Digital-Tutors

3D logo, working on into animation to be used as bumper for 3D media. PIXLMECH

LifeEntertainment — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:32:15 GMT

Let me know what you think, I have many ideas as far as animation goes and most likely make a few when the time is right. Basically with my short film rendering I needed to redo the company and logo one that I feel fits more my style. My initial animation ideas see a whole bunch of pixlmechs running camera focused on one, that one being the last to make it into its place in the face of the word. They originate from liquid transformed into a metalic cube(pixel) in the RGB colors and then transform into those guys down there. If it matters I have no image planes or concept art as I made these from scratch. Thanks in advance for Looking and comments.

Life Entertainment
Pixlmech studios.

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Render mesh as volume

macdac — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:49:29 GMT

Hi everyone! I was wondering if any one knows a way to render a mesh as a volume (volumetric). Because I want to achive to model i.e: ice cream and render out as a ice cream cloud... So there is a plug in, shader or something that can achieve that? Thank you!

Takshaka: The serpentine Hero

wickedsunny — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:03:30 GMT

I am not good with sketching, so I am outlining the basic features of my hero.

According to Indian Mythology there are 32 heavenly snakes of the snake clan. Out of which SheshNaag is the snake where Lord Vishnu Sits in heaven. It has 1000 heads and in its one avatar it also holds the Earth land on his head so that It doesn't fall in the Magma at the core of the planet.

There is Vasuki - the king of all snakes on earth and the Takshaka: The king of Snakes of the Underworld.

My hero is the son of the Takshaka.

Now to understand its characteristics, I will need to explain few other aspects of Indian Mythology.

Snakes which are born from these heavenly snakes, after the the age of hundred years obtain powers to transform into any human form, kind of shape shifters. They can live in human form with human beings without letting them know.

They can also transform into snake form whenever they want, even half human half snake form, during battle.

Takshaka is a snake with a prominent visible duality. It has both good and bad side visible inform of separate human forms, combined together in one body. During battle he takes on the snake shape and fight with human upper body.

So it is like two human bodies emerging from the waist, with 2 hands for each body and instead of legs theres the serpentine tail.

The good side holds the weapon of swastika, which is the weapon of Takshaka. Swastika is a holy Hindu symbol. Hitler liked it so much that he put it on his flag as a Nazi symbol and its hated by the west because of that.

The dark side holds the trident and it can also blow out poisonous fumes from his throat.

Hope you guys like the idea. I am late in starting this, hope I manage to complete it before time.

Demise - You've Got the Power

andrehines — Wed, 16 May 2012 16:09:08 GMT

promotional imagery for musical artist, Demises new song. My first attempt at linear workflow, which was at first seemed easy enough to do after watching the dt tutorial on it. I wasn't prepared for all of the pitfalls that came with using the maya render pass system with mental ray mia material x passes and fast skin shaders. Ended up having to use some color buffer nodes, especially when hooking up fast skin shader into additional color slot on mia material, in order to get more accurate speculars.

Creating Cartoon Characters in modo question

motorstereo — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:06:19 GMT

I"m on part 7 of Creating Cartoon Characters in modo and I keep running into a modeling problem--when I bridge 2 pieces of geometry or make an n-gon from a loop of edges, the resulting geometry looks distorted (the edges curve around the corners, they don't flow straight is the best way I can describe it). That is, when I hit Tab to view it subDivided, the new mesh does not follow the previous edge flow. I've tried to flip the polys, which needs to be done, but it doesn't correct the 'rounding' distortion. I've also tried extending edges instead of bridging , etc.

Since I am new to modo, is this a common problem I am not aware of?

Thanks-
John Lewis

How do I make a translucent shader using mia_materialX???

Kelvin Luo — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:01:50 GMT

Hello,
How do I adjust the mia_material X to be translucent. I can see there is a translucent attr in the shader, and transparency. But I am kinda confused of their relationship. For example, if I am making a piece of paper translucent, allowed a light from behind to do the scattering effect? I dont want to use SSS shader to do the trick. How do I adjust the materialX shader to have this effect?And a detail explanation of the relationship between translucet and transparency would be better.
thank you

Change Password

4MAX — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:06:40 GMT

Hi there

how can i change password ?

MARI

Aluevr — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:34:57 GMT

Hello, im new to Mari and ive been following the tutorials, but when it comes to archive my file, i save and close the current project. the project should show in the Mari's projects on, but it doesnt. i dont understand where it goes.

Can anyone help me please???.

May 2012 Hero: Steampunk Archer / Ranger

feebled — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:41:59 GMT

Attachment 8657

So this is a extremely rough concept of my hero. I want to make a female steampunk archer / ranger.

This is my rough outline for how I plan to go about completing it..

1. Modeling human basemesh - Maya
2. Sculpting Body - Zbrush
3. Extract for Clothing in - Zbrush
4. Retop in - 3ds Max
5. Uv in - 3ds Max
6. Model trinkets and gadgets in - 3ds max
7. Texture base coat with polypainting in - Zbrush
8. Export maps and low res mesh to - 3ds Max
9. apply maps in - 3ds max
10. Rig then pose in - 3ds max
11. Light using - Vray
12. Comp in - photoshop

Maya: intermediate
3ds Max: intermediate
ZBrush: intermediate
Photoshop: intermediate

I'll be out of town until Sunday so I'mma have to play some catch up for when I come back :)

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advice on what to practice and being creative

argiveajax — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:04:23 GMT

Hello,

I am posting to ask the advice of anyone willing to give it. Last year I decided to drop business school and switch to a double major in fine art and new media (3d). I have no prior experience with art, I simply stumbled upon it, fell in love with drawing, and then decided I wanted to try to make a career doing 3d for movies and games. I am determined to become a professional 3d artist. I love art and it and I am willing to work very hard at it.

However, I find myself having trouble deciding what to do when I sit down for a work session (I use maya, zbrush and photoshop for now). Modeling is my favorite thing to do but I want to be able to model my own creations and not just real life objects from reference. I am into the typical stuff a young male 3d artist would be, like knights in hulking armor, dragons, modern military vehicles, sci fi characters, and I also love all types of environments/landscapes. I am also captivated by the human face and enjoy doing busts in zbrush although I am still not very good at it.

Bascially I'm just looking for tips on how how I can come up with things to help myself get better at 3d. I really want to know the best way to improve my skills and also develop more creativity so that my demo real isn't super boring. Any advice would be sincerely appreciated.

animate vertices/points

blueleo — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:22:00 GMT

3dsmax is the only program that can animate vertices in editable mode.
either maya, softimage or c4d cant do that.

I think it would be a nice topic for some future lesson.
1. why is it impossible in maya,xsi and c4d (background theories) ?
2. how can you can solved it in different ways?

greetz to all

Using MotionBuilder in a Production Pipeline

DTMaster — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:36:42 GMT

I have recently added Motionbuilder to our animation pipeline and have a question for anyone out there that uses this program on a regular basis. Issues I need help with:

We build models using 3DS Max and Zbrush (just some background). I have tried several times to move a stage, character, and objects from Max into Motionbuilder to build the animation for the project there. I can characterize the character, animate using the control points. But when I try to create the entire scene animation I run into glitches. Like bringing in animation fbx files into story to animate the character, There are so many little issues I am about to just throw up my hands and go back to the old tried and true methods of completing the project.

Does anyone know where I can find some tutorials that will take me from a complete project in Maya or Max to motionbuilder to build the animation, plot the animation and return to Maya or Max to complete the final render of the project. This should include the Set, character, props, etc. NOT just someone showing me how to animate a walk cycle, or just a small portion of a character animation.

But something that will address the issues you may run into, the workarounds, the shortcuts, and stuff like that.

Right now my response to anyone touting how wonderful this program is met with. What the Hell good is it if I can't use all of it's wonderful features to animate the project.?

Any assistance or pointing in the right direction would be helpful. Right now i run into problems with diffuse materials not showing up, distortion of the bone structure when going from one program to the other, and pure frustration when trying to learn the program.

I have been through the training here on the site but it doesn't really cover the big picture.

Thanks

I need help in this step,thanks

albertohd — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:13:26 GMT

Attachment 8656In this step on the introduction,i have the next problem, i attach a image,why i have this problem? i do the steps of the video

Introduction to Maya 2012
25. Building the fan blades

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RealFlow and Maya integration lesson 17

Ekul711 — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:16:10 GMT

I am new to RealFlow and was following this tutorial with minimal issues, however, I can't seem to get the k collision daemon to work correctly. Like in the tutorial I have animated box geometry to drop in and get rid of the center bar that's in the logo, but even when I assign the collision daemon specifically to the box geometry, it won't affect the particles. I looked up the collision emitter and it says it won't work with grid emitters, but I have followed straight along with the tutorial did not think a sphere emitter was a grid emitter. I am in RealFlow 2012, so is that the issue? Am I missing a step or setting? Any help would greatly be appreciated.

page is small

farouce — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:56:05 GMT

ok my resolution is the same all my other sites are fine , Y is the digital tutors site displaying so small I can not even see what I type.?? HELP