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SyFlex in "Maya Techniques" DVD
Clips courtesy of Rudy Grossman
What
Learning DVD
Who
Authors: Rudy Grossman, Erick Miller
Publisher: Autodesk
Where
The "Maya Techniques | Hyper-Realistic Creature Anatomy Part II" DVD was co-authored by
Erick Miller and Rudy Grossman. The DVD covers more advanced techniques for creating
creature anatomy in Maya. As part of the creature design and rigging techniques,
Rudy explores skin and flesh simulation issues to help the user create the most frighteningly
realistic characters. The DVD is available for purchase, here.
More
Rudy has been credited as a Lead Lighting TD, Lead Animation TD, Lead
Creature TD and Creature Supervisor at studios such as Weta Digital and
The Orphanage.
Some of Rudy’s current responsibilities include developing MEL, Perl, and Maya
Plug-In tools for animation, and developing a workflow and toolset for editing/animating facial motion capture. Rudy has contributed to such films as King Kong, X-Men: The Last Stand, Hellboy, and The Day After Tomorrow. Rudy has presented several Maya Master Classes and co-authored Maya Techniques DVDs. We asked him a few questions about his work with SyFlex and the DVD:
Syflex: You have been a SyFlex user almost from the very beginning. What makes
you stick with it?
Rudy: The release of SyFlex was, in my opinion, a ground breaking moment.
It literally brought incredibly realistic and intuitive cloth
simulation to the masses. But what has been truly amazing, is that
the SyFlex group didn't stop there, you guys kept at it. Every year
there are more and more great features, and it's obvious that you are
listening to us out here in the CG community, because the software
keeps growing and expanding to meet our ever changing needs.
Syflex: How did the DVD come about?
Rudy: Erick Miller and I were talking on the phone about some ideas for the
upcoming 2006 Maya MasterClasses. After a few conversations, we
decided to merge all our favorite ideas into a 2 part class series
called "HyperReal: Creature Anatomy".
Syflex: Why did you choose SyFlex for skin and flesh animation?
Rudy: Erick and I choose SyFlex for the skin & flesh demonstration for
the simplest reason. We don't know of anything else out there,
commercially available, which can handle skin and flesh simulations as
well as SyFlex. This is as big of a breakthrough for the CG community
as the release of SyFlex's original cloth solver. Can you tell I'm
really excited about this? What makes SyFlex's skin and flesh
simulations so unique is that it can be so easily integrated into
animated character rigs. It is production ready software.
Syflex: What new techniques will the user learn from the new DVD?
Rudy: Wow... a lot of cool stuff, that's for sure. We put a lot of work into
preparing the material presented in these DVDs. Users will learn some
of our favorite tips, tricks, and techniques that came about from our
combined years of intense production experience.
The first HyperReal: Creature Anatomy DVD covers:
-Working with reference material
Accurately modeling from photographs
-Modeling for Anatomical Transformations.
Modeling a realistic human
Using human reference material
Preserving topology
Human to Beast transformation
-Skeletal Anatomy
Joint Structure in the creature model
-Rigging for Anatomical Transformations
The second HyperReal: Creature Anatomy DVD gets a little more intense:
- Comparative Skeletal Anatomy
- Advanced Rigging Solutions
- Skin/Flesh Simulation
. Differences among cloth, skin, and flesh simulations
. Simulating the skin of a human torso during a monstrous
transformation
. Adding volume and preserving fatty flesh simulation into a creature workflow
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