I've added two new options to my bhGhost tool - attach to camera mode and reduce detail mode. The former allows you to see your spacing and arcs in camera space and the latter helps when ghosting detailed geometry. The download is free as usual and is available from my website here - graphite9.com/MayaDownloads.html
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:mel, bhGhost, maya, ghosting, tools, spacing, onion skin, onionskinning, animation, workflow, principles, brian horgan and graphite9.com
Now available here! : gumroad.com/l/zTxUb
I really like to use Maya's Pixel Move tool to translate controllers in a subtle way when doing final polish on a shot. I've often wished it could work in local space though as well as screen space, so today I wrote a tool that does that.
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:animation tools, maya, animation, mel, workflow, nudge, bh, scripts, graphite9, 3d, cg and brian horgan
A customer who bought my bh_pathAnim tool ran into an issue when using it with Maya's Human IK system so I wrote a little script to resolve that and made this video to demonstrate. If you have the same issue you can grab the script from my website here - graphite9.com/MayaDownloads/bh_fixHumanIKPathSystemOffsets.zip
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:maya, bh_pathAnim and humanIK
bh_speedGUI is a tool to allow animators to quickly experiment as they work. It takes standard Maya functionality and makes it intuitive and extremely fast to visualize your animation at different speeds without breaking the flow of your work.
Download bh_speedGUI here :
My other tools for Maya are here :
gumroad.com/graphite9
The rig in the video is from iAnimate.net
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:animation, mel, speed, tools, brian, maya, horgan and graphite9
bhGhost update 1.55 is a 'quality of life' update for animators, I've added new line thickness options, new Tracker options and I've improved the Create Shelf Button command so that it restores the common settings changes you might use for a particular character.
I hope people find it useful, as usual bhGhost is free and is available from my website here : graphite9.com/MayaDownloads.html
Cast:Brian Horgan
I blocked out a Stepped run on 2s with this great rig from Agora. As I'm usually a 'straight to spline' kind of guy this is definitely a workflow that's out of my comfort zone but hey that's when you learn the most I guess..
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:stop motion, animation, 3d, stepped and maya
An animation test I made while going back to work on the fundamentals of timing and spacing. Yes, I've played way too much Uncharted.
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:3d, test, bouncing ball, reel, maya, animation, timing, spacing and principles.
I'm experimenting a lot with my animation workflow at the moment. One idea I showed on FB today was how I set up Maya so that instead of the default hotkeys just going to the previous/next keyframes they now flip forward on each press and flip back again on release, this is an experiment I'm trying to see if a '2D style' workflow (where animators drawing on paper roll or flip their drawings between their fingers as they work) might work for me.
A couple of people asked how I set this up in Maya and the easiest way to explain was with a video. Hope people find it useful!
Cast:Brian Horgan
Update! The rigger who built the rig I show in the video (which is far from the only rig where I've noticed it) has already addressed this and it now has this feature. This rig and his others can be found here - gumroad.com/trevital
A while back I made a video on something I feel is missing from many quadruped leg rigs. Here's one on a similar theme but this time it's something missing from many FK arm and Head rigs. Please spread the video around and maybe more riggers will incorporate this by default.
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:maya, rigging, animation, fk and counter animation
A quick tip for bhGhost where I show how I like to track the spacing and arcs of objects that don't work well with ghosting.
The Butcher rig is from Kiel Figgins.
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:ghost, maya, mel, bhGhost, ghosting, onionskin, scripts, onionskinning, brian horgan, graphite9, timing, animation, spacing, arcs and principles
Animation test with this great new rig from Kiel Figgins. Very much inspired by a game I've been playing a lot recently..
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:anim, butcher, animation, reel, brian horgan, maya, character, game, god of war and axe
Update, now available here! gumroad.com/l/ZzQjL
For a complete overview please see this video : vimeo.com/279434632
bh_waveIt is a new animation tool for Maya which speeds up the process of blocking in simple wave motion for things like tails, capes and anything else that might need it.
The Deadpool and Butcher rigs are from Kiel Figgins, the other 2 are rigs I've built.
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:mel, animation, maya, animation tool, cg, 3d, workflow, bh, wave, bhghost, graphite9 and brian horgan
Now available here :
gum.co/ZzQjL
bh_waveIt is a new animation tool for Maya which speeds up the process of blocking in simple wave motion for things like tails, capes and anything else that might need it.
This video gives a general overview of launching and typical use of the tool.
To see how I finesse and polish looping wave cycles please see this video : vimeo.com/279436312
The Panther rig is from iAnimate.net
Cast:Brian Horgan
Cast:Brian Horgan
Irish animators, want to skill up in Maya during these difficult times and take a course where I'll share my workflows and tools for animating walks and runs in Maya - for free?
Full details and sign-up here : screenskillsireland.ie/course/animating-walks-and-runs-in-maya-online/
Cast:Brian Horgan
A quick look at a new tool I'm developing, bh_cycleTools, this is an offshoot of my personal toolset I've been using for several years for creating walk and run cycles that I'm now updating and streamlining to suit my current workflow. Video is sped up 3x, this was 3 minutes of work in real time to rough in the primary key poses for a quadruped walk - with zero foot slip and extremely fast mirroring of position/rotation and custom attributes on all controls.
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:maya, tools, creature, walk cycle, mel, biped and quadruped
There are lots of variations in how Foot Roll is set up in different rigs. Some I like a lot, some not so much. Here's a comparison of several popular rigs and a quick demo at the end of how easy it is to improve one of them. Hope people find it useful and interested to hear about other peoples preferences.
Spoiler alert - I like the ones in Victor Yinyals and Kiel Figgins rigs best..
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:maya, rig and character rig
When sharing a Maya rig with others there's a simple fix a rigger can make to the file texture paths that means they are much more likely to load correctly on a different computer without the animator having to re-path them.
Cast:Brian Horgan
I was blocking out a test walk with this rig and realised it's a good example of where bh_aimTools can be used to reduce the unwanted rotation animation a control is inheriting from its parent control. In this case, the Right Shoulder Horn has had some polish on the aim locator to simplify and smooth it's motion whereas the Left one is just animating along with the shoulder.
It's very simple now to clean up the motion for the Left side too, rather than counter-animating against the jiggly shoulder motion (which I like) I just clean up the translate curves on the aim locator and then bake the animation back to the rig.
Rig by Kiel Figgins.
Cast:Brian Horgan
Tags:script, maya, demo, tools and bh_aimTools