MuscleToolkit, created by CGToolkit, is an advanced muscle and skinning system designed for users of Maya, This is the kind of tool you'd typically find as proprietary software in large animation studios.
CG Toolkit also provides a series of advanced training DVDs on the art of sculpting and then rigging advanced characters through the "Making of Leon" series.
In this first part of 3, Josh Carey reviews the "Making of Leon" training DVDs.
Upon getting the DVD, I took notice of the very nice professional quality packaging and presentation. All 3 DVDs come in a single case with a middle connected sleeve to hold 2 of the DVDs in the center. They seem to be professionally printed and stamped DVDs, a nice plus comparing some of the texture and training DVDs that are offered out there, that are just DVD-r’s. A manual comes inside the case that covers the installation and use of MuscleTK. This is basically the same as the PDF which comes on the DVD, though this PDF will be updated on their website as versions get updated. The latest version in the works at the time of this writing is v1.1. It is also good to note that CGToolkit is part of the Alias|conductors program. Take note of the special thanks section in the manual as well. Knowing that people like Miko and Kursad helped in the development tells you that they had some real talented people working on it!
DVD 1
The first DVD, the sculpting DVD, is awesome. I may be biased here since I love to sculpt, but watching a sculpting video like this gets those creative juices flowing. Much like some other sculpture training videos, this one does a great job of going over the sculpting material and techniques before starting. Thankfully not a lot of time is spent on this part, as it can be drawn out and boring if it’s too long. While I’ve seen most sculptors use a character sheet or drawings during the setup of the armature, we see him measuring an already made sculpture to use as a scale reference. Doing this, of course, depends on your preference and skill level. So at almost 25 minutes into the DVD, the tools and materials have been explained, and the armature is complete. This leaves plenty of time left for the actual sculpting.
The charming creature above is Leon
For most of the time, the use of time-lapse was handled very nicely, skimming through slow parts of the process that are basically just tedious or repetitive work that have already been shown, like doing one half of the body, then the other half. Doing one half of the body (to a point) off camera, then explaining how it was done, and then illustrated by showing the other half was a nice way to show technique. The voice-over (the speaker changes about halfway through) was clear and well spoken, and I found the comments and explanations very useful. My favorite part is when the detail work is done. It’s just great to watch over and over how the minute details are put into a sculpture. Seeing what each tool is used for at specific times during the detailing process is also helpful. About 2 hrs into the DVD, the sculpture is completed. This is where the other training DVDs leave off…
And this one keeps going! Yes, he actually finishes the sculpture with a lesson in airbrushing and detail painting! While this section is heavily time-lapsed, it is still awesome to watch and learn – a very nice addition to a great DVD.
VD 2
The first thing to note on this DVD is that it is not an actual playable DVD that can go in standalone DVD players. It is a data DVD, filled with over 4 GB of data, full of scene files, PDFs, training videos, and scripts. The video files are full resolution, so you can clearly see what’s going on.
Here’s a rundown of what tutorial videos come on this DVD:
2 Intro Videos – one covering how to install everything and one explaining Leon’s rig. If you plan on rigging or animating Leon, this will explain everything about Leon’s rig and custom UI for the rig.
2 Texturing Videos – one that talks about unwrapping Leon’s UVs and one on painting the map. This is fairly straightforward stuff, especially the unwrapping. There are plenty of techniques out there for good unwraps, and this is pretty much the technique that I follow. Watching the map being painted is always nice to see, as it’s a pretty rare thing to have a video capturing that process.
4 Facial Setup Videos – The first one goes over creating blendshapes and the problems that arise when working with a disconnected head. The second one goes over using the new soft mod tool to create blendshapes, using cgToolkit’s mirror blendshape tool, and hooking up the blendshapes to the facial control UI. This second video also gets into mel a little bit, so this would be a great introduction to mel for anyone that has wanted to learn it, but didn’t know where to start. The facial pose library script is also gone over in detail, which is just awesome. It’s a very simple way of keeping a library of your poses that you’ll want to come back to while animating, and you can also share the poses between workstations/users. The 3rd of these Facial Setup videos is a fairly basic lesson on setting up tongue blendshapes through a quick FK rig. The 4th video is a detailed look at how they setup the eyes on Leon. There are some extremely good tips in this video – ideas that a lot of people could definitely put to use in their rigs.
10 Kinematics Videos – This is where we get down and dirty with the rigging. The first video goes over prepping the model for rigging, as well as some brief explanations of the rig. Kinematics 02 is a lesson on grouping and parenting – this is stuff everyone needs to know (probably a good idea for max users switching over to Maya to get a lesson like this too). This video also covers a reverse foot setup, which a mel script on the DVD will automate for you. The 3rd video covers making a low-res rig and a bit of mel scripting to help automate the process of chopping up your model for a realtime rig. The amount of mel scripting in these videos is quite impressive. Fear not though, if you’re new to mel, the instruction and explanation process is detailed enough that you won’t get lost. Kinematics 04 covers connecting a control to a joint, as well as the mel code for their script that does this for you. 05 is a tutorial on an advanced knee setup, and 06 is on creating an FK/IK switching leg rig (as well as going over the mel script for that). I would have liked to see a better FK/IK rig – one that doesn’t use the usual 3 skeleton setup, but perhaps one that has FK and IK using the same skeleton. This is simply preference of course, and since they include a mel script that automates the whole process anyway, it doesn’t really matter all that much. The 7th video shows how Leon’s forearm was setup, and again, goes over the mel for that part of the script. 08 goes over setting up Leon’s finger controls through Quick SDK, a script in CGToolkit’s Rig Tools. 09 and 10 show creating Leon’s leg rig (very similar to the previous videos) and creating a head constraint rig. The leg rig video really could have been combined into the previous advanced knee setup video, as it pretty much repeats that lesson combined with the reverse foot lesson. Video 10, the head constraints video, basically shows how to setup a head for either local or world orientation. A nice addition to this video would have been to show how to setup a head with an aim constraint, with a sort of visual placement for where the head is looking.
5 Extra videos – These extra videos are really a nice addition. There are 2 videos that are Introduction to Mel (part I and II), a tutorial on using CG Toolkits Rig Tools script, a video on Pickwalkable Control Objects, and a video on writing a Mel UI and embedding it inside a maya file. Again, the amount of mel instruction that you’ll get with this DVD is simply great.
Taking a look at all the extras that come on the DVD, I can tell there really was a ton of work put into this. It comes with pdfs on the Facial UI and Rig Tools script, all the chapter files to go with the videos mentioned, all of Leon’s textures, hires photographic references of Leon’s sculpture, all of the scripts mentioned throughout the videos, and the final Leon scene file. Leon’s scene file and rig perform as expected, except for a few minor weighting issues (a couple verts seem to have some weighting to the opposite side of the body, but nothing major). Aesthetically, I think some of the blendshapes could have been constructed better, although I can’t really see this creature doing lip sync anyway! The pose library script is very cool and should definitely be something to look into for production purposes.
DVD 3
This DVD has more training on it, plus the MuscleTK plugin. There are 4 videos on MuscleTK, ranging from the Introduction video to building arm and chest/back muscles, to skinning with MuscleTK after you have all the muscles setup. There are also 2 videos on resurfacing Leon from a scanned mesh. The first video talks about the basic modeling with a scanned mesh as reference, and the second video talks about making sure you have good topology in your mesh. There are also 5 skinning videos. They consist of Intro to Smooth Skinning/Influence Objects, Painting weights, Influence objects on the knee, Using a custom muscle deformer, and Adding secondary Jiggle to Leon’s fatty tissue. The first 2 are fairly basic – steps that everyone should know if they’ve spent enough time skinning and painting weights. Using influence objects to correct deformations is something that maybe not everyone would know about, so that video would definitely be good for showing you how to keep good deformations (and not just rely on a smooth skin).
This DVD also has a bunch of extras on it, including files to go with the skinning videos mentioned above, files to go with the resurfacing videos (including the large 3d scan data), and MuscleTK with a MuscleTK example file.
Overall, I was quite impressed with the quality of instruction on all the videos. Throughout most of the videos, I found that my techniques were pretty similar to what they were showing, although I’m still not sure if I would consider this an advanced DVD or not. There were a lot of basic things in these videos, but it may just seem that way to me. If you’re new to rigging, they will definitely help you out to becoming a better rigger. If you’re a veteran rigger, you may not find these very useful unless you want to learn some good scripting techniques. If you’re somewhere in the middle, then this DVD is most likely a good thing to have in your library.
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