Bryant Hardwick

Maya command line batcher (windows)

2011-09-16T13:54:00.000-07:00

So today at work I realized how often I batch maya command line renders and put together this batch file those who are interested. All you need to do is open up a notepad doc pate this in it and save it as "whatever_you_want.bat" ......

@echo off
echo.
echo.

if [%1]==[] goto :eof

:loop

@echo Starting maya batch for %1 ........

echo.
echo.

c:\Progra~1\Autodesk\Maya2009\bin\render.exe -r mr -rt 8 -v 5 %1

@echo Completed maya batch for %1 ........

echo.
echo.

shift

if not [%1]==[] goto loop

echo.
echo.

pause

Make sure your pathing is the same or change it to whatever you need, whether 2009 or 2012. This is specifically written so that you can drag and drop multiple scene files on the batch icon and it will render your scenes back to back. Pretty handy. Enjoy.

I think someone just hit delete on environment modelers ...

2011-08-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/photo_scene_editor/

Pretty crazy that there is a photo to model workflow now ... and accurate too.

Renderman now has certified training for us normals peeps!

2011-08-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

https://renderman.pixar.com/products/tools/courseware.html

So this is pretty cool. It seems that now it's not only the ELITE that get renderman training and exposure to what is possible. The link above is a link to the frontpage relating to the training they are offering. They also are offering an educational license to students and those in educational positions.

What is nice is that they not only include details of what the renderer is capable of but also detail some of the artist tools and offer production glimpses of certain topics in film and commercial applications. Pretty nice.

Enjoy.

Pixelogic, what in the world are you up to????

2011-06-23T16:38:00.000-07:00

Enter A World Of Digital Art Without Barriers.

Welcome To Sculptris.

Sculptris is an elegant, powerful and yet easy to use 3D sculpting software, allowing the artist in you to simply focus on creating amazing 3D artwork. Gone are the technical and often tedious constraints typically associated with digital art.

If you're new to the world of digital sculpting, Sculptris is the ideal ground on which to get started. If on the other hand you're experienced in CG you will find in Sculptris is a blazingly fast way realize your concepts.

It's intuitive, fun and user friendly, so you can focus as an artist on pure creativity.

... more info http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/

Dynamic Tessellation.

Sculptris frees you from the need to worry about your model's geometry. As you model, Sculptris is constantly analyzing the surface to ensure that there are enough triangles to display the details that you're creating. If there aren't, Sculptris automatically divides the area under the brush while leaving the rest of the model unchanged. This also allows Sculptris to make better use of your computer's resources, since polygons are only added where they are needed.

This dynamic dividing of the model doesn't only come into play when sculpting details. It's also used when you add volume to the surface, such as when pulling part of a character's forehead out to create horns. Where other programs stretch existing polygons to accomplish this, Sculptris adds new polygons and maintains an even polygon distribution to make future sculpting in that area easier.

GoZ.

Sculptris has been designed to work effortlessly with ZBrush, which in turn will enable you to import your mesh to other sculpting applications. When selecting the "GoZ" button in Sculptris, your entire mesh will be transferred to ZBrush.*

Because GoZ is a ZBrush feature, the files necessary for GoZ to operate are included with the current GoZ update for ZBrush which may be downloaded from the plugins page.

* The GoZ feature will only work if ZBrush and GoZ have been installed on your computer.

........ more features http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/features/

Rendering 32-bit displacements in Maya/Mental Ray via Zbrush

2011-06-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

Aight people. Here's how it's gonna be, short and sweet and to the point.

There are two main pieces of information you need to understand: how to setup the export out of Zbrush, and how to setup the render in Mental Ray for Maya. That's it.

When in Zbrush you have two options for exporting a displacement map, hitting the create displacement map button or hitting the create and export map. You want the latter. Here is a snippet of what you settings should look like ... for official tips from Pixelogic themselves go here

The main thing you want to make sure you are doing is checking on 32-bit and changing your dpsubpix to 2 so that you can achieve subpixel displacing.

Now if you notice my "mid" slider is greyed out however it is all the way to the left (which consequently means 0 or black). Click in the alpha window there and select any alpha just to active the mid slider. Once activated, slam it to the left or key in 0. Click in the alpha window again and choose no texture/alpha and make it blank again.

Why do this Bryant, why? Because displacements in general need to know what value means NO DISPLACEMENT. It's different in different renders/3d packages. Maya likes 0/black = no displacement. Therefore when Zbrush creates its map it knows to keep black as no displacement, negative (super blacks) values as pushing in, and positive values as pushing out along the normal.

Click create and export map and you are done with step one.

In Maya setup the displacement shader like you should anything else, except now ... you don't have to worry about setting an alpha gain or alpha offset because you already changed the mid value to Maya/MR's liking and Maya loves you for that <3

It should looks as follows. Also, now you don't have to worry about scaling your model. Remember when you had to adjust the gain and offset when you scaled your model in world space? Not anymore. 32 bit bakes in scale. Yaaaaay!

Now, just make yourself an approximation, change it to spatial set your min and max and an edge length and go to town.

Have fun and relish in the new image fidelity.

Note: These files can get mighty big. Convert them to .map's ....a tiny bit slower but better managed by memory.

Questions and comments are welcome. If you need further explaining or anything else hit me up.

references:

http://forum.mentalimages.com/showthread.php?6258-ZBrush-displacement-rendering

https://support.pixologic.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=42&nav=0,13

CG Job Fair coming to Los Angeles, June 25th

2011-06-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

Heads up, there is going to be a Visual Effects job fair for those who are interested at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, on June 25th.

This image is specific to MPC but I'm assuming there will be others.

2011-06-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Decided to create this little gem of a page for those cg artists or hobbyists who are interested in learning some techniques related to computer graphics. This is meant to be a lean and to the point description of various topics related to texturing techniques, Maya rendering options, Zbrush stuff, and general news in the CG industry that you may find interesting.