ANOMALIA MEL Course in Maya with Aaron Walsman, BLUE SKY STUDIO … course update:

We would like to update you with couple changes that took place recently with regard to our September MEL course.

First of all, Sunit Gaihede had to cancel his participation due to his work overload. He simple cannot leave his company because of his own project deadlines. As unfortunate as it may sound, however, we have another great tutor that accepted our invitation to deliver this scripting course.

Our new tutor is Aaron Walsman, a Senior TD expert from BLUE SKY STUDIO from New York. I guess this studio is most famous for the Ice Age series, if you did not know. So we are fortunate to have Aaron on board as much as he also got very excited to come and share his vast programming experience with all of you.

A little bit about Aaron in his own words: I’ve been working in animation for a little over six years now. I started out working on a movie called „The Barnyard“ in Southern California. I started that job as a character rigger, but after the characters were finished I moved into a generalist TD role, writing tools for various departments and doing a few special effects shots. I was there for a little over two years, and after that came to Blue Sky for a rigging position, and I’ve been here ever since. I started working here on Horton Hears a Who, and have since worked on Ice Age 3, and most recently Rio, which is coming out next year.

There are 2 seats still open …

the course is from 13th Sept – 24th Sept in Litomysl, Czech republic ..

This course reflects our intention to support those areas that are much needed for a successful modern production but, at the same time, there is a significant shortage of professionals with such specific skills set.

THE COURSE OUTLINE

Practical Application Project (Dance Party):

The idea of the practical application project is to supply the students with a very simple prebuilt character and a series of props (hats, wigs, beards, etc.) and have the students build tools around generating different combinations of characters and props in order to build simple crowds of them having a dance party.

From this beginning, there are dozens of places to take it.

• To get into User Interfaces, we will design a small tool to let a designer/director pick certain character/prop combinations and replace characters on the dance floor.

• To get into external data and databases, we can build tools to export these character combinations and load them back into a Maya scene.

• To get into math and geometry, we can start making more complex behaviors such as parades and conga-lines.

The basic plan is to start there, and use that to explore programming in a Maya character environment, and then go into some of the more specific aspects at the end.  This way, all the tools we work on will have a common thread and hopefully that will make the project more educational, more fun, and show something about making tools that work well in combination with each other.

Week 1

Programming Maya

Day 1

Introduction

Maya DAG/DG hierarchy

Nodes

Attributes

Connections

Programming Basics (Python)

Conditionals

Loops

Functions

Start Practical Application:

Introduction to the Project

Starting Simple

Reference the character

Reference the props

Stick them together

Export new files

Day 2

More Programming Basics

Classes/Object-Oriented Programming

Data Structures (lookups)

Referencing

Registering Data on Custom Attributes/Message Connections

Practical Application:

Building on Day 1, fill a dance floor with randomly placed

characters, each with a random combination of props

Export animation cycles

Apply animation cycles to the crowd

Day 3

Expanding on Day 1/2

Practical Application:

Weighting randomization of characters

Ensuring uniqueness of character/prop combinations

Day 4

User Interfaces (PyQT)

Practical Application:

Make a tool for designers/director to swap out different

props on the dance party characters.

If we have time make it so you can switch out animation

cycles too.

Day 5

Exporting data from Maya

JSON

XML

PICKLE

Rebuilding Maya data from exported data

Practical Application:

Store out information about randomly placed dance party

characters and use it to rebuild parts of files.

Also cover replacing with proxy asset if time available.

Week 2

Programming other things

Day 6

Databases

Commandport

Practical Application:

How to register dance party combinations in a database

and quickly compare them.

Day 7

Useful Math

Vectors/Points

Matrices

Quaternions

Geometry Descriptions

Practical Application:

Use geometry information to execute more complex behavior

in the dance party characters (walking, conga lines, etc.)

Day 8

Python Plugins for Maya

Practical Application:

Custom constraints/math nodes.

Day 9

Particles and Maya particle expressions

Day 10

Shader Writing