June 05, 2015

OpenGL light setup for Blender


I prefer a custom OpenGL lights setup that more or less mimics the Maya’s viewport default light setup. I thought it would be nice to share it with you guys.
Below, is a tiny python script I made to set these setting for you. Just go to the script editor and copy-paste the following code and it will do the work for you.

March 30, 2015

Likeness Study - Jesse Eisenberg

Fascinated by the first look of Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor in the upcoming Superman Vs Batman movie
I could not resist myself from sculpting this one...
Here it is...
would love to hear your critics and comments on this one..


October 18, 2014

Beast


Found this amazing concept by Avener Geller a few days back on his website
Decided to take it to 3d..
Sculpted in Zbrush
Modeling,Texturing,Shading.Fur,Lighting done in Blender
Cycles is dammn impressive...
Simple to use..
The node based structure makes it easier to control the shading....





July 17, 2014

Vray Shaders...

Have been busy learning about the very awesome renderer from chaosgroup... Vray
It is an amazing renderer with soo much customisations available...
Soo much control....very powerful...physically accurate...takes a bit long to render bt i guess that is affordable considering the quality it gives...
Soo had this file from the cool tutorial by cgcookie.com explaining the shading part of cycles in blender...
I decided to take it into maya nd render it with vray
The SSS is a pleasure to work with...
The RT engine is perfect to tweak ur shaders...though i got different results with SSS on RT nd the final render...

Here is the output...



Hobo VrayTest v02 from Kanishk Chouhan on Vimeo.

May 23, 2014

Reconstruct Subdiv for Maya [Python]

Just trying my hands on making little tools that could be useful in day to day work...
Here's a small script which reverses the result of the smooth operation in maya even after deleting the history...and also preserves your UV
I know Zbrush and Mudbox already have this tool but i wanted to make it available withing maya
I have tried it on various models and seems to be givinn correct results..except for one or two models..
I shall be working on the bugfixes soon...but as of now u r free to try this script on your models and let me know if you face any issues..
WARNING : It takes a while to calculate the mesh....may cause maya to freeze for a while...





















Here is the script...


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#---------Reconstruct Subdiv Script for Maya----------
#Script by - Kanishk Chouhan
#Email - kanishk2391@gmail.com
#Blog - www.pixel-architect.blogspot.com

#Description - 
#This script allows u to reverse the result of smooth operation in maya after deleting the history
#It also preserves the original UV of the mesh
#Select the mesh u want to unsmooth and execute the script
#Script might take some time to execute depending on the polycount...

import maya.cmds as cmds
import maya.mel as mel

#Get the selected mesh
selectedMesh=cmds.ls( selection=True )[0]
#Get the vertex count i.e. vertex id of last vertex...
vertexCount=cmds.polyEvaluate( v=True )
vertexId = selectedMesh+'.vtx['+str(vertexCount)+']'
cmds.select(vertexId)
#Convert selection to edges...
x=cmds.polyListComponentConversion( fv=True,te=True )
cmds.select(x)

#get the edges number...
k=x[0].rfind(']')
l=x[0].rfind('[')
start = x[0][l+1:]
edges = str(start[:-1])
colon = edges.split(':')

#Select edge loops and rings...
mel.eval('SelectEdgeLoopSp;')
mel.eval('polySelectEdgesEveryN "edgeRing" 2;')
mel.eval('SelectEdgeLoopSp;')
mel.eval('SelectEdgeLoopSp;')
mel.eval('SelectEdgeLoopSp;')
mel.eval('polySelectEdgesEveryN "edgeRing" 2;')

#Delete the selected edgeloops
cmds.polyDelEdge( cv=True )

cmds.select(selectedMesh)

U can download it from the link below....


May 15, 2014

Maya...Python...nd loads of coding...

So..been busy learning the Maya Python integration for the past 3-4 weeks...
Finally managed to make a small utility tool for maya..
Nothing fancy but it helped me learn a lot...
The tool basically serves the purpose of a Render Queue...
helping the animators and the lighting artist sort out the shots in the production...

The animators can submit the file to the queue with just one click of a button and it automatically saves the playblast and the image in the image plane to the location of the maya file...
It also saves the frame length of the shot as well the submission time.

The lighting artist can then check the queue for the pending files in the animation list...The artist can select the file from the list and open the folder location...view the playblast or view the image plane directly from the ui..

Soo basically u can have 10 or more animators animating the shots and queuing it up for the lighting artists simultaneously with this tool..
Just place the xml files on sever and repath them in the code...and it should be accessible on any pc across ur network...

All the data has been managed using xml files hence it stays safe even when u close maya or shut down ur pc..

Here's a UI snapshot of the utility...

And a lil video describing the tool...

RenderQueue - Python from Kanishk Chouhan on Vimeo.

I learnt a lot of things while making the tool...
  • Python Maya integration
  • Qt designer
  • Reading and writing xml files for data storage
  • Functions,Classes ,Procedures etc in python
Next on the list is surely Maya API and the PyQt PySide stuff...

I even managed to get my github working finally...
here's the link to the repository https://github.com/kanishk2391/RenderQueue

You can download and try this tool from my google drive




If u have any queries regarding this tool or any thing related to maya python...feel free to contact me - kanishk2391@gmail.com