Really? I thought the biz was saturated in talent, not enough room for new guys!

Anyways, it sounds like a good idea. More flexible pricing than community colleges too.

Well, I’m not sure whether the market is flooded with em, but its certainly not flooded with GOOD tech artists. So, perhaps thats the distinction. I mean its hard enough defining what a technical artist does let alone teaching it.

The most valuable thing about this method is the opportunity to get assignments with the same demands of the studios, and with criticism of real professionals. Beeing a good character TD is more than be able to construct a good rig. It’s about for example how to deal with 30 characters (bipeds quadrupeds flyers snakes) in no time, with procedural and custom techniques,able to break this character if the lead artist want to change something, and redo all the complete rig again in a second (and a real second), able to detect errors in the mesh and able to communicate this things to the modeller before it can be too late, able to deal with the requests of the animators, GUIS, controls, etc. Able to work with muscle systems, able to fight with the limitations of a game engine, and the list is soooo long. Probably one know how to rig and skin a perfect biped, but how to deal with a real eagle or a hawk? Expanding the feathers without collapsing. Wich method to use, ?here are the real problems, and can make a headache or a fantastic day of a well done job with everybody happy, (animators, producers, etc) So it’s not only how to be a good rigger.For me the comparission is like the actual artist. The good and hunted artist is not who has more imagination or skilled in drawing or sculpting,this is a requirement ,no, the perfect artist is who can fit in the vision of the project or the vision of a director, like a glove. So the good rigger is who is able to find solutions in the beggining , middle and end of the pipeline, without stopping the production. Nowadays we can get all the information about rigging for free, studying the mels and rigs of others, or buying the excellent (and cheap for what you get) books and dvd stuff made by some of the same pros who are involved in this project. I was involved and I’m involved actually in a pipeline lika I said in the begginning, and damn, I don’t have the money to be enroled, but if I had I was the first, because you don’t know how many questions I have actually, and any of this questions is about how to make an IK/FK switch or strecthy arm (things I told you can find easily if you search a little). So I wish the best for the project and enviying a little to the lucky ones who can get this piece of gold.

agreed 100%. and from talking to the guys setting up rigging dojo this is exactly what they have in mind too. I guess if they’ve done anything “wrong” at this point (and I wouldn’t actually say its wrong, just possibly not as descriptive as it could be perhaps?), its short selling themselves on the name. but i guess “technical artist/animator/pipeline guy mentor” isn’t quite as catchy…

although in their defense, rigging is a pretty broad term. i’ve spent the last year of my life “rigging” up a content pipeline for valve. has a bunch to do with characters and animators, but it has nothing to do with controls or ik.

Ah Mc and when I talk about this guys I included you too, mate, only watching how many of this pros in this dvd’s are using your spagghetti kaboom scripts, (the cmd stuff) makes you a place in the podium for shure.

hamish.. tech artist like u getting involved with riggingDojo is a good idea in my opinion , budding rigging artist will get advantage of ur experience in rigging and Tech/scripting knowledge.

I feel rigging mentor will work if it really stand out from already crowded training space market.
There would be no point of redoing stuff that is already available. If riggingMentor delivers course that helps student getting ready for challenges ahead..

Rather than merely learning some sort of new SETUP (arm, leg or something).. that said i feel giving students basics of rigging(constraints ,utilityNodes etc..) and then finding out what SETUPS they come up with and building Over them would be good idea..

I would also love to see some quality bar being set by rigging mentor like what there peers did with AnimMentor.

Mr. Kazoo,

You should definitely participate. We all love the work you’ve done and it would be a perfect place to spread your knowledge.

And to Mike’s query above. I think good technical artists are the biggest thing Lacking in the industry right now. They’re very rare and hard to come by.

-jason

Hey Hamish,

If you have the time I would prompt you to do it.

If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have done the things I have.

The knowledge and understanding you imparted would surely help lots of others, and as Steve mentioned above, there are lots of people using many parts of the zooToolBox in many different places.

The reason that there aren’t any good technical artists is because no one has ever really taught it. I graduated last year from one of the top animation schools in the country and in their TD minor you learn about things like lighting, rendering, and compositing in great detail but there were a total of two rigging courses and one MEL scripting course and they weren’t even required for the minor. The courses themselves weren’t even helpful. The “Advanced Rigging” course consisted of the teacher handing you copies of Jason Schliefer’s Animator Friendly Rigging dvds and telling you to finish the rig by the end of the 9 week course. Not to diminish the work of Jason Schliefer because it is a good series but it wasn’t meant to be a program that teaches someone how to be a character TD. After finishing the tutorial in a week I spent the next 8 weeks combing through the actual code for both the AFR tools and in your Zoo Tools to try to actually learn something about scripting and rigging. Of the few students in my graduating class that were calling themselves “Character TD’s” I was the only one with any scripting or programming knowledge. Since graduation I’ve spent the past year combing the internet trying to fill the holes in my overpriced substandard education and I hope that this Rigging Dojo program will be what I’ve been looking for.

in defense of educational institutions – given how hard it is to actually find good people, its even harder to find good people who want to teach. in addition its just a hard subject to teach, mainly because a large part of the job involves collaboration with up and downstream departments.

you’re right, the lack of good education certainly contributes to the problem.

i just wanted to post a quick thank you to both Hamish for posting this and all the responders. It is great information to read over.
Brad

Yes please.

Entertaining animation comes from a solid rig painless in use.
Achieving an such rig requires a great deal of knowledge and expertise.