milk render test with SSS
Another example using Subsurface Scattering, the milk on the right appears like light white translucent liquid while the default blin material shows like a white paint.
Mentalray Subsurface Scattering (SSS)
Got a chance to try out Maya Mentalray Subsurface scatterring(SSS) to create believeable life look alike objects. On the left is the default material, only shows flat colors and dead props, and compared to the right with Mentalray SSS shader, the result is very impressing, the translucency is beautiful rendered and you are able to see there is core(could be a bone in a human body) inside the objects. 
nCloth: Cloth Simulation : Dancing girl
This is the second attempt with a girl dancing in action. This clip shows how well the dynamic handle the dress animation, I only mada a quick spinning for the girl and spent more time on the nCloth.
Maya nCloth: Cloth simulation
Here I tried out Maya nCloth, more functions than Syflex, the result are very good too. I will show one more clip tomorrow.
Syflex:Cloth Simulation
I am trying out Syflex: Cloth Simulation Plugin for Maya. Very easy to use, below are the first attempts and result are pretty impressed.
Procedure Texture
I spent few days to try out Allegorithmic“MaPZone” to create a procedure texture, MapZone is freeware to create texture, but you need a Pro version to output the datas to game engine. It’s not easy to learn, an artist would find rather frustrated by combining bunch of different nodes to get a texture result that they want. However, the result you could get is actually quite good if you know what you are doing. Tile texture is easier than making a special mapping texture, this would require higher level knowledge of the software. Best thing about procedure texture is that it can give the prgrammers the datas that generates the texture and able to create a big scene that less than 500k texture memory. In short, if you want to make a next-gen good looking game on a downloadable platform that less than a 100M, procedure texture is the better option. Here is the rusted texture I created.
Zbrush : Normal + Displacement Map in Maya
So I generated the normal map and displacement map from Maya using “Transfer Map”. I later combined both of the maps under one material and did some tweaks. The final rendered result is very close to the original Zbrush hi-res model, this method is very suitable for game, to get hi-res model look from a lo-res model.
Zbrush : WIP 02
Added rough skin on Zbrush. Next step I will generate a normal map to render with the low res model.
Zbrush : Work in Progress
Im currently adding details on the monster head that I modelled. Here’s a screenshot, will update again when it’s done.
For Each Loop is BACK.
My website is fully functional again after updating the new look the last week! Stay tune for more posts!
Thanks
Sin
Reverse Foot IK
Reverse Foot IK setup has similar idea with Reverse Foot Lock setup but it requires less bones. Number of bone is one of the factors in game making that could affect the game memory, and the programmers can allow a certain limit of joint number you are not happy with, but we gotta live with it :).
Ok, first create 3 IK handles from the 1) hip > ankle, 2) ankle > ball, 3) ball > toe. Name them to ankle_ik, toe_ik and toeend_ik respectively. ikRPsolver is used for the IK handles.
The following steps demonstrate how to create a Reverse Foot method.
A) Group (ctrl+g) the ankle_ik itself and call it ball_grp. Hit “insert” to allow you to move the ball_grp pivot point from origin to the ball joint. This group will control the ball of the foot.
Animation and Pose Copy Tool…with a batch transfer
The “Animation Copy” allow Maya users (tested in Maya 7) to record the pose, or animation in a text file that stored in a directory the users have picked; the directory the users picked will be recorded down(in anmPose_userPrefs.mel) so users don’t have to go in to pick the directory again next time they start the tool. You could also type the directory path in the directory textfield and press “Enter” on the numpad to save the directory info. Pose and Animation keys are stored in .pose and .anm respectively to distinguish the format, users can open the file with notepad and edit the key datas as they want.
The script is copying and pasting the animation keys based on the name of the nodes,
so identical node names are required to get the keys transfered/copied over.
The second function in this toolset is the “Animation Transfer”, it works differently from the above mentioned. This script can do a batch transfer of animation keys to a different character that have the same node names.
Create Cluster
In Maya, once you create a cluster, it will return to object mode, then you will have to go back to component mode and create a second cluster. this is very frustrated, so I always have this simple script in my tool set to create clusters faster, one and another one without going back to object mode back and forth.
特训 Texun (Special Training)
特训, probably means “Special Training” from what I understand from the Kanji characters. It is a little game (only 28k) I played few years ago and just found it back from the net. From the pictures, you see there are a lot of bullets and a little ship, you may think this is another vertical scrolling shooting game, well, it is not.
Align two objects
Description: This simple script could help you align 2 objects together. I put an option you could turn on if you like the object to be orientated as well. First, select the target object which you want to align to and then shift select the object that will get aligned.
