Here is a quick demo showing the workflow for using the different render droplets on my site. PLUS! A very thorough demo and explanation of using Apple’s Qmaster application that is part of Final Cut Studio for rendering with Maya, After Effects, and Nuke, and some detail on how it works and what it is doing.

A lot of the Qmaster info and initial motivation for the different render droplets comes from Hugo Guerra’s post on vfxtalk.com.

The vimeo version of the demo is kind of low resolution so check out the QuickTime below if you want to see more detail:

QuickTime Version 1152×720 (93MB)

iPhone Version

Again, if there are questions, definitely check out the Qmaster documentation or contact me at: andoruLABS.support

Here are links to the aerender docs, maya docs, and nuke user guide.

EDIT: A lovely commenter named David did some very thorough testing of the render droplet and Qmaster setup and posted his findings in the comments.

[andoru.labs]

Like my other 2 render droplets for AE and Maya, this one starts Nuke script renders in Terminal on OS X.

You just need to go through the normal steps of setting up your render in Nuke with the proper Write nodes and instead of pressing the Render button in Nuke you can quit the app, drag your .nk script onto this droplet, and your render will begin in Terminal

It is worth noting that if you have a machine with many cores (4-8 core machine), it is well worth your time to look into how to setup your Nuke renders with Qmaster as demonstrated by Hugo Guerra. This allows for full multi-threaded use of your multi-core machine and as he demos, this can really speed up render times.

Download: NukeRender (725KB .zip)

Note: This version is for Nuke6.0v5. If you would like to keep this up to date for use with the latest, or an older version of Nuke, all you need to do is open up the app in “AppleScript Editor”, an app included on every Mac, and update the Nuke executable path accordingly:

Included in the package is a version called “NukeRenderFlags” that will ask if you would like to use any additional flags for your render.

If you have issues, questions, or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support. Enjoy.

[andoru.LABS] | [hugo.guerra]

Just like the MayaRender app, but for After Effects. A quick and easy way to launch AE renders without using the resources necessary to load up the After Effects UI and load each preview frame into memory. Plus this gives you the ability to launch multiple renders at once if you so choose.

Essentially just another way to render in the background (inspired by Lloyd Alvarez’s great BG Render script on aescripts.com), but without ever having to open AE. Render speeds should also be slightly quicker this way as well since no resources are used by the app and only the render engine.

AEae_v1.1 download page. . .

Demo:

Here is a quick demo of the AERender & AEae apps (both available in the “labs” section of this site.

QuickTime Version 960×600 (27MB)

iPhone Version

Enjoy! If there are any issues or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support.

[andoru.LABS]

Just like my MayaMaya app, but for After Effects. It simply opens up another instance of After Effects so you can have multiple projects open at once.

Unfortunately you cannot copy and paste directly from instance to instance, but there are many other reasons this can prove to be very useful.

AEae_v1.1 now supports drag and drop! You can either launch the application normally and choose how many instances you would like to open, or you can drop project files on the app to automatically open them in different instances of After Effects. This version also includes preferences, if you would like to reset the preferences, delete the “com.andorulabs.AEae*” file located in your “/User/Library/Preferences” directory.

Download: AEae download page. . .

Featured on Motionographer.com!

If you have issues, questions, or concerns please contact: andoruLABS.support

[andoru.LABS]

Working with multiple iterations of Maya open is a great way to save time, it allows you to copy and paste individual objects/nodes from scene to scene, just like many pro apps out there. No one has done it better than Apple with Logic Pro 9, making running multiple iterations unnecessary as they have added a fantastic method of importing whatever data you like without importing entire projects (although this is still possible with Logic) :

Selective Track-Import

If you want to have this same type of functionality with Maya on OS X, you can’t just fire open another instance of the app like you can on other platforms by just launching the app again, but luckily it is very easy to do. One method is popping open Terminal and telling Maya what to do:

open -n /Applications/Autodesk/maya2009/Maya.app

This is something you want to do quickly though, so a one click solution is a must, and that is the point of MayaMaya:

Download: MayaMaya download page…

An app to pop in your dock, or Finder toolbar, or wherever is most convenient so you can easily open as many instances as your system can handle.

NOTE: The version available here is for Maya 2009 as it is the version I use, if you would like to use this for 8.5, 2008, 2010 it is a very simple process of opening the app with “Applescript Editor” which you should have in your “Applications” or “Utilities” directories, and changing 2009 to the appropriate version.

One annoyance you can run into is the “Pasted__” prefix that will be added to all pasted files. This can easily be taken care of using a simple .mel script that Alex Villabon does a great job outlining on his site Green Soda.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me or comment, and I will help you sort out any problems.

[andoru.LABS] | [Green Soda]

QuickTime Version 960×600 (95MB)

iPhone Version

An overview of some of the rigging/technical work I have done. Including:

-Maya Camera rigs
-character rigging
-layout/scene rigging
-camera projection
-dynamics

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! A lot of this work will be appearing in fully rendered form in upcoming and current projects or on my next reel and some of these assets may soon be available on this site.