BroDynamics is out

Get it on gumroad!

After some time of searching the web for something like good-old Spring Magic for 3ds max, or any other quick and universal secondary-motion solution, I decided to write my own.

It is a part of my own toolkit, which I conveniently called “BroTools” just for the fun of it, but I decided to go further with this prefix and called it BroDynamics.

With a click of a button it can temporary add a simulation dynamics based on nHair to any rig, any selection of objects, bake it on controls, and clean up after itself. Without breaking rigs. Working with referenced rigs.

Recommended use include: Tails, hair, tentacles. It can also be used with any FK hierarchy, which is recommended, but it works with almost any type of hierarchy really. 

So, for example, if you’re an animator who wants to spend more time on creative process and acting of the animation, and less time on routine animator-tasks like creating secondary motion to all those tails, long bunny-ears, tentacles, etc., – this tool is for you.

I’m already using it in my every-day work, so you can expect regular updates, at least for some time.

Currently I plan to add more simulation options to the UI, maybe making it possible to preview the simulation before baking it on controls.

Copied from my site's blog: http://nixes.ru/?p=383

Precursors Soundtrack

Uploaded Precursors soundtrack on Vimeo. Thanks to Vincent Govindin for this beautiful atmospheric music!

TAG One2One Commercial

A commercial for TAG One2One paintballs and marker gun, made with the help of my paintball team. I was a CG Supervisor and VFX artits on this project. Nothing fancy, but it was fun!

TP Glass Test

Working on a new project. Got my hands on new volumeBreaker in Thinking Particles with Max Recursion setting, allowing it to make multiple breaks with one node, really handy!

ShowReel 2013

Precursors Making of

Motion Capture
Almost every animation was made with the help of two Microsoft Kinects and an iPi Soft DMC. Except for running sequences and a few other animations, like the first shot with Guard standing in front of a door, animation of one Guard in ambush, close-ups. Every animation was then refined with the build-in filters of iPi DMC, then brought into 3ds max CAT rig, and adjusted and refined further there. We also used Endorphin to create ragdoll dynamics in the starship scene. Kinects were upgraded with vibro-motors. One was made from a USB fan, and another was made from an old shaver (on the picture). Vibrations helped to isolate pattern projections for each kinect, and make overall quality of recordings about 2 times better. Can't wait to get my hand on Kinect 2.0, I hope iPi guys are ready to add support for them as soon as possible, after the release!

    

MS Kinect upgraded with a shaver. Looks weird, but it works really well!  

Endrphin scene.  

Precursors CG Short

This particular cinematic was our first try, it started as a university graduation movie, so we had to stick with a tough deadline and certain requirements to fit into diploma\graduation project.

It’s main goal was to try out our skills at CG cinematic production. We inspired by the work of such a great studios as Blur and Digic Pictures, as well as a lot of sci-fi and space-related movies and games.

And though we are not satisfied with what we’ve got, we processed and discussed our mistakes, and we’ve got a great experience making this movie.

But now we decided not just to make it better, but completely rebuild it from ground up, starting with a new script, storyboard and designs, using this old cinematic as a reference.

It is based on a fake-universe, so don’t search for a full game or movie =) Maybe, in the future, we will come that far, and make a game or movie out of it, but thats not our goal at the moment.

Here was also an old production blog, used by us to coordinate people at first: http://nixes.ru/ancestors/wp/

Original post on NIXES.RU:
Precursors CG Short