Tag: Plug-Ins
Maya Move Brush
For some reason, the Maya artisan tool does not have a move brush so I wrote my own. ...
Read more →Free cvShapeInverter Tool
I put up a free shape inversion tool available here. cvShapeInverter is a script and deformer that can invert a shape through a deformation chain so the shape can be applied as a front of chain shape. This has the same functionality as Christian Breitling’s correctiveShape plug-in. He stopped providing it after Maya 2008 so I’m providing a Python version that doesn’t need to be compiled. ...
Read more →Updated Sticky Lips Deformer
This is an update of my sticky lips deformer. In an attempt to make the deformer more automated, I’ve implemented a mode where the vertices stick on contact and then fade off with time. The original mode is based solely on distance and so would stick together even if the mouth was on its way to being closed. The frame stuttering is from the Camtasia settings. The deformer runs in real-time. ...
Read more →UV Blendshape Deformer
A deformer that blends one mesh to another based off of UVs. Mesh topology can differ and you can optionally maintain the initial offset between the two meshes. Uses include transferring existing work onto another mesh. The demo shows transferring shape work from one face to another. The faces have different vertex counts and topologies but share the same UV layout. ...
Read more →Vertex Snap Deformer
A deformer that can drive subsets of a mesh with other meshes. Uses include driving a body with a blendshaped head or driving larger meshes with a heavily rigged subset of the mesh. This can increase performance as the heavy rigging isn’t affecting the larger mesh. ...
Read more →Motion Blur Deformer
A deformer that simulates motion blur geometrically. The amount and falloff of the “blur” can be adjusted with keyable attributes. ...
Read more →Sticky Lips Deformer
This shows a deformer that attracts vertices to a nurbs curve using a distance-based falloff. It can be used to create sticking effects like sticky lips. Various attributes can be adjusted and animated such as falloff, distance threshold, magnitude, etc. ...
Read more →Spherical Radial Basis Function Driven Corrective Shapes
This shows an implementation of a Spherical Radial Basis Function node. SRBF is commonly used in lighting calculations like this http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~ttwong/papers/srbf/srbf.html. I am using SRBF here to track joint position and orientation. This gives me a weight value per target that I can then use to drive corrective shapes. Each target point has its own falloff and twist attributes to adjust the triggering sensitivity. The rig is my free quadruped rig, Nico, which you can download here:https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/nico. The download does not include the SRBF node since it requires a plug-in. ...
Read more →Maya Technology Demos
More technology demos! First is a dynamic transform node. The node is applied to various joints and IK handles. The node can also drive arbitrary attributes so they behave dynamically as well. Next is a custom jiggle deformer. The reasons why I created my own jiggle deformer as opposed to using Maya’s jiggle deformer is because of speed and ease of use. Mine runs a lot faster and is easier to use. ...
Read more →GPU Blendshape Performance Comparison
This is a performance comparison between Maya’s blendshape deformer and my GPU-based blendshape deformer with 1000 targets on a 30,000 vertex mesh. The test is using an Nvidia Geforce 230M video card. ...
Read more →Skin Sliding Deformer
This video shows a skin sliding deformer I wrote for Maya. It’s paintable, multi-threaded, and fast! ...
Read more →GPU Blend Shapes
I wrote this last week. It’s a Maya blend shape deformer that runs on the GPU. The sample shown is a 30,000 vertex mesh with 1000 targets. It runs 32x faster than Maya’s blendShape node on a Geforce 230M notebook GPU. A 40,000 vertex mesh with 1500 targets ran 40x faster. ...
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