My Classical Music Album 'Adoramus Vertexium' Full Free and Legal

'1/2 'Proper classical', 1/2 metal and 1/2 crazy shit

I thought it easier to link both of the two album I have wrote and recorded over the last twelve months in two posts with a single player direct from my soundcloud.  I think of this album as having  halves (lol), as its half 'proper' classical compositions I have wrote peformed and recorded half rock and metal stuff and half crazy stuff.
Again all songs are composed by me, recorded by me, performed by me (apart from the classical vocal bits) even the damn album are work is by me.  Think of it as a distilled ego trip lol.  Although hopefully it show there is a little bit more to me than just being 'Mudbox guy'.

I make my music free as its not done to make money from and I do it to relax and unwind. But all rights are reserved and copyright Wayne Robson 2013, if you want to use it for any reason then drop me an email and I'll probably be fine with it.  (Unless its for use as the soundtack to a martian donkey porn film lol)

Something Different: 2 new albums of my music

Over the last year I've be writing, recording and producing 2 albums wroth of music. As its in 2 different musical fields I've split them into to albums. The first album is called 'Fat Funky Bastard', the second album is called 'Adoramus Vertexium' and is a 'mostly classical music' album.  The links and track listing are below:

[EDITED] I've removed the links as I will be upping the playlists for both albums soon so they are far easier to listen to without copying and pasting links.[/EDIT]

As I do these 'for me' to relax...  I put them out as I always have with my music for me..... Enjoy

Markerless mocap: Meekon Channels Samuel L Jackson

Another experiment... syncing to an existing sound track...in this case Samuel L Jackson in a short bit from pulp fiction.

Wayne's Markless Facial Motional Capture Application

Back when I first started there were a number of things I wanted to do that I never got around to (usually as to do them would either have been hideously expensive, was out of my skill range or simply wasn't possible on a small setup).  But now I have both time and space (and on occasion...resources), I thought I'd start doing some of the things I always wanted to do.  Hence my recent invention of a hybrid 3d scanning rig capable of both very high detail and its portable without compromising on quality (oh and its a shit lad faster as well...but thats for another day).  

But you may be asking 'why' if I can (and do) sculpt likenesses like the one of myself in the blog post below, would I want or need a 3d scanning rig. The answer is simple and rather obvious when you think about it.  To create a digital double from scratch it takes time.  Time is money and often clients do not have that time and money for me to spend what to them is an age nailing a perfect likeness.  So at times like that its actually less expensive for them to have a 3d scan done.  But at other times (like for example the Jesse Owens digi double I did for the london olympics opening ceremony last year), scanning is not possible so you sure as hell better have the skills to do it the old fashioned way by hand.

Onto the facial mocap....(which lets face it, is why your probably reading this)

I decided as I was covering the workflow for sculpting and modeling for use in a facial mocap rig, that it'd be fun to do a quick 'advert' for the end user event.   It also gave me a chance to start ironing the bugs out of the app I wrote to do the facial mocap...as 2200 frames has a habit of exposing any unusual bugs lol.  My system is a rather heath robinson affair at the moment,(look it up if you don't know to what I am referring) but works extremely well.  Amazingly so when you bare in mind the programming only took 4 days ...and that was including putting together the rig itself as well.  Once I am 100% happy with the rig and app then I will arrange it into something nicer on the eyes lol.

The rig.... what is in it?

yes that is 3d max, no it is not what I am using for the facial mocap.... I could show you...but I'd have to kill you

While I have no intention of EVER selling my facial mocap app (its for in house use only), I have no quarms about outlining the actual gear I use.

Here's the 'recipe' list

• 2 Kinect's (360 versions...early models work best...no idea why, I havent worked that out yet)
• 1 Sony Nex5N (sometimes swapped with my canon 5D Mk2, although oddly enough the nex gives better results)
• 1 Zoom H4n high fidelity Audio recorder (no point doing any facial mocap if the sound is shit now is there??? Plus I already had it lying around).  This is also an excellent audio to digital interface as well
• My brain
• 1 computer

Now while the example above is uncleaned (apart from the eye blink near the end that needed cleaning)   uses 2 kinects, I have got exactly the same quality with a single one....  but two give more 'options' later in the game.   If you are wondering how I stop the canceling between them that is inherent when you have more than one kinect... thank Microsoft R and D dept and a tiny bit of info hidden away on the net.  All you need is vibrations that on each kinect, it then magically auto syncs to the others. (I'm achieving this by a bit of magic known as an old knackered pair of very loud headphones placed carefully with 'Ace of Spaces' by Motorhead playing ...which works magically best for some reason).

The capture is in real time and while I'm not telling you how it works, it can output to either a blend shapes workflow or to a point cloud to run a Facerobot or similar rig.  It enables me to transfer the animation between rigs in about two clicks (thats to a script paul neale run up for me as a favor).  It can also theoretically be used on any face, human , animal, or 'other' with ease.  S yes you could map your facial movements onto a donkey if you so wished or pretend to be a fucking monkey if thats your bag.

Below you can see the raw mocap data.... there is about 75-90milliseconds delay (perfectly reasonable) only and it does the job.  Again....this is early days and a '4 hours coding' version that if I were a software house wouldn't even count as a bloody alpha version, let alone a beta lol.  But I know that with some refining its perfectly possible to increase motion fidelity about another 70% at least.

The only thing that mildy pisses me off is that as I had a ver tight self imposed deadline on this the model suffered as a result as did the render set up (render time could be no more than 1 min a frame.... so its a bit shit as a result.)

By anyway.... enjoy and remember I'm covering both digital doubles (lecture number 1 at EUE), that will cover hand sculpting digital doubles and handling crap scan data you will often get handed.  Lecture 2 covers sculpting and modeling for facial motion capture and covers my own workflow to enable you to get a flu set of blend shapes done in about 20-40mins..oh and the facial motion capture setup and some explanation how you can set a similar rig up.

'Me' :::: Digital Double Work in Progress

The Digital Me

Well I'm calling the head part of this done, there are a few things I could change but chances are I will whne I do the rest of the image anyway.   This is the 3rd attempt ata  digital double of myself that I am happy with over the past year.   The first I was way too flattering with myself and by the time I 'fixed' all the things I dont like about myself, I came to the conclusion it was no longer me.  Which is an intersting lesson to us all that it is the inperfections that make us who we are.

The 2nd was using old refernce images (as I was working in dublin at the tikme and didnt have time to take any more) and as a result that version looked ten years younger and a whole shit lot slimmer lol.  So as a result that one went the way of the Dodo as well.

This version is sculpted in mudbox from the old default mesh andf taken to 8.2 million polys.  It uses 4k maps or diffuse, bump and spec (plus a few tweaked variations of these) in a stacked layered vray skin shader inside of 3Ds Max.   Lighting is with full GI and only some very basic colour corection and depth of field added in post in photoshop (seen below in the centre is the render without any post work.)

Only 2 extra passes were renderd out a reflection and a wirecolour pass (usually I've use a multimat material and a gbuffer ID but for some reason it didnt want to work today, so I fell back onto plan B).

Mudbox Sculpting Process

Above I've stuck quick image of the different stages of the sculpt in Mudbox for those intersted. At they moment it doesnt have animatable tlopollogy, although I doubt I'll need it as animating my own head seems a bit redundant and a bit of an ego trip too far lol.

I do have an image in mind for this, and hopefully I will find the time to get that final as well.

I should also take this oppotunity to remind you all that creating digital doubles is the subject of my 1st lecture at the EndUserEvent on the 26th June this year in Utrecht Holland.  You can find more at www.EndUserEvent.com

Me :: Work in Progress

 

Work in progress.... early days

The Big 1 Million and the Bigger 4.9 Million

http://www.youtube.com/user/noggity

I very rarely pimp my youtube channel on my site or blog, in fact apart from the occasional video or time lapse I let people come across it themselves.  But as its my birthday on thursday (23rd May) it sort of hit me as I am at the time of typing only 73 views away from 1 million official views on my youtube channel, its sort of as good an excuse as any.

Now its probably unofficially way more than one million as about a year back I deleted about 300 videos that ironically were the ones with the most views as I thought they were not indicative of the current quality of my work.  And doubly ironically as there are still plenty I detest that are ancient that I never got around to....

So head on over and there is all sorts of sculpting stuff, time lapses the infamous 'Waynecasts' (best viewed with the reminder they are meant with tongue firmly in cheek).

For those of a curious nature theres been 495,000 views also on Vimeo on one account (I'm buggered if I can find the details to my alternate account at the moment....  And from the beginning on that account there has been 4.9 million views since back in March 2008.  on to of this there are bloody videos on all sorts of other places on the net that aren't counted.  So While its not exactly 'Gangnam Style' its not bad for some videos on Mudbox and of me rattling on like a senile old sod.

So I suppose nearly 6 million (that I can check on at the moment) is not bad really.

...and if your wondering I am 42 on thursday which according to douglas adams book 'The Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy' is of course the meaning of life. ;)

End User Event Teaser

Digital Double of my Dad

A small teaser for one of my two lectures at the End User Event this year.    The full description can be read here: End User Event .   As a small part of one of my lectures I'll be covering using scan data (which usually I fgind is pretty crap).  Being sick to death of having to clean up dodgy scan data over the years here at my office at Academy FX I have been settings up a unique 3d scanning technique.  There is nothing like it anywhere as its a hybrid system of my own devising.  Click on the image above to see the full res image from one of my test runs.   One thing that makes this system so special is not only does it give good results... its very fast, provides a full map set and its portable.

I suppose I should mention that an animation freindly retopped model pops out the other end as well as the maps sets etc:)

This is a tiny part os what I will be covering at the end user event on digital doubles, with more on my unique facial mocap system (and how anyone can set up a very similar one...minus the 'secret' stuff of mine of course) and how to achive a likeness when having to sculpt a digital double by hand.

Now if I could just get my bloody website for Academy FX up and behaving itself I'd be far happier. (I did say I'd get more done once in the office... tip of the iceberg ;) )

Work in Progress

Work In Progress

Something I'm on noodling with at the moment.  Its a work in progress and as such unfinished..... I have pixelated out the hands as they aren't touched yet and if I dont you just know some bugger will say 'those hands look wrong' lol.  So best way is to pixelate them out ;)   Its unposed at the moment...and yes done in Mudbox and 3d max.

Videos

Sorry for sound quality on this video.... no idea why it crapped out.

Mudbox 45min warm up sculpt

Here's a couple of videos, the bottom one is my warm up from a couple of mornings ago, and the second is my warm down.   I thought for a change I would do my warm down in zbrush ...just for shits and giggles. 

Facial mocap and doodles

Another facial mocap test... eyes not part of tracking as working on code to do handle them better.


And a couple of doodles , the first as something more intersting for some facial mocap tests...the other a 30 min warm down doodle.

to make mocap a bit more intersting for me

warm down doodle...

Academy FX is Open for Business

'The'oh shit I dont have a logo', logo design done at 4am. So chances are in time this will change.

Monday 22nd April,(tomorrow at the time of writing) is the day I open Academy FX for business. The 1st week will of course be spent trying to get things such as machines, fittings and infrastructure up and running... (well ..I say a week, its actually 3 days tops as I have work in from wednesday).  Then it is all systems go....(ish) . There will probably be no proper website at the www.AcademyFX.com domain until the more important things are done. (There is no point having an awesome website but no chairs to sit on or desk to work at.) 

The reason I am opening Academy FX is that I got a little sick of trying to cram the 'career' side of my art into 3 or 4 hours a night. The idea of dedicated premises with plenty of space and no interruptions make this a very good idea. Also my name can be like a lead weight at times (in both good and bad ways), so this to a certain degree gives a fresh start. Although I would also be a number one mug if I did not capitalise on it as well. It gives me a permanent base of operations, even for times when I am working away as I recently did at Screen Scene in Dublin working as 3D Supervisor on the film Last Days On Mars.

One thing I am proud of, is that unlike many other businesses these days I didn't use a 'Kickstarter' campaign to fund it. I personally think it's a little cheeky to ask the same people to fund setting up your business that your going to later ask for more money to buy things or services from you. I know many disagree, but that's the way I have always seen it. This also means I have complete control and no one can come a knocking at a later date expecting a handout due to funding a Kickstarter campaign lol.

Academy FX will be based in a rather fitting location, it will be the art wing of a now closed old school I went to 24 years ago. (I also had more hell there than anywhere else... so there's more than a small degree of karma here coming and kicking the people who said I would never amount to anything in the guts I freely admit.) It's the place that I 1st learned to draw using perspective & proportions, paint in watercolours (badly) and the very 1st place I ever tried my hand at traditional sculpting (a bust of Julius Caesar just in case you're wondering..it was never finished), and 3 mins slow walk from my current home.

The school has been closed many years now..so when the opportunity came up, how could I say no? It was almost like it was written in the stars or something. Although I don't believe in such things, the omens seem good, even more so as my main work room (and my desk) will be exactly where I used to sit in my art classes aged 13 over 24 years ago. Which I find more than a tad ironic.

 Although I have always worked long hours as a freelancer, that also includes working from home, often with both kids running around so that isnt what I would call 'optimised' work time. So many things I haven't had time to do from a work perspective, I now will and resources to do it.

Academy FX its best thought of it as sort of a multi headed Hydra. Or to put it another way.... the way my brain works. It will act not only as a studio producing 3D concepts and assets (both digital and traditional), but also allow me to teach people one site in a proper working environment that I have control of. This was a working comprehensive school for many years so it is indeed (and probably rather uniquely in this field) a proper learning environment as well. It also gives me time to develop existing code / software of mine and push boundaries in that area to provide services not provided elsewhere at the same speed as well. It will not be a company releasing DVD's etc for sale because I already have existing agreements for that, plus that side of things takes a lot of man hours for less financial reward than is prudent for the time spent.

 The plan is to bring people on board as needed and use the network of people I have after many years in this industry. What you won't see is it on every site and forum on the internet constantly. (Although you may see a new series of free videos and a few DVD's etc to give me an excuse to test equipment and setup. Of course that also helps to raise its profile, that I freely admit.) 

There will also be some services and things I do there that are not things you usually see me doing or maybe even know about. It basically allows me to go pedal to the metal at my speed and work in the way I know works best. So think of it as extended freelance in an office, but with more resources, a chroma rig, area for Marquette development, tool creation and a few other things...and corridors, lots of corridors.

Messing around.....

Untextured raw model frame

I mess around with all sorts of shit that never ever sees the light of day for various reasons, sometimes I dont have time to finish  them, sometimes I get bored and move onto something else, sometimes work crops up and mess around time goes bye-byes.   So all sorts of model and coding  / 3d tech that I mess to fill some time in never gets seen.

But as a digital sculptor at heart, I always love to see my shit moving and animated, however there has always been el problemo... I suck at animating.   So as I had a spare night , while waiting for my kids to go to sleep next door to my work room (until they do nothing 'serious' can be done anyway) I thought I'd mess around with something I mothballed ages back due to lack of time.

So here's some very early dick arounds with something I've had in the pipe for ages that does markerless facial mocap.  However as its for 'me' I needed certain requirements that arent available off the shelf (or without costing the earth..I find its easier to write my own stuff than buy shit alot of times).  My main requirements is that the data integrity must be flawless (I have a bit thing about data integrity!) , must be able to be used on multiple meshes  with different topology and vastly different shapes.  It must get me at least 'ball park' before I do a shed load of blend shape tweaking (there are none on this at the moment).

But most of all and the biggest problem is that it must work while I am wearing glasses (no I cant wear contact lenses...very long and borring reason why).  So thats what I personally needed it to do.... this is just an early mess around so dont get too excited.... chances are it'll never see the light of day anyway like a lot of my stuff doesnt.

Now for the technical stuff for those who asked.... 

It was knocked together using the OpenNI SDK, a modded Kinect and plugged my nex 5's output in as extra data so  could pull more from the rgb than you can get with a kinect.  Then both the mesh thats generated and used as control for the main mesh and the resulting keyframes were ran through some code from ReDucto (remember the experiemental denoise function???)  At the moment I need to come up with a new way to handle the eyes as on this the eyes arent tracked as they crap out a little (not a tremendous ammount, but enough to be annoying).

One idea is a sort of subtractive function between the modded kinect data and the nex 5 output data...but nothng set in stone.  Also at some point I'm going to set things up for 'proper' multi camera mocap using syntheyes to generate the point cloud needed as it'll give far better results.  But like many things, that goes on the back burner for a while.

Warming back up

No idea where this one poppe dout of from my brain, no my usual style...or subject matter.......consider it a dick around and nothing more.

Lecturing at End User Event 2013

End User Event 2013

Last Days on Mars IMDB link

Its just been announced that I will be lecturing at this years End User Event in Utrecht, Holland on the 27th & 28th June.   I'm not going to say just yet what I will be covering, but I can tell you what I wont / can't.   As th film I was 3d supervisor on, 'Last Days on Mars' is not out yet I cannot cover or show anything from that (I rather like my genitalia intact thankyou very much, which they would not be if I showed anything early lol).  

I'm actually in a position where I now have enough stuff I could theoretically lecture about to cover the whole event by myself if need be.  So as I've spent a lot of the last 12 months 'off grid' it means I now have a lot of cool stuff I can cover and show.  So I have plenty of cool things to choose from.... I'll cover more specifics nearer the time.

Now on a more personal note this years EUE is rather a special one for me as it was there 2 yers ago that i had my stroke, I had last year off as I was still recooperating and to be honest I didn't want people to see me until I was back to what passes for normal.   So as EUE has always been a sort of mini Holiday for me to catch up with a lot of 3D mates, this one is a little special for those reasons.

EUE is an amazing event if you havent been there before, it is also a very important networking event for many of us aside from the lectures, drinking and stuff.   Its like a mini siggraph in a pub with the best mates you have never met.  I'm hoping for the usual great weather and over the moon that for one year its not on my sons birthday lol.   So get your backside there on the 27th & 28th of June and I can gaurentee you will have an excellent time and be sure to have a few pints of Hoegaarden.

Fingers crossed a few members of my screen scene 3d crew will be visiting as well.... if so this will mean at least 3 Bulgarians in one place (including screen scene alma mater Hristo)... so your liver may need preparation should this occur lol.