Reply
Category Archives: Art
I think I’m finally going to move away from zbrush. The Mudbox interface is simply fantastic. Especially compared to zBrush randomness. The mudbox colour layers are especially good and feel very familiar coming from photoshop.
This is pretty much my first mudbox model. Quite a nice way to spend my saturday morning. I hope you like it
Work in progress image from a music video I’m working on. It’s Modeled in 3dsMax , with a very simple realtime toon shader.
I’m partway through look development and the animatic. It’s a personal project , so I’m grabbing bits of time while I pitch for new work. Hopefully I can put up a few more images next week.
In this video I demonstrate some very simple physical principles, showing how forces act on our bodies and how we can animate them
In dynamic movement the body is aligned so that forces are applied in the most effective direction ( like a sprinter on a starting block ).
Our legs are the biggest muscles in our bodies. But we know that it’s hard work to change direction quickly ( unless you run into something ). With big changes in speed the body needs to be co-ordinated, its structure aligned properly and its movement synchronized (like a karate punch, or a cartwheel). If this alignment or synchronization is off then we simply fall over (like a gymnast teetering off balance at the end of a difficult move).
I’m working on an animated music video. I thought I’d share a bit of simple maths to help get footsteps on the beat.
bpm / 60 = beats per second FPS / beats per second = frames per Beat
So if the song is at 150 bpm this would would be
150 / 60 = 2.5 beats per second
PAL is 25 fps so…
25 / 2.5 = 10 frames per Beat
Bear in mind that whilst most dance tunes have a computerized fixed tempo. Folk and jazz will mostly likely vary in tempo.
I have a tap tempo app for my iPhone that I’m using to calculate Bpm. I just tap along to the song and watch the bpm display. For the tune I’m working on there is a slow but steady increase from 150 bpm at the start to 160 bpm at the end.
3dsMAX motion capture utility
For more complex interactions or changes in tempo you might try and use the motion capture utility. This allows you to wire MIDI inputs to a Motion Capture animation controller.