Author Archives: lesterbanks

parenting possibilities in after effects

By lesterbanks | Published: September 1, 2010
In this After Effects Creative Cow Tutorial author Mathew Fuller covers cascading parenting for layout and animation in After Effects, as well as parenting of 3D layers, some basic stuff here however Mathew does throw out a lot of tips you may or may not know along the way!
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setting up an hdri using vray for maya

By lesterbanks | Published: September 1, 2010
Edgar Mihailov in a Quick-tip tutorial shows artists new to Maya, and/or it’s relatively new Vray plugin, how to utilise High Dynamic Range Images (HDRIs) to illuminate your scenes, providing realistic reflections in the process. HDRI is now a standard across almost all rendering software and it’s an extremely useful thing to learn how to [...]
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graffiti analysis 3 available for download

By lesterbanks | Published: August 31, 2010
Graffiti Analysis is an extensive ongoing study in the motion of graffiti. Custom software designed for graffiti writers creates visualizations of the often unseen gestures involved in the creation of a tag. Motion data is recorded, analyzed and archived as Graffiti Markup Language (.gml) files, a specifically formatted XML file designed to be a common [...]
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xfrog for maya updates to version 5

By lesterbanks | Published: August 31, 2010
xFrog, the plant generation and animation software has recently released xFrog 5 for Autodesk Maya 2011. Xfrog adds six new procedural Objects to Maya and by combining these with Maya components/objects you can create a wide variety of organic models and animations using organic procedures (based on some of the building blocks of Nature). The [...]
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a look at new light types in houdini 11

By lesterbanks | Published: August 31, 2010
Peter Quint takes a look at the new light types in Houdini 11 with this first part Peter looks at area lights, edge falloff, using environment and texture maps, as well as the new features of the Environment light. With the second part Peter looks at the Sky Light, the new photon workflows under the [...]
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enable autosave in maya 2011

By lesterbanks | Published: August 31, 2010
Alex Villabon of GreenSoda with a quit tip for Maya 2011, using the autosave feature. Enable the AutoSave option in Maya 2011. This has saved me a couple times, definitely worth taking the 10 seconds it takes to setup. Visit GreenSODA.tv for more tutorials and tips! Enable AutoSave – Maya 2011 from Alex Villabon on [...]
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matte renders using mr passes, mattePassMaker

By lesterbanks | Published: August 30, 2010
David Johnson at djx blog has created mattePassMaker, a script for Maya to create black and white matte renders using mentalray’s pass system… which means that many matte passes will take the same time as running one matte! Check out the djx page for a lot more info! “You can use this script to create [...]
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what happens when you delete history in maya?

By lesterbanks | Published: August 30, 2010
There are times when basic foundations fall by the wayside, and it is in this premise that the great David Schoneveld has created a great video on better understanding what Autodesk Maya is doing when you delete history, and what happens to the nodes behind the scenes… like open up the ascii file behind the [...]
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cgfx shader writing for maya part 3

By lesterbanks | Published: August 30, 2010
CGBootcamp’s Leo Covarrubias with part 3 of the series on Maya CGFX Shader Writing which covers adding a Blinn specular highlight to the shader and breaking the code down into seperate functions for lambert and blinn components. If you have missed the first two of the series, check them out here. Maya: CGFX Shader Writing [...]
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3d animated wings in after effects

By lesterbanks | Published: August 30, 2010
Iaenic demonstrates how to create animated wings in After Effects of the angel variety, using After Effects 3D layers, and Trapcode 3D Stroke. Also the tutorial covers using a compositing trick to have it look like the wings wrap around the character they are on. Advanced 3D Wings in After Effects from Iaenic on Vimeo.
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