TinTin 2011

I spent 6 months working on TinTin down at Weta in Wellington earlier this year. This was a fantastic opportunity and I met a lot of good people, not to mention highly talented. Thanks again Weta hope to see you again for The Hobbit 1 and 2.

Posted in HOME

Gerald McBoing-Boing

I love this stuff particularly the retro backdrops. I used to draw my people with rubbery limbs just like this until an art teacher of mine tried to get me to draw elbows and knees, maybe I should go back to them Smilie: ;)



Posted in ILLUSTRATION

Ed Benedict (1912-2006)

This has been my first stop in my journey to create retro comic art. Ed Benedict is amazing, he was the guy who created Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound to name a few. Check out the picture below of these baseball players, notice how he places the nose on the face and joins the head to the body, often without a neck or chin, even the shape of the heads vary immensely. This guy was special, I hope to learn a lot from him.

Posted in ILLUSTRATION

nCloth and Maya Fluids

Some of the stuff I have being doing in Maya, would have been perfect for TinTin Smilie: :)

Posted in HOME

New look

Hope you all like the new look and sorry for any confusion while I was updating the site.

You will notice a change to the titles in the navigation bar. Firstly you will see one for Illustration. I plan to update this category with retro cartoon work I plan to learn. Im not too shabby with a pencil already but need a lot of work in this area. Eventually I want to print my art on clothing and design a video game.

Secondly you can see Mel Coding category. This is the archive for all the coding from the old site. Hopefully you can still find some use for it. This section will eventually change but thats a way down the track at this stage.

And then my Vimeo Channel, you can follow the link and see my latest dev work in Maya and SOuP for Maya.

Bye for now.

Posted in HOME

MeshCopy script

Some python code that creates a copy of a mesh shape based on frame and time range. Perfect for creating an animation set for particle instancing.


import maya.cmds as mc
from functools import partial

class MeshCopyWindow:

def __init__(self):
self.name = ‘w_meshCopy_JR’
self.title = ‘Mesh Copy!’

#———————————————————————-
# UI Wrapper
#———————————————————————-

def create_meshCopyUI_JR ( self, arg=None ):

nFrame = mc.intFieldGrp ( “ifg_evryFrame_meshCopy_JR”, q=True, v=1 )
nMinMax = mc.intFieldGrp ( “ifg_minmaxVal_meshCopy_JR”, q=True, v=1 )
self.create_meshCopy_JR ( nFrame, nMinMax )

#———————————————————————-
# Build Asset
#———————————————————————-

def create_meshCopy_JR ( self, nFrame, nMinMax ):

mesh = mc.ls ( selection=True, dag=True, shapes=True )
start = mc.playbackOptions ( query=True, min=True )
end = mc.playbackOptions ( query=True, max=True )

for i in range ( nMinMax[0], nMinMax[1]+1, nFrame[0] ) :

mc.currentTime ( int(i) )
mc.select ( mesh[0], replace=True )
mc.duplicate()
mc.pickWalk ( direction=”up” )
mc.move ( i*20, 0, 0 )

def doit(self):

# check for existing window
if ( mc.window(self.name, q=1, exists=1) ) : mc.deleteUI ( self.name )
mc.window ( self.name, title=self.title, s=1 )

# UI components

mc.rowColumnLayout ( nc=1, cw=[(1, 420)] )
mc.text ( l=”" )
mc.intFieldGrp ( “ifg_evryFrame_meshCopy_JR”, numberOfFields=1, l=”Every Frame”, cw3=[20, 80, 100], value1=1)
mc.intFieldGrp ( “ifg_minmaxVal_meshCopy_JR”, numberOfFields=2, l=”Timeline min/max”, cw3=[140, 80, 100], value1=1, value2=24 )
mc.text ( l=”" )
mc.button ( l=”Do it!”, c=partial(self.create_meshCopyUI_JR) )
mc.setParent ( ‘..’ )

# set window width/height
mc.showWindow(self.name)
mc.window(self.name, e=1, wh=[420, 120])

meshCopy = MeshCopyWindow()
meshCopy.doit()

Posted in CODING

Weight map baking using SOuP

Take a look at a vid on how to bake weight maps in Maya using SOuP. These maps can be re-imported back into Maya and used as emission maps for fluid and particles, great for collision FX.

Posted in HOME