Your Favorite "TopTD" ?

[Frumsylgu]

In no Particular order:

Jason Shleifer

Michael Comet

Paul Thuriot

Paul Neale

Charles Looker

Eric Miller

Javier Solsana

David Walden

Aaron Holly

Are a few off the top of my head that have inspired me.

[EricDLegare]

Cool, thanks !


I'm going to google them and do some research :)

[Stoehr]

Bernard Haux - characteranimator.com

Jason Schleifer - jonandhisdog.com

Jason Osipa

[ErikSvensson]

Éric D. Légaré :thumbsup:

also the other ones mentioned :D

Erik

[EricDLegare]

Éric D. Légaré :thumbsup:

also the other ones mentioned :D

Erik


:blush: Oh... Your so kind :blush:

Well, for now I googled evry name in this list and :argh:-:eek:-:drool:-:cry: I've seen some very interesting stuff out there, very inspiring, and books and DVDs and Siggraph conferences ( Yep, I think it's time for me to go to next year's Siggraph :applause: )

Thanks evryone ! And if you think that a name have been forgot, tell us ! :deal:

[PEN]

I'm honored to have been mentioned.

The problem with the internet is not every one takes part, or at least not nessesarily on the same boards as your self. There are many TD's that I know that you would never know about as they don't post their work or hang out on message boards such as cgtalk. It is a shame as they would have lots to teach us all.

[benytone]

Bernard Haux - www.characteranimator.com (http://www.characteranimator.com/)

Jason Osipa

He's the Godfather of Rigging :thumbsup:




.

[Harvey]

As paul said there are lots, another one worth mention is Kees Rijnen. I highly reccomend checking out his website www.Lumonix.com for some nice tools he has written in production and now made available via plugins.

[Aearon]

yes i agree with paul,

e.g. if you look for character/creature TD's on ILM or pixar movies you will probably find that almost none of them have personal website's - or if they do you will probably find them unmaintained ;)

[eek]

ernard Haux - the link to his td reel on his site is gone.Someone has a link to his reel?

no it isnt.

[benytone]

...ernard Haux - the link to his td reel on his site is gone.Someone has a link to his reel....

2Reels...
http://www.characteranimator.com/movies/reel_animator_large.mov
http://www.characteranimator.com/movies/reel_generalist_large.mov



.

[stewartjones]

Yeah, as stated above there are plenty of TD's who don't post or don't show their work much if at all.

As for favorites I don't really have any. I do however have maximum respect for Jason Schleifer, Charles Looker, Paul Neale, Shibu Menon, Mark Jackson, Joe Harkins, Syd Franklin, Michael Comet, Kevin Freeman and a ton of other people! (Sorry for not mentioning you all!)

There are just soooo many people who create such awesome stuff it's difficult to pick just one person!

[talama76]

http://www.characteranimator.com/movies/character_td.html

:)

[eek]

Oh my good.This is my new TD hero.

Just curious,does it take a lot of complex math to do the stuff he did?And what software is he using?Is that max?

Bernard use xsi, and yes its a little complex. You have to get a very good understanding of transforms & transform spaces, proceduralism & synthesis, and dynamics & deformation - it takes a while to 'grasp' these fundementals but once you get it, its pretty fun.

And yes, it's entirely possible in max :)

[EricDLegare]

There seams to be a swap between yangchen60 and eek's POSTS, even mine just went between them :scream: what's happening ? :D

[eek]

You did not answer me the question about math :)

Does it take a complex math for that,or just basic logistic ability,practice and experience? :)

Thats like asking how long is a piece of string, you need very strong understanding of both complex i.e pure math, and numerical math. You have to understand the pure equation and once you have that worked out its another matter transfering it into your app. To do things like transform spaces, keyable pivot etc needs good understanding of matrix math and inverse matrix math - your transforming space and then applying an offset.

For proceduralism you can start with the basic harmonic oscillator and add dampening and a driving force - to take this a step further you can have the animator define the curve that drives the wave and use a fourier transform to extrapolate the sin and cosine (imaginary) terms for fourier synthesis.

You could can take basic harmonics and add a dampening and driving force, with a varible that gets updated in a struct for realtime drag. Adding a second force to this i.e a negative force would allow for simple string and rope dynamics. You need to understand linear algerbra to take this in a chain driven system.

With deformation, good understanding of polynormials, and base functions is nessary for curve deformation. Both bezier and cubic rely on a polynormial function with a higher order than quadratic (2). You need a good understaning of arc length math, and derivatives to enable the curve to be uniform, and to allow the value t[0,1] to go below 0.0 and past 1.0 you need the derivative vector of the curve.

With stretch, good understanding of law of cosine is especially important in breakable IK, as you need to falsafy the knee vector to allow it to break whilst staying attached. With this you assume a pseudo ik chain in with math, first deriving the angles using the lengths and then using these angle to work out the the offset length for knee, plus its offset of change.

With deformation of a surface, you need to understand power math, and squaring functions as the offset deformation is the square of the vector of change from its original. The change could be driven via a curve - such as in ratatouiee and there paper on the subject:

http://graphics.pixar.com/

And ofcourse all of these can be combined in many ways - but each is a big area in itself.

[EricDLegare]

http://graphics.pixar.com/

Woah, a lot of usefull stuff there, any other paper-links like this one ? :drool:

[EricDLegare]

[...] Not just in terms of the math but how an animator likes to animate the rig.

Most want everything and kitchen sink, the want very fast rigs with no counter rotation, they want automation and manual, they want animated pivots and keyable transform spaces - the ability to pose a rig like it was a clay lump is the best analogy. So learning the maths side is very important, but you really have to get under the skin of an animator and really understand there process -its kinda like you the animators shadow.

I think this as well, that the most important thing about rigging is the animators needs, because, after all, rigs are not made for rigging reels, they are made for animators to animate :thumbsup:

[eek]

I think i can learn math along the way as i find i need it.I don't have to waste 4 years on math school so at the end i forget it all and say i got a diploma.

You agree?

That is up to you, i was terrible at math at school only in the last few years have i started to get the hang of it. It depends on where you are now. I came from an animation background to do technical stuff - theres no right or wrong way its what you like doing atm. We have tech animators with no math training, with computer science degrees, pure animation degrees etc etc you learn on the job and through practice and ideas.

The best approach i always had was see something you like, and try and copy it. Your'll start to understand how things work etc. With a lot of this stuff I would try it out, find i couldnt do it and let it go for a while then come back to it later.

Technical animation is the backbone to cg character animation - you cant rush stuff, you just have to slowly pick it up an understand it. Its not a painting by numbers job - you have to fully understand the theories behind it. Not just in terms of the math but how an animator likes to animate the rig.

Most want everything and kitchen sink, the want very fast rigs with no counter rotation, they want automation and manual, they want animated pivots and keyable transform spaces - the ability to pose a rig like it was a clay lump is the best analogy. So learning the maths side is very important, but you really have to get under the skin of an animator and really understand there process -its kinda like you the animators shadow.

You could be the best math guru ever but if you cant understand rigging your be screwed - so id learn rigging from the view of an animator first, and then with that knowledge use your math to achieve it.

cheers,

[ShadowM8]

Yeah it is indeed a shame more TDs don't participate in these forums. I suppose it is also because as a TD you have much less visual stuff to share with a rather visual based audience.
As for how much math you need to know it's basicaly determined by what level TD you want to be. There are those TDs who have very limited math knowledge but are very skilled with the application, can problem solve well and are very proficient that way. They are very valuable to a production. However, many problems simply can not be solved without some serious scripting where math knowledge comes in handy. You certainly can't push the boundries without it.
For me I find it's best to learn math as you go. You run into a problem you can't solve, identify what math you are lacking, find resources and learn it. Thats the route I've been taken and so far so good. I stopped learning math in highschool when I decided I will become and artist, needless to say it now comes back to bite me in the rear quite often. But math is easy and fun especialy when done in a real context like TD work so it's never too late.

[FabioMSilva]

Paul Hormis

[BoostAbuse]

John Homer, an unsung hero amongst the Maya community. David Walden, another unsung hero and a fantastic MEL scripter. The list goes on and on and on, some TD's are more known than others as they're in the public eye (features, dvd sets etc), most are burried so deep in production that when you do see what they have to offer you're usually left with your jaw on the floor :)

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