Squirrel Skins for All!

Well, for one squirrel at least....


I got Mr. Squirrely's texture done and started needlessly playing with some mental ray subsurface scattering and ambient occlusion. I gave fur an attempt but it just takes too long and I don't wanna mess with it. So there.

Little more progress on the little Squirrel that could...

Pretty much all that's left is giving him a tongue and figuring how I'm gonna do a bushy tail. I'd prefer not to go the fur route...we'll see....

Chip off the old block...of polys...

Started blocking out Squirrely a couple of days ago and put some more time into him tonight in ole' Silo. That's not his real name, but it works for now. My modeling skills needed some exercise anyway while I wait on some crits from Bokser for my latest blocking on a shot.

I'm sleepy and it's midnight. That is all.

Something neat from an old teacher...

Larry Lauria was my first traditional animation teacher at SCAD and grounded me in the basics. He's just releasing a new set of classes partnering with Digicel Flipbook (which still finds a place on my desktop). It looks like the basis of the Introduction to Animation I had with him back in the day and it was a great class then. Check it out if it floats your boat (not too pricey either).

Squirrels...

....I like them. :)

Flash drawing with substance...

Dan Paladin (what a sweet name, eh?) is an amazing illustrator and animator for that matter and I can't wait for Castle Crasher's to release. In the meantime here's some great workflow vid from him. Comic-Con 2008 Flag Design from The Behemoth on Vimeo.

Scripts, Podcasts and MacGuffins!

Been working some on Bokser's film and enjoying that. I can't wait to get past blocking and into animating after the assets are finaled. In the meantime, I think it's time to get some back to the basics exercises going.

• Updated jbExportQss - Got some insight from a poster on Cgtalk and adds some new abilities and squashed some bugs. Still available here. After this one, I think I'm done mel scripting for a while...my brain hurts.
• Andrew Stanton Podcast - A nice long interview with the director of Wall-E and Finding Nemo.
• Big MacGuffins - I had never heard this term but this was a great introduction to it and an insightful pose. My meager education in storytelling continues.
• Another Episode of Simon's Cat - I love these.
• Some amazing concepts - Check out the work of Harald Siepermann.

jbExportQSS

Quick selection sets are something I use a lot. And I got tired of setting the same ones up repeatedly for work and home projects. There's lots of scripts out there to make working with selection sets easier but I couldn't find one that exported them to use in other scenes, so I rolled up my sleeves...

Download here

TITLE: jbExportQSS
VERSION: 1.5
AUTHOR:Josh Burton
www.joshburton.com

DESCRIPTION:
Script to aid in the redundancy of setting up quick selection sets all the time
for the same assets but in different files. Exports a mel script that will set up
the identical quick selection set in another scene.

Exporting:
1) Select a quick selection sets in the outliner to be exported
2) Run script - it will export a mel file to recreate the sets

Importing:
1) Run the mel in your new file you want to set up the quick selection sets in
2) It will ask you want to add a prefix. If you're using a referenced asset
put in the prefix. If not, leave it blank:)

Features:
1) Checks for referencing data and removes it in the exported selection set
2) Can do multiple selection sets at once
3) Will account for prefixes on import if desired
4) Reports if set members aren't found in imported sets

Thanks:
To David Bokser for answering my many questions and Scott Englert for my picking apart some of his scripts

History
v1.5 - July 14, 2008 - Added the ability to export multiple sets at once into a single mel file, making importing easier. Also,
little quick selection window doesnt' pop up any more due to a flag on the "sets" command I hadn't known about. Several bug fixes
as well
v1.0 - July 3, 2008 - Initial realease