Paul Neale Rigging DVD

e_x

Just wondering if anyone happens to own or has seen this Paule Neale DVD:

http://cg-academy.net/pages/topic_riggin...ermediate_4.php

Paul Neale is the man for 3ds max rigging, but I don't really want to drop the $86 without hearing something about it first.

arshlevon

i have all of these dvds.. my company bought them for me, and if yours is worth a shit (cough, cough, cough) then they will do the same, i recommend them, i learned alot about custom rigs, and setting up controls. the facial one is pretty cool and basically translates the book "stop staring" for maya into max freindly terms. also goes into a neat bone setup for the face, i dont use it directly as intended, but to easily generate morph targets, once i have the target close i duplicate the mesh and collapse the stack, then do minor tweeks to really make it shine. i would recommend but seriously dude, this is the kind of stuff your employer should be getting for you. Tell them arsh says buy it for you or he will curb stop their face.

FatAssasin

We have them here at Gas Powered too. Highly recommended if you want to take your rigs to the next level. The next step would learning MaxScript so you can automate what you learn in the DVD's and whip out the rigs in no time.

e_x

Thanks for the reply guys.

I'll see what I can do about Mythic getting a copy.

Shawner

I have had the good fortune of working with Paul. He is an awsome Character TD and very generous with his knowledge. I think they are a solid purchase.

Cheers,
Shawn

Paul Neale

I felt my ears burning so I thought that I would drop in. Shawn pointed me in this direction actualy.

Well I'm glad to know that so many high end shops are interested in the DVD's, I have endevored to keep them at a true intermediate level that asumes you know how to use Max and that you have done all the shipping tutorials on rigging. Each DVD draws from the next so that I don't recover to much of the same imformation on each and as well each gets a bit harder ending with the facial rigging DVD that is 6:37 minuets long and covers two of the main methods used for faical animation. I have to say that neither was realy aimed at the game market directly but both could be adjusted to make it work very well.

I hope that you like them.

e_x

Wow, thanks for the reply Paul!

I've put in a request for them here at Mythic, so hopefully we will get them soon.

We are using a facial bone rig similar to yours, along with your Attribute Holder for saving presets and such, so the DVDs would be handy to reference, I'm sure.

SkullboX

Hey Paul Neale,

Could the techniques you use for that facial setup also be used directly on the rig, rather than a rectangle full of sliders?

I've seen clips of Mr Incredible being animated where they used controllers on similar points you use which looked amazing, but instead of external controls they seemed to be using the points directly. I don't really like 'advanced' rigs and prefer them to be intuitive and clean, and although I've tried I hate animating with sliders.

Paul Neale

Hope that you enjoy them e_x

SkullboX: sure every thing is possible, The controls that I use for the second facial rig can be used to drive what ever you want. Really it is the same thing as the controls that are in the rectangular control system on the first facial rig.

I working on a game rig at the moment that takes TRC data stright from a Vicon sustem and drops it on the IK portion of a custom rig. The rig has spline IK, IK/FK arms and legs and about 400 objects in it. None of it is actualy exported to the game, just an FK bone system is. Any thing is possible.

James Edwards

Hey Paul! Thanks for stopping by! I'm not using max anymore at work, but I've been meaning to pick up your vids anyway. Great stuff! Will you be documenting this game rig setup? I'm really interested seeing in your setup for transfering mocap to the IK rig.

Cheers!

James

SkullboX

Thanks Paul, but I think you misunderstood my question.

What I'm looking for is a rig where I can grab a point positioned in the corner of the mouth and drag that to wherever I'd want (along a spline or whatever it is you use to 'guide' the rig), without any external controls such as sliders or those positioned in the rectangle, but direct.

Paul Neale

SkullBox: Is this the sort of thing that you are looking for because I'm not quite sure what you mean now.

http://paulneale.com/temp/ogre/ogreFaceBoneRig.mov
http://paulneale.com/temp/ogre/ogreFaceBoneRigRender.mov
Gwot: The current system that I'm working on is for a client and will not be shared any time soon. The tool for converting TRC data to rigs maybe come available at some point but not until this project is complete as it can be configured to convert mocap from TRC data to any rig.

James Edwards

Thanks! Perfectly understandable. =]

Paul Neale

Gwot: I understand that you are in London Ontario at digital extreams. Once I'm over the hump on the current project I could be down that way meeting with the programers for the project as they are down there as well. If you and Digital extreams is interested I could show you what I have been working on. It cuts Motion Builder out of the pipe line for us so that is why I have gone that root.

SkullboX

[ QUOTE ]
SkullBox: Is this the sort of thing that you are looking for because I'm not quite sure what you mean now.

http://paulneale.com/temp/ogre/ogreFaceBoneRig.mov
http://paulneale.com/temp/ogre/ogreFaceBoneRigRender.mov

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes that was exactly what I meant, so I guess I misunderstood you. This looks totally great, I'll be ordering this soon! Thanks a lot!

By the way, I didn't seen this in the video but do the eyelids automatically move along with the eye rotation (as a seperate 'layer', of course so the hand keyed positions of the eyelids have their own level of control). This the most and pretty much only 'advanced' feature I've used so far. It works great and looks very solid, beats manual animation.

James Edwards

Paul that sounds cool! Will I have to scare up a Max machine for you to demo anything? Either way I'd be interested. Feel free to contact me to discuss: jedwards (at) digitalextremesdotcom.

Paul Neale

SkullboX: No I didn't set that up for the DVD as it was all ready at 6.5 hours long. Not hard to set up at all though and there is enough in the DVD's to give you multiple solutions for it your self if you don't know how to go about it.

This is the first method that I cover in the DVD's
http://paulneale.com/temp/ogre/OgreFaceDemo.mov

Gwot: I do that as soon as I complete the pipeline for this current project. It is killing me as I have 10 people on the project and no two of them are in the same city. So far it is going well, I'm just waiting on 2000 animation cycles to arrive from the mocap studio.

MoP

Very impressive techniques and results. If I ever get more into animation, I know what I'll be getting! Thanks, Paul!