DotNet Form Tutorial:
A new tutorial on using dotNet forms and maxCustomControls.maxForm has been added to the tutorials page.
DotNet Tutorials..
An updated verison of Walter and Oliver:
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..
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
Kevin 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.
Download:
Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 SP1
Download:
Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 SP1
Morpher Tutorial Posted:
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:
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.
Read more about it.
RAIC System Information:
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.
Read more about it on the RAIC page.
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.
With the new release to the public there have been several new bugs found especially when using Max 2010. Please
read the bug list and report any others that you may find. Note the version that you have installed when reporting
bugs and please let me know which version of Max (Max, Design, Version number, Service packs) and windows version that you are using. I'm not
able to test on all possible combinations of Max and windows that are available so I'm relying on users like your self to help
us at PEN to produce a product free to the masses that works as well as possible.
DotNet Tutorial / Tab Control:
A new dotnet tab control tutorial has been added to the totorials page.
DotNet Tutorials..
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.
Happy New Year! 2009
Paul Neale
CEO.
is back for another year to provide the best possible 3D technical support, modeling and
pipeline devleopment to our old and new clients.
PEN has a wide range of experience working with clients all over the world in almost every area of 3D out there.
Currently PEN is working with multiple game companies and broadcast television companies on projects for kids to
adults.
If you are interested in what PEN can do for you and your production please call us or drop us an email. Contact..
Hatch Studios and PEN Productions create eye catching Toblerone Christmas:
PEN Productions supports Hatch Studios on the recent Toblerone Christmas commercial. Read more about it
here.
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. Read more about it
here.
Dead Space 2008 / No Known Survivors
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.
Technical write up has been posted here.
New wing rig demo videos up for viewing.
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.
Bella Sara and Wing Rig Demos..
PEN Reset X Form V:2.01 R 64bit
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. Read more about it
here.
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 Tutorials: Button
Forth part of the DotNet tutorials is complete. A simple example of using a DotNet button control.
DotNet Tutorials..
DotNet Tutorials: XML Writing & Reading
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.
The second half of this tutorial covers how to read XML files and recreate the data that was stored
in the first half.
XML Writing Tutorial..
XML Reading Tutorial..
DotNet Tutorials..
DotNet Tutorials: TreeView
In this tutorial I cover how to setup and use a dotNet treeView control to display the
hierarchy of objects in Max and select objects using the list.
DotNet Tutorials..
DotNet Tutorials: ListView
In these tutorials I try to explain how to use dotNet controls and objects in Max script to enhance
UI design and functionality of scripted tools. I have completed the first tutorial on dotNet listView
control and how to create, populate and access it.
DotNet Tutorials..
Facer FX:
This tutorial will show you how to get Z-Depth and fog in compositing out of the same render pass.
PEN Productions works with New York based Eyeball NYC.
PEN Productions worked with Eyeball NYC on several productions in 2007 working on character rigs and motion capture conversion tools.
The Bio Shock trailer done by Eyeball was in need of advanced rigs that would handle motion capture and hand animation.
The base character rig used Puppet Shop from Lumonix and the muscle and
deformation systems were handled with standard 3DS Max tools all driven with custom code and tools. Read more about it here or watch the full trailer here.
Bella Sara is a fantasy style commercial that was in need of a wing setup for the horse. PEN Productions
created a solution that incorporated real time dynamics to drive the feathers that also had full manual control.
Read more about it here.
