PEN Productions Inc. / Paul Neale @ paulneale.com

Bezier Curves Explained

A new tutorial has been posted that demonstrates how bezier curves can be derived using Max script and the theory behind how they are built.

Bezier Curves

WPF is here for Max 2011:

If you are a Max script developer it has been hard for you to resist learning how to implement Dot Net into you every day work flow. Dot Net has opened up doors that were not possible in Max script alone and made things possible that you would have other wise had to do in the Max SDK and C++.

One of the added capabilities of using Dot Net in Max script has been the GDI+ drawing methods. GDI (Graphical Device Interface) as allowed for more robost and customized user interfaces to be developed. PEN Productions has used it extensively in production tools and even used it to develope a animation control interface for mechanical systems.

Now that Max 2011 has arrived it is now possible to use the next generation graphical subsystem in Dot Net called WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation). Max 2011 has been updated to use Dot Net 3.5 so any development in the area of WPF is stricked to Max 2011 and up only. WPF works directly on DirectX which means that it is hardware excelerated and will be far faster then GDI+ for complex graphics on screen. It is also possible to use XAML for defining dynamic UI items.

James Haywood has posted one of the first Max script/WPF tutorials that I have seen on the web to date on his blog site here that covers how to implement a WPF interface in Max 2011.

PEN Watermark has been released:

PEN Watermark is a utility used for watermarking the Max viewport for demos, Camtasias or screen grabs. It is free for down load.

Watermark..

PEN Productions works with premier animation house Pasozebra Producciones:

Pasozebra Producciones resides in Valencia Spain and is currently working on a series of TV commercial spots for Actimel de Danone. PEN Productions is working with them on custom character tools and animation rigs.

Parameter Wire Copying by Mathieson Facer:

Mathieson Facer has posted a new tutorial on how to copy parameter wires in 3DS Max. If you have ever tried you would know that it is not possible through the UI and with Max script using the same metheds that would be used for any other controller will not work either. Mat shows us how it is done.

Parameter Wire Copying..

FFD Mirroring by Mathieson Facer:

Mathieson Facer has just posted a tutorial showing a very unique way to mirror an FFD space warp for use in cartoon eye setups without ending up with a negative scale or other issues. Visit his site for more information.

FFD Mirroring..

DotNet Tutorial:

A new tutorial on using dotNet forms and maxCustomControls.maxForm has been added to the tutorials page.

PEN Character Rigs have been updated:

An update to the Walter and Oliver rigs has been uploaded. There are small code fixes and the license file has been updated to last another year. Each year the license expires, this way I know that every one that is using the characters have the most up todate version.

Any one linking to Walter or Oliver should do it to the page and not directly to the download file as the version number will update from time to time.

PEN Animation Characters Download

Scripts page was down for the holidays, sorry for the inconvience:

The scripts page was down for a period of time but it all should be back up and running now. Please let us know if there are any broken links or files that are missing.

PEN Rigging Utils has been updated to support Dot Net and 64 bit:

PEN Rigging Utils has been updated to work with Dot Net and 64 bit versions of Max. Version 5.00 is ready for down load from the scripts page and will work on Max versions from 2008 and up. It should also work on Max 9, please let me know if you have any problems. Thanks goes to Ala-Pantti for updating the code for me, Kevin is a student at Humber College and will be graduating at the end of August 2010 and will be looking for work as a technical director. Please visit his site for more information.

MX Driver 2 and Animation Characters now run on Max 2010 Sp.1:

Service Pack 1 has shipped for Max 2010 and Max Design 2010. This now insures that MX Driver 2 and the free animation characters, Walter and Oliver, will load correctly on start up. To be able to run either of these tools from PEN Productions you will have to down load and install Service Pack 1.

Tutorial: Soft Selected Morph Targets.

A quick tutorial has been posted that covers how to use soft selections to control which parts of a morph target are used by the Morpher modifier. Using a method like this allows for creating a full face target and then creating several targets from it.

View the tutorial here

Roary The Racing Car Production Focus:

Roary The Racing Car is a Britsh production about a racing car and his friends. Chapman Entertainment, the creators of Roary and Fifi and the Flower Tots started the series in UK and it has now spread around the globe.

Read about the production and how PEN Productions worked with Studio Liddell to help create the second season of Roary The Racing Car.

Bioshock 2 / CG Talk Production Focus.

Jeff Weir talks about reinventing the under water world in Bioshock 2 in a CG Talk production focus written by Peter Rizkalla.

PEN Productions Inc. worked closely with 2K Marin and Jeff Weir to create the character animation tools and pipe line for handling the new characters in Bioshock 2. PEN worked on 17 of the characters for Bioshock 2 starting with Big Sister seen in the illustration above. The character system developed by PEN was a hybrid of the RAIC system used in many projects done for clients in the last two years. A facial animation system was developed as well that incorporated dot net joy stick controls and pose capture system.

Read the article at CG Talk where Jeff describes the process of creating the world of Bioshock 2.

Pinky Dinky Doo Production Focus.

Pinky Dinky Doo is a Sesame Workshop / Cartoon Pizza production about a young girl that likes to make up outrageous and bizarre stories. Sesame Workshop and Cartoon Pizza first created this project using Flash technology in a completely two dimensional world.

Updated PEN Animation Characters: Max 2010 Bugs Please read before installing.

Updated Walter rig in this version. He now has a different look, this was a request from Animation Mentor who felt that it looked to similar to their character and it would cause confusion about which character was used on some ones demo reel. Please port all animations to this new character if you are already animating with Walter.

RAIC System (Referenced, Autonomous, Intelligent, Control)

The RAIC (Referenced, Autonomous, Intelligent, Control) System has been developed by PEN Productions Inc. to help ease the animation process in character based productions. This system is not a character rigging system but a character control system that can be built into any type of character setup. Biped, multiped, basketball or a sack of flour, it doesn't really matter what the character is, RAIC will help make managing your character during animation easier and faster.

The RAIC system handles motion capture data, saving and loading poses, space switching and much much more.

PEN Animation Characters: Max 2010 Bugs Please read before installing.

This is a known bug in Max 2010 currently and is being worked on. Installing the characters works and so do the scripted plugins but they don't load correctly when Max loads. This is due to some load order issues that popped up and were not caught.

I will post once a solution is found. More updates will follow as well to the characters.

PEN Animation Characters Ready for Download!:

PEN Productions Inc has released two in a series of animation characters designed for the budding animator as a learning tool. Read more about it here

DotNet Totorial / Tab Control:

A new tutorial has been added to the DotNet page. If you are wondering how to setup tab controls using dotNet this is a tutorial to get you started.

Reset X Form tool has been updated to V:2.01.02R

Thanks goes to Jon Seagull for passing on a bug that was slowing down the searches with many objects. The update can be down loaded from the scripts page.

Reset X Form

Ryan Trowbridge site updated!

Ryan has been working on tutorials for Max and Maya on his site and has now added a one that shows how to setup and use Python in 3DS Max. Python is a powerful scripting language that is now an industry standard and can be used to tie Max, Maya, XSI and other packages together or build pipe lines for any type of production.

python-in-3ds-max

MX Driver 2 Released!!

MX Driver 2 has now been released and will be packaged with the MX Driver bundle free of charge. Existing users of MX Driver 1 can contact us and have MX Driver 2 emailed to them. Version 2 is a whole new system and not just an upgrade to Version 1. It is easier to manually control on top of automation or with no automation. Ground detection methods have improved and more options added for setting up the system. Body dynamics are still being worked on but the system has been proven in production durren a new season of Roary the Racing Car, Fifi and the Flowertots and other broadcast work.

More Information..

Hatch Studios and PEN Productions create eye catching Toblerone Christmas

Hatch contacted PEN Productions to model and rig all the characters, garden gnome and deer for this stunning 3D Christmas commercial.

Hatch Studios does it again with Robin Hood!

Hatch Studios contracts PEN Productions to create the character rigs and facial system for the next installment of the award winning Robin Hood commercials.

Dead Space 2008 / No Known Survivors technical report.

PEN Productions worked with Stuart Simms and team, including production guru Joe Gunn to create Dead Space 2008 / No Known Survivors trailer. PEN Productions created the character rig that would be used in multiple characters for two trailers. This rig incorporated some of PEN's latest character system tools, called RAIC, that allows for such things as real time motion capture conversion in 3DS Max from TRC files and a host of other tools for working with characters in complex animated shots and productions.

New Wing Rig Demos.

I have created three new demo videos of the wing rig that was developed for Eyeball NYC for the Bella Sara project. The first shows the animation work flow and has a brief description of how it works. The second and third are showing a simple animation test using the dynamics on the feathers.

Reset X Forms V2.01 64bit compatable.

I have finaly updated PEN Reset X Forms to be compatable with 64bit versions of Max. I have also added a couple of new tools. You can read about them on the site.

http://paulneale.com/scripts/resetXform/PEN_resetXform.htm

Pete Addington now has a web site: lonerobot.com

Pete hangs out at CG Talk a whole lot sharing Max script and Dot Net wisdom to all that will listen. He has finaly launched a web site with great reference for Max script and Dot Net scripting in 3DS Max.

http://lonerobot.com

DotNet (.net) In Max Script: Button..

Forth part of the DotNet tutorials is complete. A simple example of using a DotNet button control.

DotNet (.net) In Max Script: XML Reading..

The Second half of the DotNet XML tutorial is up. This covers the use of xmlDocument to read nodes that were saved in the first half and recreate them.

DotNet (.net) In Max Script: XML Writting..

The frist half of the DotNet XML tutorial is up. This covers the use of xmlDocument to write scene object data out to an XML formated file using the scene hierarchy.

DotNet (.net) In Max Script: TreeView Control..

Tue, July 31 2008 09:00:00 GMT

I have now completed a tutorial on scripting treeView controls in Max script and show how to create a tool that will display objects in the hierarchy and allow for selecting them.

DotNet (.net) in Max Script: ListView Control..

Tue, July 29 2008 08:40:00 GMT

I'm finaly getting around to publishing my tutorials on how to use dotNet controls and objects in Max script. I have completed the first tutorial on using dotNet listView controls for displaying columns of data instead of a listBox or multiListBox.

Facer FX releases new tutorial

Tue, July 11 2008 09:38:00 GMT

This tutorial will show you how to get Z-Depth and fog in compositing out of the same render pass. It will also show you how to tweak your fog without having to go back and re-render from your 3d package. The tutorial is aimed at beginner to intermediate level compositors. The technique for getting Z-Depth and fog from the same render pass is not recommended for all situations but is definitely helpful if you have limited resources and cannot afford to render passes for both.

Bio Shock Trailer

Tue, July 04 2008 09:00:00 GMT

The Bio Shock Trailer was created by New Yorks Eyeball NYC for 2K Games with the help of PEN Productions for the character rigging.

Bella Sara commercial /Wing Rig

Tue, July 04 2008 09:00:00 GMT

For the Bella Sara project by Eyeball NYC in New York, PEN Productions was asked to create a wing rig for an existing horse. It is always a challenge to create feathers that react well with all the deformations that a wing can achieve.

Trigonometry and how to use it in Max Script

Tue, July 01 2008 09:00:00 GMT

In this tutorial I will not attept to explain all the math involved in working out triangles but will provide examples of how to use some of the simple equations in Max to drive angles and lengths. It is up to you to sort out what you might use them for. I will be providing more examples in the future as I have time to create them as well as add to this page with more advanced trig functions.

PEN Helper Object has been released!

Tue, July 01 2008 09:01:00 GMT

PEN Helper object is a custom scripted plugin. This helper object allows for any geometry object to be used as the display. Create, add and store these for later use.

Nuclear Steam Truck

Tue, July 01 2008 09:02:00 GMT

Once in a while I get to take a break from running PEN and do some traditional art. This image was in response to a contest that http://humber3D.ca was running on thier private student web boards.