Iceland Adventure Vacation
My wife and I had the opportunity to visit Iceland and really explore the island over an incredibly intense week. We only got though a small portion of the island, and could spend a lifetime hiking the mountains, and exploring the caves.
Alaska Adventure Vacation
My wife and I went to visit my sister in Alaska, and got to enjoy so much of what the state had to offer. It is one of the most gorgeous places I have ever had the pleasure to visit.
We went up to Denali and down to Girdwood. Did some camping, hiking and a little bit of drinking.
Lazy UVW editior – Procedural UVW layout and texture baking tool for 3dsMax
The Lazy UVW editor is a way to procedurally create seamless textures without having to unwrap uvs.
It accomplishes this by using multiple uvw channels to cover pinching, stretching, or seams of the basic uvw mapping options, and the resulting map may be baked down to one channel if desired.
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Lights wirecolor – simple workflow script and tip
Even after having worked in 3dsMax for so long, I find myself thinking of small workflow improvements that aid in daily workflow. Today while I was lighting a character, with multiple lights with different colors to them, I thought it would be nice to see the target line represent the color value of the light. So it would change something that looked like this:
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Stretch point – making cheap muscles in max
Often times while skinning a character, as you can see in my lazy skinning and binding video, sometimes I used helper or faux muscle bones to help with some areas, like around the legs/crotch, or the armpit/chest area. Adding a bone that is connected on both ends to different bones, and stretches and squashes in between them can help preserve volume by adding nice subtleties to the skinning, or just flat out make it possible.
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Chain Parent – Macroscript
Recently I was asked for an alternate version of the macroscript ‘Slap Parent’ that speeds up the parenting process in 3ds Max. The alteration was to have each object parent to the next, by order of selection. Well, you can get it here . Simply put it in your max directory/macroscripts and assign it to a keyboard shortcut.
Debris Maker – Snowflakes module
It is cold out and I am getting cabin fever, so today I made a module that makes procedural snowflakes.
Just another little update on that I am still working on this thing, and that I am eager to share it with everyone!
Leaves falling
Another little piece of the debris maker, got some prototype procedural falling leaf stuff going on here!
Fast ‘End Task’ for trouble programs – 3ds max, After Effects
If you have used 3ds max of after effects in production, you have had it stall or crash. Sometimes even the crash can crash its crashing, and you end up with tasks running, that you have to go through the task manager to kill. Sometimes going to the process, or process tree and terminating that. And then waiting for windows to politely quit the program, asking you if you really want to do that. Sometimes you need to do this process multiple times a day, and just get fed up with it. Well here is the solution I have. .bat files that just cut to the chase and stop the program.
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Random 3ds Max splash image
A quick script for randomly changing the startup image for 3ds max, it is a nice way to make Max feel nice and cozy.
I have seen other ones out there, but they require additional software, and have more complicated installations, so I made this one for me.
3ds Max UI freezing during scripts? Disable window ghosting.
So anyone that has had a script do anything that takes more than 3 seconds, or have ever tabbed out of, and back into a max that was working, you know what the window ghosting problem is.
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Belize Adventure Honeymoon
I went to Belize for my Honeymoon and had quite a time. I stayed at the Ian Anderson’s caves branch an had the time of our lives. It was a real treat, and we hope to return some day.
Debris Maker – All rocks and minerals
The whole family together!
Debris Maker – Sandstond and Slate modules update
Two sedimentary rocks that are similar, but built in completely different ways. Using correct materiality on these things will probably differentiate them a bit more.
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Debris Maker – River stone module update
Riverstones, eroded versions of other rocks! Pitting, chipping and banding simulate different levels of erosion over time.
Debris Maker – Obsidian shard module update
Obsidian shards module finished up.
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Debris Maker – Meteor module update
One of my favorites so far, the meteor debris module. I used this one in the first few shots of the ‘space shots’ thing on vimeo: https://vimeo.com/55744842
There was additional bump and displacement, but otherwise those are out of the box meteors from this thing.
Debris Maker – Crystal and Gravel module updates
Piles of gemstones and gravel courtesy of the debris maker!
The gravel objects here are the optimized versions that the script has the option of making.
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3ds Max sppd tip 04 – Rule of Three
Fourth in the series of speed and workflow tips for 3ds Max.
I hate doing things three times. Here is how to use Maxscript and the built in listener to make batch changes to things in your scene. Also how retrieve variables from objects quickly to develop scripts that actually save you time, the first time you use them.
3ds Max sppd tip 03 – Slap Parent
Get the macroscript here: www.aarondabelow.com/v1/scripts/slap_parent/SlapParent.zip
Using the 3ds Max select and link thing is terrible. Using the provided macroscript, when bound to the suggested keyboard shortcut makes this process a snap. Saves a bunch of time, and a real nice way to streamline your workflow.
3ds Max speed tip 02 – Lazy UVW Mapping
Second in the series of speed and workflow tips for 3ds Max.
This one covers a way to get around uvw coordinates of unusual objects. It shows you a technique on how to use multiple uvw channels to create a tile-less, seamless, unwrap free texture on your objects, without any visible stretching or pinching. It is a quick method that lets you power through an often undesirable task.
3ds Max speed tip 01 – Active Type
Hey everyone, I am starting a series of speed and workflow tips for 3DS Max that I have picked up over the years of working production. I have seen my fair share of tutorial videos, and am tired of slow paced ones that are 45 min long, and you only see 1 or 2 new things. So I’ve made an effort to keep these videos short and fast paced, and targeted at an intermediate experience level in 3Ds Max.
AICP Minnesota sponsor reel 2012
Before you watch, make sure your sound is turned up!
Here is this years AICP Minnesota sponsor reel! We were lucky to take the award for ‘best professional work’ in this years Minnesota Electronic Theater
Camblock motion control – Scale match
Here is a little motion control scaling test I worked on at MAKE as a proof of concept for doing scaled shots. There is no tracking or fudging going on in either of the two composited shots, they are just garbage keyed and laid over each-other. Using some simple math, and a plum line we were able to scale the camera move to match the same subject, just 1/6 the size! The motion control setup we were using is the super lite and configurable camblock products.
AE Transforms Exporter – 1.01
Here is a free tool for copying animation from 3ds Max into After Effects via the clipboard, and the native AE clipboard data. You will be able to copy and paste keyframe data for position, rotation and scale onto any 3D object in AE.
Camping and HDR
I went camping with Dionne last weekend and we had a few great hikes. I had the opportunity to grab some of these fun HDR probes that I put together tonight. If you want to download them, feel free to snatch them here: http://www.aarondabelow.com/v1/pages/resources/resources-hdr_probes.html
Debris Maker – Crystal module update
Just finished up the crystal module for the debris maker, so now you can make all the types of crystal that you want, over whatever objects you want!
I have a few more of these I haven’t posted anywhere yet, and more yet that are in development, and they will be coming soon!
Aaron Dabelow 2012 Demo Reel
My new demoreel, with lots of new work! Watch the lower thirds for the breakdown. All the 3D was done in 3ds Max, Compositing in AE, and rendered in V-Ray.
Mincraft to 3ds Max
I did a little messing around with some minecraft exporters and bringing it into 3DSMax for a little bit of fun. This was just a quickie, and I think with a bit of work, it could yield some nice results!
The software I used to get the obj that I brought into max was Mineways and was really easy to use, but kind of slow. and as you can see, there are some alpha issues i need to look into.