In this interview, lead developer for the project, Steve Twist, shares with us some of his insight and experience from working through the creative process of this revolutionary video set.
For more information about the Mastering Maya: Developing Modular Rigging Systems with Python training set itself, please visit: Mastering Maya: DMRSP Product Information Page
For the folks out there who may not know Steve Twist, would you give us some background on yourself?
I’m a post graduate student, studying a Master of Science in Computer Animation and Visual Effects at the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University. Before that, I completed my Bachelor of Arts in Computer Visualisation and Animation, also at the NCCA, where I developed a real passion for the technical aspects of visual effects work. My specialties include rigging, shader writing, mathematics and problem solving.
What was your inspiration for the toolset developed in Mastering Maya: Developing Modular Rigging Systems with Python?
For me, one of the most important parts of my job as a character rigger is to provide the animator with all the controls they need to meet their animation requirements for a given sequence. Of course, there are times when during animation those requirements change, calling for a type of control that wasn't initially provided.
In a traditional rigging pipeline, this would result in a delay in the animation whilst the rig is sent back to the character rigger, who adds the new controls, and provides the animator with this updated rig. In the best case scenario, all the animator loses is some time. In the worst case scenario, they could lose some or all of their animation, which is obviously an extremely expensive set back, and something I always strive to avoid.
Thus came the inspiration for the non-linear pipeline presented in Mastering Maya: Developing Modular Rigging Systems With Python - to design a toolset that removed this dependency on predicting all of the required controls before commencing with animation. In effect, to allow the animator to install and remove various control rigs on-the-fly, even whilst animating, in a completely non-destructive manner.
If I had to pick a few words that were key goals and inspirations for me on this project, they would be "modularity", "flexibility" and "non-linearity".
A personal highlight for the development was the first round of user testing. Jason Busby and I had worked closely on the interface design (not only the UI windows, but all of the viewport interactive controls) to make sure the system was as intuitive and streamlined as possible. In the end, we asked Zak Parrish, 3DBuzz's Chief of Operations and resident Maya artist, to test out the complete toolset from an end user's perspective.
I still remember the first day that we gave him the full toolset to work with. I provided Zak with a short workflow briefing that morning and then left him to play whilst I continued development. The rest of the day passed, and neither Jason nor myself had heard anything from Zak. He never came out of his office. With the work day coming to an end, we decided to find out how he had got on, and to our delight we found that he'd been enjoying working with the toolset so much that he'd lost track of time and spent the entire day experimenting and playing with it.
My favourite memory from the entire development was from later that evening when we asked Zak how he'd got on with the toolset. He replied by telling us that the toolset finally made rigging fun for him again, something he had not felt for the discipline in many years. It was then that I knew we were onto something special with our design.
What one thing are you most proud of with regards to the rigging toolset?
Rather than any specific feature, I think the thing I'm most proud of is the rapid development time that this toolset was put together in. In total, the toolset was conceived, designed, and developed over a period of only about two months. I personally feel that to be a remarkable turnaround for a project of this scope.
The great thing about such a rapid development time is that even the smallest elements of the toolset's design and implementation were still fresh in my mind when I presented the video tuition. I believe this allowed for me to provide the student with an intimate insight into my mindset when I was developing the toolset, as if they had been actually sitting with me every step of the way throughout production.
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