cmiVFX Posted January 8, 2010 Share Posted January 8, 2010 cmiVFX Launches Houdini - Empowering Digital Assets with Python Watch High Definition Training Videos For The Visual Effects Industry Instantly From Anywhere In The World. Curitiba, PR, Brazil December 22th, 2009 — cmiVFX | cmiStudios launches a brand new Houdini called Empowering Digital Assets with Python. We have dedicated ourselves to completing training for one of the most flexible workflows in Houdini. Python! Rigging a rubiks cube is a challenge by itself and our goal, is to get a playable animatable rubiks cube rig using the power of Python as the core of our asset.. It takes experience to do either one of those things, and we showcase our experience to you here with this fantastic release. This video is available today at the cmiVFX store. cmiVFX Video Player Online Store http://cmivfx.com/store/Browse.aspx?Category=11 Houdini - Empowering Digital Assets with Python http://cmivfx.com/SideFX_Houdini_Training/houdini_python_assets/default.aspx BUILDING THE SCENE WITH PYTHON Python scripting could be of a great help, especially when it comes to redundant things, that if done manually would take ages. In this part you are going to learn how to use python, inside the python shell, to automate the creation of the rubik's cube, and all the necessary nodes, from scratch. by the end of this part you will have built, using python, the geometry of the rubik's cube with the materials attached to it, and with nulls parented to the cubes, that will serve later in the code. INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL ASSETS Digital assets are a very important brick in any workflow built around or using houdini. in this part you will be introduced to digital assets and you will learn, by transforming the rubik's cube into one, how to transform a bunch of existing nodes into a digital asset. PYTHON INSIDE THE DIGITAL ASSET Since digital assets are entities that can live by themselves, it is crucial to be able to include the scripts they use inside them. there are many methods to do that, and in this part you are going to learn one of those methods, by creating a simple python function inside the rubik's cube digital asset. and then adding a button also to the digital asset to be able to call this function. RUBIK`S RIG CORE CODE All is ready now to begin building the core code of the rubik's cube rig. in this part you are going to go deeper into the python code that will drive the behaviour of the rig. you are going to learn about the functions and how to pass parameters from the buttons to these functions, to be able to drive a multitude of conditions that will determine what cubes belong to which faces, which faces will rotate, how they are going to rotate ... etc KEYING AND ANIMATION Up until now all the work done so far, allows only to play with the rubik's cube, no keys were set, and therefore no animation. to bring the cube to life, in this part, you are going to learn how to create the code that will allow to set keyframes on the rotations to get an animation! CUSTOM GEOMETRY What if the user needs to use custom geometry instead of the default cubes. in this part you are going to see how to make this possible, and how to allow the user to define a custom geometry or not, in which case the default cubes will be used. FINISHING TOUCHES Resetting the cube to its initial state is important, because not everyone knows how to solve it ! In this part a reset button will be created, as well as making the rotate function more flexible by allowing it to take the angle in as a parameter. About the Author: Georges Nakhle is 25 years old, Lebanese, and has a masters degree in mechanical engineering. He began his art steps with traditional painting and sculpting then gained a diploma in dramatic monologue (acting -singing), he has worked as a writer and performer in radio and TV. Combining arts and science led him to CG, so he mastered many tools including Maya and Houdini among others, Georges is also a programmer, so he's currently working for Dassault Systemes in Paris-France. He had also worked in combination with Dassault-Systemes and Mental Images, the makers of mental-ray. About cmiVFX cmiVFX is the leader in High Definition Video Training for the Visual Effects Community. To test drive the new cmiVFX TVOD © system, visit http://www.cmivfx.com/cmi_vod.html For additional information about cmiVFX, visit www.cmivfx.com. © 2009 cmiVFX | cmiStudios. All rights reserved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allegro Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 How much money do you guys figure you've lost due to not selling downloadable content? Add this to the stack of your lessons that I would have bought if not for your VOD. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altbighead Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 How much money do you guys figure you've lost due to not selling downloadable content? Add this to the stack of your lessons that I would have bought if not for your VOD. +1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abvfx Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 (edited) ditto +1 Edited January 19, 2010 by phrenzy84 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrGAG Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 (edited) -1 I'm quite happy with the way it works. I like the idea of being able to access my tutorials anywhere I am. And some of these tutorials are just pretty dam good ! as far as I am concerned: keep up the good work guys Edited January 20, 2010 by MrGAG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allegro Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 I like the idea of being able to access my tutorials anywhere I am. That's exactly why I would be a fan of downloads. Then I could watch these during my 45 minute commute on the public transit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abvfx Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 (edited) yep, and no one is debating the quality of these tutorials. Again, to protect them and their customers from pirates (arghh ) the logic is pretty simple. We will still not be producing plastic DVD's though. (being that the environment is a mess and all) Oh come on. I know companies have their excuses for certain things but being "green" is an easy way out. Ok then, if that really is the reason then what about this. If you had a way of lightly watermarking the customers details on the video would you make it available for digital download? Can't that work? At least this way your servers don't always get sucked dry from people just wanting to view the videos each time. And if we accidently delete it, then we can re-download it. But i guarantee that the amount of downloads would be far less. Tell me that isn't a workable solution, for you guys. Plus accidents like this wont affect every paying customer wanting to watch something since most of them will already have the videos stored. If there isn't a decent watermarker out there that moves over time, changes colors etc... making it impossible to remove, then i would suggest their programmers spent their time on this rather than its VOD. Edited January 20, 2010 by phrenzy84 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ezz Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 -1 from me The quality of the video is great and I dont mind watching them over the internet Erik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Swann Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 (edited) -1 from me ...I dont mind watching them over the internet Erik Well I tryed to do this last 15 minutes, but the site is down again. How much money do you guys figure you've lost due to not selling downloadable content? Add this to the stack of your lessons that I would have bought if not for your VOD. +1 Edited January 20, 2010 by SWANN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graham Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 I too think online players are a poor idea. VOD is great and totally the future but the future is also about any time any where. If I can watch the videos any time that is good by me but if I need to be connected to an internet connection then that is useless. I want to watch them on my commute? Nope. How about on a long flight? Nope. Even some highly DRMed software player would be better than this. Sure you can't play it except with their player, but at least you can have the video stored locally. Also, I'd rather just pay $10 for the Houdini files. I'd much rather just look at hips than watch a video for hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netvudu Posted January 21, 2010 Share Posted January 21, 2010 +1 People with no internet connection at home, like me, are punished on a day-by-day basis after buying some of these videos (I purchased four of them). Also, I don´t have 5 hours to devote to screen capturing each of these videos on hi-res. The moment they have downloadable content I will buy again. Until that happens I won´t. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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