Learning Blender

I've been spending a bit of time learning Blender, and I'm starting to like it. I have tried before and was put off by the interface, but I knuckled down with some video tuts (from all kinds of people in the colourful blender community), and now I'm feeling like a pro. Still getting the hang of using it for rigging and animation, but I was surprised to find out it's got a fairly decent compositor built into it, which I might use for my short film, and anything else in the future. The sculpting tools are not bad either. And of course, its free.

Bone Replacement

This is just a simple rigging note that I've found useful in Maya.

When rigging in Maya, you may occasionally want to replace some bones in the skeleton, this can be annoying after you've already done some weight painting to the skin. The skin deformer knows which bone a weight is assigned to, but the actual weights reference a bone by name only. So we just need a new deformer. You can swap any of the bones in the skin deformer pretty easily by following this procedure:

• duplicate original_bones, creating new_bones
• remove the original_bones from the skeletal hierarchy
• rename new_bones to match original_bones

At this point, our model is still skinned to the original_bones. We need a temp model skinned to new_bones to ensure we preserve our weights.

• duplicate model, creating model_temp
• make skin on model_temp using the skeleton (which now includes new_bones)
• copy weights from model to model_temp

Now we have 2 meshes, skinned to both skeletal instances with the same weights. Though model_temp is correct, we usually don't want to trash our original model, so re-add the skin and copy the weights back.

• detach skin from model
• make skin on model using the skeleton
• copy weights from model_temp to model
• delete model_temp.

It's a fairly simple process, but very handy.

WIP Murky Drain colour concept

This is a WIP colour concept I'm working on for the Murky Drain environment my short film project.

Short Film

I've been working on a 3d animated short film during the break. The goal is to tell as simple story, be a pleasure to watch, and complete it in a timely manner. I'm slowly digging my way out of preproduction - Not running too far behind schedule but it sure is keeping me busy! I'll be sure to post updates as they come.

New Website!

Robomojo.net lives again! I dusted off that old webdesign and brightened it up to hopefully catch more attention. Still some minor bugs here and there, which will be ironed out shortly. I've integrated this blog into it as well, so I don't forget about either of them again!

2009 Animation Showreel

This is my Animation Showreel as of October 2009.

Shot Breakdown available here!

Redtribe

My time at Redtribe, a small games company here in Melbourne, came to an end recently. I was there for 2 years and 8 months, and now I'm sniffing around for greener pastures. It was an interesting introduction to working console games, and over 4 or 5 projects I soaked up as much knowledge, experience and fun as I could, until I became a soggy, wet sponge. I've been wringed out since, and now I'm just excited about what I could be working on next!

Infestor's neural parasite doesn't seem to fit

The Infestor is new Zerg caster unit in Starcraft 2, replacing in part the Defiler from the original game. I've only seen them in action in the recent Battle Report 3, but it must be said that the fact this fat, spiny creature can use its Neural Parasite ability to instantly mind control any unit (biological or mechanical) WHILE BEING UNDERGROUND (!) is a little overpowered, and unconventional.

This ability came two abilities of the previous game, and both abilities were pretty fitting. The queen spat a parasite onto another unit. The dark archon was a kind of supreme being shrouded in red smoke while hovering; OK, he seems capable of mind control. The Infestor doesn't. Blizzard have nerfed the ability in making it temporary, it is still very much OP.

Basically, I reckon the infestor should have to unburrow, spit the parasite, wait x (10) seconds for the infestation to occur, then mind control for y (also 10) seconds. It should be up to the targeted player to notice if the unit has been infested, giving them a chance to act. This should result in less spam of the ability, gets the infestor away from the front lines, and adds an more of an element of sneaky to the game, rather than just darn unfair.

Splinter

Splinter is a pretty cool horror film. Without giving too much away, its got something to do with corpses with spiney things coming out of them, plauging a small group of characters who were already caught up in a bit of a tangle. Other than one or two squimish scenes, its a fun film, featuring creatures, critters, and people being tricky by using a pump action shotgun with only one arm. Always a winner!

11 Second Club November 2008

The head scientist returns to an experiment gone horribly wrong...

See notes.