Jamie's Jewels

The amazing Nexus are at the London 3ds Max User Group

Hi All

Below are the details for the next London 3ds Max User Group. These details were supplied by the organiser, Simon Moir. Make sure you go along and say "Hi".....  and if your feeling really adventurous you should present your latest work.

Wednesday 2^nd March - The Plough, 27 Museum Street, WC1A - Starts at 7pm sharp!

location map

"Ben Cowell is the head of 3D at Nexus. Ben’s coming along to show the group their fantastic work on the Honda Jazz advert (below), using Max and Krakatoa, and some of their other recent work. Of course, you’ll be bringing along some work to show everyone too, won’t you?

Please note the new venue; it was very hard to convince the landlord of a central London pub to give us a space for free. The Plough has a newly refurbished room upstairs with a large screen so I hope it works out, but we need it to be full! So do come along and catch up with everyone after the recent hiatus."

 

 

Happy Max'ing

New Mudbox Blog - Wayne Robson

Hi All

There's a new Mudbox user Blog that has just started. This is one to keep an eye on, as knowing UK based, Wayne Robson it will be full of excellent content. If your not aware of Wayne, then he was named this years Autodesk "Mudbox Master" and is an all round nice guy.

Book mark this site now for insights into his workflows!

 

Happy Max'ing

4 Guest 3ds Max/Design DUTCH YouTube Tips Uploaded

Hi All

I have uploaded four Dutch YouTube examples of Tips and Tricks to the below locations. These have been created by expert user, Joep Van Der Steen, based near to Amsterdam.

Click on the below links to view his carefully created videos.

• Slate Material Editor Tip
• Iray Tip
• Car Paint Shader Tip
• SAT import Tip

The Main YouTube channel can be found here.

or view directly below:

 

 

 

 

If you see Joep - make sure you buy him a beer......

Happy Max'ing

 

3ds Max Blog - Now Translated

Hello, Hallo, Alo, Ahoj, Bonjour, 你好, Hej, Witam, Hei,

Many of you will have noticed these two new sidebars that have appeared in this blog. This should now make it easier to read this site and keep up to date with the latest 3ds Max / Design news. Even if you don't speak English. 

Of course, Google translate isn't always 100% grammatically accurate, but it's 1000% better than I could do. After all, I'm English which means I'm lazy at language.

If Internet Explorer recognises that English isn't your default language, it should bring up a bar across the top, asking if you want to translate all the pages. This should then be kept as a default. (please let me know if this 'translate' isn't working as expected.)

Languages currently supported are: (Click to enlarge Image)

 

The extra good news is I have also added a 'search' bar, that will happily trawl through all the past blog postings to help you find answers and relevant content even quicker.

If your still reading this far, then you may be interested to see the 10 countries for reading this blog? (As of Feb, 2011)

1. United Kingdom
2. United States
3. Sweden
4. Finland
5. Germany
6. Taiwan
7. Poland
8. Austria
9. Bulgaria
10. France

I hope this makes it easier for those of you reading this 3ds Max/Design blog, that aren't native English speakers. I really appreciate all of your support, and a special thanks to everyone who provided feedback.

Until next time......Happy Max'ing,

3ds Max YouTube Channel

Hi All

I've finally had a bit of spare time to start uploading some 3ds Max related videos to my new YouTube channel. As time goes on I aim to keep adding relevant content, including showreels and tips and tricks. You never know, there may even be some top-secret-hush-hush-dont-tell-anyone technology previews starting to appear, so keep an eye-out for more videos being uploaded.

You can stay informed via my @3dsjamiesjewels Twitter account, as not all of my uploads will appear as blog postings on this site.

 

Happy Max'ing

Project XBR video uploaded

Hi All

The 'XBR' webinar recording is now live. This was presented by Shane Griffith, 3ds Max's Product Manager at Autodesk. As such, this is an important webinar, that I highly recommend you watch, preferably with a large cup of tea and chocolate cookie. As this indepth sesion lasts for over 1 hour.

In case your not aware, Project XBR (or Excalibur) is an ongoing restructuring of 3ds Max. The webinar covers many important areas for you, as a user, including graphics, simulation initatives and UI changes.

  

During the webinar there were a number of public polls. To see the results of these, I recommend you visit Ken's blog.

Happy Max'ing

Autodesk & Scaleform

Hi All

Autodesk, today, announced they intend to acquire Scaleform.

 

If your not familiar with Scaleform, then they are a leading provider of UI (User Interface) software for the Games industry. This technology leverages Adobes Flash toolset and has been licensed in approx 800 game titles.    

Click here to read more details, including a FAQ.

Happy Max'ing

Did you know you already had 10 free 3d characters?

Hi All

A common question from Design Visualisation companies at the moment is around 3d characters, and which model libraries I would personally recommend for projects. So with this in mind the below new offering from Rocketbox might be of use. In the meantime, you could also look at the 10 free samples you receive as part of the 2011 product release. These can be most easily found in the same location that you downloaded 3ds Max/Design from on the Subscription Centre. (Login required.)

 

 

Once you've downloaded the 2.7gb of content, you should navigate to the below folder location to find the two sets of the ready-to-use high-quality characters. (Of course, whilst your there, you should also look at the 25 High-res cars you have as well)

C:\Autodesk\Autodesk_3ds_Max_2011_&_Autodesk_3ds_Max_Design_2011_English_Win_Samples_Files\Samples\Scenes\aXYZ\HiRes Characters\...

 
 
These excellent models are 'pre-rigged' both in Biped and CAT (Character Animation Toolkit) toolsets, allowing the most amount of flexibility in your next project. Below you will see some examples of the amazing quality you will find in this sample pack.

 

On a personal note, I have used both aXYZ and Rocketbox's collections of 3d characters in production, and would certainly recommend them as being some of the best currently out there on the market. The 10 characters received as part of the sample content are from aXYZ's award winning Metropoly collection.

If you've never tried characters in your scenes before, then why not try them today and raise the production values of your next project?

  

Rocketbox's new offering.

New Middle East characters have been added to the Rocketbox Libraries 3d model shop. These commercially available models also have a facial animation rig and include a large number facial expressions and phonemes. The new characters are two Middle Eastern female characters (product codes "cchd_f201" and "cchd_f202") and two Middle Eastern male characters (product codes "cchd_m250" and "cchd_m251"). Below you will find examples of the new characters. More images and videos can be found here.

As for all Complete Characters HD series, three basic animations are already included (idle, talk, walk). 

 
 

So make sure you download the sample content now, and start adding them to your next renders and animations.

Happy Max'ing

Thankyou 3dartist

A big Thank you 3dartist, for featuring this blog in your latest mag as an "...inspiring and informative blog(s!)", pg19.

It's very much appreciated, and makes the late nights worth it..... right, I'm off to open the bottle of bubbly! (well, actually it's a cup of tea, but doesn't sound quite the same)

 

Happy Max'ing.....

Reminder - Todays 'XBR' Webinar

Hi All,

 

A quick reminder of Todays ‘XBR Webinar’ hosted by Autodesk’s Ken Pimentel.

“Join us for a special webcast where we’ll update you on Project Excalibur (XBR). XBR is a restructuring of 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design that is intended to occur over three phases. It addresses fundamental improvements in workflow, UI, and performance. This update will provide more detail about UI, dynamics and viewport changes. You’ll be able to post questions for the development team.

There will be three opportunities to attend identical sessions held at different times on February 8th, 2011. These webinar sessions will be recorded and those that register will be provided with a link to view the recordings.

Date: Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Time: 9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EST     (2-3PM GMT or 3-4PM CET)
Time: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM EST      
Time: 8:00 PM - 9:30 PM EST”      

Click here to register via Ken’s Blog.

 

Please ensure you notify your fellow 3ds Max users of this important webinar update.

 

Happy Max'ing