sculpt brushes that I've been working on recently. While not quite the elusive "Draw Brush" that I've been seeking, this technique still very useful in its own right. (It's also provided me with a few ideas about how I might pursue the holy grail).

Then of course, there are still many other things which I haven't shown yet! There are quite a few nice new things that are present here that weren't around in the first version, along with a massive list of things I'm still planning on trying (no, I'm not going to post this... IMO, the techniques you've seen so far pale in comparison when some of the things I've dreamed up are functional <evilgrin>)

Pose Sculpting Feedback Update

It's been a few days since I posted the announcement, so today I've just set up a Google Docs-based survey which should be easier and faster to fill out. So, take a look and help contribute to science!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHc5XzJMdW5ZTC1UYUdoTkpRbWVPd0E6MQ

Animators Wanted - "Pose Sculpt" Alpha Testing

Over the past few weeks, I've been busily working on developing a set of new tools aimed at improving the ways that we can pose our rigs. Today I can finally announce that Pose Sculpting is now finally here and ready for an initial round of alpha testing out in the field!




Pose Sculpting Demo 1 from Joshua Leung on Vimeo.


So, calling for alpha testers, and importantly, feedback!