tradigiTOOLS for Maya

#1

FUNhouse Interactive is proud to announce our recent release of our tradigiTOOLS product. The toolset is designed to assist CG character animators in following a more efficient and effective animation workflow based on traditional animation methods. We have had these tools in our aresenal for quite some time and felt that it could be of some use to anyone who follows these methods in CG. Our products have already been licensed to several studios and AnimationMentor.com the on-line animation school has officially endorsed tradigiTOOLS for their students. We are extending a 10% introductory discount offer to any CGTalk member that is interested, for a limited time (February 29th 2008 expiration). If you choose to make a purchase please type in the word “popcorn” (without the quotes) in the coupon section for your discounted rate.

  Below is the product information we have on our site.  There are also some instructional video demonstrations available for streaming (or download if your prefer).  More info can be found at [www.funhouseinteractive.biz](http://www.funhouseinteractive.biz).The thrill of working in the uncharted territories of 3D animation has brought many new digital artists into animation. Animation has benefited immensely from this new blood challenging the limits of what animation could be. While new ideas seem to propel the industry forward, much of the traditional workflow has been thrown by the wayside. The tradigiTOOLS plug-in for Maya has been created to aid the modern animator in utilizing the efficiency and effectiveness of the traditional workflow without sacrificing the creative and groundbreaking spirit that the new digital tools have brought to the table.
  
   In the traditional process, when key poses aren’t connecting motion correctly the animator would just add another drawing between the keys to further breakdown the action. Anyone who has animated in a 3D program knows it’s not that easy. That is, until tradigiTOOLS. Stop wrestling in the graph editor, or trying to make sense of the barcode you’re timeline has become. Grab tradigiTOOLS, lay out some strong keyframes and add more poses and watch the motion come alive. Push and pull timing changes without a glimpse of the graph editor. Always know where you are on the timeline and modify it with a couple of clicks. Preview render everything with markings to make finding problem area’s a snap.
  
  If you have any questions or concerns please email us directly or join in our community over on our sites.
 
 Respecfully,
 
 The Funhouse Interactive Team
 
 P.S.  We weren't sure where to post this so please forgive us if this is in the wrong place.  If the moderators need to move this please feel free to do so.
#2

I’ve been a part of the project for a while now and I’d like to add that in helping the team at Funhouse put this plugin out there for people, I’ve learned a lot about workflow and about how animation should actually be done. The first time I saw someone animate using a full pose method it made me rethink a lot of stuff I’d been doing poorly for years.

Now that the tool’s been written by a competent programmer and put through a good beta test, it’s a terrific help in animating any scene. Set your keys, time them out, insert breakdowns, time them out, and inbetween until you’re through. The quick access to stuff saves a few seconds here and there, which over the course of a shot can save hours. What’s more, it kind of helps you stick to a pose-based animation system, which is something that especially starter 3D animators forget about.

Anyway, I hope everyone here gives it a look. I’ve been using the various beta versions for half a year now, including in my course work. I’m sure other Maya animators will find it just as useful as I have.

#3

This is a great tool, saves me tons of time. It really makes the animation workflow a breeze. Once you try this method of animating you really get the idea of why it has been used for ages :slight_smile:

Try this tool it will make your re-timing a breeze. The great tools for clearing up the graph editor saves loads of time and you don’t have to do all the boring tedious work yourself.

Try it out!

#4

people is there a demo/trial so we can try?

10x

#5

This looks really interesting and I am about ready to give it a try!

Just a few questions:

How does your licensing work? Does the machine the plugin will be installed on have to go online in order to activate? Can the plugin be installed on a second machine, ie Laptop as long as its not used at the same time?

When do you think you will have a 64-bit for XP available?

Cheers!

#6

Thanks for the support from the current users here and thanks for the interest from the CGTalk members.

     There is no demo version at the moment.  There are a few demonstration videos that show and explain the use of the tools located on the site.  We currently do no support 64-bit Maya, however we have run tradigiTOOLS tests in a 32-bit version of Maya on a 64-bit machine so if any of you are interested and have a 64-bit Maya version, I believe you could also run the 32-bit Maya version on the same machine as well but please verify that with Autodesk.  We plan on extending support into 64-bit Maya for Windows and Linux shortly depending on demand.   Whether that will be in an update for version 1 or a new release version we have not determined yet but we have discussed these options.  I'll see about moving this up higher in the "list of things to do".
     
     A few more bits of info on the tools so as to help make it clear on how it really helps.  My experience in animation has mostly dealt with traditional work and practices.  When I made the move to CG I still followed these techniques in my workflow.  Basically you have to treat ANY given Key frame (or Breakdown frame) as a "drawing" by selecting all the controls of the character and manually setting a KEY on all attributes and all controls, which is also termed a "KEY ALL" method (or 'Pose to Pose').  I leave nothing for the computer to determine in these Key frames.  These tools quickly and efficiently aid the animator in setting new KEYS and/or Breakdowns.  Using favouring techniques to help break the action between these keys is what animators of the past used to do with drawing, so I just used the same principals in developing this tool.  This method and the tradigiTOOLS plug-in also enables the animator to more quickly and efficiently time out the Key frames with a press of a button (or two) instead of shift+selecting the keys in the time slider or graph editor and maneuvering keys into place, which could take a lot of time.  There are also QUICK access buttons to several useful tools and settings that are sometimes a pain to switch to or find, which saves a lot of time and helps the animator focus on what is important, the performance and motion.  That is the goal of the tool.  To allow animators to concentrate on the tasks that best support the creativity of the medium with less emphasis on the technical side.
     
     Here's a brief list of current studios, shools and others that have received licenses after only one week on the market.

[ul]
[li]Elliot Animation Studios Inc.
[/li][li]Anzovin Studios
[/li][li]AnimationMentor.com
[/li][li]Several professional animators
[/li][li]and several other studios are enquiring now
[/li][/ul]More and more folks are working in this traditional way because it is an effective and efficient way of working as a whole. These “efficiencies” have been developed over many years of animation history and it works even better in CG. In the past , animator didn’t have tools such as computers or pencil test sytems to help “figure things out” and they were forced to build all their ideas into their initial poses and animation. Well, take that workflow and apply it to the tools we now have today in CG and animation becomes quicker to accomplish. Add tradigiTOOLS to help make it easier and more intuitive. The results and effects are more instantaneous and more… FUN!

   Cheers!
   
   The FUNhouse Interactive "man in charge"
   
     P.S.  There more tools where this came from.  Just keep watching! ;)
#7

I have had the privelege to be on the beta team of this amazing tool… i always struggled with maya, to get my workflow going! not with this baby… I just put my poses in, retime, and SNAP!

No more accidental scaling keyframes, and moving the keys of just one controller UNLESS I WANT TO.

Favour poses (keys), playblast with shotmask, switching between cameras, colour the ticks on the timeline,
it’s all there. I breakdown my work so much i hardly need the graph editor, and when i go in there, it’s almost done :stuck_out_tongue:

Right now i am working on mu graduation short for animation mentor, and this tool helps me alot, cos it saves me time, and time is something none of us have enough of ghehe

so yeah! it rocks :stuck_out_tongue:

ciao
remi

#8

Yup, just chiming in here to add another plug for the tool. I too was a beta tester and even before that I was using a less feature packed tool that worked along the same lines as the tradigiTools, also from the same develepor (FUNhouse).

What others have said here about the tool is quite true. Traditional worlflow in the CG world. Very nice way to work, and it makes animation fun again, by allowing you to pull and pose your character rather than pull and pose your graph. Personal preference in the end, but its fun nonetheless. This tool isn’t magic or anything, everything it does can be done manually by clicking and dragging etc. What it does do though is speed up your work process tremendously and allows you to have a clean and organized workspace that’s easier to work with since your rigs are keyed on all the same frames. There’s alot to describe here so I suggest you take a look at the videos on their site and see for yourself.

Great work FUNhouse and thanks for such a cool set of tools!

Font

#9

WOW it’s finally done. I was part of the Beta team and I have to say that this tool can speed up your work flow a lot, especially if you work pose to pose. I’m using it all the time. The support a very good and fast.

GO AND GET IT :slight_smile:

#10

Our licensing is very fair. You get a license file sent to in an email shortly after your purchase is completes. You take that license file and place in the install directory of the tool. There is no connecting to the net to activate. Once the license file is placed in the correct location you simple start the plug-in manager to load and auto-load the plug-in and you get a new menu item called “FUNhouse”. Within the Menu item you select tradigiTOOLS to start. You can use it on a laptop or your desktop as long as you don’t use them concurrently. We feel that is very fair. Especially for the price!

Hope that helps. :wink:

Cheers!

#11

Really happy this tool is out and available. They drilled a solid workflow in to us at Animation Mentor and tradigiTOOLS does a nice job of making this even easier in Maya. Lets you focus more on the animation and less on wrestling Maya.

You can tell a lot of thought and testing went in to it and having such a ninja animator as Dimos behind it really shows. Great work gang!

#12

Sounds great! Looks like you have a new client! :wink:

#13

Great to hear Razor! Hope to see you around our site as well. :wink:

Spread the word. 10% Discont is only around until the end of February.

Cheers!

#14

Will do! :thumbsup:

Cheers!

#15

I had the opportunity to be a part of the beta team and had the chance to really dig into it and use it while I worked on my dialogue shots over at Animation Mentor. It’s a really solid tool and the guys behind it have put a lot of work into it, fine tuning it to fit animators really well. They were quick to clean up any bugs and worked with us to get the entire tool running really well. We finally hit a point that we just couldn’t break the tool any more no matter how we tried. :smiley: It’s quite solid!

It’s been built to help make for a quicker workflow — setting keys and breakdowns quicker, switching between cameras, switching interpolation of tangent types, cleaning up tangents, and an enhanced way to playblast, etc., etc. (I’m a really, really big fan of the shotmask it gives. :)) And it’s a steal at such a low price.

Excellent stuff. Thanks guys – really appreciate all of your hard work making this for us!

#16

Jason Ryan, former supervising animator of Disney Feature Animation and now supervising animator at DreamWorks Feature Animation, has publicly recommended tradigiTOOLS to his newsletter subscribers calling the plug-in “FANTASTIC”.

We are great admires of Jason Ryan and we are ecstatic to hear and read that an animator with such expertise, endorsing our tradigiTOOLS plug-in. TradigiTOOLS is primarily designed to assist in the traditional ‘Pose to Pose’ workflow that Jason Ryan himself uses and promotes and we are excited to be part of the esteemed group of talented animators out there that follow this proven traditional work flow.

For further information on Jason Ryan or to subscribe to his newsletter (which we highly recommend), please go to www.jasonryananimation.com.

For tradigiTOOLS please visit our site at www.funhouseinteractive.biz.

#17

I am really interested in trying this.

#18

I’m going to have a look at this later tonight, looks extremely promising.

#19

Please feel free to check our site at www.funhouseinteractive.biz. We have demonstration videos that explain the functions of the tools. We also have a little community building up and we wouldn’t mind the company! :wink:

Hope to see you all there.

Cheers!

#20

Very cool plugin! I’m not too familiar with how to use it to it’s fullest so I’m sure I’ll find much more to be excited about. Are there more videos in the works on how best to use these tools?