Friday, November 23, 2012

What Do You Think?



Hello, my fellow artists and art enthusiasts! :)

On my upcoming project, I am planning on offering the full production file(s) used in creating the final and complete piece(s) for an affordable price including my shader setups as well as my whole post-production process in achieving the final result.

I'm really excited on seeing what other fellow artists can come up with using the assets bought.

I'd love to hear what you think about this and would really appreciate suggestions.

Thank you so much and hope to hear from you. ^_^

-Reyn



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Please support me too, yay!




Thursday, November 22, 2012

Affordable Artwork Prints for Sale



Hi, everyone!

I've been quite involved with the printing program of deviantART (www.deviantart.com) for a long time now and I haven't quite marketed my own prints that I'd like to share to the universe.

Please visit my Prints page and choose among a variety of items there:

http://reynante.deviantart.com/prints/

I'd love to see how and where you used those prints too, especially now that Christmas is fast approaching. Let me know! Yay!

Thanks for dropping by. ^_^

-Reyn

Support Me

I recently added a support-me button on the top right portion of my blog, thought I'd share.

Would really appreciate some support and help.

That plus some interesting stuff I'd be offering, coming soon. :)

Thanks for the time!

-Reyn

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Fluctuate


Here's something to refresh myself, deviating a little bit from the still image continuum that I've been drowning to recently.




Been experimenting with Blender's Physics and particle systems and here's the result from that.  There are so many things I wish I could've done differently and better though (which I believe most of you has already noticed after playing back for a few times), but I'll call this done for now. ^_^


Made with: Blender 2.63 and Darktable
Rendered with: Cycles


Thanks for watching.

-Reyn


Saturday, November 3, 2012

Review: DVD Training 8, Humane Rigging

(click to enlarge)


Nathan Vegdahl did it again! On this 8th DVD in the Blender Open Movie workshop, he progressively teaches us the theories and practical applications on how to set up rigs and how to solve the problems that we might encounter along the way.

This DVD contains valuable information that any Blender enthusiast (or 3D artists for that matter) will definitely find insightful.  Nathan's approach on problem solving in general is a treasure in its own and is somehow delivered through the tutorials and be the witness yourself.


Trailer:




Being a regular rigging guy, my perspective towards setting up bones and armatures has totally changed and this open movie workshop greatly influenced how I'll approach my rig setups from here on.  Somehow, it felt like I had been time-warped three years in time, when I was heavily using these concepts (constraints, actions, etc.) AND realize in the present time that I had done things the wrong (non-optimized) way.  Thanks to the training DVD, this is all clear to me now.

I have to warn you though: the training DVD DOES NOT teach you how to specifically rig a type of character, machinery, or anything that you wish you thought about (e.g. T-Rex on rollerblades, a centaurian mermaid, centipede gorilla, etc.).  But instead, it teaches you the core concepts on how you can BUILD your own and customized rigs, with Nathan's initial guidance in mind.  This, in a way, is a feature that I myself have found very very useful. Like the saying goes: 'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.'

Another plus I've observed while watching the training is that the whole time I felt like I was in a class or in an actual session.  The presentation of the concepts plus the handwritten notes and drawings that appear therein are just so comfortable and relaxing to experience, not too technical and not too strict in a sense.

If you want to learn how to rig properly, explore why and how it happened, with so much fun, then this is definitely for you.

To give you an overview of what the training DVD contains, here's a list:

CHAPTER 1

    Empties
    Locking transforms
    Constraints
    Drivers
    Parent-child relationships
    Armatures
    Custom bone shapes


CHAPTER 2


    Rigging in parts
    Planning for requirements
    Inverse kinematics
    Bone alignment
    Transform Spaces
    Basic leg rigging
    Eye-tracking rigging
    Armature mirroring
    Root bones
    Sorting controls into layers



CHAPTER 3

    Rotation theory
    Axis-angle rotation
    Euler rotation
    Quaternion rotation
    Transform matrices
    Driver types
    Constraint spaces
    False custom shape transforms


CHAPTER 4

    Finger rigging
    Action Constraints
    A precursor to the torso/spine rig
    The constraint stack and advanced constraint usage
    Advanced inverse kinematics usage
    Arm rigging
    IK/FK switching
    Switchable parent-child relationships
    Isolating bone rotation
    Modifier basics
    Basic mesh deformation with "armature deform" modifiers
    Custom properties
    Driver f-curves
    Building your own custom bone shapes
    The "local location" toggle


CHAPTER 5

    The importance of knowing anatomy
    Intermediate-parent chains
    Head/neck rigging
    Foot-roll rigging
    Palm rigging
    Advanced torso/spine rigging
    Pivot slide rigging
    Improved finger rigging
    Shoulders rigging
    Bone groups
    Colorizing rig controls


CHAPTER 6

    Blender's library linking system
    Object groups
    Blender's "proxy" system
    Setting up rigs to be used in multiple files


Now, that sure is a huge list! But worry not, since the author gradually takes you one step at a time and by the moment you realize it, you're already done, confident, and ready to face the problems the rigging world has to present.

One of my top choices is 'Rotation Theory' in CHAPTER 3.  You'll see why once you immerse yourself in it.

Oh, and did I mention *there are* a couple of background music here and there, which is really nice!

Majority of this review will pretty much describe the pros I have observed while watching it, however, there's only a single thing I would hope would be there, that is to have a way to specifically go to a topic in a video.  For example, an index page that would take me to the concept of 'deltas', to which it will lead me to, say, 01:30 of video x or something.  This would really be useful for people like me who are practically daunted by some theories explained therein.

After watching the whole thing though, I felt sad that I had to finally leave the training DVD and more on to other things, I was so 'hooked' into it that I was expecting to learn more, even beyond the capacity of the DVD itself. Well, that's just how it is. :)


CONTENT: 9/10
EASE OF LEARNING: 9/10
PRESENTATION: 10/10
PRACTICALITY: 10/10

OVERALL: 9.5/10


With all that said and if you're still reading these ramblings until now, there's no rigging introduction that I could recommend more than this. 'Humane Rigging' is the definitive guide for rigging in general that I have ever experienced yet.


Sample chapters:




Nathan Vegdahl never ceases to amaze me.  Not only is he one of the greatest technical teachers I've ever experienced, but his sense of humor and practicality astounds me.  He treats and handles rigs with such finesse despite the intricacies. Hands down. One day, I'm hoping I could bump fists with him and suck in all rigging and animation info my mind can handle.  Until then.

Happy Blending, everyone!

:)

-Reyn