Pixar Presto style rigging in other apps

[Bullit]

Pixar-style rigging done with Max and Maya.

In this video I'll discuss how to create a rig where the animation controls appear to be the skinned mesh. It's a very novel way of animating which allows animator to work clutter-free but probably needs a picker GUI to be most effective.

Inspired by a demonstration of Pixar's Presto (vimeo.com/90687696) and the interesting way in which you can select sections of the deforming surface as control objects, I thought I'd try to implement it into 3ds Max.

This method allows animators to work uncluttered and see a smoothed low- and high-resolution version of the final model and also can be combined with off-viewport controls like spinner and sliders. The downside of this method is that viewport feedback is pretty slow, I'm using 3ds Max 2013 and don't have a particularly powerful computer and was getting 9fps on playback, but perhaps with better hardware and a newer version of 3ds Max (which they've promised has better viewport interaction), this could be viable solution for character animation.

Maybe with Softimage viewport it can be better.

[Helli]

This sort of workaround, in my opinion, is just not worth it cause you loose performance.

[Draise]

IN SI.. I am just theorizing.... Well if they are FK controls, it would be easy to make a curve extract as a control, like in GEAR, make everything else unselectable, and.. use the FK control that "looks" like the mesh - with colours. Won't be solid colours like in Presto, but do you think that would have much influence on performance in SI with GEAR rigs?

Or any rigs for that matter... Instead of using a null, use a coloured curve set to the mesh, and make the curve out of a mesh-extract.

[Helli]

The curves wouldnt deform like the mesh would.
So in case of facial controls, your controlls would never fit the actual mesh and it wouldnt be rly intuitive to select through them.

What you would need is a plugin. Select a mesh and get the closest controler out of a controller group based on the selection/mouse position.

So you would still have your controllers but they would be hidden.

[Draise]

Couldn't you deform the curve with ICE multithreading to the mesh using "get closest Point position"??

[Helli]

No this would create a calculation cycle (you want to move the object through a curve which is deformed through the object).

[Draise]

Hmm.. I see your point. Though that wouldn't have been my concept... The curve is just a control, it has no tie to the original mesh. The deformations of the mesh are done by the rig underneath, weights, chains, lattice, deformers, etc; the curve control is just a control for those deformers, deformers are constrained to the control curve, the mesh is dependant on the deformers only, but the SRT of the deformers are constrained to the curve. Move curve control, moves deformers (hidden), modifies mesh, mesh modifies curve control point positions.

But then again, I am sure you would know better, I am just a novice at rigging. I will experiment with it out of curiousity though, to see if I understand the cyclic calculation you mention. ;) Thanks!