Friday, June 19, 2009

boSmear 2.0


So I recently returned to the magical boSmear in order to make it better. The setup I had in 1.x versions was a little complicated, involving follicles and lots of unnecessary junk. This new version is far superior in both speed and economy. The setup for this smear is instant, and with the option to turn it's weight on and off (a float from 0 to 1) you can effectively eliminate any speed detriments and animate as if it weren't there. This let's you add the smear at the beginning of your animation work period but still avoid the speed hit of a big lattice until you are ready to animate the smear itself.

There's a really sneaky technique that I used in order to make this version possible, so I thought I'd describe it briefly. The new smear 2.x setup creates in the end around 13 nodes total. Compared to the last version, which created around 600+ nodes, this is a huge difference made possible by directly connecting the vertices of the smear mesh to the deformer. The problem when trying to do this simply (create a mesh, create a lattice, connect) is that the lattice will inevitably collapse on itself, considering the fact that lattice points are not 0 0 0 by default, but the mesh verts are (and for good reason, it gives them the ability to easily be "zeroed" out). Lattice points are created with worldspace coordinates, so naturally you want to convert them to 0 0 0. Fortunately, when creating a deformer on something, it creates a shapeOrig node (like smear1latticeOrig). This node holds the worldspace data for the lattice points, and effectively turns the visible lattice points to 0 0 0. So the trick I used was to create a cluster on one of the lattice points and then delete the cluster right after it's created. This just simple "freezes" the lattice, making it ready to be plugged by the smear mesh! Long story short, creating deformer on a non-freezable object allowed me to avoid having a separate cluster, curve, etc.. for each vertex on the smear mesh. Anyway, it's a strange technique but it works pretty effectively.

I previously had smear 1.0 up for free, but I'm thinking about asking for a small fee, like $2 or something. It'll be free to Ringling students ofcourse :D. Just donate on the scripts site or drop me an email/comment if you're interested.

Oh one last thing, Keith Lango just recently finished an animation using the older version of boSmear, so go check it out! www.keithlango.com It's seriously awesome (it's the Funky! video).

13 comments:

  1. Hey Bohdon! great stuff in your blogs man!
    I'm interested on this one, how can i get it?
    thanks

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  2. Hey Vitor, thanks! I saw your demo reel, it's really cool! If you drop a dollar or two in the paypal donation on bohdon.com/scripts, I'll send it to you at that email, this way I can keep track of who has it, and I'll also send you any future updates forever.

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  3. Hi Bohdon,

    I was very impressed with Keith's results using the old version of your smear script. One thing I did notice in his video was that the eyelids in the smears came away from the eyes. Is this a bug that's been fixed in v2 or would it have been something in the way Keith created his meshes that would cause that (do separate meshes behave differently within the same smear?)

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  4. So do Ringling Alumni/Grads get some free 2.0 love? :D I'd love to get my hands on the 2.0 version of this script. Lemme know what ya need from me. Awesome stuff you got going on Bo! I've been hearing about a lot of your work through the Ringling Grapevine lately :P The rubix cube rig blew my mind by the way! As did the timing chart script. Very very cool! Hope all is going well at Ringling, tell everyone I say hi!

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  5. Hey Josh, the main deformer of the smear is a lattice, so any geo that would come apart when deformed by a lattice will do the same when smeared. I've never had lashes separate from the face, even though they're separate geo, so it was probably a special situation. If you wanna give it a try just slap a lattice on your whole character (1 row deep) and move around some points, if that behaves correctly then the smear will too! I'm hoping to improve it even more over time so that situations like that can't happen... we'll see.

    Hey Jason! Yeah I'd be glad to send it your way. I'm glad you liked the rubik's cube and everything, hope all is goin well for you!

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  6. Hey BO:
    Keith Osborn told me to contact you in order to get the newer smear tool, is this possible?

    Thanks,

    JL

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  7. Hey Bohdon!
    I'm Gary and I'm interested on this one. I'd already made a donation, thanks to the creation! :)
    Please email me.

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  8. Hi bohdon,

    Just thought I'd check in and see if you've had any time to work further on your smear script. Were you able to get around the issue of having characters smear correctly when they're further away from the world center?

    Cheers,
    Josh

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  9. can i have it on my email? i'm animator in maya and your script is very usefull for me! i pray you!

    antonio.funaro@hotmail.it (my email and msn)

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  10. Hello Bohdon Sayre

    could you email me a copy of your boSmear 2.0?
    I've recently donated as you requested.

    Email: bryceshadow@hotmail.com

    Thank you, bryce

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  11. Hello Bohdon,

    I have just donated.Hope it helps =)
    Can I please have a copy of your great script bosmear 2.0.
    Do you need my email? or can you get it from the donation.

    Cheers,

    Josh

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  12. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  13. Hey Bohdon,

    Great stuff here. I'm currently an animation student and would love a chance to play with boSmear. I made a donation on your other site. Cheers,

    Lucas

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