A big THANK YOU to Tharrell for compiling this FAQ for us!
Welcome to the Simple Truth About Life FAQ.
This document is designed to help people find answers that may be buried in the project forum quickly and easily. If you have a question you’d like answered, please ask them here (and add answers here!) – and we’ll add official answers to this first post. Keep in mind that this is a work in progress, and some of the answers here are assumptions that are subject to change as we progress and run into new challenges! When answers are updated, we will make a note in the FAQ index below and bump the thread to notify everyone.
General
What is this project all about?
What are the project goals?
How is the CGSociety involved?
Where can I download the most up-to-date project files?
Where can I find the project deadlines?
Where can I find the most up-to-date cast list?
How can I help out?
Pipeline
How do I assemble my files?
How do I name my files?
How should I save my files?
What resolution should I set my scene for?
What is the final (rendered) output resolution?
How do I set up my render globals so stuff doesn’t stretch?
How should I deliver playblasts?
Where can I upload my playblasts to?
The Rigs and Environment
Is Orange a little short in the rig?
The room is really big!
How do I add a lot of grays to the scene?
The blendshapes are acting strangely!
Why are my keys on the control objects swimming?
Lighting (coming soon)
Rendering (coming soon)
Editing (coming soon)
GENERAL
What is this project all about?
[June 21 2005]
The CGSociety is a society which was started up in June 2005. As part of the initial drive for co-operation and fun within this society, a short film was suggested. The idea took off and a short film forum was started up. ‘a simple truth about life’ is a short film which was previously worked out by Kirt. What you’re reading now is the work in progress forum for the film.
What are the project goals?
[Sept 28 2005]
We are trying to co-ordinate groups in order to produce a short film. Hopefully, this short film will be ready in time for Siggraph 2006. Submission deadlines for SIGGRAPH’s animation theater are usually mid-March. Submitting the film to other film festivals and eventually a DVD release are planned as well.
How is CGSociety involved?
[June 21 2005]
CGSociety is the group within which we are finding our members. We felt that, since CGSociety members would be more likely to return to the forum and be regular members, we would have more committed and persistent volunteers.
Where can I download the most up-to-date project files?
[June 21 2005]
You can find the latest Orange/Gray rig here:
http://www.creaturetd.net/A_Simple_Life_Story.rar
You can find the latest room model here:
http://www.maissipelto.com/simpleLife/room6.01.zip
(it needs to be scaled to .1 in X, Y & Z to match the Orange rig)
You can find the latest animatic here:
http://cgsociety.org/~simplelife/Previs/SimpleLife_Animatic_24FPS_Timecode.mov
You can find the storyboards and notes here:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=236207
Where can I find the project deadlines?
[June 21 2005]
Overall project deadlines are posted here:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=237267
Individual deadlines will be assigned in your work-in-progress threads, so please remember to subscribe to them with (at least) daily notification!
Where can I find the most up-to-date cast list?
[June 21 2005]
You can find the latest cast list and available positions here:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=281337
As work is completed, you will be added on to the official credits at the bottom of the first post. Please remember to sign in (and out) within this thread as the production managers may miss a post in another thread!
How can I help out?
[June 21 2005]
We are in need of animators, texturers and lighting artists who are comfortable with and have access to Maya 6.0 or higher (6.5 or higher files will be back-saved to 6.0 format, so please save as .ma files!).
We know that using one program over another keeps a lot of willing volunteers from helping out, but please don’t sign up if you don’t have access to Maya – it makes the division of work very difficult!
Sign in at the thread below to be considered for an available position:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=281337
PIPELINE
How do I assemble my files?
[June 21 2005]
Create a ‘master scene file’ called (for example) “scene01.ma”
In this scene file, reference the most current rig(s) and environment.
Scale the room model to .1 in X,Y and Z.
Create a three-node camera (camera, aim and up) and call it and its daughter objects (for example) scene01_camera, scene01_camera_aim etc.
This will allow us to automate the replacement of rigs, geometry as well as create render batch scripts further down the pipeline.
How do I name my files?
[June 21 2005]
Currently we have no set standard for file naming, however we’d suggest to name your files something along the lines of “scene01_rev1.ma” – however you do it, scene and revision numbers are very important when multiple people are working on the scene.
Please remember to save in .ma format – particularly if you’re using a more recent version of Maya than 6.0.1!
How should I save my files?
[June 21 2005]
Please save your files in Maya Ascii (.ma) format as it allows us to move backward and forward between versions of Maya. All together now: save your work as v6.0 Maya Ascii .ma files!
What resolution should I set my scene for?
[June 21 2005]
For playblasts of initial blocking and animation, set your resolution to 640x355 at 24 frames per second. This is a true 1.85:1 format as we’re targeting high-def render resolution.
For final renders, our current target is 1920x1040 at 24 frames per second, however there’s no need to deliver roughs this big – in fact please don’t!
You can see an example of a render globals setup below.
What is the final (rendered) output resolution?
[June 21 2005]
We’re targeting 1920x1040 high-definition video resolution at 24 FPS for playback on the animation festival circuit, and we’ll downsample and retarget to different ratios during postproduction.
How do I set up my render globals so stuff doesn’t stretch?
[June 21 2005]
Here are guidelines for setup:
Resolution: Custom
Width: 640
Height: 355
Device Aspect Ratio: 1.850
How should I deliver playblasts?
[June 21 2005]
Do your blasts at 640x355 resolution, 24FPS. Preferably Quicktime Sorenson 3 codec, if not Cinepak AVIs are ok too. This is so people critting or editing can scrub forward and back, as MPEG-based codecs (DivX,Xvid,Mpeg-4,etc) get garbled when you jump around.
Ali (sheepfactory) put a script up that you should drag to your shelf and run when it comes time to make playblasts. It overlays the frame number to facilitate critting and editing. Turn that on, and turn off skeletons and control objects.
You can grab it here:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=247142
Where can I upload my playblasts to?
[June 21 2005]
If you don’t have your own web space, and the files are too big to upload in the thread itself, please PM paperclip (or Kirt) and they’ll see that the files are uploaded to our web space on the CGSociety website.
THE RIGS & ENVIRONMENT
Is Orange a little short in the rig?
[June 21 2005]
Compared to the storyboards, his default height is a little short, yes. 
This is actually a good thing as it’s a midpoint between his squash & stretch extremes, though. Tharrell recommends setting the translate Y on each of the “body” control rings up between .6 and 1 for Orange/Gray’s “default” pose depending on the character’s mood, situation and level of confidence.
At rest, the cube characters have dimensions equal to (x=1.0, y=2.5, z=1.0).
The room is really big!
[June 21 2005]
It’s exactly ten times bigger than the Orange rig. A future update will correct this. In the meantime, please scale the room to .1 in X, Y and Z.
As an aside, the room appears to be incredibly low-poly, but it has Mental Ray subdivision approximation attached to it to render smoothly. There’s no need to poly smooth it.
How do I add a lot of grays to the scene?
[June 21 2005]
There are two ways of approaching this:
-
Duplicate the entire root node of the character and check the boxes for “duplicate input graph”, “duplicate input connections” and “Assign Unique Name to Child Nodes”
-
Create multiple references of the base rig (recommended so we can replace things as production progresses).
Feel free to apply temporary lambert orange and gray shaders to the scene.
LIGHTING
Coming soon!
RENDERING
Coming soon!
EDITING
Coming soon!