2 New CG Academy DVDs Due Soon

[boomji]

Great news chris.
Looking forward to the HLSL 2 .
You might want to box the HLSL series with Bobo's The Matrix Explained.
His coverage of the math is very thorough and probably fundamental to feeling at home with co-ordinate space transforms etc.

Can we expect something related to Renderman Shading Language as well in the future ???.


Thanks for the heads up.


b

[Chris Thomas]

Hi, yeah, I don't think making a boxed set would really work in this case. You see we have to get the boxes made up, and of course the DVDs to go in them, and then stock them. All of that costs money, and with little return.

That particular DVD is really kind of pivotal to any advanced TDs out there. The math in it is generally applicable throughout 3dsmax, and indeed any other 3D package out there. Its very much applicable to HLSL, and of course particles.....

Bobo is working on a Particle Flow scripting DVD right now, and of course I'll strongly recommend people get his Matrix DVD as a pre-requisite for the Pflow script DVD. Particles are ALL about vectors and matricies, so having a sound 3D math knowledge is key really to higher level particle fertling....

What we have done though, is recommend on some product pages that certain other DVDs are an obvious pre-requisit before doing another DVD. This of course leaves the final decision down to the end customer. After all, you may have a fantastic knowledge of vectors, trig, matricies and so on, and just need to learn the specifics of HLSL.

Might be an idea for our site though to add more such notes to other product pages. As an example, a customer recently complained they did not understand a lot of the material on my Advanced Technical Modelling DVD. After discussing the issues with him, it came to light that he was really more of a novice modeller, so quite a lot of the things mentioned in the DVD were unknown to him.

As we have a complete Modelling Fundamentals series, I suggested he should have tackled at least that first. But of course by that point he had already spent his training budget and so was kind of stuck with a DVD above his ability. So yes, maybe we could give more guidance on each DVDs product page as to what DVDs/knowledge are needed before tackling a DVD.

As far as RSL, lets just say I am learing it at the moment. I have a couple of Lighting DVDs planned in the future, and one of them will be an RSL Fundamentals DVD. I'll also try and line up a more production hardened shader writer to take on that torch and write more Advanced RSL DVDs.

Cheers

[DoubleSupercool]

Oh ho! Interesting news about the pflow scripting DVD from bobo. Will keep an eye out for it. Now to re-learn my year 12 calculus and trig :(

[boomji]

Bobo is working on a Particle Flow scripting DVD right now, and of course I'll strongly recommend people get his Matrix DVD as a pre-requisite for the Pflow script DVD. Particles are ALL about vectors and matricies, so having a sound 3D math knowledge is key really to higher level particle fertling....


:drool:




I'll also try and line up a more production hardened shader writer to take on that torch and write more Advanced RSL DVDs.


...Keeps getting better. :thumbsup:

To any one considering to get into TD space,Getting The Matrix Explained is a no brainer. It'll help on all fronts of your production 3D to 2D.

Thanks for adding so much value chris


b

[depleteD]

That is very exciting. Im looking forward to bobs scripting pflow dvd.
I am pumped for the possibility of a hardcore renderman td dvd. That would be really awesome. i also like the idea of the rsl lighting dvds. Very cool. Im sold already :D

[Chris Thomas]

Yeah, the PFlow MAXScript DVD is in the planning stages right now. If Bobo's workload allows, it should not be too far off in the future, as he is a pretty fast worker.

The RSL Shader DVDs are something I have in mind right now. Nothing solid though at this moment in time. I have learnt how to write shaders to a certain level, but I'm nowhere near the level of a number of people that work around me.

When I reach a certain level of experience, I'll think about doing an intro to RSL, I'll probably be a good tutor for this as I won't be too far along the road i.e. I'll be able to keep my teaching level at the right pitch for novices.

I'll then see if I can find the right person to produce some Advanced level DVDs. This will probably prove to be a much harder task, as some higher level RSL TDs tend to be..

A. Hellish busy (as they are often pivotal in large projects)
B. Secretive of their knowledge

Its for these two reasons that to date there are not many RSL training DVDs out there. I'll see what I can do ;)

Cheers

[bcloward]

Hey, it's good to hear from some people that are interested in shaders. It's exciting to finally have my second HLSL DVD coming out. It's been quite awhile in the making, but I think this one turned out really well. I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of it. I hope that it will be helpful to artists learning to write shaders.

[Chris Thomas]

Yep, its a very cool DVD, and a certainly a worthy successor to the first DVD in the series. The DVD is off to the pressing plant, so it should be with is, ready for sale in about one week from now (all going well).

Until then, here's is a box pic :)



http://www.cg-academy.net/pages/topic_games/dvds_hlsl_shader_creation_02/DVD_Boxshots_HLSL_02.jpg


Cheers

[jonny3d]

Hi Chris,

Yes we will be looking forward to these new DVD's at ReDHeD, but we were wondering what format is used to teach the DVD: Animation Fundamentals 1: The Core Principles by Simon Thistlethwaite, and if it would be suitable for some of our greener Max trainees?.
Certainly his recent film background will be a good draw for budding Max artsits to be.

Also are there any plans to create a series on animating four legged creatures? thats one DVD we could really do with sending home with our newest employees;)


Keep up the great work

-JonnyC

[Chris Thomas]

Hi, yeah the DVD is a blend of pure theory, application of that theory during tutorials and practical skills i.e. how to apply these things within 3dsmax. Obviousy you need to be able to use the 3dsmax animation interface to be able to animate, so Simon mixes in teaching the GUI where it is needed. However, he does not teach you to use 3dsmax per se. For that I'd suggest looking at our Workflow DVDs.

http://www.cg-academy.net/dvds_menu_3dsmax.php?Result=workflow

Mostly the DVD is very practical in its approach, Simon basically tackles a tutorial and introduces a couple of principles at a time usually. This makes sense, as often two or more principles inter-relate in some manner, often very closely.

So for example, Timing is all about where you place your key poses in time, this forms the hard framework of your animatin, it sets the pace and the overal velocity of movements. But then Spacing, how those keyframes are interpolted by 3dsmax, is used to bend that framework into a more pleasing and realistic form.

And spacing is basically needed because objects have Mass and Weight, and this gives them inertia (no intertia would mean no acceleration/decelleration) and of course they are also effected by gravity (at least in most animations).

So Mass and Weight have a direct input on how your Spacing is used. So he basically builds from chapter to chapter to layer up these principles, so that by the end of the DVD, you have a pretty reasonable first character animation going on (using his simply character, Floppy).

We wanted to keep this DVD pretty much focussed though on pure movement. We discussed what animation is, and its important to remember that animation is all about making something move. Often people talk about this kind of animation as being "technical animation", but in truth a person can be a good animator i.e. in making non-living, non-character driven objects move, but not have character animation skills.

For a lot of people this is enough. They will be animating mechanical objects, rockets and spacecraft deploying solar sails and so on. Good animation skills are just as important in this field as in character animation. In fact, animation in this field is often pretty tough. For instance, animating a goog walk through camera is quite a skill in itself.

But then in DVD 2 in this series, we will start to heavily explore key Character Animation skills. But these really do layer on top of the skills taught in this first DVD. We think this is a good distinction to have in place. Because really Character Animation is...

1. Making objects move realistically
2. Make an object ACT like it is alive, thinking and with character

So, DVD 1 will give you the first set of skills, and DVD2 will be more about "acting".

Quardripedal Animation?
Yep, we do have something planned for this. Simon has animated quite a few quadripedal creatures over the last few years (dinosaurs and polar bears etc), so he knows what he is talking about here. My guess is we will produce 2 DVDs on walk cycles, one for bipeds, the second for quadripeds.

We can't really tackle both in one DVD, as learning to do a walk cycle is a pretty key skill, and really you need 2 hours + at least, devoted to each subject, and of course for quadripeds there are a different set of motion limitations and morphologies to take into account. So it really makes sense that we have separate titles for each of these. I think these may even form the first of our Intermediate range of animation titles.

Hope that answered your questions. Any more?


Cheers

[scrimski]

Yeah, what's up with the vehicle rigging dvd mentioned by Paul somewhere here on CGT a few weeks ago and is it possible to preorder?

[Chris Thomas]

The Animation Fundamentals DVD is now off to the pressing plant. Here is the artwork :)



http://www.cg-academy.net/pages/topic_animation/dvds_animation_fundamentals_1/DVD_Boxshots_animation_fundamentals_1.jpg


Cheers

[Chris Thomas]

Skrimski, I'll ask Paul to answer that ;)

[PEN]

I'm working on it, I'm working on it. As always I have a lot on my plate. First will come the mechanical rigging general then I will try and do a car one.

[scrimski]

No problem, take your time.

[Intars5d]

I was lucky enough to see some of CG Academy video's and saw their quality and deep coverage of issues. So Animation DVD is more than a good news :)

[Chris Thomas]

Thanks for the compliments Kashak. A quick update on both DVDs...

Both of these new titles will be comming into stock on Wednesday 26th of March. The prices are...

Animation Fundamentals 1: The Core Principles @ £36

HLSL Shader Creation 2: Light & Shading Models @ £44

You can get to more info about either title (or indeed any of our other DVDs) from this page (http://www.cg-academy.net/dvds_menu_3dsmax.php). Just click on either DVDs image on that page to go to their respective product pages. The product pages have example video from each title....


Cheers

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