Trivi.org

26th 2007f October, 2007

Thought I was dead?

Posted by Vi Cuong Van in Ramblings at 11:17 pm |

No that’s not a picture of me. It’s been a long time, but I’m not dead. Didn’t have much art related stuff to post. I’ve been busy working on something else, which I’ll be announcing soon. With Halloween coming up I thought a picture of a skull is fitting.

Comments (3) »

23rd 2007f July, 2007

Working with custom attributes.

Posted by Vi Cuong Van in mel, Rigging at 4:22 pm |

Permanent Link

I’m a video, click me!

(darn websites so slow now a days. here’s a youtube link smaller but faster.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hO33Fnz7daM )

Sometimes I like the use of control curves on areas like the fingers because it allows for direct manipulation of the joint. I can grab it and move it without taking my eyes off of the model. What I don’t like is when I have to set a key for all separate controls and when it is time to clean up the animation curves I don’t see all the animation curves at the same time (without selecting each control curve). Which brings me to custom attributes. I like the idea of custom attributes because it’s all in one place. When I move keys around I can see where the keys are in relation to other keys. What I don’t like is the fact that I have to take my eyes off of the model to find the attribute over in the channel box. By the time I get back over to the model I’ve lost track of my spacing and arcs.

So here’s something I’ve been working on to make it easier to select custom attributes without having to take your eye off of the model. I couldn’t capture the video and audio for some reason so I’ll have to explain what’s going on. In the video I have the plus shaped control curve which holds all the attributes that control the fingers. Basic attributes like curl, spread, rotate etc. Then on the fingers them selves there’s semi transparent control shapes (helper shapes) that you can select to control the custom attribute of that part of the finger. So when you select the helper shape you are actually selecting the custom attribute and not the shape itself. Not sure if that makes sense.

edit: Ok, so I guess I didn’t actually write down how it works. What happens is that there is a script job running that you can enable or disable. When enabled it watches for what is being selected. If it’s one of the helper shapes, then it “triggers” the selection of a custom attribute so that you can middle mouse drag the attribute in the view port. Like when you manually select an attribute in the channel box to middle mouse drag on the view port. Except here you don’t need to hunt down the attribute and manually select it in the channel box, it is automatically done for you. It’s like zooTriggered but for attributes.

Comments (5) »

18th 2007f July, 2007