As mentioned above, I used to own old-school Graphire tablets. They were only the smalls sizes, and I only ever used them for creating texture maps. I never thought of using them in Max because I just couldn’t see how navigating 3d space could comfortably work. I’ve had my Graphire4 sitting around since college, collecting dust, and had never even considered trying it for skinning.

After mapping my main pen button to middle-click and secondary button to right-click navigating 3d is a breeze. I’m still not totally comfortable with it yet, but am quickly adapting. I’ve started building more small macros for skinning so I can quickly access tools through quads with my pen rather than having to visit the modify panel for things that I often would with my mouse.

The pen is a completely different workflow from the mouse. Its a lot more free-flowing and really speeds things up. I’m finding lots of slow spots with my workflow that I never noticed before when using a mouse.

Anyways, happy with my purchase and would recommend others to try out their tablets too. It will feel weird at first, but give it a day or two before giving up on it. Make sure you install your latest tablet drivers, enable pressure sensitivity, and set it to affect strength when skinning. The pressure sensitivity settings can be found in your painter options in Max.

On a related note: the multi-touch input is a cool gimmick, but sucks terribly with Max. Don’t expect much from it.

The macroscript categories for my tools, if you are looking to add them to a quad menu or toolbar, will always start with facerFX.

You’ll notice in my website’s navigation bar that when you go to Portfolio/Tools, there is a “Bug Report” page. I test my scripts best I can before releasing them for public use, but of course there is still possibility for errors. If you run into any bugs with any of my scripts, please use the bug-report page to let me know of the error you are receiving. Try to be as descriptive as you can be when explaining the error and how to re-create it. If I can’t re-create it, I can’t fix it.

Please note: Most of the scripts I release have been used in production situations, but these tools are use at your own risk. I cannot be held responsible for any undesired results.

About 2 weeks after returning to Ontario, I resumed work with PEN Productions as Senior Technical Director and Production Supervisor. It has been great working with Paul Neale again. We have been very busy since getting back, working with familiar clients as well as a few new ones.

For anybody out there reading this who may be interested, PEN Productions specializes in offering technical direction to studios across the globe, remotely. We have worked with clients from all over on animated series, commercials, AAA game titles, feature films, even engineering related projects. We offer fast turn around times as well as competitive rates. The quality of work we provide is highly respected throughout the industry and we are intent on building continuing working relationships with studios, so long-term support for projects is expected and delivered.

Although we specialize in technical direction, we offer a wide range of services in many different areas of production including, but not limited to:

• rigging
• modelling
• texturing
• pipeline development
• custom tool development
• training
• animation and motion capture
• effects

If you have a project you feel PEN may be able to help you with, please feel free to contact us about receiving a quote.

Visit PENProductions.ca to find out more.

Some photographs were leaked in recent months from an private conference discussing these future plans.  Autodesk came out and confirmed the leaked photos as well as provided the information that could be seen in the blurred photos in text format so things were more clear.  Then, they held this webinar yesterday to inform people even further of the plans.

I am like that they decided to do this instead of just trying to cover things up.  It is exciting to know where the future is heading with the software I use day in and day out.

There were many exciting things discussed yesterday, but instead of re-iterating everything, I am just going to provide you with links to some new entries from the blogs of the 3DS Max guys over at The Area.  You can even watch a recorded version of one of the webinars.

Excalibur (XBR) Revealed

3ds Max “X” day is born

The semester is now over and I’ve just received my marks.  Overall I am happy with the outcome of the course.  I feel like I have a good base that I can build on.  My reason for taking the course is to gradually learn Max’s SDK.  I have been told that the SDK is a beast in itself, so I’m taking things one step at a time.  I am going to try to get a slight grasp of the SDK next, and then if I feel like it I might go back for the Intermediate C++ course.  That won’t be for a little while though.

For all you nosy ones out there :P, my final mark was 86%.  I didn’t have a chance to study for the final and did kind of lousy on the exam.  We were very busy the few weeks before the Christmas break, working on a few commercial projects, so my priorities were there.

I just started going through the SDK reference’s “Getting Started” section early last week, and will continue to push through gradually.  I have a few plugins in mind already, and will be working towards them.  I will post any progress.

Finding the right laptop for me was pretty tough.  I did a lot of shopping, and the options in Canada are very lacking compared to the US.  The main thing I was looking to upgrade from my old laptop was the graphics card.  The last machine had an integrated graphics chip and although the computer wasn’t great in the first place, the graphics were by far the weakest link.

Unfortunately, graphics cards seem to be the most difficult thing to find for laptops in Canada!  You’re either looking at bottom of the barrel or top of the line, and almost nothing in between.  My desktop computer is my main workstation, and my laptop is more for personal use, when I’m on the road, and the odd time I am working on location or providing training.  For these reasons, I was looking for a graphics card that was more middle ground.

After much searching, I found the Vostro 1720.  I was initially looking at only 15″ screens, but doing a search on Dell’s website for laptops based on graphics card revealed all the super high end machines, and the 1720.  Turns out the 15″ versions of the Vostro, which I was checking earlier, have a lesser card in them.  The 1720 still isn’t an amazing card (it is a Nvidia GeForce 9600M GS), but it is still a performance card and is way better than any of the other options I was looking at.  It wouldn’t break the bank either!  Searching CGTalk for user reviews also revealed several very happy customers, and no negative reviews.  So, this is what I ended up going with.

I am still setting everything up, but so far so good.  I have Windows 7 on the new machine, and it is pretty cool.  Quite a difference from XP, and surprisingly quite a bit different from Vista as well.  Still learning the ins and outs, but it seems to run quite smooth, and I’m quite pleased with it so far.  I’m sure I will find annoyances with it before too long, but first impressions are good.

Thats all!  Was just excited about my new toy and thought I would share.

As you can see, my new site design follows a blog format.  It is using WordPress, and although I am still new to it I like it a lot.  Everything is handled through a WYSIWYG editor and the visual style is taken care of by a theme (I purchased from Elegant Themes.  Really pleased with their products and service so far!)  I am confident that this will all make it easier for me to update and hopefully, in turn, will lead to me updating more often.  Time will tell.

I am currently reconsidering the structure and design of how I build my tools, so the tools have not yet been transferred.  I decided previously to go the route of separating function libraries from tool script files, so I was more building a foundation I could use to more easily build tools.  It worked well enough, but it made it difficult to release the tools.  Since all of my tools were sharing the same function libraries, it made it too difficult to release only what I wanted.  So, as soon as I have my new game plan in place for tools, I will start posting them.

Please have a look around the new site and feel free to leave comments, since you can now!

Working along side such talented technical people as Jason Labbe, Chris Harvey, Laszlo Sebo, and Eric D. Legare, has been very inspiring. I think the final product of what we’re working on is going to look great!