Thanks Raff, I have used both techniques but never heard some of those terms.... ICE made doing this work much easier for me.
I have never ended up with 800 shapes.... but give me the time and the budget and that sounds like a blast :) On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Raffaele Fragapane < raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote: > You can blame Bay Raitt for some of the names being thrown around, and the > LISP community he grew up in :) > > Combination sculpting comes in two flavors, FACS based, with expressions > tabled out and combinations being largely corrective and flattened out, and > twitch based, with shapes representing individual muscles as roots, > combinations of nearby muscles in couples or triplets as first branch, and > so on to full face compensation, usually you stop at tier three or four, > which can easily get you hundreds of shapes (Charlotte in Charlotte's web > was twitch combinations and amounted to 802 shapes, Gollum in return of the > kind was FACS and I think Bay ended up in the 820 or so range in the end). > > You can use something like stretch mesh (or ideally better) equalisation > process after that to reduce drift if you're in a hurry with the broad > strokes. > > Combinatorics are shapes that bridge two other shapes by correcting their > conflict (additive) rather than by replacing them (you can combine with C = > abs(A-B) in the former, or suplant with C = abs(A-B) and then subtract C's > intensity from A and B). > > On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 10:59 PM, Greg Punchatz <g...@janimation.com> > wrote: > >> We (Brad did all the ICE magic) worked up some pretty niffy tricks for >> our head tech demo. >> >> We could pose our head which was a slightly enhanced FR rig export a >> reference head into ZB... bring it back into soft the subtract the the >> deforms of the mesh and reapply only the differences from the corrective >> shape. >> >> Point drift is caused most of the time by subdividing the model in >> Zbrush. If you do a subdivision in Z all your base point will shift. In >> our case the mesh was dense enough that was not an issue, we could still >> clearly see the forms without subdividing while in Zbrush. Brad wired up a >> ICE tree for the imported corrective shapes to be triggered by pulling >> different distances from the rig. Of course drift can happen from someone >> moving points they have no business of moving, or even worse they move >> points in the wrong direction for the correction or shape. I always work in >> a stepped process to avoid this for shapes, whether I sent to Zbrush or >> not. I am at first only focused on how the point mass moves first. I try to >> get this done with as few proportional moves as possible. Then I test the >> motion in Soft and on the rig., take a look at what it looks like with the >> jaw open etc. Then I slowly massage the shapes into place checking the >> sculpt in action >> >> I don't remember if the zbrush link busts your rig, in our case the >> workflow was to use separate reference geo. >> >> It is better if it when done all under one roof but if my point count >> goes high enough I will jump through a few hoops to get to a better point >> manipulator. >> >> Raf I have never heard the term combinatorics before, and when I looked >> it up I could not find any references that clearly showed me how it applied >> to shape animation or rigging. Can you point me to a reference that might >> help fill in my knowledge gap : ) >> >> Also Eric, I had heard of folks having a different neutral vs skinning >> pose but I have not really seen a good explanation of the idea. I have >> modified a sculpt to be better for rigging, but that shape then becomes my >> base shape. What is the difference? >> >> >> >> On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Raffaele Fragapane < >> raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote: >> >>> If you're doing combinatorics you don't model the shapes in isolation, >>> you tweak a base and need to see the result on the combination, which might >>> be one to four tiers of combinations away. >>> You don't do combination sculpting without the rig because you don't do >>> combination sculpting on the final shape half the time if you're sensible >>> and can't waste a lot of time in kickbacks. >>> >>> Doing shapes in ZBrush is doable, but they all need a lot of work after >>> coming back in because by the nature of ZBrush you will have shit drifting >>> all over the place. When they will add more than a single morph and a few >>> simple vector operations to wire the morphs it will then be the ultimate >>> tool for it, right now it's like trying to drive a truck out of a parking >>> lot with a small gate. Blindfolded. On iced out ground. With a monkey >>> hitting you on the head with a baseball bat every five seconds. Technically >>> doable, but not worth the bother unless you get to show the mental >>> breakdowns on TV and cash them in :) >>> >>> If you're doing cartoony or largely procedurally shaded stuff you can >>> take a fair amount of drift. if you're doing something that has hundreds of >>> rigid scales or precisely styled hair bound to the UV space it's an >>> unmitigated disaster when you don't have something like Soft (or a shitton >>> of stuff piled on top of Maya) around to do the work. >>> >>> On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 6:16 PM, Greg Punchatz <g...@janimation.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Raff while what you say is true about needing to check the results of >>>> your sculpts in combination with with other shapes and deformers. There is >>>> no reason those edits should not be done in the tool-set best suited to >>>> sculpt. >>>> >>>> Using something like Zaplink or a few scripts can make the back and >>>> forth seamless. ICE made it so much easier to to pose based deformations >>>> and corrective shapes using Zbrush to edit. >>>> >>>> That being said I still do a great bit of my shape work in soft, unless >>>> its a very dense mesh, then I whip out the Z >>>> >>>> On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 6:16 PM, Raffaele Fragapane < >>>> raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>>> The problem with ZBrush, or any modelling app that doesn't have your >>>>> full rig in it, is that for things like combination sculpting they are >>>>> useless, because you need to see multiple timelines of the shapes >>>>> converging as you refine them for the result to be any good. It's also a >>>>> ton easier to get combinatorics started in Soft since you can start any >>>>> shape from any number of others with ICE. I so miss that in any other app >>>>> (that last bit is literally the only one where Houdini could compete or >>>>> even surpass Soft, actually, though it's somewhat painful to wrangle the >>>>> shit together when you hit a certain degree of complexity and you end up >>>>> spending more time making an uber rig than you do working the shapes' >>>>> alignment). >>>>> >>>>> On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 11:27 PM, Jordi Bares Dominguez < >>>>> jordiba...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Thanks for the notes, there has been quite a lot of changes but it is >>>>>> true there are a few of your comments still pending, the most pressing to >>>>>> me is speed and the viewport needs still lots of love. >>>>>> >>>>>> BTW, I was not advocating to use Houdini for modelling though, rather >>>>>> use Zbrush to be honest and now that Zbrush is getting closer to a full >>>>>> set >>>>>> of traditional modelling tools it is pretty obvious it is the route to >>>>>> go. >>>>>> >>>>>> My feeling is that character work is certainly more painful but at >>>>>> least you get some serious gains and unfortunately there are no options >>>>>> so >>>>>> we are in a transition moment. >>>>>> >>>>>> So far they are listening and moving forward so I will stick to >>>>>> Houdini for the time being and keep an eye on others. >>>>>> >>>>>> :-) >>>>>> >>>>>> jb >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On 16 Jan 2015, at 21:28, Raffaele Fragapane < >>>>>> raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> A lot of quality rigging, despite piles of papers trying to sell the >>>>>> public on the contrary, is still manually tweaked. Taking things out of >>>>>> the >>>>>> app where you have the full rig makes authoring a major pain. The most >>>>>> basic example is shapes, doing shapes work in XSI for something like a >>>>>> combination sculpting setup was as easy as it got, especially after ICE. >>>>>> The way data is presented and accessible, the speed on large meshes, >>>>>> the modelling toolkit, it all lent itself to that kind of work in a >>>>>> perfect >>>>>> storm scenario. >>>>>> Doing the same in Maya, comparatively, is beyond painful and requires >>>>>> a pretty big staging effort to separate work and write accessory tools, >>>>>> in >>>>>> Houdini you don't even have a particularly intuitive modelling toolkit, >>>>>> and >>>>>> the handling of large meshes was pretty meh with it (at least up to 12, >>>>>> it >>>>>> seems to be getting better and promising to be getting better again). >>>>>> >>>>>> The toolkit in general is pretty hard to impossible to give to a >>>>>> modeller with little inclination to learn something like Houdini, while >>>>>> with both Maya and Soft that's not a big challenge. >>>>>> >>>>>> I haven't tried the muscle system in a while, so my comment might be >>>>>> dated to the point of not being valid, but the last time I did it was a >>>>>> bit >>>>>> of a joke. No arbitrary topology for the deformers unless you cloth >>>>>> collided (and the cloth solver was anything but acceptable), only some >>>>>> weak >>>>>> superset of metaballs, rather slow, but at least it was relatively >>>>>> stable, >>>>>> and overall clunky and requiring the lot a lot of micromanagement and a >>>>>> lot >>>>>> of SOPs that often refused to play nicely with the rest of the app. >>>>>> Mind, I haven't found a single commercial muscle system I would use >>>>>> if they paid me for it, which is pretty embarrassing given when we needed >>>>>> one for WWD we got a rather intuitive one done in just a few weeks that >>>>>> worked for over 99% of the show meshes without manual intervention of any >>>>>> sort on the sim, and literally only a dozen mesh fixes across over 800 >>>>>> shots. >>>>>> >>>>>> On top of all that, and again this is pre-14, most pre-13, it's slow. >>>>>> Mind boggingly slow to articulate a decent animation rig. I suspect this >>>>>> last point has been, or is about to be, superseded though since the >>>>>> viewport has been getting some love. >>>>>> >>>>>> The main issue though remains that preparing an asset in Houdini >>>>>> remains a long and involved process which very few people from other >>>>>> departments, some times nobody, can be recruited into, it's born, lives >>>>>> and >>>>>> dies in the hands of TDs. >>>>>> >>>>>> I've always had a soft spot for Houdini, and I'd give my money to >>>>>> SideFX rather than many other companies any day of the year, but as a >>>>>> company their commitment to character work of artistic or hybrid nature >>>>>> has >>>>>> always been patchy (and I don't necessarily blame them for it) and >>>>>> subpar. >>>>>> They have a lot of work to make up for it, but they seem to be slowly >>>>>> doing it while making sure they don't lose their core business with FX >>>>>> and >>>>>> end-to-end clients. >>>>>> >>>>>> I will certainly be looking at H14 as soon as some space for it in >>>>>> the stash of stuff I need and want to do before clears up :) >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 6:45 PM, Jordi Bares Dominguez < >>>>>> jordiba...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> May I ask you to elaborate the “complex character rigging and tuned >>>>>>> deformation”, I may be missing something. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> To start with you have muscles in Houdini which you don’t, let alone >>>>>>> FEM simulations and a universal physics engine to cope with pretty >>>>>>> sophisticated things… >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Certainly it is easier in Softimage and more artist friendly to >>>>>>> setup but I see the rigging side as one very strong point. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> If you are talking about screen space corrections, blend shapes and >>>>>>> advanced contact collision its certainly doable with the toolset. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> :-| >>>>>>> >>>>>>> thx >>>>>>> jb >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On 16 Jan 2015, at 16:59, Raffaele Fragapane < >>>>>>> raffsxsil...@googlemail.com> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> It's only true for some definitions of rigging. >>>>>>> If you need proceduralism of course it does spectacularly well, and >>>>>>> assets are simply best of breed in the industry and have been for years, >>>>>>> end of story. >>>>>>> For the hand-crafted complex character rig and tuned deformation >>>>>>> kind of job though, no, it's not nicer than Soft, and I'd be hard >>>>>>> pressed >>>>>>> to make an argument for it over Maya (which I consider pretty bottom >>>>>>> barreling already without a ton of custom work). >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Some of the upgrades in H14 and some of the future roadmap do bode >>>>>>> well for that though. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Gerbrand Nel <nagv...@gmail.com> >>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Well I say nicer, because there are allot of toys to play with. >>>>>>>> I think rigging is the part where you need a non destructive >>>>>>>> procedural work flow the most. >>>>>>>> In Maya it feels like you have to make damn sure you are done with >>>>>>>> step A before moving onto step B. >>>>>>>> Houdini is flexible to the point where you become reckless with >>>>>>>> your work flow :) >>>>>>>> Bit more complex when you get started, but worth it. >>>>>>>> The auto rig at the very least doesn't break like the soft one used >>>>>>>> to in 2011 :) >>>>>>>> G >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On 16/01/2015 14:08, Mirko Jankovic wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Riggin nicer then Soft? >>>>>>>> Will have to check it out then.. In maya rigging and enveloping is >>>>>>>> huge crap and biggest reason that I don't wanna ago back int othat >>>>>>>> hell at >>>>>>>> first place. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 16, 2015 at 12:11 PM, Gerbrand Nel <nagv...@gmail.com> >>>>>>>> wrote: >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> After trying to learn maya for about 6 months, learning houdini is >>>>>>>>> a breath of fresh air!! >>>>>>>>> It is not softimage, but I think its the only thing that will come >>>>>>>>> close to the flexibility and power of soft for small studios and >>>>>>>>> freelancers. >>>>>>>>> Once you get into it, It is even more power. >>>>>>>>> I tried learning it about 2 years ago, and gave up because I >>>>>>>>> thought my time would be better spent getting better in soft (the >>>>>>>>> future >>>>>>>>> was still bright back then) >>>>>>>>> Back then it seemed complicated, but after dealing with maya, it >>>>>>>>> feels sooo much friendlier. >>>>>>>>> The way I see it, you get the operator stack, and ice tree, all in >>>>>>>>> one place, the network view >>>>>>>>> So its one thing to learn. >>>>>>>>> In Maya I feel like I have to learn new software every time I do >>>>>>>>> something else. >>>>>>>>> Rigging I found nicer than soft, and the animation editor in >>>>>>>>> houdini feels like a polished version of the soft one. >>>>>>>>> Houdini engine is still blowing my mind.. like it doesn't stop!! >>>>>>>>> At $300 you cannot ignore this as a piece of your pipeline! >>>>>>>>> I'll probably do allot of work in maya because I need to fit into >>>>>>>>> teams of Mayans, but with the houdini engine, I can do the work in the >>>>>>>>> software best suited for it, without forcing the rest of the team to >>>>>>>>> conform. >>>>>>>>> G >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> On 16/01/2015 12:08, Mirko Jankovic wrote: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> modeling and character riga nd animation wise it is I assume >>>>>>>>>> sitill nt as suser friendly as SI right? >>>>>>>>>> how us ievrall generalist and smalls tudio experience? >>>>>>>>>> SI is more or less out of the box great steramlined solution.. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> -- >>>>>>> Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! >>>>>>> Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are! >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> -- >>>>>> Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship >>>>>> it and let them flee like the dogs they are! >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship >>>>> it and let them flee like the dogs they are! >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it >>> and let them flee like the dogs they are! >>> >> >> > > > -- > Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it > and let them flee like the dogs they are! >
