Modular Flexible Rig

For this project I was going for a modular rig set up that I can use in multiple rigging projects.

I went through the step and made this demo video showing off what the modular rig can do.

I plan to create a tool for Maya that will allow you to create this system and customize it in one click...

BlendShape Script tool

For this post I wanted to show one of the many tools I created during the rigging process.

This tool was created to help speed up the BlendShape work-flow for Maya.

Ive created a Quick video showing the scripts ability to do so.

SpiderMan Rigging Side Project

The past two weeks I have been wanting to jump back into some more bipedal rigging to refresh and extend some of the principles I've learned from rigging throughout the last few years.

I decided to do SpiderMan simply because he is my favorite superhero and I also thought it could be challenging to create a very naturally flowing rig for more natural looking body motion.

Here is a jump cycle I did to test out the rigs mechanics.


and honestly what is spider man without a functioning web shooter am I right.
this is a simply video demoing the webshooter's ability on the rig.




I was very pleased with what I came up with for this 2 week rigging project!

Also if you'd like to mess with the rig yourself then head to my website at www.MatthewLoweAnimation.SquareSpace.com and look for "free rigs" in the menu

Water and Viscous Simulation / Shader Building

For this project I wanted to focus on the look of the water and creating interesting splashes that you see everywhere such as water pouring into a glass or water flowing over a water fall and even simple splashes that water makes when it hit an interesting surface. So before doing this I had to research what this looked like.

When finding reference I had a hard time finding a water source that would continuously pour water so I kind of compiled different references to get a since of what I was trying to create.

Next I needed to know more about the shaders that houdini builds so I used houdini’s help docs to learn more about how the shaders work in houdini.

In my scene I first started with a bowl so that the water would flow into it but then I realized that it took away from the splashes I was trying to make so I created a grid and connected a mountain node to it to create a more interesting surface.

Then I created a Flip emitter from a Sphere just out of camera view. To connect the water to the surface I created a RDB solver for the surface and turned the volume collision off. In the AutoDop I tweaked some of the motion attributes for the water to create a better splash and to help match my references.

The Last step was to tweak the shader for the water and help create a more believable clear creek water I was going for. In the shader I was mostly experimenting with different values for the over all diffuse and the cloud density in the volume shader. 

For this project I wanted to focus on the look of the chocolate and creating interesting deformations that you see everywhere such as chocolate pouring over the bar flowing over an ice cream cone and even simple folds that chocolate makes when it hits an interesting surface. So before doing this I had to research what this looked like.

Next I needed to know more about the shaders that houdini builds so I used houdini’s help docs to learn more about how the shaders work in houdini.In my scene I first started with a bar so that the chocolate would flow onto it. I created a box above the bar and animated that moving over the bar. I then created a flip fluid emitter from the box and animated it’s activation to start and stop when I wanted. Next I selected the flip fluid and pressed “make viscous” this option then turned on all the viscous attributes through out the autodop network. After creating the initial fluid I then connected the geometry into the network making the bar and the ground an RBD so that they would interact with the particles. Next was the experimental part where I mostly went through step by step and attribute to attribute testing to get the right motion. I ended up adding stick on collision and also tweaking the viscosity to get the right look.

The Last step was to tweak the shader for the chocolate and help create a more believable melting chocolate I was going for. In the shader I was mostly experimenting with different values for the over all diffuse and the cloud density in the volume shader. Also I did some research on the reflection map and anisotropy settings to get a more diffused specular sheen. 

Visual Effects Tools and Maya Fluids

This post is going to be mostly about effects that I have been making over the past month. Some of these are tools that can be implemented in any software package and one effect is native to Maya fluids but can also be redirected to a number of different applications.

First up is a Coil tool I created that you can customize to your specification. This coil also has Dynamic features.

Second is a Domino Tool I created that will create however many Dominos with random numbers as well as being able to shape the roll of dominos however you'd like via a curve.

Third is a Tool that will fracture walls and make them dynamic for simulation purposes.

Last is a Maya Fluid project that involved creating a fire effect using maya's Fluid system.

SoftBody/IK-Spline Dynamic Tree Rig

For this project I wanted to explore the notion of using rigging techniques to create a dynamically driven motion.

When thinking of this idea I asked myself what would best represent this idea and that's when I thought of tree's.

For this system I first started by creating a joint system. I did this by creating a master joint system. Then separately I created individual joint chains for each branch. Next I parented these children joint chains into the master joint system.

Now that I had a proper hierarchy I need to create curves along the "curvature" of the joint systems. This Curve system would serve as the goal weight for when I apply Softbody Dynamics. Once I had my curves in place I then created IK-Splines for each individual joint system including the master joint system. After this process was done I created an automation mel button to create the joint systems and IK-Systems based off the geometry.

Below is a video of the result that I got. ( I used a Turbulence Field to create the rustling )

Here is an example of another system using a Lattice to create a similar effect.

Software and Hardware Particles in Maya 2015

This was an exciting new world for me. I have always used maya's native particle system nparticles but never had I ever used the hardware particle system inside of maya. What I learned from this was the basics of what most particle systems consist of in most other programs.

In this project My goal was to create a scene that used multiple avenues of software and hardware particles. I mostly used sprites with creation expressions as well as animated instancer geometry.

First For the smoke effects and exhaust effects I used a basic volume emitter with sprites as the render type. After cycling the images that the sprite would use it made for a very believable result.

Second for the rain effects I created another volume emitter but instead of using sprites I used a multi streak render type. The great part of this effect was having the particle interact with the car and the ground, I've even added particle collision event to have the rain droplet create a splash on impact.

Below is the finished product. ( there is sound )