new job

I started a new job on the 3rd of this month at Day 1 Studios as a technical animator, which means lots of rigging and scripting yay :)

Max to MEL polySel

I was working with a Max file that needed to be ported to Maya, and this file included multisub materials which were not transferring via FBX. Baking the multi subs was not an option because of the way the UVs were set up. After may different approaches and no success I turned to Maxscript/MEL and wrote up this tool. It will run through your multisub objects in Max and write MEL that will select and assign the material to the scene objects. All you need to provide is the file path in which the MEL scripts will be output to and the path that your textures for the maya file will be in. Then you just select the object and run the script. It will then generate a MEL script for each multi-sub that is in use for that selection. Then you just drag and drop the MEL scripts into the Maya viewport and it creates, names and assigns the materials to the correct objects/faces.

tabbed GUI

I had some more time to work on comVal, and I wrote up a tabbed GUI for him. It supports selecting multiple controls as well as deselecting them. The GUI is also name independent. This is only the first pass on and it is still a work in progress. I plan on adding some more options, and getting better renders :) These are just placeholder images for the time being

GUI Buddy!

I decided to compile my miscellaneous GUI scripts into a small tool

Nothing that exciting but here is a brief overview of what it does.
You enter the name of the GUI item (i.e. Sync). This name will be used to properly name all of the elements created by the script. There are 3 types included, square, vertical, and horizontal. These define the limits and transform flags that will be set and locked. The script also allows you to set the color of the objects that will be created. Once you press create everything will be set up for you and transforms will be frozen. You will be able to move the gui object by selecting the text portion of it.

I also included an editor that will allow you to adjust any of the GUI item(s) you generated. You could change the dimensions of the rectangle for example, and it would update the controllers limits to be bound within the new size.

Pose capture tool

I have been working on a tool that will store poses for characters and easily reload them. Initially I had just set out with using this for facial setups, but it has been proving to be useful for other situations, so I will be expanding it a bit more.

It is still not finalized but it is fully functional for its original purpose. It can capture and reload facial poses from different characters. I have tested it with various public rigs including Max_v03 rig, Dee rig,and Jorge Rig in addition to my own.

I recorded a quick demo of the image capturing feature I recently added
http://screencast.com/t/KtYxVF1ol

I also recorded demo of the basic functionality of this script a while back. It is an older version of the script before the image storing was added, but it still goes about creating characters and adding poses in the same way. The video can be found here http://screencast.com/t/2HvbkdmEgR

comVal Face

I started working on comVal again after working in maya and doing some scripting for a few weeks. I finished the first skinning pass on the face. Next on the list is to set up the facial UI and make another skinning pass with corrective morphs.

Bone Extractor

I wrote this script mostly as an exercise but is has some nice functionality. This script will store all of the bones in a skin modifier and place them back in. If you have any reason to collapse the skin modifier, you can easily load it back on with all of the proper bones instantly.

It also has a feature to assist with extracting and applying skin data. When extracted it will create a layer specific for skin data and place the skin data mesh on to that layer. The script will then add it to the list and you can import skin data based on the selected item.

You can also select any object in either of the lists by double clicking the name.