Specialists demand special tools. This is what drove me to create these two, very specific, custom texture maps for VFX professionals. The first of the two is a custom UV texture map used for visually evaulating the level of precision and correctness of UV coordinates on 3D meshes. The other one is a custom TRACKING texture map developed for compositors for 2D tracking purposes of 3D renders or any other 3D elements that were 3D tracked and rendered.
(more…)
I find myself scripting in Maya more and more often. As I’ve expressed many times already, I really love and appretiate Python’s way of dealing with things, so having this language available in Maya is a blessing. The most beautiful part is when software actually does all the hard and annoying work for you 
Scripting in Maya using Python hadn’t been designed the way it should be. Unfortunately, Python only serves as a “wrapper” around MEL commands and MEL architecture. Fortunately there are attempts at simplifying Python scripting in Maya, such as PyMEL from Luma Pictures (which is a studio I feel honored to cooperate with on The Nutcracker: The Untold Story), which is a fantastic “plug-in” for any Maya TD! which was, not surprisingly, done solely through Python itself 
A fantastic demonstration of Python’s power. However, PyMEL isn’t the topic for this short post, maybe later, when I get more familiar with it and gain more experience using it.
(more…)
The more time you spend developing some more complex tools and code, the more you start appretiating all the open-source tools and add-ons you can get. Thankfully, Max and its MAXScript language is very widely used throughout the CG community, so, some times you don’t even have to start developing your own tools from scratch, you can get either the whole package from sites like ScriptSpot or at least build your tools up on somebody else’s script. However, there are certain limitations that even a huge community, such as the one Max has, won’t be of much help.
(more…)
Quite a few people have requested photos of my dog, Channela, as reference for their models, paintings or what not. So, since I’ve already put the work into putting quite a number of photos of Channela together, I thought some other artists might be interested in getting these as I reckon, even that the quality of the photos is, somewhat, low , it’s invaluable and mandatory having as many photo references, as possible. So, here you are, guys. Grab them and use them as you like! I’d only, humbly, ask for a link or a credit when due, if you find the photos usable and helpful.
(more…)
