日曜大工で何かを作ろうとした時、事前に必要な部品や出来上がりのイメージが確認できたらいいですよね。そんな確認がｐｃ上で作成しながらできるソフト「2xBuilder」があるようです。
3ｄソフトと同じで、移動など直感的な操作が可能で、正面や横からの視点変更も出来るようです。設計する際は、まず部品に使いたい木材をダイアログで選択して設計画面へ追加し、好きな場所へ移動回転させる。このソフトには木材の2×4材といった一般的な規格のものが用意されているほか、任意の大きさの木材を登録することもできるとのこと。
詳しくはこちら
米Microsoftは、3Dモデリングソフト「trueSpace 7.6」を無償配布するようです。trueSpaceはMicrosoftが2月に買収した米Caligariの製品で、美しいレンダリングと、技術者以外でも簡単に扱うことができるユーザーインタフェースが特徴のようです。Microsoftの地図サービスVirtual Earthに無償提供されるtrueSpace内で作成した3Dモデルを直接書き出す機能が追加されているとのこと。
詳しくはこちら
「イオン・ヒューマン」は2次元の写真を80秒程度で処理し、7〜8万ポリゴンのリアルな3次元顔画像を作ることができる。
また、ジャッキー・チェンのようなアジア人顔を、見た目は本人のまま西洋人顔に変えてしまったり、女性にしたり、あるいは若くしたり、実際以上に老けさせたりといったことができる機能も搭載している。
これからもっと発展していく３D技術に期待したい。
詳細はこちら
I found a pretty good tutorial how to use emitter and particles in Maya 6.0. This tutorial is quite easy and you get a very simple overview using particles.
(1) Preparation
- download file: shower.zip
- set this project: File > Project > Set ... and open the scene shower.mb
- change Timeline Preferences: Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences > Timeline > Playback Speed > Play Every Frame, Playback by > 1.0
(2) Creating an emitter
- Dynamics Menue (Shortcut F4): Particles > Create Emitter
The emitter (consists of two nodes: emitter, particles) will be created at the point of origin. You can move this emitter like any other object in Maya. We want to move (Shortcut w) this emitter in front of the shower head. Later we will move this into the shower head.
For better orientation we will name this emitter showerEmitter.
Please change the playback range to 500, go to the first frame and press play to see the result of our created emitter. We can see, that the emitter spreads out the particles in every direction.
During the next steps we want to change the attributes of the emitter to look the particles like waterdrops.
(3) Changing emitter's attributes
You can change the emitter's attributes in the Attribute Editor (Shortcut Ctrl+a) or at the Channel Box on the right side of the window. At first we want to change the type of emitter to Directional.
We play again the scene. Now, the emitter spreads all particles in one direction and we only see one line. That's because the value of the spread attribute is just 0. And the direction is also not correct because now it is horizontal. Not very natural for a shower.
We want to change direction, spread and speed of the particles by using the very comfortable Show Manipulator Tool (Shortcut t).
Direction
Several coloured markers appears around the marker. We click on the blue circle until you can read Direction. We can now change the direction coordinates. Click at the blue square to activate the move tool and change the y-axes 45° towards the emitter so that the xyz-coordinates are now 1,-1.5,0.
Spread
We click again the blue circle until we can read Spread and change the value to 0.35 . The particles will be spread in the space of this generated cone.
Speed
The last attribute to change in this mode is the speed. We click again the blue circle until we can read Speed and drag the value to 5.
We play our animation again. The direction of our water jet is now ok. But the particles are still very un-real. We want to change the attributes of the particles which are now like points. But we want to have kind of streaks.
(4) Changing particles' attributes
We open the Attribute Editor of the emitter (select editor and then Shortcut Ctrl+a) and go to the tab particleShape1. We change Render Attributes > Particle Render Type to Streak.
We want to change more attributes. Please, press Current Render Type and change Line Width to 2 and Tail Size to 9. Try out different values to find out the meanig of these two attributes. You can see it very well.
As water is blue we also change the color Add Dynamics Attributes > Color. We select Add Per Object Attribute and press Add Attribut. We have now three new attributes for the colors red, green and blue. We use the value 0,0.2,1.0 to change the watercolor into a nice blue.
Let's play our animation again. Very nice but still not perfect. Our particles fall down very un-real and the drops go through the bath tab.
(5) Creating a gravitation field and using Collision Events
A gravition field will our particles fall down in a more realistic way. To create a gravitation field simply select the particles (NOT the emitter! You can select only particles with the outliner window: Window > Outliner) then go to the menue Fields > Gravity. Try out again our animation and see the results. Our water falls down quite natural but the effect is a little bit too strong so we change the Magnitude of this gravity field to 4.5.
But still the water goes through the bath tab. To avoid this effect we want to make a collide. This is again very easy as Maya has a function to do this. Select particles and the bath tab, go to the menue Particles > Make Collide. When we play our animation we'll see that the drops bounces of the bath tab. The effect is very strong so that the drops splash over the bath tab. We want to reducethis effect by changing the attributes of the created geoConnector (created by the function Make Collide): Resilience, Friction. This node is the connector between our bath tab and the particles. We want to set the Resilience value to 0.5 and the Friction Value to 0.1.
The last step is to change the particles look after they hit the bath tab. For the moment the look the same like before hitting the bath tab which is not natural. We want to create a second little particle system as kind of answer to the hit of the bath tab. With a second particle systems it is possible to change the look of our waterdrops.
Select the particles, go to menue Particles > Particle Collision Events. A new window will be opened. Be assure that particle1 is listed in the Object Box and set following values:
Type: Emit
Random # Particles: ON
Num Particles: 2
Original Particles Dies: ON
After setting these values press Create Event and Close the window. Play the animation. We see a new type of particles (the origin particles died after hitting the bath tab) whose attributes we want to change now.
We change the type of particles to MultiPoints and change the color to white (1,1,1). You can make these changes with the Attribute Editor of particle2. Select particle2 (e.g. with the Outliner) and press Ctrl+a. Please go back to point 4 if you don't remember how to change the color. It's the same way.
Because we don't want the particles love forever we change the Lifespan Mode to Random Range (you can change to this mode in Attribute Editor > Lifespan Attributes or in the Channel Box > Shapes). Set Lifespan Radom on 1.0.
OK... Now we add the gravity field and the geoConnector to let the particles behaviour like the origin particles. Select particle2 and open Window > Relationship Editor > Dynamics Relationships. When we activate to see all nodes, select our gravity field and the bath tab and close. The nodes are now connected to the particle2.
Our emitter settings are finished now and we can move the emitter into the shower head and play the animation.
Final result:
YouTubeなどの動画投稿共有サイトには山ほどライトセーバーのムービーがあります。どれもこれもかなりハイクオリティなのですが、Adobe PremierやらAdobe PhotoshopやらAdobe After Effectsなどなどの高価な編集ソフトを駆使しており、一般ユーザーでは作りたくてもそもそもソフトウェアがそろわない状態でした。
しかし、海外には気合いの入った人がいて、なんとライトセーバーを振り回すムービーを作成することのみに特化したフリーソフトを作ってしまったのです。そのソフトの名は「LSMaker」、「The LightSaber Maker program」の略のようです。
詳しくはコチラ
デモシーン、あるいはメガデモとは、音楽と一緒に美しいコンピュータグラフィックスアニメーションをリアルタイムに表示するというプログラム（＝デモ）のこと。
その中でも最近特に注目を集めたのがこの「fr-041: debris」というデモ。何がすごいかというと、わずか177KBしかファイルサイズがないのに、圧倒的なクオリティであったため。こういう3DCGの道を目指している人にとってはかなり刺激的な内容なのではないかと。
詳しくはコチラ
NextLimitが、5月中旬にリリース予定のMaxwell Render v1.5についてアナウンスしました。
コアエンジンの改良による品質の向上、使用メモリを減らすことによる高解像度でのレンダリング、32bit出力のサポート、Linuxのサポートなど、様々な改良がなされています。
詳しくはコチラ（英語）
オークが、V-Rayの『フリッカーフリーGI機能のテストアニメーション』を掲載しました。
リンク先のページにサンプル映像があります。
サンプルを見た限りほとんどフリッカーが出てません。ちょっと購買意欲をそそられますね。
詳しくはこちら
MAXON's development team has been hard at work fine-tuning every facet of Release 10. Improvements have been made to modeling, materials, animation, and rendering, as well as to various modules. Additionally, the application has been optimized for the latest operating systems and of course, known issues of the software were promptly addressed.
This update is free for all owners of CINEMA 4D R10 and can be found in the download section."
Each time we give more, the entrants have improved their work yet again. However, we are always looking to enhance the challenges and wanted to make the 20th challenge something special. So we introduced animation and film categories. We also invited in two of the world's leading Science Fiction writers and based the challenge on one of their blockbuster novels - EON, by Greg Bear. This made it the hardest and the highest profile challenge ever.[...]"
The festival, organised by the University, celebrates creativity in animation and computer games and attracts animators, directors, students, artists, designers, writers and educators from all over the world.[...]"
Registered modo 202 customers receive the modo 203 update free of charge, and a free 30-day full-featured evaluation version is available for immediate download from www.modo3d.com. [...]"
Team members from the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science in Saarbrücken, Germany, say their technique is faster than traditional animation methods. Usually animators must design a skeleton to go inside a character and ensure its movements translate into realistic deformations of the outer surface.
"Parts of that process are very labour-intensive," says Christian Theobalt, who led the research: "We wanted to be able to go directly from the desired motion to animating your character."
Theobalt and colleagues Edilson de Aguiar, Carsten Stoll and Hans-Peter Seidel have made that possible. They can directly animate 3D laser scans of people using the motion of another individual collected using motion capture or using the pre-programmed motion of another character.
Beyond the remarkable tutorials, we delve into the artist's past experiences to give greater insight into their personal and professional work and also the foundations of their success. An invited artist gallery provides the opportunity for the master artists to single out inspirational artists and commentate on the character work of the greater cg community.
New Book Previewer!
Ballistic Publishing has taken a big jump from thumbnail-sized page previews into an animated, interactive "live book preview" where you can flick through every page of d'artiste Character Modeling 2.
Pre-order and pay now to receive four limited edition prints!
Free prints are included with pre-orders of every d’artiste: Character Modeling 2 Limited Edition and the first 300 slipcased editions. Each print is 220 x 297mm and finished to the highest quality on 190gsm stock.
About the artists
Kevin Lanning started creating art at a very early age drawing and sculpting. He received a half-ride scholarship at the Art Institute of Dallas graduating with a Degree in Computer Animation. Thanks to online exposure Kevin received commission work including character art for several commercials. This led to his discovery by Epic Games where he was hired as a full-time artist to create art assets for their next-gen game technology Unreal Engine 3. For the past four years Kevin has been working as a Character and Creature Modeler at Epic Games. His most recent work can be seen in Epic’s blockbuster hit for the Xbox 360, ‘Gears of War’.
Zack Petroc has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art with a major in Sculpture and dual minor in Drawing and Digital Media. Additionally, he studied anatomy at Case School of Medicine and figure sculpture in Florence, Italy. Zack uses his strong design background as the foundation for both his traditional and digital work. Zack is currently working as a freelance Art Director and Concept Designer for feature film and games. He is also a member of the Art Director’s Guild Technology Committee and author of several training DVDs from The Gnomon Workshop.
Timur "Taron" Baysal started to work with computers at age 14 and taught himself modeling and rendering. He started his VFX career in the U.S. with Station X Studios in 1998. He then worked in several visual effects houses in the roles of animation director, head of R&D, lead animator, 3D animator and character animator among others. His feature film credits include: ‘Syriana’, ‘Reeker’, ‘The Dust Factory’, ‘Gothika’, ‘Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams’, ‘Impostor’, ‘Megiddo: The Omega Code 2’, ‘Dracula 2000’, ‘Battlefield Earth’ and ‘Dogma’. Looking for a change, Timur moved to the realm of developing 3D tools with pmG, creators of the rendering and animation environment messiah:Studio.
d'artiste Character Modeling 2 Limited Edition
Like all of our previous d'artiste titles, Character Modeling 2 is also available in a leather-bound Limited Edition. These editions come with an individually-numbered gold seal certificate of authenticity and are strictly limited to the first 200 customers. The Limited Editions also come with a set of four limited prints featuring the work of the featured artists.
Thanks to Kevin, Taron and Zack for helping to create a remarkable character modeling resource. Thanks also to all the artists who entered artwork for d'artiste Character Modeling 2. We hope you enjoy more of the world's best examples of character modeling!