Saturday, March 30, 2013

"Strange Oaks" Rigging breakdown



Rigging breakdown for "Strange Oaks" by Miquel Campos.
Check out his rigging reel below.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Terms used for Character Rigger

Did you know!?

Character Rigging is the most confusing and misunderstood process in 3D animation pipeline!

It goes by many names:

i. Character Setup
ii. Character Rigging
iii. Character Enveloping
iv. Character Puppeting

v. Character Technical Director (TD)
vi. Technical Artist
vii. Technical Animator 
viii. Creature Technical Director (TD)

GTC 2013: Face Works



Advance Real Time Character Performance demo by NVIDIA Co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang featuring Face Works technology running on the GeForce GTX TITAN GPU to create realistic simulation of human face. There is still a long way to go pass the Uncanny Valley but this looks promising!

Student Animation Snippet Exercise


The principles of animation have been laid down by Disney Animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in the “Illusion of life ” in 1981.

Some more concepts have been added over the years and one of the most important addition, or clarification, is the concept of “weight shift”.

Here is a quick animation snippet by student Rajson Shakya.





Overlapping Action is another of the cornerstones of animation. By overlapping the actions of a characters' body, hair, tail, clothing or for this exercise, the arm; your animation will feel more fluid and life-like!

Here is a quick animation snippet by student Niroj Karmacharya.


To learn like Rajson and Niroj, apply to Puppeteer Lounge!

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

facerig test by erazerhead



Check out the face rig test by erazerhead! Cool stuff. It would have been even better if he had screen captured it :)

Monday, March 18, 2013

Houdini sparrow rig



Interesting Bird rig with procedural wing animation done in Houdini by

Rigging & Python Programing Instructor ~ David Vega


Meet David Vega!

A new member of Puppeteer Lounge family joining the Rigging & Python Instructor team.

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David graduated from the Full Sail University in Character Rigging and Scripting. He is currently a Character TD at Durga Digital ~ Red Giant Studios and Burning Dog. Previously he worked as a Rigger and Techincal Artist at LLC and ESPN. He specializes in Character Rigging, Dynamics, MEL and Python scripting.

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I would like to personally welcome him into this new and exciting venture :)

"Welcome aboard David!"

Puppeteer Lounge Animation Workshop Promotion


At Puppeteer Lounge, we are really excited to announce our latest promotion!

We are now offering a substantial discount on our Animation Workshop program. The price list is more affordable and flexible at the same time. Meaning you pay less and learn even more =)

Head over to Puppeteer Lounge website for more info!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Python Workshop

Anyone with an interest in CG who wants to develop their technical skills further!? 

Well we have recently launched our latest workshop focusing primarily on Python Programing.

Head over to Puppeteer Lounge website for more info!

Animation Showreel December 2012 by Rob Byrne



Animation showreel by Rob Byrne featuring really impressive creature animation.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Friday, March 15, 2013

Character Animation - "Sinka Walkcycle" -2012

Cool integration of Sinka character with live action by Jimmy Litz.

Jeremy - Animation Test



Cartoon animation test by . Very impressive.

Daisy "The Little Girl" Images


Beautiful work by student Niroj Karmacharya, here at Puppeteer Lounge Niroj Karmacharya! 

Stay tuned for his latest animation shot featuring beautiful "Daisy" :)

To learn like Niroj, apply to Puppeteer Lounge!


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Character TD ShowReel 2012 by Jorge Bellot



Check out this beautiful rig demo by Jorge Bellot featuring cool dynamic rigs, deformation work on multiple characters.

animation creatures&human by Tatiana Pushkareva



Beautiful animation by Tatiana Pushkareva.

MG_toolsLite and PRO : custom nodes for maya to enhance your rigs 1.1.0 (maya plugin)

Amazing share by Marco Giordano. Check out his custom tools for character rigging in Maya. Head over to Creative Crash to download it!

Great share Marco my friend! ;)


Source code on github!

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Laika Studio Tour - Animation



Check out this video featuring the making of ParaNorman by Laika Studio. Despite being tedious, stop motion animation is unique, brings out the real puppetry! For this very reason the animators love it :)

Creating an Advanced Multi-Character Rig for Futurama’s Bender in Maya

Head over to CgTut+ to learn how to create an Advance Multi-Character Rig for Futurama’s Bender in Maya by Shaun Keenan.

Disney Is Producing New Mickey Mouse Shorts


Disney producing new Mickey Mouse shorts! Check out the post on Cartoon Brew for more information.
Looks beautiful and CLASSIC! Reminds me of the Golden Ages of Disney animation :)

rigging demo reel 2012 ~ Gorkem Oztas

Beautiful rig demo feature some interesting character and setup by Gorkem Oztas.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Avatar | Visual Effects Making Of



Making of Avatar's unseen scene!

Building Maya Interfaces with Python

Check out these series of tutorial videos by Jeremy Ernst going over building interfaces in Maya using the power of Python scripting. There are 10 video series. Check out all the video over here!

Sunday, March 10, 2013

A* Path finding



Interesting video featuring a solver for path finding from point A to B by .
For more information on solver and the technique, click here.
Feel free to check out his rigging reel below featuring intuitive custom tool development.

Jahirul Amin rigging demoreel


Rigging reel by Jahirul Amin. Nice demonstration of procedural animation and deformation.

Animating a Car Crash in Blender

Blender tutorial to create an animated car crash! I find similar techniques can be applied on other package to achieve similar effects.

2013 Rigging Demo Reel ~ Brad Hiebert



Cool rigging demo reel by Brad Hiebert showcasing some of his amazing work at Rhythm and Hues.

Creature Rig Deformation/Range of Motion Test



Creature Rig Deformation test implementing surfaceSkin tool by Grant Laker.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Street Fighter x Tekken - Behind the scenes



Check out how Axis animation did the digital head replacement on Street Fighter x Tekken.

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Animation Instructor ~ Bill Broeckel


Meet William (Bill) Broeckel!

A new member of Puppeteer Lounge family joining the Animation Instructor team for the Animation Workshop!

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Bill graduated in 2007 from the Mohawk Valley Community College, Utica, NY with AAS in Digital Animation. Later in 2009 he received his Diploma in Advanced Animation Techniques from Animation Mentor, Emeryville, CA. He is currently an Animator at Four Directions Productions, Vernon, NY. Previously he worked as an Animator at PLAY ETERNAL, Philadelphia,PA. 
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I would like to personally welcome him into this new and exciting venture :)

"Welcome aboard Bill!"

Below is his latest animation reel!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Nike runner - Exploit yourself rework



Exploit yourself by director Carl Erik Rinsch and produced by Big Lazy Robot Visual Effects studio. Cool stuff!

Fridge Monster



I just stumbled upon this really resourceful site!

Go ahead, check out some really useful and fun tutorials on setting up mechanical rigs for animation such as gears and piston and other cool stuffs over here.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Saturday, March 2, 2013

"The Avengers" ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Jeff White speaks



Check out the interview with ILM Visual Effects Supervisor Jeff White going over some of the cool behind the scene stuffs on the making of "The Avengers". Click here!