The MudRoom

Mudbox 2014 Announced!

Craig Barr — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:54:01 UTC

Today we announced Autodesk Mudbox 2014 at our Unfold Event!

Tune in live at 6pm - March 27th for live demos:

http://area.autodesk.com/2014unfold/live/unfoldevent.html

The image at the top represents to new Mudbox 2014 branding.

Following the "origami" theme, here is the new Mudbox icon:

Check out some new features below:

Advanced Retopology Tools:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpVCvgvzR_I[/video]

Extended Multi-touch:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF1UBY4FrU0[/video]

You guys asked us to add/fix some "Small Annoying Things" and we listened! Fixes include:

Much faster Grab brush performance
Massive performance boost for loading and working with dense meshes like scan data
Smaller file size
New Erase Curve tool
New Curve Loop tool
New Border Curve tool
Mesh reduction
Multitouch - stencil manipulation
Double-click to select poly island
Create Mesh with curves
Fairing
Tightening
Flood Paint Layer
8k texture map support (previously only available through env variable)
Isolate Selection works like a toggle
Flatten as new Layer
Duplicate Merged
Export Channel Merged
Clear a paint layer
Duplicate selected faces
Preserve UV Borders subdivision option
Move a paint layer into a non-existent channel
Drag and drop images from the image browser to the color picker
Extract meshes at 16k and 32k
Brush Ring color pref
Cleaner stroke smoothing
Wireframe-only model
Increment and save
Display Mesh errors

Autodesk Unfold Event and Mudbox 2014 Sneak Peek

Craig Barr — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:40:09 UTC

We’re rapidly coming up to our launch event for the 2014 releases! Be sure to register online or even set a reminder to watch the event. Click the banner to check for more info:

This is a live event in Montreal. We will be unveiling our 2014 Product Releases as well as the new Autodesk brand. That's right, a new look for everything! If you can attend, be sure to say hello or, if you are across the globe, be sure to catch the live stream. This event is a little different for us this year. I’ll be taking part in an “Experts Challenge” where Andrew Camenisch and I will be answering your Mudbox questions with live demos (again from virtual or live attendees!). I’ll also be part of the live Maya Expert’s Challenge as well, flanked by Daryl Obert and Duncan Brinsmead. The bad news is that this event takes place the exact same time as GDC in San Francisco, so unfortunately I will not be there this year and I'll miss you GDC'ers! However, the GOOD news is that this event will have delicious, cold, fresh and frothy, free beer. All that talking and live demoing makes me thirsty, so don’t be afraid to bring me a beer when I’m up there.

Speaking of our 2014 releases, check out some “sneak peeks” of all of the 2014 releases!

http://area.autodesk.com/2014unfold#videos

And now, here’s a Mudbox 2014 Sneak Peek!

[video]http://youtu.be/HOx2gqnA2ms[/video]

Design, Visualize and Create with Autodesk Mudbox

Craig Barr — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 09:23:44 UTC

Last year at AU2011 in Las Vegas, I gave 2 classes involving Mudbox. This post and the embedded videos are from the lecture "Design, Visualize and Create with Autodesk® Mudbox®" which examines the use of Mudbox in different realms. In Part 1, I give a brief history of the development of Mudbox, from its early days at Weta to where we are today. After the introduction, I had 3 areas of focus. Part 2 focuses on Mudbox in Architecture, Part 3 is a focus on Mudbox in the (traditional) clay concept design world in Automotive, and Part 4 looks at Mudbox as a Design and Presentation tool. The last video discusses some of the work that Lee Fraser and myself did for Lady Gaga and her designers in creating one of her costumes.

As an added bonus, I have included the document that was made available to all attendees at the time! It's a 14 page PDF document with some interesting Mudbox Tips and Tricks that pertain to the content I discuss.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the videos. These are in a lecture format, but I do perform some live work in Mudbox throughout the talk. Apologies for the audio quality that makes me sound like I am orbiting in an Apollo capsule!

If you are going to Autodesk University this year, please join me in my class: DG4220 - Creature Modeling and Sculpting with Autodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® Mudbox®

Part 1:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YT-GCgEPRQ[/video]

Part 2:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq9RdpkzQz0[/video]

Part 3:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0tyiSXxzLQ[/video]

Part 4:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dytbVGNmPs[/video]

Follow me on Twitter! @The_Mudroom

Creating Hard-Surface Stamps Outside of Mudbox

Craig Barr — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 19:35:43 UTC

During Siggraph 2012, I showed some techniques for achieving smooth, hard-surfacing in your sculpting workflows in Mudbox. The main-stage Siggraph presentation for this is embedded in this post here:

SIGGRAPH 2012 - Los Angeles: Mudbox Demo and Notes

We actually had a second presentation area located at the side of the Autodesk booth that was not broadcast as it was for live attendees only! I talked a bit about the creation of custom vector displacement stamps for hard-surface sculpting. I have put together a little video (20 minutes in length) that highlights this process. It’s quite simple and it utilizes any external polygonal modeler. In this case, I am using Maya, but the exact same thing can be achieved in Max, Soft, etc., so certainly feel free to use what you are most comfortable with. Watch the video to see these tips in action. I have also included 9 hard-surface VDM stamps that I used for sculpting up the cybersuit-armor. Feel free to use as you please! There is also a single-face poly plane attached here as well.

CB_HS_VDM_stamps.zip

plane_l0_target.zip

Basic shapes created in Maya to be made into VDM stamps:

I will highlight the basic process here:

- Start with a simple 1-face poly plane (attached to this blog!)

- Subdivide the plane up a few steps (to produce enough edges and verts to give you enough to model with…so think out your basic profile shape before you start)

- Select the plane and send to Maya, Max, Soft (or export as FBX/OBJ to use elsewhere)

- In Maya, be sure your cameras are framed in each viewport to allow you to see and select all verts/edges

- Push, pull and adjust verts and edges while adhering to these rules:

- Don’t adjust or affect the corners

- Don’t change the vertex count

- Model with uniform edge flow to maintain edge flow when sculpting

- EXPORT the model as OBJ or FBX

- In Mudbox, and with your original plane selected, goto File>Import as Layer. Use the defaults (by vertex count and Delta to base checked)

- Extract the VDM stamp via the Map Extraction menu using Relative Tangent

- you can add stamps via the tray or access them in the Image Browser (see video)

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TG-xPgOh24[/video]

The video also outlines the proper settings for your Sculpt tool (ie. strength to 100) and how to store a custom-sculpt tool on the tray as well.

Lastly, in the event you may have additional questions about Vector Displacement and map creation, here are some other videos I have created in the past that you may find useful!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuGDdhSqIhg[/video]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GFoH1ET6JE[/video]

Follow all things Mudbox on Twitter! @The_Mudroom

CG Evolution/Film Revolution: A Q+A with Steve "Spaz" Williams

Craig Barr — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 19:34:50 UTC

Steve Williams is presenting a very interesting talk at AU 2012, entitled “Staring into the Abyss: The Evolution of Computer Graphics in Entertainment”. If you are attending, be sure to register for his class by clicking on the link above. More information around Autodesk University can be found here.

Simply put, Steve “Spaz” Williams is a legendary pioneer in the world of computer graphics in feature film production. Steve’s career spans several landmark CG moments in film such as: the pseudopod in The Abyss (the first “soft surface” CG character), the liquid-metal T1000 in Terminator 2 (the first CG main character), the infamous dinosaurs of Jurassic Park (first digital animals), and, the contortion of Jim Carrey’s face in The Mask, amongst others. The Abyss, Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park each took home the Oscar for Best Visual Effects in their respective years. Steve himself was nominated for an Oscar for The Mask. Furthermore, all are projects that represent important leaps in CG, in terms of developing the techniques and pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible by the all mighty pixel. Aside from Steve’s work on these milestone movies, this is THE man that, on his own time, created an animation test that convinced Steven Spielberg and George Lucas that CG was the way to go for Jurassic Park.

With his extensive feature film experience, Steve has since focused most of his attention on commercial direction. Prestigious honours include: being selected for the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase at Cannes, receiving multiple Clio Awards for Electronic Arts, as well as for the Blockbuster “Carl and Ray” campaign.
During his studies in Animation at Sheridan College, Steve spent his summers working at the University of Toronto’s OISE Computer Lab. Upon graduation from the Classical Animation program at Sheridan (the days before there was a Computer Animation track), Steve went to work at Alias Research (yes, some Autodesk history there) in Toronto. It was here that Steve became proficient in Alias, a software package that would completely alter the landscape for design, graphics, animation and visual effects in feature film. In 1989, Steve joined the Computer Graphics Department at ILM.

It was movies like The Abyss, T2 and, certainly, Jurassic Park that got me into this field to begin with and it was a great pleasure to have a chat with him about how much, and how little, things have changed since those early days.

What are you up to now?

For the last few years I have been directing commercials all over the world. I have directed well over 300 commercials. I also teach a class on Directing for Film and Animation at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. I also teach a lot of science in that class too. Yeah, I know, not as “glorious” as the old days! I spend a lot of my free-time building in wood and metal. (you can check out some of Steve's work here and on Vimeo here).

Tell me about your days back at Alias

I was at Alias Research back in 1987 doing demos and I became a bit of a hot-shot demo guy showing-off Alias. When I had started at Alias they had just introduced version 2. I remember I had to demo at NAB in Austin and the damn machine kept on crashing. We were on an SGI 3130 and the configuration was buggy and it was embarrassing as hell. You’d be in the middle of a demo and the f!*#@*g machine would hang up!

I can assure you that still happens. Nothing has changed there.

Yep, that’s too funny. I know the pain.

Give us a brief history of your work at ILM in the early CG days

I was the first Alias person at ILM in 1988. I remember very clearly that I was using Alias v2.1. We had a staff of about 7 in the department. I was the first animator and the first Canadian in the Computer Graphics Department. I was brought in to do the first demo of the pseudopod for The Abyss for James Cameron. Then they said, “Oh, we’re going to keep this guy”. Mark Dippé and myself built the pseudopod. That was 18 scenes…92 seconds… and that kinda really fell on the radar for CG. It also brought Cameron back to us for Terminator 2. I was Animation Supervisor on T2. Then we heard about this Jurassic Park idea. I became Chief Animator on JP and we took all the data and ported across to Softimage because of its Inverse Kinematics system. Those 3 films kinda laid down the tracks for the entire industry, AND…at the basic level, not much has changed. I was running Alias on an SGI GT60 and GT80…these were the first machines to run Alias at ILM. I can’t remember what the cost of those machines were, but I know it was insane.

Christopher Reeve and Spaz discussing The Abyss behind the scenes!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=496656927786

How did you animate for The Abyss in early versions of Alias?

You had two options for animating in the early versions of Alias. You could animate an object with Translational, Rotational, Scalar (TRS) data, or you could animate control vertices. Alias was very good for animating fluid motion via B-Splines. You could easily visualize the behaviour in the viewport. The key was to be able to animate the spine through the Pseudopod. This spine that ran along the pseudopod, carried the basic animation, but then we had a series of control vertices, like slices, that we would further refine as we went. I would take a spline and animate the CVs along a path and make sure to maintain the exact distance between the CVs. Then I would animate separate slices or rings of CVs along the spline. These rings would be orthogonal, or flat. Then I could animate what they were doing, like they were undulating for example. Then we had a program and it would take each ring and lay them down along the corresponding CV at 90 degree normal, then high-res them, and then run them through SOCK (more on that later) and it would create one complete object. We had some control over the resolution of the surface and we would lay down individual sine waves distribution points along the entire thing that would create the rippling effect. We had a one-bounce ray trace in Renderman, which would create the optical disturbance in the background.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VpqsAwgNIU[/video]

A documentary special highlighting Steve in 1992

[video]http://vimeo.com/39427949[/video]

How many guys on The Abyss for CG?

There were about 5 of us in the department in 1988. Mark Dippé did the code for the pseudopod and I animated most of the shots.

When it came to the task of applying CG for The Abyss, is it fair to say that you guys were inventing as you went?

Absolutely, back then we didn’t even have all the pieces or the parts to do what we wanted. We essentially had to manufacture all the parts.
Cameron came to us with an idea that there was no solution for: a realistic, alien, pseudopod of water. Those solutions had to be built with early, off the shelf software. We had to build a lot of custom tools to help us accomplish what we needed. During Terminator 2 we had another software problem that was solved by another guy from Alias, an Engineer named Angus Poon, who came down to ILM and wrote a program that we called “SOCK” that was responsible for maintaining C2 continuity across these 4-sided, B-Spline patches. My partner in crime then, Mark Dippé, knew the higher level of math that was required and he wrote a lot of good tools.
The face data for the placement on the end of the pseudopod was a serious accomplishment. It’s taken for granted today, but using facial scan data and stitching it on to the end of this living tube of water, with b-spline patches, was a real challenge.

What was the most important custom-tool for Terminator 2?

I’d have to say our ChanMath program. When you were animating multiple channels of control vertices, you ended up having multiple pivot points in space. This inhibited control when choosing to "group" vertices with existing animation data into a new hierarchy. ChanMath would collapse all the control vertices to 0,0,0. I personally would use this all the time when animating the "death sequence" (the end lava scene) in T2.

T-Rex muscle and tertiary animation: Challenges in Jurassic Park

For the T-Rex muscle animation we used animated, low-res bladders in the legs and keyed the Y-axis bouncing up and down.   Then the CVs on the high-res skin were instructed to listen to that bouncing bladder on a weighted scale from zero to 100%.
The dinos were all built with b-splines. They were put through our program SOCK to align and close the surfaces, and then we had these guys that were the “Envelopers”. It was very, very tedious and these guys would constantly type and run tests to check their enveloping on the skins.   These were the guys that would blow out their hands and arms with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!
I built the first bones for the Rex and, later on, the entire creature. Yet another Canadian, Eric Armstrong, built the Raptor.

A still from Steve's T-Rex skeleton run-cycle that changed CG & film forever.

Figuring out the joint placement with Softimage units (scan courtesy of S. Williams)

I suppose a “Jack of All Trades” was probably the most fitting title?

I was Chief Model Builder and Animator on Abyss, T2, and JP (T-Rex). I built, rigged and animated all of those things. During T2, we came up with a way of building teams to create shots that used a lot of the same techniques and data.

What kind of challenges did you face during The Mask or Spawn?

Same platforms as the projects before hand (The Abyss, T2, Jurassic Park, Jumanji, Eraser, ..) – Alias on the front-end for modeling and Softimage for animation. The IK system in Softimage was superior. There was a little bit of blend-shaping going on for The Mask. For the most part we used a library of shapes that we would look through. Cary Phillips wrote a system called “Caricature” (“Cari” for short; won a Technical Achievement Award in 1998). This library allowed us to access all of the exaggerated shapes and extreme expressions for Jim Carrey's face. We also used a bit of spline-animation mixed with blend-shapes that followed those splines when the Mask would wrap around his head. One of the biggest challenges in Spawn was his cape. We had chains of bones driving the basic, overall structure and a fluid dynamics algorithm running over the fabric.

What about texturing? Did you use Photoshop to build the textures?

We were using a very early version of what became Photoshop as early as The Abyss with no ability to use anything like UV coordinates. For T2 we were using a version of UV mapping. We used coded and texture-based shaders for Renderman. Everything had to be scripted out into RIB files to go off to Renderman.

Back then you had such limited tools compared to what is now available…A lot of what you are talking about is taken for granted today….

There was no rigging or anything like that. You had hierarchies of B-Spline patches on a rudimentary forward kinematic system. It was very crude but it did the job and it allowed me to figure out a way to build the T1000. We didn’t have the ability to project a curve onto a surface, we were stuck in B-Splines. B-Splines allowed for an easier way to shape surface patches. We also had a version of Steven Coon’s patching system. This was way before NURBS and Subdivision Surfaces wasn’t even on the radar. We didn’t have access to things like Mudbox or any of these tools to sculpt and bring up detail. We did have source code to Renderman because we had a good relationship with Pixar. But, you know what? I had animation under my belt, I was a good animator and I thought I’m going to make this f@@@er stand on end. And I did.

What was that meeting like when it was decided to go CG for Jurassic Park???

I was not invited to that meeting, unfortunately. I heard that, apparently, after my T-Rex bones test (I set up low-res bones in Softimage and animated and rendered out a test) that Lucas was quite emotional. He was so blown away but what he was seeing.

Considering what you worked with on The Abyss, JP, The Mask, T2, Spawn, etc. and how far modeling, animation and rendering tools have come in the last 25 years, are we all a bunch of whiners today?

No I don’t think so at all. If anything I feel for the artists today. The problem is that Hollywood puts more pressure on the artists because the tools are always becoming better. Clients expect a Cadillac for the price of a Chevette.

"Carl and Ray" - Blockbuster

How did you find the transition from creating some of Hollywood's most notorious creatures, to directing some of the coolest commercials?

That transition was very fun. Directors usually go the opposite direction - namely, from commercials to movies. I love shooting live action comedy, though the work I get is as a reflection of the work I've done while at ILM, really.

Capital One "Mailbox"

You took a break from commercials and Directed Disney's The Wild, how was that experience?

Great in many ways, horrible in others. I am not cut out to deal with certain types of individuals that run large Hollywood studios. I have checkered teeth, I smell like a Slim Jim and enjoy crushing nerdy executive hands. Not a good combination for getting your foot in the door in "Hollywood". Look what Hollywood has done to computer graphics .... turned her into a slutty sister!

You were an extra in Star Wars: A New Hope.....how cool was that?!?!?

Lucas wanted extra people and activity going on in the background and asked me to take care of it. I actually got to Direct myself. I just set up a camera to shoot 50% live action and 50% background, with a green screen. The picture below shows myself and Paul Hunt walking through Mos Eisley.

What was the best project that you have ever worked on and why?

Politics and internal debates aside, Jurassic was great. The Abyss was so under the radar, no one had a clue what we were up too and we were left alone. It wasn't until after the success of The Abyss, that this CG thing took off and all hell broke lose for Terminator 2. Everything suddenly became much bigger, even though it was still Mark Dippé and I who set up all the teams and tech.

As far as CG is concerned, what is the next big thing?

The resurrection of deceased actors, whether people like it or not. Here’s a link to a paper I helped out with concerning the subject: www.law.berkeley.edu/journals/btlj/articles/vol8/Beard.pdf

The following didn’t really happen…..did it?

[video]http://vimeo.com/38416019[/video]

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MUDBOX Forums! VOTE for what drives you mad! Suggest your ideas!

Craig Barr — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 05:46:40 UTC

Mudbox: "Small Annoying Things" and "Ideas" sites!

These forums are about 2 things:

1) "Small Anoying Things" - all the little annoying quirks and problems in Mudbox that drive you nuts, and...
2) "Ideas for Mudbox" - For issues that are bigger that you think will improve things, as well as, for specific feature requests, then use this forum.

The purpose of these forums are to understand which ideas and issues matter most to the people who use the software. For the Small Annoying Things forum, we particularly want to identify issues that bother you that we can fix more easily. However, Autodesk cannot commit to completing any ideas in this forum -- even those marked under review. We combine information from this forum with other factors like product strategy, market focus, planned areas of innovation, and input from leading-edge customers to determine product functionality.

Add your vote to any idea if you also think this is an annoying behavior that needs to be fixed.

HOW TO USE THE FORUMS:

- Each user has 20 votes for each forum
- Each idea can have no more than 3 votes by a single user
- If you enter an idea, it will cost you 1 vote – therefore try to make sure the idea doesn’t already exist
- The more precise and detailed a description you give, the more likely your idea will rise higher in the list
- When an idea is implemented, votes are returned to all the users that voted
- User can change their votes at any time
- Admins can move, edit and delete ideas as they see fit to better meet the goals of the forum
- We will flag ideas that are getting our attention as “under review”. Because of limits on what we can say publicly, that is as far as we can go with commenting on a particular idea. If it is “under review” it simply means we’re studying it for possible implementation or gathering data, but there is no commitment to do it.
Please treat this as an experiment in working with the community. Even if Uservoice is not the final home for this, we’ll do our best to export all the ideas to whatever future system might take its place. Your voice will persist.

GET VOTING!

Note: It’s important to realize that these lists are simply raising the quality of the feedback we get from the community. They are not a replacement for how we define the features for any given release. They are valuable input, but beta input, product strategy, focus, innovation and other factors are also important aspects we consider.

BUGS

Please continue to report them here:
http://www.autodesk.com/mudbox-bugreport

Find more info via the FAQ

Of course, these forums also exist for other products!

Maya:

Small Annoying Things

Ideas for Maya

Max:

Small Annoying Things

Softimage:
In progress, for updates/info, see Graham's blog here:
http://the-area.com/blogs/graham/your-software-needs-you

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PIXAR: OpenSubdiv with Mudbox and Maya

Craig Barr — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:18:57 UTC

Pixar and the OpenSubdiv Project

At the Autodesk booth at Siggraph 2012, the Pixar GPU Team comprised of Takahito Tejima, Dirk Van Gelder, Manuel Kraemer, and David Yu announced and demonstrated their recent work on an open-source project called OpenSubdiv.

Their demo utilized Maya's Viewport 2.0 to demonstrate some stunning real-time results that included deformation of around 1.5 million vertices on a model (the ToadKing rides again!) with multiple channel maps displayed. Vector Displacment was extracted from the model (sculpted and painted in) Mudbox, along with all of the Diffuse, Specularity and Reflectivity and displayed with a simple rig that allowed full deformation IN REAL TIME!

Why is this important?

Aside from being incredibly cool, there is a very important production reason for this. At render time, subdivision surfaces are most often used to achieve smooth and clean results that accurately and properly mimic the models in a scene. This is great at render time, but what about during animation, set layout, effects, or anything else that needs to interact with specific features of that model's surface? When working on a production animators, for example, are working with a more simplistic, low-res or even proxy version of the models in the scene. This is typically done for performance so that animators can preview the work in real-time. However, the historical problem with this process is that it makes it difficult to properly interact with objects. A scaley hand grasping a weapon or a shirt colliding with rippled skin, for example, require a more delicate approach during animation. Previewing the full-subdivided surface in real-time, at ALL times, solves a number of these issues. This code is being utilised in Pixar's pipeline in current productions right now and is changing how animators work by taking a huge chunk of guess work out of animation and interaction. This is resulting in a shortened time in the production process.

Watch the Pixar OpenSubdiv presentation with Autodesk here:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-3L9BOTEtw[/video]

Find out more information about OpenSubdiv at the Pixar research web site here: http://www.opensubdiv.com/

OpenSubdiv is covered by an opensource license, and is free to use for commercial or non-commercial use. The source code for OpenSubdiv is located at the link below and has entered open beta for SIGGRAPH 2012. Feel free to use it and let Pixar know what you think through the following site:

https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/OpenSubdiv

(Platforms supported: Windows, Linux, limited OSX)

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SIGGRAPH 2012 - Los Angeles: Mudbox Demo and Notes

Craig Barr — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:05:45 UTC

SIGGRAPH 2012: Los Angeles

Well, yet another SIGGRAPH has come and gone. Like every year, it was busy as hell, yet it was a good show! Mudbox absorbed most of my time in-and-around SIGGRAPH and I had the opportunity to work with the Wacom guys at their booth showing the Mudbox Multi-Touch Tech Preview on their Cintiq Touch 24HD. I was also at the 2012 HP and NVIDIA Production Advisory Council working with more Multi-Touch Mudbox on some new technology with people from all over the industry. The "Infuse Your Own Tequila Bar" was a nice break! The Autodesk booth featured many customer stories and the use of Mudbox in their daily pipelines. Be sure to check out my blog post PIXAR: OpenSubdiv with Mudbox and Maya on the very cool OpenSubdiv project by the guys at Pixar using Mudbox and previewing the high-res ToadKing model in Maya Viewport 2.0 with deformation!

Pixar's Manuel Kraemer presenting the OpenSubdiv project:

A Mudbox discussion with Daniel Simon

While showing some Mudbox and Maya workflows at the BOXX booth on some insanely powerful hardware, I had the chance to meet Daniel Simon and discuss some of his design workflows. We had a very cool discussion about painting in Mudbox. I even had a sneak peak of some future stuff he has coming out soon. Mind blowing. I'm a huge fan of Daniel's work and it was very cool to have the chance to meet and talk with him.

Mudbox Hard Surfacing Demo

This year, I spent a little bit of time focusing on some Hard Surface workflows in Mudbox 2013. The topics covered include: building up initial forms and structure; refining with Flatten; plenty of simple back and forth polishing with Smooth and Flatten; and some tips and tricks that go along with achieving some tightened edges using: Orient to Surface, Pinch, Curves as sculpt guides; and Vector Displacement stamps as sculpt tools. The 30 minute stage demo wraps with some discussion of producing quick render previews directly out of Mudbox with images and turn-tables. At the side-stage of the Autodesk booth, in the Autodesk University & AREA Community Theatre, I went into a little more in-depth discussion of sculpting in Mudbox and the creation of custom Vector Displacement stamps for sculpting workflows using Maya and Mudbox. I'll be posting a few videos discussing some more in-depth look at Hard Surface workflows, custom VDM creation, and using Ptex with Transferring Paint Layers, in the coming days. I'll also provide a link to grab some simple stamps I created for nice hard-edging techniques in Mudbox. **UPDATE: you can find the VDM video/post and some VDM stamps here!**

Here's the Main Stage Hard Surfacing demo in Mudbox for Siggraph 2012:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvcS3_De9yg[/video]

FOLLOW ALL THINGS MUDBOX ON TWITTER! @The_Mudroom

3D Connexion and Mudbox

Craig Barr — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:16:57 UTC

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pseMooguq5w[/video]

Support for 3D Connexion devices for Mudbox is a question that has always popped up here and there at various events and, Autodesk Mudbox 2013 finally has it! This video is a quick overview of the Space Pilot Pro in-use with Mudbox. Using a 3D mouse with Mudbox allows you to position your model with one hand while sculpting and painting with the other hand. In this case, I'm using the Space Pilot Pro in conjunction with a Wacom Intuos tablet.

To access the preferences for 3D Connexion devices within Mudbox, click the small arrow icon underneath the Viewcube and select '3D Connexion Properties' (see screengrabs below).

For help related to the set-up with Mudbox, click here.

NOTE: be sure to install the latest drivers for your device before using with Mudbox.

For more information about 3D Connexion and their 3D mice, visit here: http://www.3dconnexion.com/

Be sure to follow all things Mudbox on Twitter @The_Mudroom

Tech Preview: Multi-Touch Mudbox with the new Wacom Cintiq 24HD Touch

Craig Barr — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:27:57 UTC

This video gives a “glimpse” into a preview of technology that Research and Development is playing around with here at Autodesk. First of all, I have to say that the new Wacom Cintiq 24HD (yes…up to 1920X1200!) with Multi-Touch is really, really, really nice. The screen allows the use of 10 digits, opening up a whole world of possibilities for touch-compatible software. The screen also offers 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity for the pen tip (and eraser) and is also capable of detecting pen tilt. In this video you see the interaction between my left hand on-screen, using gestures to manipulate the model, and my right hand using the pen for sculpting and painting. The gestures within the tech-preview build of the multi-touch capable Mudbox, are very fluid, quick and easy to use. I find the use of the display while creating in Mudbox feels very natural. It’s quite nice to tumble, zoom, etc. around with one hand and sculpt and paint with the other. For more information about the Wacom Cintiq 24HD Touch……click here .

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKh4JGHwASc&feature=youtu.be&a[/video]

Autodesk Masters Nominees

Craig Barr — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:00:00 UTC

It's that time of year again!

If you know of a Autodesk® Maya®, Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Softimage® or Autodesk® Mudbox™ artist whose work and contribution to 3D computer graphics deserves recognition, nominate them for an Autodesk Master Award.

This is the second year for the Autodesk Junior Master Award, recognizing up and coming talent from the worldwide Autodesk Student Community.

IMPORTANT DATES:

NOMINATION DEADLINE: June 1st, 2012
VOTING BEGINS: July 30th, 2012
VOTING CLOSES: September 28th, 2012
AWARDS ANNOUNCED: 3December Event, 2012

Criteria and Nomination Form is HERE

Check out the 2011 Mudbox Master: Neil Blevins!

http://area.autodesk.com/3dec/masters/neil

Mudbox Challenge - Armed and Dangerous!

Craig Barr — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:00:00 UTC

We've teamed up with CGSociety to build a pretty cool Mudbox Challenge: ARMED AND DANGEROUS!

Click on the image below to go to the Contest Site and get started!

This is a Mudbox challenge, so you must use Mudbox to sculpt and detail your character's mesh, and use Mudbox's painting features to texture your character. You may use any software you like to create the base mesh, and any 2D software (ex: Adobe Photoshop) for finishing touches and backgrounds. Please disclose in your work-in-progress uploads what software you are using for each step!

If you don't have Mudbox, you can download a special FREE trial that will not expire until the end of the event! To activate the special FREE trial, use the serial numbers here. Never used Mudbox before? What better opportunity than an international competition with superstar judges and thousands of eyes on your work to master this masterpiece technology.

DELIVERABLES:
Final beauty render - fully posed and painted character
Model sheet - showing front, back, side and 3/4 view of your final modeled and painted character
At least 1 WIP of character being sculpted in Mudbox
At least 1 WIP of character being painted in Mudbox

And if you want to work on your Mudbox skills before you submit your entry, CGWorkshops offers you the perfect opportunity. Sony Santa Monica's Young Choi has developed a 3-week online mentored Mudbox workshop: "Sculpting and Texturing in Mudbox" as a companion to the Challenge. It starts on Feb 20th, and enrollments are open now. Click here for details. Please remember that although Young will give you some amazing help and advice on how best to work with Mudbox, he cannot help or advise you specifically on your competition entry.

Follow the Mudroom on Twitter! @The_Mudroom

Mudbox: Uncharted 3

Craig Barr — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 19:00:00 UTC

Uncharted 3 and Mudbox:

The Area has posted a great interview on the work of the folks over at Naughty Dog on Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

In the article, they discuss the power of Mudbox in their pipeline.

Head on over and check out their process involving Mudbox for:

High-resolution skin textures
Seamless hairlines and alpha cards for hair
Skin pigmentation painting process
Blending Modes in Mudbox
Map Extraction to Game Engine
Bump painting to normal map conversion
Fast turn-around time with Mudbox
Real-Time Feedback

Also, be sure to check out Christophe Desse's Master Class: "Texturing of the Uncharted 3 Cipher Disk"

http://area.autodesk.com/masterclasses/masterclass/class4_q4_2011

Follow @The_Mudroom on Twitter!

CAST YOUR VOTE!

Craig Barr — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:00:00 UTC

Cast your vote for this year's Autodesk Masters!

Maya, Max, Mudbox and Softimage

Profile of an Autodesk Master

Autodesk recognizes exceptional people through its Masters program. They are from all walks of life—digital artists, designers, visual storytellers, and scientists. They produce work that reshapes and redefines the boundaries of technology, art, digital entertainment and visualization using Autodesk 3D software. Their spirit and imagination drives them to find new ways of doing things and to see the world through a different lens. They are inspired and inspiring.

This year's Mudbox Masters nominees:

Kenichi Nishida

A 10-year veteran of the CG industry, Kenichi began his path at the Takushoku University as a student of Industrial and Graphic Design. He started work as a Graphic Designer for a videogame magazine company and from there, he was sucked into the world of 3D. From working as a 3D artist at ARUZE to Lead Character/Creature Modeler at SEGA, Kenichi has steadily grown to adapt and fine-tune his modeling and sculpting skills. The latest game title he"s worked on was Sonic Night of the Werehog, where he led and oversaw character production for it. Kenichi currently works as a Senior Modeler at Marza.

More information about Kenichi:
http://www.kenichinishida.com

Kolby Jukes

A 3D artist specializing in character and creature creation; With 7 years’ experience in the games industry, he is presently working as a Character Artist at 343 Industries on the Halo franchise. Kolby"s previous clients have included Raven Software, Vigil Games, Id Software, Double-Helix Games, EA, Red Fly Studios, Dark Horse Comics, Blur Studios, Digital Extremes, Next Level Games, Gearbox Software, Secret Level, Surreal Software, The Gnomon Workshop, Midway, Trion World Networks, Shadows In Darkness, Axis Animation, Yuke"s Future Media Creations, DC Direct, Frantic Films, Zoic Studios, Gentle Giant Studios, Day 1 Studios, Lionsgate Films, Warnerbros and most recently Bioware, working on Mass Effect 2 & 3.

More information about Kolby:
http://www.kolbyjukes.com

Neil Blevins

Neil Blevins started off painting and drawing traditionally, and then got into 3d graphics while still living in his home country of Canada. After getting a BFA in Design Art, he moved to Los Angeles where he worked for Blur Studio. He now lives in San Francisco working as a Technical Director for Pixar. In his spare time, he makes sci-fi 3d/2d hybrid artwork, author tools and writes art related lessons and tutorials for his website.

More information about Neil:
http://www.neilblevins.com

New this year: Junior Master Category....

Profile of an Autodesk Junior Master

Autodesk recognizes exceptional students through its Junior Master’s program. The nominees are students who are being celebrated for pushing the technical and aesthetic boundaries of computer graphics using Autodesk 3D software. Their passion for the industry, along with their enthusiasm and imagination shows through in projects they have completed.

Cast Your Vote Now!

All the latest news and info related to Mudbox on Twitter! Follow @The_Mudroom

Tips and Tricks: Generating Cavity Maps in Mudbox

Craig Barr — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:00:00 UTC

I wrote a short Q&A article for 3D World a few months ago describing the benefits in any sculpting workflow (especially for creatures) for using Cavity Maps. Andy Price, the Online Editor for 3D World, reposted it recently, so I thought I should spread the word here.
Cavity Maps can define the finite detail of your sculpt and really add that finite nitty gritty that can really make the difference between a nice sculpt and a fantastically detailed sculpt. The power of generating several iterations of Cavity Maps and then blending them and altering them is something that Mudbox excels at. Don't be afraid to generate very dark and finite maps and then use the blending and opacity in the paint layers to tone them down (you can also send them to Photoshop and use anything and everything available there!). Producing cavity maps in various colours is always useful for producing different skin effects and tones.

The full article can be read on the 3D World site here.

Below is an accompanying video that provides a workflow to work with Cavity Maps.

The Mudroom is on Twitter! Follow me @The_Mudroom here!

Mudbox 2012 SAP is now available

Craig Barr — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:00:00 UTC

First, some background. When we rolled out the first big Autodesk release of Mudbox as Autodesk Mudbox 2009, we were actually releasing a product that had undergone some major upgrades "under the hood". That is, a powerful new engine that would drive the software, but also allow us to increase the performance and capabilities of the workflow and tools within Mudbox. With the release of the Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk Mudbox 2012, we are seeing the unleashing of a powerful new core that allows for the handling of massive amounts of detail. As a result of this powerful underlying architecture, texture painting has reached a new level of detail.

Features Video: Mudbox 2012 SAP

Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk Mudbox 2012

The Autodesk® Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk® Mudbox® 2012 software delivers powerful new tools that help solidify its position as an industry-leading 3D paint and sculpting solution.

Features:

Gigatexel Engine—Create massive amounts of detail—in the range of billions of texels—to help produce highly detailed assets.

Edge hardness, creasing & smoothing support—Import and work with models created in Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya® or Autodesk® Softimage® software that contain edges with hardness, creasing, and smoothing data.

Combine Bump and Normal maps—Combine painted bump map detail with extracted normal map detail to produce a single normal map—even in tangent space.

Enhanced tiling—More easily paint and sculpt tiled detail to create seamlessly repeating textures and maps.

Duplicate and Flip—More easily duplicate objects, and optionally flip them to create mirrored versions.

More information regarding the Autodesk Mudbox 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack here

Download Your Subscription Advantage Pack
This Subscription Advantage Pack is available exclusively for Autodesk Subscription customers through download at the Autodesk Subscription Center.

Subscription Benefits and How to Buy

MUDBOX TUTORIAL GOLD MINE!

Craig Barr — Thu, 26 May 2011 20:00:00 UTC

If there was every such a thing as a Muddy Jackpot, Wayne Robson has just delivered it to the CG World!

Wayne Robson has generously uploaded a wealth of Mudbox Tutorial videos. Below are the links in a list. There are many, many hours of video here. Please read the excerpt from his post below and note the point about sharing and spreading the word! His original blog entry can be found here: http://waynerobsondash.blogspot.com/2011/05/hours-and-hours-of-free-videos.html Thanks Wayne!

From Wayne:

"Please remember many of these videos do not reflect my current skills and put out simply as it’s either a case of delete them or put them out for free. Plus as I have now officially killed of the mudboxhub on demand stream service (zero chance it will restart in the foreseeable future) anything not paced up into DVD’s goes into this free video release.
This is not just stuff for Mudbox, this applies to all digital sculptors, and yes even Zbrush users can get usage out of these videos. So if you like them, remember the best stuff is on the DVD’s you pay for. So don’t pirate them or it's a bit like giving me a very big slap in the face.

Enjoy and pass the word around as I don’t have the time to do it myself this time around as life is 'complex' right now. I will include them in a simple list form (there are hour upon hours of stuff in the list) that I'll let you all discover for yourself).

To make sure everyone that needs these videos gets them, I expect every man and woman to do their duty and ensure word gets arounnd. That is my only price, that one simple favour."

Reducto videos meant for release but never seen when copy protection was simply too expensive for me to release it.

http://vimeo.com/14163306

http://vimeo.com/14163738

http://vimeo.com/14368195

Displacement theory (or what you didn't know you needed to ask)

http://vimeo.com/9838180

The old original wave 2 (the version I never released a full 2 years before the final Wave 2 featuring ‘the dentist’ surfaced)

http://vimeo.com/8955025

http://vimeo.com/9838180

http://vimeo.com/8959276

Wayne' solid gold Tip

http://vimeo.com/12761755

Hard surface Retop and UV's

http://vimeo.com/13420853

http://vimeo.com/13433893

Texture Color Space for Compositing

http://vimeo.com/14357932

Vector Displacement tips

http://vimeo.com/13998280

Wayne's Tips #1

http://vimeo.com/13854216

ReTopology Theory

http://vimeo.com/13852429

Brush practice routine

http://vimeo.com/15528354

Siggraph 2010 outtake video: idiots guide to trepanning

http://vimeo.com/13679775

Extras:

http://vimeo.com/10799240

and this one may be useful although been out before not many saw it:

http://vimeo.com/18447651 (part 2 is up somewhere on vimeo by Skvode uni BTW)

Personal reference videos from the Victoria and Albert museum London V & A

http://vimeo.com/13159921

http://vimeo.com/13159171

http://vimeo.com/13157933

http://vimeo.com/13156277

http://vimeo.com/13155732

http://vimeo.com/13155079

http://vimeo.com/13152702

http://vimeo.com/13150490

http://vimeo.com/13149907

http://vimeo.com/13149429

http://vimeo.com/13148759

Mudbox 2012 Service Pack 1 Released

Craig Barr — Wed, 11 May 2011 20:00:00 UTC

Service Pack 1

Mudbox 2012 Service Pack 1 addresses stability issues, performance issues with the Freeze brush, interaction issues with Wacom® tablets, and other fixes across several areas including the Grab tool and file import/export operations.

Be sure to delete your Mudbox Settings before install (find them in your ......\Documents\Mudbox12-x64\settings directory for WIN 64)

Grab it here:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=17019428&linkID=11937426

Release Notes (with bug fix list):

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/mudbox_2012_sp1_release_notes.pdf

Top 4 Reasons to Catch Up with Mudbox!

Craig Barr — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 20:00:00 UTC

Top 4 Reasons to catch up with Mudbox:

1) Mudbox 2012 updates

2) Filter Foundry and the Mudbox Pad

3) Win an iPad2 - Another Mudbox Contest!

4) Mudbox Studio Session with Wayne Robson

What’s this?!?! 3 blog posts in a week?!

Yes. It’s true. I’m feeling very guilty about neglecting the blogosphere and I plan on fixing that over the coming weeks. So, consider this a brief “what is going on in the fine world of Mudbox” post. Things have been a little crazy over the last few months but in a good way.

Mudbox 2012 is just around the corner.

I delivered several demo sessions of Mudbox 2012 at GDC in San Francisco and the buzz around all of the 2012 releases was pretty intense! I think the interop between Maya, Max, Softimage and Mudbox brings the biggest element of excitement around the Suites rollout. (As many of you know, the one-click “Send to” feature within Mudbox, now supports Maya, Max and Softimage). Check out the latest news on the Entertainment Creation Suites here.

If you missed the GDC demos, they are available for your viewing pleasure on The Area. The Mudbox 2012 New Features stage demo is available here. Also, be sure to check out the Mudbox Workflow with Maya in the Maya Suites Demo and Chris Murray shows the one-click workflow between Max and Mudbox in the Max Suites Demo.

If you haven’t yet, please take a look at the Mudbox 2012 New Features Video:

Some big news in there. Ptex is generating a lot of excitement amongst the big shops as well as individual users that are just plain sick of dealing with UVs. Ptex offers a nice clean painting workflow where all of the paint data (including all paint layers, masks, etc.) can easily be transferred to a UV’d model if need be.

Stay tuned to this blog over the next few weeks as I will be releasing weekly “featurette videos” examining the new features in Mudbox 2012.

Filter Foundry and The Mudbox Pad

Filter Foundry is the first social network platform built for visual creative professionals. Check out the Mudbox Pad (a gallery and portfolio area where you upload your work and view the work of others).

Click the image or http://www.filterfoundry.com/mudbox

Win an iPad2 with Autodesk Mudbox contest!

Be sure to check out the rules and regs for the contest details! Hurry up and enter – you only have until March 31st to enter!

Contest entries are accepted between Jan, 1st, 2011, 2010, at 12pm PST, and March 31st, 2011 at 11:50pm PST.
http://filterfoundry.com/autodesk

Studio Sessions With Wayne Robson:

Wayne is offering some free training on Filter Foundry. Just create an account and join in! (he also has some cool stamps to grab up there too).

Click the image or www.filterfoundry.com/the-studio/sessions/242/

Once again - be sure to stay tuned for Mudbox 2012 Featurette posts right here in the Mudroom! Don't forget you can follow any posts here with the RSS feed:

http://the-area.com/rss/blogs/craig

3D World: Sculpt and Paint with Mudbox

Craig Barr — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:00:00 UTC

3D World Magazine Issue 141 (April issue with Rango on the cover) features Create a tree troll in Mudbox. The focus is primarily a sculpting and painting workflow within Mudbox, but other areas covered include the use of vector displacement for sculpting, some posing, and rendering passes within Mudbox. There are 21 videos that accompany the article in the issue available for viewing on the 3DWorld Channel on Youtube. Also available are 4 bonus videos on the same channel.

This is my first article with 3D World....hope you enjoy it!

The current issue is available now across the globe!