Bohemia.

More info in this article.

Celeiro (portuguese-BR)

by V8 Video.

Modeling by Rosenio. Sticky points done with his amazing zenno Extra Control tool.

More info in this article.

Restaurante America (portuguese-BR)

by Studio Nitro.
More pictures click here and or more info visit this article.

I´ve got inspired to develop my own 3D dolly/crane/steady camera rig after looking at some real-world references. Here is the result:

v1.0 | 28.08.2011 rp_CameraRig: 3dsmax 2011

v1.2 | 24.09.2011 rp_CameraRig: Maya 2011

v1.1 | 19.09.2011 rp_CameraRig: XSI 2011

NOTES

1. Please tag rp_CameraRig into your animations/videos/wtv or send me links. Would be lovely to see what you guys have been doing with it.
2. This rig is free for personal use, studios or companies should contact me first before using it.
3. Feel free to drop me any suggestions, comments, ideas or anything else.

Enjoy ;)

For more info visit Daniel Nicolaevsky´s website.

I´ve finally started python inside Maya and It has been great! I´d share a few ideas in this post.

MEL is definitely a great starting point and everyone love it but it is a bit “legacy” nowadays since python makes life much easier, suitable and powerfull in terms of programming for CG. The bindings for all of the native Maya commands are in the maya.cmds module, wich can be called as following:

import maya.cmds

selection = maya.cmds.ls(sl=True)

# import using shorter namespace ie. cmds, cmd, mc
import maya.cmds as mc

selection = mc.ls(sl=1)
print 'selected nodes are %s \n' % selection

A top-level namespace that imports all the modules/methods directly:

import sys
from maya.cmds import *

selection = ls(sl=1)
selShape = []

for sel in selection:
    selShape.append(listRelatives(sel, s=1))

sys.__stdout__.write('selected= ' + str(selection) + 'shape= ' + str(selShape) + '\n')

You should read this Autodesk help link and also this article before coding in that way.

The cool new pythonic OOP based system integrated with 2011 and 2012 versions is called Pymel, wich wrap classes and basically attaches attributes exposing their properties:

import pymel.core as pymelCore

# note the inheritance of methods
lastSelected = pymelCore.ls(sl=1)[-1]
longNames = pymelCore.listAttr(lastSelected.longName())

print 'node= %s attrs= %s' % (lastSelected, longNames)

Here´s a another example, it adds a shelfButton into the Custom shelf menu:

# tested under Maya 2012

import pymel.core as pmc

pmc.uitypes.ShelfButton( p = (pmc.uitypes.ShelfLayout('Custom')),
                                   en = 1,
                                   ebg = 1,
                                   vis = 1,
                                   po = 1,
                                   pma = 1,
                                   m = 1,
                                   ann = "right click to view pop-up menus",
                                   label = "Test",
                                   imageOverlayLabel = "TEST",
                                   st = "iconAndTextHorizontal",
                                   menuItem = [ ("LOG", " python(\"import logging; logging.info('log')\") "),
                                           ("JOINTS", " python(\"import maya.cmds as cmds; cmds.ls(type='joints')\") ")
                                           ]

Check out this video tutorial from CG Bootcamp aswell.

Last but not least, it is a good idea to configure one IDE to speed up the workflow. I personally use Eclipse as Maya IDE. Check out Jason Parks Power Python for Maya (Plus) LIVE lecture recorded by Rigging Dojo to learn more about that.

That´s all folks, cheers :)

by Douglas Soares

Florense (portuguese-BR)

by Estúdio Romeu & Julieta

I´ve done this maxscript inspired on Maya´s Local Rotation Axis [1, 2, 3] that able 3dsmax users to quickly ajust any node(s) pivot(s) orientation.

Description:
Version – 1.5
Installation – Evalute the .ms (CTRL+E) or run it (Maxscript > Run Script…).
It is found under Category > RenatoPolimeno > rp_LRA

Video:

Here is my attempt based on two usefull Maya procedures: Jason Schleifer´s js_hashRename.mel and the standard Search and Replace tool.

Description:
Version – 0.3
Installation – Evalute the .ms (CTRL+E) or run it (Maxscript > Run Script…).
It is found under Category > RenatoPolimeno > rp_RenameTools
Check out the Online documentation for any further help.

Video:

This step-by-step Video Gallery Player tutorial was inspired by my friend Marcelo Souza post in twitter: “Wouldn´t be cool a TV in the studio playing video references from a custom gallery all day long ?”

First I thought about writing down a simple python app to do that, but it definitely couldn´t the easiest neither the best idea to do that at all… Then I´ve tried a few things like Vimeo widgets, Vimeo coachmode, Vimeo API and after a few hours diving into those stuff I finally came up with a simple and standard solution for everybody:

Go to the Vimeo website and log in. At the top navigation on the right, click Tools and then select Make Widgets:

Now click either on the Hubnut thumbnail or Customize this to start setting it up:

Note that a new panel is going to open on the right side with a couple of options:

And here is the trick: Choose My subscriptions on the first drop down menu:

That way the widget sorts videos from users that we´ve subscribed:

Of course you can create an account with a common password for users and collect “My Likes”, but that´s totally up to you.
Now we are ready to retrieve the result: Click on the blue button Get Code to copy it from the text field.

Done! Just paste the embed code in your website/blog, press play and hit fullscreen to enjoy :)

Hope you like it, cheers :)

rp_TurboSmoothManager is a maxscript I wrote. Use it to quickly ajust any turbosmooth modifier property on scene nodes at once.

Description:
Version – 1.1
Installation – Evalute the .ms (CTRL+E) or run it (Maxscript > Run Script…).
It is found under Category > RenatoPolimeno > rp_TurboSmoothManager

Video:

While ago I was watching a 3dsmax Masterclass called The Secret World of Scripted Manipulators by Borislav Petrov and I got really inspired to write this tool which is a scripted-gizmo node based on the simple manipulator class but looking similar to spline shapes.

Description:
Version – 5
Installation – Copy the .ms file to the userstartupscripts folder (alternative path that should be used) and restart Max. It is found under Create > Helpers > Manipulators > CTRL.
Online Documentation – click here

Video:

Stash Latin America selection

by Young & Rubicam Brasil, more info in this CSSP article. (portuguese-BR)