Monday, January 30, 2012

Cage Facial Setup ~ Puppeteer Lounge

Here is Mr. Head for the latest Cage Facial Setup Workshop. The modelling credit goes to Mr. Francisco Tejo. He did a great job on the facial setup!

Check out Puppeteer Lounge webpage for more info :)

Underworld Awakening :: Production Focus

Check out the CG Society production focus on Underworld Awakening. Human to werewolf transformation was really cool!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Facial Pose Test



Pose test showing some fantastic facial shapes by Michael Palleschi. I wonder how much time and attention to detail it must have taken to the sculpting on such hi resolution mesh!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Animation Physics



Animation Physics is a good resource for animation full of tutorials, reference and cool stuffs to look at!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Puppeteer Lounge "BODY MECHANICS"

Body mechanics is the place where most animators “Go Wrong.” If an animation does not have convincing mechanics, it does not look right even to the untrained eye.
The amazing world of BODY MECHANICS has now been added to the list of Puppeteer Lounge's online Animation Workshops!  Feel free to check the course details from here... Cheers ;)

IMITATOR ~ MocapLab



"Only mocap processing, no post-animation and a good performer". Really good performance video by MocapLab!

Feel free to check out there other videos as well.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Hands by Florin Toma



Check out this beautiful animation with nice deformation for two hands by Florin Toma. Hands with personality and character of it's own! Excellent work :)

Character Animation Reel 2011 ~ Manish Shakya



Latest character animation reel by Manish Shakya showcasing some of his previous works and skills. Manish is currently a mentor at Puppeteer Lounge for Animation Workshops.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Them Greeks...!

Them Greeks...! is a short film by artist around the world! Yes, around the world. I have been a part of the team as a Character TD for some time now and I have to say the project is looking fabulous and huge.

The story revolves around a character "Norman" who is an antisocial fellow, who despises noise and disorder, clashes with a bunch of crazy Greeks!

The film is directed by Spyros Tsiounis and produced by Cindy Rangel, Phillip Williams and Daniel Zizmor.  The project is building up RIGGING, LIGHTING,and TECHNICAL DIRECTOR teams so if you are a qualified artist just drop an email. You can check out the project's webpage for infos or like the FB page for more info and updates on the project :)

The Cursors Curse



Short Film Created at Vancouver Film School by Richard Gillies. Lovely character and nice animation!

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Character Reel 2008 ~ Martin Tomoya Orlowski

Cool Rigging Demo Reel by Martin Tomoya Orlowski. Lovely facial controls and deformation!

P.S. I was unable to embed the video to this post. So feel free to click the link here or above for the video :)

The Artist



Funny short about two artist's rivalry. Loved the character design and music :)

Friday, January 20, 2012

SERU



Check out the latest short from a Nepali Animation Studio who won the 1st prize in an animation festival. I hope the making off comes soon as well. I was a part of the team as a rigger and the short was directed by Deepak Limbu from Escape Animation, a fun little friend of mine. The story is about two friends on an adventure which seals their friendship even stronger.

The short still needs some good amount refining and polishing to be done towards story "telling" and animation, but I think it is a very good initiative by a small group of team working from Nepal. Enjoy :D

The Chase - Trailer



Amazing and really intense trailer of The Chase a 3D short movie directed by Philippe Gamer @ Space patrol. A crazy, irresistible, intense, spectacular car chase between police and four unlikely accomplices. I am looking forward for the short's release. Really enjoyed it :)

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Martin Bird

Check out this CG Society post by Jonny Gorden where he goes over sharing the tips and techniques he implemented on setting up the bird rig shown above using Lightwave :)

Markerless Facial Motion Capture

Check out this video of Markerless Facial Motion Capture by Motek Entertainment. The technology seen here is similar to what I have seen from Image Metrics re-targeting demos. Pretty cool stuff though.

Liquid Skies



Put on your sound system to the MAX or your headphone. CoOl video by Liquid Skies!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Headphones Breakdown



Amazing breakdown for headphone commercial. Below is the commercial video... Superb transformation!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Oxygen



Fun and informative short by Christopher Hendryx of Ringling College of Art + Design! Great concept...
Learn a little bit of basic chemistry while watching Oxygen try to make friends in Element-ary school.

Fast and Efficient Facial Setup

Check out the methodology and techniques on facial rigging pipeline tools created for the production of Gears of War 3 by Jeremy Ernst.

Soft Tissue Deformation



Techniques and methodology used in character deformation "Soft Tissue" from Disney! Think of The Algorithm that went in to solving this simulation!

Simon Payne's Video



Check out the video library of Simon Payne. There are some really cool stuffs showing procedural animation and muscle system!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Tony White ~ 'Endangered Species'



Nice illustration!

Animation Workshop


Puppeteer Lounge is pleased to announce Animation Workshops! Puppeteer Lounge started off initially as a character rigging training workshop but with the demand from our passionate students, we have kicked off the animation training workshop starting from the date of our 1st successful anniversary. Initially we will be starting off with Workshop 1 "BASIC FOUNDATION" and Workshop 2 "BODY MECHANICS" :)

These workshops will be personally guided and mentored by Manish Shakya, an aspiring animator who have over 3 years experience as a character animator working for Incessant Rain Animation Studio. He is currently working as a freelance animator for Escape Animation and is also doing his graduation from Animation Mentor! He also did some of the animation work for the characters from the rigging workshop. Welcome aboard Manish :)

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

ELECTROSHOCK



This one is very funny :D Great job by the team working on the team!

Growing Vine Rig Tutorial









Simple and efficient way to setup a growing vine rig by Jordan Blit. He has done a very good job of explaining the tips and techniques of using polySplitRing, clamp, condition nodes and wire deformer to create a simple vine rig to start off with. Check it out!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Swell Dynamics



Interesting and cool tool demo on creating/simulating an ocean wave! Reminds me of "Surf's Up" movie :)

Bird Rigs



I checked this bird rigging reel a little while back and find these setups to be really intuitive and pretty straight forward; flexible controls producing proper articulation by Rebecca Lórien. You can see that the rigger has used a blend of fanning joints placed in anatomically correct position and spline based control/deformation, somewhat similar to or look alike Paule Neale's Setup for the wing and feather system to achieve believable wing spreading, folding and flapping articulation.

Maya custom node : sin calculation by Marco



Marco's first attempt on creating a successful Maya plugin "node" using c++ and maya API. I have a feeling that this guy is going to pump out some really cool tools sooner or later ;)
"Hi everyone i have just created  this maya custom node through c++ and maya API ,
A good developper might say it s not so hard to do and it s totally true but …. that s the first step for starting getting better and better as technical rigger . With this node i m starting gatting n understand of maya API . No need to say first attempt months ago was a fail , but now the first step is done!
Feel free to ask any question!"
 Check it out!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Bird Wing Rig Test ~ Nicolas Rossi



A video demo for Bird Setup Workshop (The pupPetEEr's Lounge) by Nicolas Rossi where he demonstrated some of the techniques he implemented to achieve a better wing and feather deformation.

During the online lecture session, we are always trying to figure out new and better ideas, tips and techniques to figure out more efficient rigging solution. It's fun and always exciting to learn new stuffs and troubleshoot at the same time :)

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Monday, January 2, 2012

Happy 1st Birthday to The pupPetEEr's Lounge

Wishing you all a very warm, successful, prosperous and healthy new year 2012! The pupPetEEr's Lounge is also celebrating it's 1st successful anniversary on the same day. Many thanks and best wishes to all my wonderful students and well wishers. Cheers  :-)

On this special occasion, I would like to personally offer a 25% special discount to all my existing students and all new registration for the month of January for any given workshop! So hurry up :-D