Life After Disney

   Welp.. I don't work for Disney anymore.  The current direction they are taking involves no internal game studios..  so what happens next?   I believe I run around in a panic and show people what I am really good at in hopes of landing some work for the future.

   I've been at this for 20 years.  Well actually 19, but I will round up because I'm still going at it.  I picked up a small, but stressful gig using Animation:Master in 1997, and hopscotched my way into a decent 12 1/2 year run at Disney Interactive Studios.   I am very grateful to have found friends there, and work with them on such great products.

   It's not every day that your boss convinces a billion dollar company to hand over the helm for 5 years and be successful at it. When DIS shut down,  I joked to people that we had the cure for cancer, free energy and world peace on our servers. Now that its closed up shop nobody will ever know what fantastic ideas we had brewing.

Well... almost nobody. We still have our talents and our demo reels.  Here is my latest demo reel:

   I chuckle a little, because the last time I made one of these to get a job was back in the mid 90s. Each applicant had to have everything recorded to VHS cassette tapes. You needed a boardroom table to display your paintings, sketches, and prints. You had to go to Kinko's to find the best quality resume paper and manila envelope to present.  Now look how far we've come! Chances are, you're either reading this from the comfort of your home computer, on a cell phone sitting at a bus stop, or in the bathroom. You can cross reference, ask questions, and double check facts on me within minutes of reading this.

Ain't life grand?  Now its time to get back to the job search.

The Apatasaur playground

I visit my brother Matt a lot. He is my technical sounding board, runs MK1 Manufacturing and is just a plain crazy scoundrel to hang out with; You'd like him.

  One day a few years ago he asks me,"Remember back when we made dinos?  I want to make a dinosaur swing for the kids." What he was talking about was two decades ago.  He and I and my other brother James had built 40 sculptures for an outdoor museum up in Ogden, Utah. We were teenagers and didn't know much of anything other than resin and fiberglass is strong...oh and everyone in the 90's could stick-weld.

   So to me his statement wasn't that we should, but what can we do better now that we've mastered computer design, CNC machining, woodworking, electronics, 3d modeling...basically all of the things we didnt know that were inaccessible at the time that had slowly become our hobby and professions after 20 years.   I thought about it.. noodled a few sketches and figured, what the hell..

I started the model two years ago.  We  started construction in January '2015. We tightened the bolts on it to 12 tonnes of concrete in June,  and by july, had a platform to play with.   My brother and I like to tinker. over the next year added all the RGB lighting and bluetooth speakers and clubhouse and slides and climbing nets for the kids to hang out to their hearts content. 
  
But the most fun of it is all of us adults swing on the swings chatting and dreaming about the future just as much as our kids do.  

As it all turns out, the kids didn't need to go outside to play. We did.

Welcome to GumRoad

I have a few friends who are using the site GumRoad.com to sell their tutorials.   Amazing friends who are 1000% more talented than I am.   Since lulu was shut down and  also subsequently Bytecommerce, I have been processing video sales by hand, and running emails back and forth to make sure everyone got their links in order.  running data by hand is very discouraging and amidst the stress and jobs, it gets less motivating to complete the next big thing,  but now, I can say that I have found what seems to be a reliable service that can distribute my  messiah tutorials in a way that everyone is happy and promptly served, and I can focus on what I do best: making stuff.

please let me know if the links work proper (or if there are issues) either through email or setuptab.com.

LearnWings3d
Learn:Messiah Animation Tome
Learn:Messiah Rigging Tome

Here's to excellent creativity for years to come.
-JoeC

Rigging and Animation Tomes available!

good news!  I've tested all of my old data in messiah V5 and compiled it into two tomes of knowlege
Rigging Tome
Animation Tome

Those of you wishing to pick up the rest of the series cheaply,  use coupon code decgift  in the discount field.

Now everyone should be up to speed when V6 comes out :)

recovering from lulu....

lulu.com  has decided not to carry a certain product type anymore and focus on book and E-book publishing.
Let's just say that my entire video tutorial library was part of the 'certain product type' and now my links to lulu are empty.  So I have set up a new account with www.bytecommerce.com and am serving them myself through another provider.  
It has been 10 some-odd years since I had created a webpage...  the last program I used was called Web Dwarf.  I have given Google Sites a chance, and I really like the ease with which I can put up webspace.  It's certainly not as easy as a blog, but Google products are integrated, and I can cross reference media and galleries.
So.. if you all want to take a look at the sparse offerings at www.joecosman.net, a short page will redirect you to my google site... where you will also be able to 'buy it now' on the tutorials that *were* on lulu.  drop me a note if you have any questions or difficulties getting the videos.

Ch6: Effects

a simple explanation of how to use and layer Messiah effects on an object for complex deforms.

Rigging 1 foot re-explanation

It's strange how things come back to haunt you, even if its not your fault.  I have had my instructional videos out for 8 years now, and the only complaint I have gotten has been this tutorial video not yielding the same results for other people.
It turns out that some default settings had changed in messiah over the years, causing some headaches with my learning materials. But there isn't anything wrong with the project files or video at all.  Here's why:

Messiah's metaEffectors

Way back in messiah:studio V2, I had decided to animate this skeleton model.  This was my stress test for their new MetaEffector tool back when it was first introduced.  MetaEffectors are weight fields that can be used to isolate different meshes, change how skeletons deform meshes, and even influence how shaders are blended, since it is a value-driven volume.  while I may not be good at explaining *what* they do, I can show you this example. I used MetaEffectors to isolate and assign 160 bones in this skeleton model file to the animation controls within messiah. back then, it was no easy feat. this skeleton easily exceeded 100,000 polygons. so much that it had to be modeled into 5 parts  in the beginning, and took up to 5 minutes to even open on my workstation.

albertasaurus walk cycle

I found an older animation I had done with my skeleton of Albertasaurus libratus.  rigged in messiah, connected to maya through Messiah's live connection and rendered out from there.

Rigging1 and teaser for minituts1

I was digging through my archives when I saw my old portable hard drive.  I had to load it up to see what was on it.  Lo, I found the teaser vids that I had created to sell my first two instructional videos: Minituts1, and Rigging1.  This was back before youtube, so they had to be small, and load fast off of my site.

 Well, joecosman.com hasnt been up for quite a while, the times have slowly replaced it with automated entities such as blogger.com, youtube and vimeo and other various forms of online self-authoring.  So.. here they are from the grave.

you can still purchase these videos still  on www.lulu.com.

I am  sure I have another teaser showing off minituts2 on another backup.  I will keep finding those things and dust them off for you to see.  In the meanwhile, here are some press images from animate2

the Noob teaches you about keyframes and animation concepts in Animate1

 Rigging a full character with facial as well as a four legged character in Rigging2

just parts of a lesson on rigging in Minituts1.  I really like the topology I made for it.

weekend sketches

My brother came over on the weekend, and we had some fun sketching and chatting.  I was showing him the shading pens I had, and some of the charcoals.  I dug up some old pastels I had inherited and played with those.

it sure felt good to just goof off on paper for no reason at all.  the face was drawn from memory, brown pastel/charcoal. smudged away with an old rag until I had my values set in.

A good example of getting down to detail from wide strokes. It started out as a rag smudge and went from there.  I was showing my brother when to stop adding and adjusting... which is when the idea finally shows itself.  Messing  with it more just leads to ruining the whole drawing, as I have clearly done here with the torso and backshading.. ahh well..

Ch5: IK Chains

  This video explains how to quickly set up an IK chain inside Messiah Studio.

2d Picture dump

Its about time I started putting some older stuff up.  alot of it is from my old website from years gone past, but some of these pics are just quick sketches during meetings, or traditional painting back in the day when I thought I had some real talent.   Enjoy!

Ch4: items and heirarchies

Ch4: Items and Hierarchies

 

I upgraded to V5! so... now its time to continue explaining the Messiah interface and methods.

I dont know if I can be consistent about releasing these videos in a timely fashion, but at least they will be available for everyone to get a basic understanding of the program. 

if you are having some issues with using the program, head over to http://www.setuptab.com and enter the chat.  I am there sometimes, and I may be able to help you out.  who knows, it may just wind up as a tip on youtube!....

traditional sculpting dump.

Here are a few pics of sculptures I did a while back.  I am a big believer in traditional media.  there is nothing like feeling, touching, and observing actual materials in an object.  Engaging as many senses as you can, such as smell, feel, touch, will help you learn more about the object you are creating;  It will solidify your understanding of shapes and flow. You will understand composition, and build out the habits of visualizing in 3 dimensions.

this macquette was commissioned for a private estate...

 

...which turned into this 30 foot monster.

 

my good friend Nathan Lindsay designed this fellow, which I turned into 3d.

 

Everyone wants to dream.  I was steampunk before it was popular...

 

Real media lets you explore textures and understand them in a different way than digital can.

 

This sculpture was commissioned by the North American Museum Of Ancient Life.

It is the only life sculpture that the kids can play on, and was masterfully engineered to be bulletproof by my brothers, who are technical geniuses.

Dare to share. a PMG success...

Yes, I have not posted in a few years, and I need to get back in the swing. This is worth writing down:

PMG issued a challenge. In one week, how many people could pass along a message about an animation/rendering package called Messiah:Studio. Ten bucks a license was the reward if they could get enough people interested. Viral marketing in this day and age was a perfect fit for a challenge like that. Well... in one week, they got 100,000 views from over 114 countries, and countless numbers signed up for a license to "give it a try".

I am excited about this because I have been teaching this software for a decade to people who were willing to 'give it a try'. Hardly anyone knows of its existence, but it has flown under the radar doing its magic in studios and freelance jobs for decades. It is robust not because of the things it has done in the past, but because of what it can do now and tomorrow.

Seriously, the power of this program has not even been scratched. It has a full fledged nodal based shading system and renderer. You can even composite shaders on top of shaders for that Non-Photorealistic look, all linkable to cameras, lights, even bones, and weights.

it has C-language based scripting that can also program shaders, a realtime iconic interface system(armatures) that can control any aspect of your 3d scene, and even execute expressions.

It's got bone dynamics, cloth dynamics, sub surface scattering, network rendering, multithreaded, multicore rendering and interface acceleration. It can hook into Maya, Lightwave and MAX and 'puppeteer' your models live in their own native interface.

You can export models out to game engines, such as Unity3d, complete with animation and whatever else you need. Here is an example I made a while back in V4.5 straight export with some unity-programmed logic thrown in.

Now that PMG has the attention it asked for, it needs people to show off their software. We have all the tools we need to make what we want. We just need good artists to leverage them and push the software into the mindspace of the average user looking to tell their own 3d stories.
Everyone who has taken the leap of faith has not regretted it.

And yes, me and my friends can get you up to speed pretty fast with a tightly knit community with people who use the software daily.

Will you 'give it a try'?

Then head over to http://www. setuptab.com and see what the members are doing, as well as view and purchase instructional videos, models, and chat live with the users through IRC.

I also sell instructional videos from Lulu at http://stores.lulu.com/joecosman.

Wings3d is an awesome modeler.

I took some time out from playing with messiah, and made a modeling video for an awesome freeware program called Wings3d. You can purchase it from Lulu here.



I've been using Wings since 2002, and it has been quite the workhorse, helping me complete small jobs, complex jobs(such as my messiah tutorials) and it has been used extensively on BVG games produced by Avalanche Software... at least the ones I worked on. Itellyouwhat, it has saved my butt many-a-time under deadline.

There are only two things I would wish for to make Wings complete:
morph targets, and vertex colors co-existing with UVs. It's clear that I could live without those, but hoo-boy, that would be very happy making for me.

The community behind wings is quite talented, so I'm sure those two features will eventually make it into the program. Heck, it isn't even to version 1.0 yet !!

Half of the modeling tutorials are timelapsed. The first 23 videos are meant to prime you on how to see what I'm doing, so that you can interpret the timelapses easily. This program is so easy to pick up, its like accellerated learning once you see a technique being shown at high speed.

even with half of it timelapsed, its still a couple hours long. Enjoy!

This is the [extensive] chapter list for this tutorial set:

Chapter List for Learn Wings3d
--
LearnWings3d_Ch01_Interface
A basic overview of the wings3d interface,and setting up the
workspace.

LearnWings3d_Ch02_Selections and Navigation
Setting up Wings navigation controls and how to move around
the scene and pick objects.

LearnWings3d_Ch03_MovingComponents
Learning how to use the menus and tweak mode to move
components.

LearnWings3d_Ch04_SubdivisionModeling
A breif introduction to subdivision modeling and it's
philosophy.

LearnWings3d_Ch05BasicSubDShapes
Learning how to handle and visualize subdivision meshes and
how to control subdivision curves.

LearnWings3d_Ch06MoreSubDShapes
Using and modifying a subdivision cage to demonstrate the
different sharp/round edges on complex corners.

LearnWings3d_Ch07EvenMoreSubDShapes
transitioning between sharp and smooth edges on a subdivision
mesh using Chapter 3's curve rules.

LearnWings3d_Ch08_ASimpleBody
Your first wings3d model, a simple human body.

LearnWings3d_Ch09_BodyTimelapse
Time-compressed video of the previous lesson, with more
shape refinements.

LearnWings3d_Ch10_EdgeLoops
Using the Edge loop philosophy to model and refine objects
easily.

LearnWings3d_Ch11_Hands
Approaching low-resolution hands using Edge loops.

LearnWings3d_Ch12_HandTimelapse
Time-Compressed video using the previous lesson for a more
refined hand.

LearnWings3d_Ch13Head
Construction of a base head mesh that is easy to alter and
refine.

LearnWings3d_Ch14_HeadTimelapse
Time Compressed video of a more refined head mesh.

LearnWings3d_Ch15_Feet
using simple geometry to generate complex Subdivision feet.

LearnWings3d_Ch16_FeetTimelapse
Time-Compressed Video of foot modeling using previous lesson's
techniques.

LearnWings3d_Ch17_EarTimelapse
Compressed video showing super simple ear geometry.

LearnWings3d_Ch18_ImagePlanes
how to use Wings3d's image plane to import reference
images to model.

LearnWings3d_Ch19_alienDogTimelapse
Time-compressed video Modeling a character from a sketch
imported as an image plane. (Note: previous version of Wings3d
is demonstrated)

LearnWings3d_Ch20_CavernFishTimelapse
Time-compressed video Modeling a character from a sketch
imported as an image plane. (Note: previous version of Wings3d
is demonstrated)


LearnWings3d_Ch21_UVs_And_Textures
Using wings3d's UV unwrap and UV Charts to unfold a 3d object
into 2d texturing space.

LearnWings3d_Ch22_UV_Projection
Use different methods of unfolding and projecting a complex
3d object into 2d UV space for textures.

LearnWings3d_Ch23_VertexColors
Use the vertex pallette to add color detail to an object
without texture maps or materials.

------------------------------

Chapter List for HiveAntTimelapse
--

LearnWings3d_HiveAntTimelapseA
Construction of the Body in mirror mode.

LearnWings3d_HiveAntTimelapseB
Construction of the legs and their assembly and posture.


LearnWings3d_HiveAntTimelapseC
Construction of Head, thorax and abdomen. Final assembly and
posing.

------------------------------

Chapter List for DinoTimeLapse
--

LearnWings3d_DinoCh1_Torso
Using Image Reference, construction of a torso through basic
shape refinement.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh2_Arm
"cube" modeling the arm, using techniques learned in previous
videos.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh3_Leg
"cube" modeling the leg, using landmarks on the reference
images, then refining the geometry.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh4_BodyMerge
Merging and bridging multiple meshes together to form one
unified mesh

LearnWings3d_DinoCh5_AnotherFoot
A different technique to constructing a leg from the foot up.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh6_Head
creation and refinement of the head geometry to mach reference
images.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh7_HeadMerge
Bridging the head mesh to the body mesh, cutting and tweaking
geometry to make a seamless transition.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh8_Optimize
re-routing edges, faces, and tweaking points to create an
optimal mesh that deforms easily, and is edited easily.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh9_UVs_A
(NOTE: this section is divided into subsections for easy study)
preparing the body for UV layout by marking hard edges in
modeling.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh9_UVs_B
Splitting the model with basic unwrapping, and unfolding the
toe meshes.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh9_UVs_C
Unwrapping and stitching the head sections together. Cutting
and stitching toes to the legs to form a single UV island.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh9_UVs_D
Freezing mirror to a full mesh and re-arranging the parts.
Arranging the claws in the UV window. Re-unfolding the head
And Body into unique UVs, instead of Mirrored UVs.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh9_UVs_E
Merging the Teeth and gums into the torso model, and
combatting the uv projection of each tooth. the teeth needed
more geometry added before UV mapping.

LearnWings3d_DinoCh9_UVs_F
Merging the eye geometry into the body to form a single model.
straight projection and rotating the eye UVs to line them up.

--------------------------
Chapter List for CrazyMechTimelapseVideo
--

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechA
Modeling the Right appendage. using Face operations to model
multiple details at once.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechB
Modeling the torso, creating compound curves through simple
shapes, and refining them later.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechC
lining up, scaling the torso to the right appendage.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechD
"box" modeling simple objects that are duplicated and warped
into finger and hand mechanical parts.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechE
Modeling the compound hand surface and joining fingers to it.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechF
Creating the forearm, and insetting compound contours into the
basic shape of the arm.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechG
generating the upper arm from parts of the lower arm to ensure
proper surface mating.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechH
Creating the "nurnies" of the model. pistons and their
mounting points from one object to the next, using wings
vector operations to align them to their sockets.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechI
Creating tubes through extrusion, beveling, and unique
"cube edge as path" extrusion.

LearnWings3d_CrazyMechJ
Right appendage connection points and "nurnies". Freezing and
finalizing torso mesh to be non-mirrored.

Ch3: 3d space

ch2: loading files

ch2: loading and manipulating an object. Factoid: it takes me somewhere between 8 and 100 takes to record a segment straight through without stuttering.... much.

my intent here is to make some relatively simple videos that outline what it is to use messiah. no tricks, no uber-cool techniques, just plain 'ol pointing out and using features.



I think what throws people off is that there really isn't any good overviews of how to use and understand messiah, so we all get stuck trying to understand the interface, when we could be working on getting some awesome rigging and animations done.