I didn’t say that all tutorials are useless. Any tutorial is good start for beginners, and better than nothing. But all tutorials sound like “here is a way how to do it, and this pipeline worked for me for 5 years very well…”, and pass over in silence “… but now I found new and better solutions that makes this old pipeline free to be shared.”
IN TOTAL AGREEMENT :), This is partly the reason I really need to ask people ‘why’ they want to build things a certain way, and partly the reason i tend not to post process – it becomes the go-to-guide, with the internal reasoning getting void. Essentially, rigging needs to teach theory as well as practice.
BTW, I was referring to CAT – its got its problems, but you can work with them.
the good rigging knowledge and skill is usually an equivalent of animation experience. pure programmers can do only poor rig engines. IMHO
yep… here lies a pretty shitty one
(but getting better)
Many Many times over the years I have shared how I’m currently working and what I currently do. Maybe I was just taught to share as a kid.
Funny that people think that when they see one of my scripts I’m supposed to instantly share it with them. Tools I have written to make me competitive in the market are for me and me alone. Why on earth would I share them and who ever said any one else was entitled to them? There are few people that have shared as much as I have over the last 20 years, I think I have done my part.
As for my master classes, I share up to date and relevant material that can be used in any production. I’m sure that isn’t good enough for Denis but it is rather hard for one power user to teach another power user much and I don’t try to.
If you want to learn how to rig and why to rig then there is a whole lot of good information out there. Some free, some not. What you need to come away with any of it is ideas of what is possible, not exactly how to do something. Take those ideas and build on them your self, try different combinations and methods. Part of the way that I rig characters is based on the fact that over the years I have made many mistakes, studied why they didn’t work and then found a solution that did. I have so many ways of doing the same thing now that I forget half of them. Tutorials are an excellent way to get ideas about how YOU should do it, not how it has to be done.
I hate that feeling, when you make a Rig, it gets animated the final product looks awesome but yet you know that you made some mistakes that which if they had been avoided your animators could have had a easier time. That is part of the learning process, make sure you remember those mistakes and avoid them the next time you rig a character.
When I rig I really wish we only had worldspace values and no hierarchies… and xyz rotation controller behaving like TCB… and more speed in max, but alas…
-Johan
Thanks for all the advice. Sounds like some animation short courses, or private tutoring/mentoring is in order. Wish there was more available here in Melbourne.