lalamax3d

recently (two weeks ago) i had a chance to attend an event in muzafferabad(kashmir). primarily event was about Gliding and Aero Modeling. i was lucky enough to be part of aero modeling team and hold camera (cannon-eosD40) for first time in my life.  Also got permission to capture whatever i like. offcourse these images are not world’s best, but i am putting them here for my personal memories

few pictures of aero modeling team

[Show as slideshow]

few pictures of Gliders

[Show as slideshow]

also i didn’t missed the expressions (small amount of general public, which wasn’t frustrating a bit)

[Show as slideshow]

also first panorama of my life. i think, few aero modelers might be enjoying this in their Real Flight Simulator.

maya viewports behaving strangely even with latest october 2008 drivers

thanks to noeg and cbamber85

we have to set “threaded optimization” to off within 3d setting inside NVIDIA Control Panel

Edit  (after 3 months)

after few weeks of above post, i realized that it didn’t worked 100% and issue or orbitting reduced but still pops up

interestingly, one of my colleague named JABRAN aka Dorctor Sb. mentioned that old drivers will work perfectly.

later on he sends me a snapshot of his current settings which forces to work it 100% perfectly.

ahh, its too late as i have moved to ATI out of frustration and picked Radeon 4850. as its in my pocket range.

Edit (after 6 months)

quote: nothing comes for free and life isn’t easy, sometimes

just noticed that ATI radeon has issues with maya in new way, comparing to nvidia issues with maya.

ati radeon won’t allow you to manipulate rotations in multiple axis. it picked one (automatically) as you click on gizmo and it was quite frustrating.

but luckily i was able to solve this issue as forums searching concluded that catalyst 8.xx drivers are better than 9.xx

i tested and it worked perfectly.

CONCLUSION

uptil now i have concluded that most of VGA cards / chips manufacturers (ati / nvidia) both want every professional to use professional series cards rather than gaming cards.  what forces me to conclude this is, in both cases latest drivers are creating issues.

Recently i asked few of my colleagues to give me products (car models, perfume bottles etc) to experiment with product renders. below are results, modeling credit goes to relevant modelers (naeem,raja,atyeb,farhan,safi,jab) happy viewing,

Vehicle Gallery

[Show as slideshow]

more will be coming soon…

Installation: Just drag-drop or put in your “usermacros” folder

Usage: 3dsmax>>customize>>lm_Rigging(Catagory)>>ToonEyes (assign a key,quadmenu,etc)

Download: ToonEyes_v0.2

Update: minor fix (closing UI accidently without finalizing now can be fixed by selecting left and right ffds and hitting finalize button.

Notes:The Script helps you to setup toon ffd eyes symmetrically. it also add two helpers which you can constaint later (lookat) .

below are images from projects on which i have been involved at Evolve Studios. Greatful for their permission to let me add those here. Their website is not updated but sooner you’ll see more / complete projects / videos on their website.

[Show as slideshow]

Installation: Just drag-drop or put in your “usermacros” folder

Usage: 3dsmax>>customize>>lm_Rigging(Catagory)>>SquashyBiped (assign a key,quadmenu,etc)

Download: squashyBiped_v0.2 | StretchyBiped_v0.1

Update: new version add squash support (not physically real for volume calculation, but as per my liking aesthetically). also all reactor controllers now have been removed and expression controllers have been used.

Notes:The Script helps you to setup stretchy biped bones (arms,legs,spine,etc) quickly with 1 mouse click. It simply adds a parameter “stretchy” to first selected bone(modifier stack) from selection. ( you can copy paste modifier where ever you want after wards).

Example:if you want two arm bones to stretch and hand as controller parameter, just select hand and then arm bones and hit “make stretch” with optional “skip 1st”.
if you want whole spine to be stretchy, just select all spine bones and hit make stretchy.(parameter will be added to 1st selected biped bone)

last month i had a chance to participate in interesting real time visualization project with EVOLVE Studios. this is third output build where following are done

• RealTime Reflections on Floor, OK
• Artwork/ Assets Lighting / Baking process test, OK
• Pano Image testing working,OK
• All basic type of shaders (baked GI,cubic reflections,metal,videos) are working,OK

offcourse right now you can go outside, but in final version this won’t be allowed and things will be interlinked properly.

AG_Cofeebar

Download Executable. Run in FULL SCREEN MODE, when asked and for navigation use MOUSE and “WSAD”

so precise status is

process 1: extracting raja from BG

process 2: matching tracking all cameras (specially moving ones)

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

remaining process will be (soon i’ll put estimate dates for finish, once i get some free time)

• modeling / shading environment
• animating props
• rendering
• comping

precise update is:

steps Done:

1. matching tracking(boujou)
2. assets / animation (maya 2009)
3. shading (mental ray)
   for assets / props (car/glass) i used “mia_material_x_passes” and for bgPlane i used mrProductionShaders(to catch reflection / shadow as alpha)
4. rendering setup (passes / renderlayers)
   2 basic layers (foreground & background)
   foreground contains (car and glass) passes extracted are (diffuse, specular,reflection,refraction,occ,motionblur(toxic,2d))
   background contains (bpPlane as object. car and glass primary visibility off) mia_matteShadow was used to capture shadow and reflection in separate passes

Current Look/Acheivement

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

steps WIP and issues/Doubts:

apparently all basic passes are connected and almost close to final look. see this

Lastly feel free to add / comment and help to improve.

keep in mind

• c:\python25 is different installation
• maya root python and mayapy.exe are different shells and nothing to do with orignal python

to tell your main python about maya modules do:

• pythonpath(environment variable)
• maya_location(environment variable)

to test and confirmation, open IDLE and type:

• import maya.standalone
• maya.standalone.initialize()

to tell maya python shell or mayapy.exe about your typically added site packages (wx / win32 etc)
do userSetup.py in maya scripts folder with code below

• import maya.cmds as mc
• import sys
• sys.path.append(’C:\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages\\win32′)
• sys.path.append(’C:\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages\\win32\\lib’)
• sys.path.append(’C:\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages\\Pythonwin’)
• sys.path.append(’C:\\Python25\\lib\\site-packages\\wx-2.8-msw-ansi’)

to test this, open maya script editor and in python tab script type

• import wx and hit ctrl + enter and it will hopefully work or check code below to test

————————————————————
import wx

class MyFrame(wx.Frame):
def __init__(self, parent, id, title):
wx.Frame.__init__(self, parent, id, title, wx.DefaultPosition, wx.Size(250, 50))

panel = wx.Panel(self, -1)
wx.Button(panel, -1, “Button1″, (0,0))
wx.Button(panel, -1, “Button2″, (80,0))
wx.Button(panel, -1, “Button3″, (160,0))

class MyApp(wx.App):
def OnInit(self):
frame = MyFrame(None, -1, ‘layout.py’)
frame.Show(True)
frame.Centre()
return True

app = MyApp(0)
app.MainLoop()

———————————————————————–

looks good
bad news,unable to fix
executing commands (python) from outsite maya(maxya / eclipse,pydev) is issue,
when i create same window (few lines above) maya hangs / refresh stops

so apparently it seems only work around is to do com port connection
don’t know much about it but hopefully it will work soon