http://www.andynicholas.com Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:48:46 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This is the second of two articles that will show you solutions to common problems you'll face when using Python in XSI. Importing Python Modules Python modules offer a great way to reuse code. Often you'll find that you want to share code between your plugins, especially in a pipeline situation. ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=1016 This article is the first of two that will show you solutions to a couple of common problems you'll face when using Python in XSI. How to pass functions to PPG logic in Python When making user interfaces in XSI, I find that I often need to create custom properties on ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=1014 It seems to be a general rule that just when you think you know a bit of software, it comes back to bite you on the ass. This time, ICE threw up a surprise when I went to import a compound. It seemed to come in okay, but it complained ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=1048 This article follows directly on from the previous one in the VFX Math series: How to Read a 3×3 Matrix. If you haven't read it yet, do so before reading this one as it introduces you to some important concepts that this article relies on. Both articles are written informally to ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=911 Description The XSI Tab Menu tool lets you accelerate your workflow by allowing easy access to run common commands and add nodes to your ICE tree and Render tree. It does this using a pop up window (accessed by hitting <Tab>) which temporarilly captures keyboard input to determine what to do. ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=913 Matrices are simple but like anything they take a bit of getting used to. I decided to write this article to help newcomers understand a bit more about them. It is a summary of an explanation I've frequently used to develop intuition surrounding matrices. I'll be assuming very little prior knowledge ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=861 Occasionally a project comes along that has different frame rates in the edit. Sometimes it's worse than that, certain shots can have the frame rate changing continuously; a technique that's often called "speed ramping". For example, imagine the real time to bullet time transition in The Matrix. For the Sky Sports ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=362 Back in August, The Mill gave me a new challenge. There was a new job coming in to create a viral for Audi and they wanted me to lead and act as VFX supervisor on the shoot. To be fair, I'd been pestering them to let me do this for ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=811 This post is one of a series of entries that will be talking about some of the things I did while at the NFTS (2006-7). Back to School There's no doubt that leaving my job at Lionhead Studios to go to film school for a year was a risky move for me ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=714 If you've never heard of multiparms; here are a couple of examples I'm sure you will know: The Add SOP on the left uses a multiparm to get a list of point positions from the user, while the Object Merge SOP shown on the right uses a multiparm to merge geometry ... http://www.andynicholas.com/?p=639