Erik Eidukas

2012-01-17T19:13:00.001-08:00

Recently I accepted a position at Insomniac Games! I am really looking forward to starting there next month.

2011-12-06T00:42:00.000-08:00

new demo reel coming soon...

:)

F.E.A.R. 3

2011-07-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

I am a little late posting this, but the game I was working on has shipped! a few weeks ago! It is actually a ton of fun I definitely recommend checking it out if you like first person shooters.

Primarily I worked on rigging, deformation, physics, and lots of pipeline stuff. If it moves I probably touched it at some point :) I had a lot of fun working on it and also learned a lot on the project.

Procedural Test

2010-01-29T23:14:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick test for a real-time procedural system I have been working on.

procedural test from Erik Eidukas on Vimeo.

The animator has control over the amplitude, frequency, and shape. Amplitude acts as a multiplier for the entire motion. Frequency controls the rate at which it will swing back and forth. Included with the frequency option is an indicator which displays the frame number for when the animation will loop. Finally, the shape spinner controls the overlap and rigidity of the motion. Lower values will be more rigid and higher values will be more loose.

There are also some other options found within the system. It provides the animator with the freedom to hand key, bake the automated motion to FK controllers, or blend between the automated motion and hand keyed motion. This way the animator can choose when they want to go from procedural motion to keyframed, or even use a combination of the two.

This system does not require that the bones are set up in a straight line, it will function based on any starting pose. It also supports posing in FK, and then updating the starting shap to match that new pose.

This system is based on sine waves, and there are no spring controllers involved. This means that all updates can be seen real time in the viewport, during playback. It also means that the object does not react to translation or rotation of its parent, which is the effect that I was going for.

Anim Bake Manager

2010-01-17T19:47:00.000-08:00

I found myself baking animation to objects for various reasons. Most commonly I would use it in situations to avoid circular dependencies, or to bake bones to simulated objects, as well as other miscellaneous situations.

At first I just did it in a few lines of code and adjusted it as needed, eventually I made a simple interface for it. Once others started needing to use this method for various situations, I decided to make a version that was a bit more robust. I also wanted to simplify the process and make it easier to manage and update existing objects if and when the animation changed.

When the "Create" button is pressed it will create point helpers for each selected object, and key their transforms to match the target object within the specified frame range. The main listbox displays all of the point helpers created by the script. These are not name dependent and the names can be changed to whatever you like, but by default it uses the selected objects name with the prefix of "abm_"

The listbox underneath will display the target object for whichever abm helper is selected in the list. If the target is deleted from the scene it will display "Target Missing" Having a target object is not a requirement because the animation was baked when the helper was created. The reason script stores the targets so you can easily refresh if the animation has changed. Double clicking in any of the items will select it in the viewport.

Pressing the refresh button will re-bake any of selected helpers in the listbox, within the specified frame range. Refreshing will also clean up any abm helpers that were deleted from the scene. The retarget button allows for you to change the target object of the abm helper selected in the list. This is useful if you delete the target object or you want to swap target objects mid animation.

The "manual" option takes a specified object and matches and keys its transforms to the specified target object.

I have had a number of instances where I have found this useful, if you are interested you can check it out here:

**download temporarily removed**

http://www.vimeo.com/8809827

new job

2009-08-18T19:56:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-04T21:38:00.001-08:00

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

2009-03-04T21:31:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-02-25T20:19:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-24T22:24:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-16T23:44:00.000-08:00

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.

dynamic tail

2009-01-15T20:13:00.000-08:00

This is an quick experiment I did a while back, using springs and IK. It is driven by a single control object at the tip. I eventually plan on setting up a more robust version. It will have easier control of the intensity as well as the ability to hand key if needed.

Mayaing

2009-01-14T12:50:00.001-08:00

I have been working on learning more Maya and MEL, hopefully I will have something interesting to show shortly :)

comVal update

2009-01-05T22:16:00.000-08:00

Yay muscles, most of these in view are for deformation, I plan on having some dynamic muscles in key places. Currently I am working with different settings for the dynamics.

comVal rig update

2009-01-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

I finished preliminary skinning on the character, built the proxy mesh, and put in all of the ik/fk controls. Next up is adding some muscles and getting a facial UI going. I am also experimenting with creating a pose storing system.

Batch Exporter

2008-12-31T15:27:00.001-08:00

Last night someone was asking me about a batch exporting script so I wrote up this little tool.

It searches the input path for any .max files, and then exports them to the output path. A new folder will automatically be created if a name is specified under "Output folder name"

There is the also an option to open the folder that the files will be exported to, as well as a toggle to display prompts or not.

New Rig WIP

2008-12-30T21:01:00.000-08:00

I have started a new rig for a friend of mine, Tyler Johnston (http://www.sketchtivity.com/). The character will be part of an animated short.

Since my scripting skills are much stronger this time around I plan on pushing the rigs capabilities further than my previous rigs.