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 info in this article.

I was looking at some real-world dolly/crane/steady camera rigs and I´ve got inspired to develop my own 3D solution about it:

v1.0 | 28.08.2011

v1.2 | 24.09.2011

v1.1 | 19.09.2011

NOTES
1. Please tag animations/jobs/productions/wtv “rp_CameraRig” or post a comment with the link Ok? Would be lovely to see what you guys have been doing with it :)
2. This rig is free for personal use, if a studio/company wants to use it please contact me.
3. Let me know if you find it usefull and feel free to drop me suggestions/comments/ideas or anything.

Enjoy ;)

For more info visit Daniel Nicolaevsky´s website.

I´ve finally started working with Python and Maya, yeeeeyyy!! It has been great and I thought would be nice to share a few ideas in this post.

MEL is definitely a great starting point and we still love it, but it is a bit old nowadays since python makes life much easier, suitable and powerfull in terms of programming for CG. So let´s begin.

The bindings for all of the native Maya commands are in the maya.cmds module, wich can be called as following:

# import as default
import maya.cmds

# testing it out
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 to import all the names directly into the module could make things cleaner:

# built-in modules
import sys

# import using top-level
from maya.cmds import *

selection = ls(sl=1)

# print in output window using Python sys module
for sel in selection:
    sys.__stdout__.write('selected node= ' + sel + '\n')

But If you find yourself writing that in your code, you should consider this Autodesk help link and also this article.

The cool new pythonic OOP based system inside 2011 and 2012 versions is Pymel, wich wrap classes and basically attaches attributes exposing their properties (don´t forget to check CG Bootcamp tutorial aswell):

# import pymel
import pymel.core as pm

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

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

Last but not least, it is a good idea to choose and 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.

cheers ;)

by Douglas Soares

Florense (portuguese-BR)

by Estúdio Romeu & Julieta

rp_LRA is a maxscript inspired by Maya 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:

rp_RenameTools is a maxscript 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

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 called rp_customManipulatorCTRL: It is a scripted-gizmo node based on the simple manipulator class, wich I customized a bit using its drawing functions to look similar to spline shapes. Usefull for control objects in animation rigs.

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:

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