Training DVD topics

[lkruel]

Hey guys,

I'm thinking about putting together some training DVDs and I was wondering what sort of topics haven't been covered too much in other series that would be of interest to TA's and students.

I know there's a few people here that have done DVDs themselves and I was wondering if they had any tips as well on what seems to work and doesn't? Any help would be appreciated.

Here's the topics I'm thinking about covering, let me know what you guys think would be the best

HLSL Shaders
- Introduction DVD - going from a constant shader to a phong with reflections
- Intermediate DVD - cheap skin shader, water shader, texture tricks
- Advanced DVD - Vertex Shader vs Pixel Shader calculations, Gemstone shader, Brushed Metal

Scripting
- Intro to Python for Mel Scripters
- Using Python as the glue of your pipeline (talk to Photoshop and other tools from Maya)
- Mel for Artists - Basic programming overview
- Intermediate Python - Object oriented scripts, using PyQt for UI, XML read/write

Rigging
- How to write an autorigger
- Rigging for nextgen games - separate export skeleton, joint limits, skinning limits, etc


Let me know if I'm missing anything that would be of interest, I'm getting into writing websites with Python using Django, but I'm not sure if the tech art audience is the right one for that one.

Thanks!

[tistatos]

I must say I would love to own all of those DVDs :)

However I've heard rumors that if you're a MEL-scripter and want to learn python, you should try to learn the basics outside of maya because people have said its easy to get stuck in a "maya-thinking" way when you learn python just to use it in maya.

The nextgen rigging DVD is something I've been looking for aswell :)

[lkruel]

However I've heard rumors that if you're a MEL-scripter and want to learn python, you should try to learn the basics outside of maya because people have said its easy to get stuck in a "maya-thinking" way when you learn python just to use it in maya.


That's partially true, but my philosophy is whatever makes it fun to learn and gets you the fastest results is going to make you want to learn more the most.

I could talk about doing "proper" python programming, setting up modules as directories with init.py scripts and doing everything object oriented, but if you're going from Mel to Python you don't need that.

You should learn it down the line, but I'm willing to bet that 90% of people that want to take a look at Python is so they can do something they currently can't in MEL with ease, like using a designer interface to create UIs, hitting the API through Script, or reading and writing XMLs.

At least that's how it worked for me, sure I'm missing out on valuable "foundation" but I feel that usually I learn better through examples and the foundation is hidden inside those examples, and I'll learn about the foundations when it's needed, when I need to package a tool with multiple files into a single module, or when I need a more robust object oriented system, but that can come later, right now I just want to know what's the equivalent to a global proc string doSomething() is in Python.

Most artists learn to draw well by drawing a lot, then they go to art school and get better by learning about composition and color wheels, but they can put all that into context, versus getting someone that never drawn before and teaching them color wheels and composition, sure it's good for them to know, but you need to be able to put it in context by doing some hacky work before =)

[jocose]

All of those sound amazing. I think some shader tutorials would be particularly well suited for video because you should demonstrate the results.

I looked everywhere for some quality HLSL dvds and really couldn't find anything except for this one from CG Adacemy:

https://www.cg-academy.net/es_catalog/product_info.php?products_id=64

It would be really nice if there were a few more available, I would certainly buy it.

[crackerjack]

I would vote for Intermediate python and rigging for nextgen games.Having started python a couple of months back, I think professional advice can help me explore more in this direction.

[Nysuatro]

If you got topics that are not big enough to make a dvd about. this site maybe is a sollution ( http://cg.tutsplus.com/) You get paid by making tutorials. And I havn't seen a tutorial about rigging or scripting yet.