What the man behind the curtain is up to.

I started to get inspired to start writing documentation again for my script repository yesterday and the brilliance quickly became marred by the thought of how daunting that task can become. It’s a necessary part of the process though and starting somewhere is unavoidable at this point since the organization of the repo is quickly growing beyond what a directory structured system can handle. Documentation is increasingly hard to dig up and it’s much nicer for the tools to be indexed all in one place in a textual and graphical format, even adding tutorial vids for workflows being used when using specific tools or a tool set. I know html is the solution for many of this but how cumbersome it is to use.

In comes TiddlyWiki onto the scene again after having been distracted for a while and not concerning myself with writing help files since I have been busy. I felt motivated again after having read Morgan Loomis’ blog post and seeing his small but effective wiki used for this very purpose. Morgan has links to Scienceoss.com where another useful Python script will create tiddlers for your wiki automatically. Wow, it works great from the command-line but also from inside Maya 2009 which i’m using for rigging stuff. Now if I write a script in Maya I can use this tidder script to automatically update my script repo help wiki thus cutting down the time i’m working inside the wiki editor. Amazing and helpful and it even supports images and resizing images!

Example tidder creation script:

import sys
sys.path.append('N:\Scripts\Python')
from addtiddler import addtiddler
addtiddler('N:\Scripts\Help\script_repo_help.html',
 image='images/asaro_head.jpg',
 description='test image',
 tags='images',
 author='JA',
 title='Asaro Head',
 resize=True,
 replace=True)

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Links:

http://scienceoss.com/insert-content-into-tiddlywikis-with-this-python-script/

http://scienceoss.com/use-sphinx-for-documentation/

http://morganloomis.com/2011/tool-update/

http://morganloomis.com/wiki/tools.html

 

Infinite Scan vRay2.0 FastSSS2 sIBL test 1

Infinite Scan vRay2.0 FastSSS2 sIBL test 2

Because I am half out of my mind and not ready to fall asleep, scratch that, because I was thrilled to learn today that Lee Perry-Smith in collaboration with Infinite Realities has released a very awesome high res 3d scan of his “fat head”, I would like to direct your attention to scanning technology being called Triplegangers.  Anyone interested in playing around with your very own, very remarkable scan should head on over and download this file along with many other examples and some very useful facial reference.  Check the CGFeedback thread for posting your own creations using Lee’s head.  If you’re like me, use it as a practice head to hone your skin shading and rendering techniques!

Along with a fresh head, how ’bout some new HDR images to light your scenes?  Over at HDR Labs they have an ever growing selection of free promo HDRs to use and sIBL GUI, along with tons of other useful tools and vast amounts of information, for ooober simplification of your lighting needs no matter what package you’re working in or renderer of choice.

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