In a single capture session were able to gather all of the body and facial motion capture data in our San Francisco studio. We worked with Image Metrics who helped processing the facial animation data and for the background we used artwork from the Crystalline App by Luc Barthelet which the trailer video refers to. From there our team of twelve worked tirelessly on revisions to come up with something both we and Björk could be proud of! This trailer video is just a small sample of a larger body of work.

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Video Produced by Mixamo Inc. with Concept Design and Direction Björk and M&M Design

Stefano Corazza – Producer and Director
Thierry DiDonna – Animation Director
Justin Patton – Lead 3D Artist
Brent Jentzsch – Associate Producer
Image Metrics – Facial Animation
Adrien Miller – Look Development
Charles Pina – Compositing
James Pina – Compositing
Nateon Ajello – Motion Capture Director
Gretchen Grasshoff – Character Animator
James Mendoza – Character Animator
Evan Beck – Character Animator
Alexis Bahena – Technical Artist

Mixamo: Can you tell us about yourself?

Tommy Wong:  Hi there, my name is Tommy Wong, or Yung as I’m known in a few forums. I live in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where the weather is either raining, hot and humid or VERY HOT.
I’ve been dabbling in 3D for 5 years or so now, and I focus mainly on character art, organic or hard-surface. Before going full time freelance, I’ve previously taught
3D modeling classes and I’ve also worked in numerous local 3D animation houses as a 3D generalist.

I am also an avid gamer and toy collector, and if you want my money, just throw in cool robots and I’ll open up my bank account for you! I am currently
studying as much as I can about game design and game development, and I hope to start developing my own mech games soon.

M: How did you hear about the contest?

TW: I stumbled upon Mixamo’s competition by chance! The instant I saw the theme and I was hooked, though I had a hard time choosing between the vanguard or the space pirate!
I wasn’t able to join the previous Mixamo’s competition due to work so I was determined to join and finish this one. The awesome prizes was an icing on the delicious cake!

M: What software(s) did you use and why?

TW: For this character, Vanguard, I used the latest stable release of Blender for modeling. I was a big fan of Blender’s modeling tool though I found my workflow seriously hampered by the lack of ngon support in Blender. Imagine my joy when the new Blender finally has Bmesh integrated! I immediately downloaded Blender and start working on my entry. Texturing is done in photoshop and finally it’s rendered with the amazing and powerful Marmoset’s Toolbag.

M: How long did it take you to make this character from start to finish?

TW: It took me about two intense weeks to do this character from start to finish. I actually started early when the competition was just announced, but I was caught up with work and I wasn’t happy with my initial design. At the third week, I quickly panicked and realized how little time there’s left for my entry! Worst of all, I barely started on the 3D side except for a quick sculpt! So I quickly hacked away at my entry! I was really thankful when Mixamo decided to extend it by one week, but as life loves throwing you a challenge, I am heading to Japan the same week! Believe me when I saw there’s A LOT of walking involved when you are backpacking to Japan. So with sore feet and tired eyes, I slugged away at my entry, polishing it as much as I could before I’ll faint.

M: What do you draw your inspiration from, movies, games, artbooks, etc…?

TW: I recently completed Mass Effect 3 and I was very inspired by the game! I downloaded any interesting armor designs I could find, and with Mass Effect’s artbook by my side, I dissect,studied and even copy what I could learn from Mass Effect’s design and try to infuse my own design into the Vanguard. One part of the armor that I focus a lot was the helmet, and I build it based on dragons and aviator helmet.
M: Tell us about your process for creating a character, do you create any concept sketches or work straight ahead?

TW: For most projects, I will start out by spending a few days collecting images and references while I day dream about the design. I will then sketch and explored shapes while I try to flesh out the concept. Once I have a solid concept, I proceed to fleshing out the model in 3D, and usually the model changes quite frequently as I continue to refine the shapes. I find working in this manner sets my mind on a path and yet allows me the experiment in 3D (which is dangerously slow for me).

M: The final beauty shot looks fantastic, what kind of lighting set up and rendering system did you use?

TW: Thanks! I am glad you like the render! The lighting was a very simple three point light setup. I wanted a strong silhouette look with the lights from the top, casting 12pm shadows. I then added a small fill light in front of him, and another rim light from behind. All of this are done in Marmoset with minimal touch up in Photoshop.

From Above

From the Side

From the Front

M: What advice do you have for others looking to get into 3D art or get better?

TW: I don’t think I am the best person for advice, but here’s my opinion I would like to share. If you are just breaking into 3D, or would like to try this amazing medium, my advice is focus more on foundation of art. Study and sketch a lot on human anatomy, proportion, light and shadow, design, color theory. Software like Maya and Zbrush is easy to learn compared to these. Maya, Zbrush, Photoshop is just a sword, a tool, while the art foundation is the bread and butter monster slaying skill, like a fireball spell. Nothing will go wrong if you invest in those. I should be listening to my own advice more.

M: Will you be joining us for future contests?

TW: Definitely! I am already excited that you mention there’s future contest, and I look forward to participating! Thank you for having me!

M: Thank you for taking the time to talk with us about this and we look forward to seeing you in our next Contest starting next month. Anyone interested in joining the contest and being notified of it when it starts should sign up on Mixamo for our bi weekly newsletter for contest coverage and dates! Thanks again and congratulations Tommy!

First place

goes to the amazing Vanguard entire by Tommy Choon Yung:

Stunning use of light and shadow on this piece. Imposing figure, very cool armor design, overall amazing job.

Tommy is no stranger to amazing art, and Sci-Fi work too boot. Please be sure to take a look at his site: http://yungart.wordpress.com/ and enjoy some of his other beautiful models.

Second Place

goes to the Space Pirate Nate by Nataliia Ziakhor:

Extremely creative costume design, beautifully sculpted and detailed, strong posing and bonus points for cybernetic peg-leg design.

Nataliia Ziakhor is an artist at http://retrostylegames.com/ and without a doubt, absolutely amazing. The design, style, and overall final quality of the art is beautiful. Please check them out, if your looking for some art for your next project. Retro Style Games can help you out and if your lucky Nataliia can be working on your next game!

 Third place

winner goes to Eva the Space Pirate by Tomasz Straszewski:

The spacer-punk feel is awesome, great cybernetic arm, sexy costume design; very solid style, color palette and maps.

Tomasz Straszewski is obviously a good artist, and one can see that by visiting his site: http://www.tom-3d-art.com/, but his personal style is simply glowing. Great sculptor and beautiful texture work, his work on faces is stunning.

Honorable Mention

The winners defiantly deserve their winnings, but they were not the only amazing entries. Plenty of others took the time to create some brilliant characters. These folks should be recognized for their skills.

Awesome hand painted textures!

Great costuming and detailing!

Love the detail in the cybernetic arm and how it connects to the body. Very cool couture costuming.

His face is amazingly detailed, he looks real!

Seriously awesome presentation!

For a last minute unfinished entry this could have been stunning when completed.

Great outfit and accessories!

The Bunch

Explore all the entries!

]]> http://blog.mixamo.com/mixamo/mixamo-space-battle-contest-winners-and-entries/feed/ 0 http://blog.mixamo.com/mixamo/mixamo-space-battle-contest-winners-and-entries/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheMixamoBlog/~3/zXqcYz8wZd8/ http://blog.mixamo.com/news/autodesk-facecast-with-mixamo-on-3ds-max/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 19:13:50 +0000 Oliver http://blog.mixamo.com/?p=2290 Watch it below!

For the first time ever, access to tons of customizable, high quality mo-cap data in your viewport! Included with Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 is the new Autodesk Animation Store, powered by us, where you can purchase hundreds of motion clips for your Biped or CAT characters. The store also launches with nearly 100 high quality characters for purchase with hundreds more coming from the worlds greatest artists and venders.

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Special pricing for Autodesk 3ds Max Animation Store – 30% off all purchases now through June 12th. No promo code needed, prices have been automatically adjusted!

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A simple animation browser allows you to preview and steam the animation all in the scene!

Now you can preview the motion clips on your characters in your scene prior to purchasing them. Many with detail oriented sliders used for customizing and editing each motion. The resulting animations can be further edited with all the familiar 3ds Max animation tools, such as animation layers for the fastest animation pipeline in the industry!

Check out the demonstration video below!

Now is the time to let us know what animation you all want to start seeing! Post your comments below and let us know.

See the main Autodesk 3ds Max Animation Store Page on Mixamo.com

Mixamo welcomes everyone to our latest Character Modeling Contest, “The Space Battle Character Contest!” Contestants may choose a side listed below and following the three basic requirements, be as creative as possible with the design and style. Work in your favorite sci-fi style and enter to win awesome prizes:

PRIZES
1st Place: $1000 cash - Unity3D Pro License - design3 Annual Membership - 50 Mixamo Credits -Interview and Featured on Mixamo – Professional Rendering of Your Character
2nd Place: $500 cash - Unity3D iOS or Android License - design3 6 Month Membership - 30 Mixamo Credits – Interview on Mixamo
3rd Place: $250 cash - design3 3 Month Membership - 15 Mixamo Credits

Get all the details here: Mixamo Space Battle Character Contest

Contestants can also get their character models rigged for free using our amazing new Auto-Rigger to help with character posing for the final shots!

Deadline : April 27th

Submission process
1. Model your fighter for the Vanguard or the Void Pirates.
2. Take a few nice renders (Beauty Shot, Construction Shot and Texture Sheet)
3. Send the images to contest@mixamo.com

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THE VANGUARD

Sworn defenders of the Galactic Nations. These super soldiers are cybernetically enhanced, gifts granted to them by the power source Heluim3. Because of these man made super powers they are only dispatched in the most dire of situations. Now an attack on the one of the largest heluim3 mining outposts in the system has forced the hand of the Galatic Nations and the Vanguard has been sent in.

Requirements:

• Male
• Super Soldier
• Cybernetic Super Power

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OR
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VOID PIRATES

These femme fatales descend from the Eridanus Supervoid, a dark matterless sector of deepspace and ransack mining outposts for Helium3, equipment and machinery. Because of their harsh living conditions they often have artificial limbs and support themselves on whatever they can steal. They’ve just begun an attack one the of the largest Helium3 outposts in the system, if they can make it out alive they will live like queens!

Requirements:

• Female
• Space Pirate
• Artificial Limb

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Flash Devs looking to make the move to 3D will find nothing easier, faster or more familiar than the Flare3D Studio IDE. And if your lacking an animator, can’t afford one, or are just looking for a few animations on your character or one of ours, we make it lightning fast. We already provide .dae compatible files for drag and drop animation!

Still not convinced at how easy it could be to make a 3D Flash game? Check this out:

DOWNLOAD THE FLARE3D IDE AND GET STARTED NOW!

Are you planning on making a 3D flash app or game? Let us know what animations you want or need below!

Last June we launched our Auto-Rigger beta: an online service that takes a mesh, generates a skeleton unique for that mesh and calculates the skin weights.  The service has been used approximately 25,000 times since its launch and the feedback has been overwhelmingly good. However, the major critique we got back from our users was a need for controllers and not just an FK skeleton.

We heard the call with our initial script theAuto-Biped script, which converts Mixamo Auto-Rigged character into Bipeds in 3dsMax. Because of the positive feedback we received from the auto-biped users we continued research and development on further controller generating scripts and have produced the following!

The Mixamo Maya Auto Control Rig Beta

This python script for Maya allows owners of a Mixamo Auto-Rigged character to automatically generate IK and FK controllers with all the pole vectors and SDK one would expect on an animation ready rig.

The 3dsMax Auto-CAT Script

This Max Script take the Mixamo Auto-Rigged character and converts it into a CAT character for use with 3dsMax’s CAT character system. This allows users to take full advantage of the CAT character animation system and tools.
The scripts are free to use with Mixamo Auto-Rigged characters so be sure to download them and give it a shot!

Follow the links above to download the scripts and try them on your own auto-rigs.

Leave your comments and questions below!

Mixamo Resource Hub currently featuring over 60 awesome programs, resources and training sites!

Are we missing a program you use or love? Let us know!