Interview with Michael Comet
by Todd Widup
Hello Michael
First off, just let me say thanks for taking the time to talk with me.
How about we start off with a brief history of your career and what inspired you to get into computer animation work.
Michael Comet :
Thank you. I've been involved with computers and animation for a long time now. I am pretty much self-taught with programming and graphics, and started doing BASIC and other programming when I was in middle school. This includes text and simple VGA video games, as well as playing with Super 8mm stop motion animation. I was very inspired both by older Disney movies as well as Warner Bros. cartoons. Chuck Jones has been a long time inspiration for me. I always wanted to work in animation when I was younger, but never thought I would make it. Special Effects movies also played a big role and affected my drive. I had the old ILM effects book and everything from Star Wars to Back to the Future and Terminator and so on definitely made me want to get into computer graphics or effects.
At one point I had walked into an Amiga store as my father was going to buy a Video Toaster. When I saw you could do 3D computer animation on a home computer, I was hooked.
My first full time job was as an animator at Volition, Inc. I worked on "Descent: Freespace and eventually became lead animator there. Most of my work dealt with hi-res cinematics created with 3D Studio Max 1.2.
After Volition I moved onto Big Idea in Chicago, where I worked on the direct to video projects for "3-2-1 Penguins!" and "Veggie Tales". I was hired along with several other artists as a jack of all trades, to do modeling, texturing, rigging, animation and lighting. Eventually I moved more and more into rigging, and eventually became CG Supervisor for one of the Veggie Tale projects.
In 2003 I moved to New York to work on "Robots" at Blue Sky Studios. I worked as a rigger, and provided a number of rigs, plug-ins and tools while there.
I currently am Character Rigging Supervisor at DNA Productions in Texas. We are working on our second feature film entitled "The Ant Bully".
CGFocus :
You have definitely had an interesting career so far, going from games to biblical cartoons, to talking robots. To date, what project has been the most enjoyable and why?
Michael Comet :
Hmmm that's a tough one. Each has been very unique and presented its own challenges and rewards. Freespace at Volition was probably one of the most fun. I think both because it was my first foray into a full time graphics job, as well as because it was a bunch of us, all relatively new, thrown in and having fun making games. Plus it's just fun to be able to play games or work on that sort of project, and I was doing cinematic work which was the best of both worlds. The studio when I was there was just a great fun place to work and was very laid back. I started when the company had about 16 people or so. It was just a great mix of talented people and fun projects. There's something cool about working with a very small team of people on a project. Working on "3-2-1 Penguins" at Big Idea was similar since it was just a handful of us in a room working on the videos. There's a real synergy that occurs in those types of situations.
CGFocus :
Also, going from games to TV/Film seems difficult for some people. Did you find this or was it relatively easy and problem free?
Michael Comet :
I think Big Idea was a perfect place to transfer really. I definitely was thrown in my first week there, but that's common anywhere. I had to learn Maya and that's also where I really learned to do MEL scripting and such. Overall I really did not find it difficult. Cinematic work on games easily carried over to the video work, and I have always been pretty self motivated and continue to learn on my own. I also had a lot of time to learn the software and my basic modeling, texturing, animation and other skills pretty much transferred over.
Probably the biggest thing from say games or even TV to film is simply the level of quality and attention to detail needed. Or at least different focus needed for each. As a rigging supervisor at DNA now I am finding it more challenging than ever before to continue to keep the level raised and my work quality at the required standards. Big Idea provided a good transition ground from say video games towards something of a higher quality, that wasn't going to kill me right off.
However no matter where you go it's also critical to remember you are not alone. I learned a ton of stuff at every job I had. If it wasn't for all the other fantastic people I worked with, I wouldn't be where I am today. I could probably write pages and pages if I were to go over each and everything I learned at each studio and how that helped me progress and get better.
CGFocus :
Since you are a character TD, let’s focus in on some job specific questions for all the character TDs out there. First, what do you see are some of the vital skills for someone looking for work as a character TD?
Michael Comet :
Well for character setup probably the two main areas or roles fall into either controls and skeletal setup, or deformation. To really be a good TD you need to do both well. All too often I see demo reels that show one or the other. A setup artist needs to be able to understand anatomy, be able to place joints into the proper location, or and then rig that with controls that will make the animators happy without over-rigging. They also need to have a good eye for deformation to make sure things hold up when the animators try to break the rigs. Another common demo reel problem I see is people not showing enough extreme movement on their rigs.
Part of doing control setup is also being able to script. While you don't have to be a super programmer/scripter, that sort of ability will put you over the top, and generally also helps you get rigging done faster, as you can come up with little helper tools to automate repetitive tasks.
Other good skills include being organized. Having consistent naming, organize rigging nodes internally, and other such things help keep the rigs more streamlined. In a production environment, having a similar setup and naming convention can allow other people to go in and fix your rig if you're not around to do it.
And finally, one other important aspect that will really set someone apart is the ability to think outside the box and problem solve. Part of this is really knowing the software you are using inside and out, to be able to pull from different areas to get what you need. The other part is simply coming up with ways to solve problems the animators throw at you, or figuring out why rigs are breaking, or using all of this to come up with new rigging techniques as needed for the show. I guess I would call this technical creativity.
CGFocus :
Inspiration, motivation, and the future. Where an artist finds inspiration and motivation is always an intriguing concept to me. Where do you find inspiration and motivation for what you do on your own time, like your new muscle system?
Michael Comet :
Well I think in general I'm usually inspired by other films and the work both my friends and people around me are doing as well as other studios. For example after watching "The Incredibles" I commented that I was both totally inspired and totally depressed at the same time (since their work was so good). I have in the past, as well as now continue to work with a lot of really talented people. So that also helps to motivate you to do good work as well. When you see something cool a friend or coworker has done, then that can be a push to you to try to do something similar or related on your own time.
I also like to push the boundaries of what I know, and I really enjoy programming and developing tools. So a lot of motivation is really just simply because I enjoy doing what I do. I guess I am pretty passionate about 3D graphics and animation, so I like working on it in my free time. Working in this field, and being where I am now has pretty much been my dream from when I was younger.
CGFocus :
Let’s talk about your new muscle system that you recently released. In a few short years, you went from max artist, to Maya character TD, to Maya plugin developer. Why did you choose to do a muscle system first?
Michael Comet :
Well as far as Maya plug-in development goes, this was definitely not the first thing I have done. At home and work I have developed a number of tools for rigging and animation. For example my free Pose Space Deformer for Maya or my Skin Joint Reset plug-in were probably the first publicly available plug-in tools, although I had already worked on many more at work.
"Comet Muscle System" is my first commercial endeavor mostly because of its scope and size, and because it really is a labor of love. It's something that I hadn't really seen done well in a commercial setting at all, and I thought it would be useful to the general CG community out there.
CGFocus :
What do you feel separates your system apart from others out there? Is there something unique to it?
Michael Comet :
In all fairness I am not really too familiar with other systems available. However from what I have heard and seen, many times I think developers either make tools that are either difficult or tricky to use, or simply don't get the job done. "cMuscleSystem" was written by a T.D. for T.D's. It's exactly what I wanted as kind of "prefect dream" skinning system for Maya, that wouldn't necessarily have to change the way I work, and would fit into any pipeline. For example it can be used as a replacement for the Maya skinCluster, and as such can function very similarly to a skinCluster at similar speeds, or you can build off of that as desired for more advanced deformations.
As far as I am aware, cMuscleSystem has a lot of unique and powerful features. For example sticky weighting is truly independent of sliding. So the sliding is a real true sliding effect from muscles or bones, and you can paint a totally independent weight for sliding, that can be overlapped across multiple muscles. In addition there are other features such as relax/wrinkle weights that can give a much higher sense of realism when sliding or regular pulling occurs, as well as be used for just helping basic skinning. Smooth weights are similar, and once again could be used not only for muscle deformation, but even if it was just applied above a Maya skinCluster to help smooth out deformation problems.
The tool also provides per-point skin jiggle. Once again this feature as well as many of the ones listed above can be applied on top of any object, so now you have a way to get jiggle type effects that are guaranteed never to blow up or break on any moving object. Finally all of these features can be cached to either the node or an external file with the built-in caching functionality.
So primarily the main thing that sets cMuscleSystem apart is both its pure number of features and usability, as well it's true integration with rigging in Maya. You can use blendshapes or any other Maya deformer or setup in conjunction with the plug-in. It can be used as a really great and advanced muscle and skin deformation tool, but it probably will have other uses as well for rigging as people start to use it. The main point here is it really is just another fantastic deformation tool for Maya that has tons of usefulness and should easily fit the needs of almost any studio or end user. In many ways I wrote this not just for the public, but for me personally. I want to be able to take this and use it for personal projects or work in such a way I think makes sense for a rigging pipeline.
CGFocus :
I have watched a lot of the videos on cometdigital.com concerning your cMuscleSystem. I am really impressed with this piece of technology. You seem to have covered not only a muscle system, but a lot of complaints about Maya's skinCluster in general. Was this all based off your own ideas, or was it from ideas, papers, comments, and feedback from outside sources?
Michael Comet :
It was a mix, but definitely a lot of it was my own kind of initial wish list for what I wanted to work with. When I first got started I did an initial specification document that kind of spelled out what features I wanted and what I wanted to see it do, such as color weight painting. The number one thing was sliding, and until I had figured out a decent way to do that on paper, I didn't even start coding.
Some of the features stemmed from things that came up as I worked, or things I had other people request. For example once I had initial sliding implemented, I realized I needed a way to do better pulling of skin and so I implemented the relax feature.
I also was critical of making it too automated. For example I had talked to other artists at other studios, to hear how some of their systems worked. It became apparent that many times the process was either very very slow and had to be a simulation that the animator could never even see. In addition sometimes things like weighting or setting up the skin might not give the results you wanted. So I decided early on to try to stick to something that gave more control to the user and that was faster to work with and not a simulation. Certainly when turning on some features of cMuscleSystem for a final render you might want to cache out the information for speed, but overall setting up the basic deformation and muscles is quite fast, and an animator can even pose the muscle rig as they animate to animate muscle features like jiggle.
As far as other feedback, I of course had some beta tester feedback during the development, as well as initially trying to read and find out as much from papers on the web that were available, taking what I thought was useful but still keeping to my original design ideas.
CGFocus :
The videos on your site are great about showing off the features and functionality of cMuscle. Can you tell us a bit about 2 of them.. specifically that Trex and the wrinkle/relax ones. How long did that Trex take to setup with cMuscle and what brought about the idea of the wrinkle/relax feature?
Michael Comet :
The T-Rex rig was actually something I did at the very end of the development right before release. I realized I needed a good sample video and Rob Dollase an old friend of mine from Big Idea provided me the T-Rex model and textures. So at the end I was quite pressed for time trying to get the plug-in out for sale and getting the samples put together. It was a good test of putting the system through its paces when time was critical.
The initial rigging on the T-Rex I did as a straight up bone rig. What I mean is I just used joints/capsules and sticky weighting like you would do any other Maya skinCluster. That took about 1 day. I recommend approaching the cMuscleSystem rigs this way since it gets you a good first pass weighting that you know has proper interpolation between areas of influence. The main benefit here is you have a deformer that works the same as a Maya skinCluster at pretty much the same speed, but has color weight painting, and other features can be enabled as needed.
Once I had the initial base rig completed, I added the muscles and polygon bones. Adding or transferring weight from the Maya joints to the muscles gives you an immediate sense of muscle squash-stretch and jiggle, and is quite fast to rig and animate with. I simply hold/lock weights for everything but the one bone and muscle and then just add weight to the muscle, effectively removing it from my initial joint weighting. That way you can slowly and subtly (if desired) add weighting to the muscle and you are keeping your initial relative weights for each area you had since you are using the lock weights feature. This process took about two days or so to build all the muscles and make their jiggle settings and weights look nice.
I then added the sliding weights and tweaked out the jiggle and relax weightings as well. So overall I probably spent 4-5 days or so on the rig. In reality I probably spent and equal or higher amount of time on the animation. But then again I am more of a rigger than an animator now. Setting up a muscle rig isn't really going to save you time as a rigging artist, it will probably actually take more time to set up properly, however what you get is much much more control and believability in the quality of the deformation.
The relax/wrinkle feature is an example of where I implemented and then expanded on a feature to help with another part of skinning. The idea here was to get something that would provide a way to make sliding effects look more natural truly pull the skin around the area that was sliding. A good example of this is if you imagine a flat plane with a ball intersecting the plane. If the ball is the muscle that is doing the sliding, then the plane mesh will be pulled outwards from the sliding of the ball as you might expect. However the points right around the ball that are not necessarily intersecting may not slide or be pulled. By using the relax feature you can now have the points hold together more, so that the result is as the sliding occurs, even points in an area farther out will be pulled up and out as the sliding occurs. It gives you a more real looking tautness to the skin so that as you pull just one point even on your mesh, all the other points will start to be pulled to. This is also a great way to just help make your skinning look a little better too as I showed on one of the sample screen capture videos.
The wrinkling works the same way and is really just sort of sub-mode of the relax feature, in that the points attempt to kind of hold together and so as there is compression you can get wrinkling type effects. There is not currently any true skin-skin self collision, mostly because I wanted to avoid a full on simulation process for right now, but people may still find this feature useful for things, even such as giving a kind of pseudo-cloth type effect. Finally the smooth weights which are yet another feature can also be used to help tone down wrinkling or such as needed also.
In the end I think this tool provides the next level of control when dealing with character skin deformation, and as discussed can also be quite useful for many other areas as well. I really hope people find it helpful with their own projects, and I am already looking forward to making it even more powerful for future versions.
CGFocus :
One of the things that struck me as unique in it is the idea of the capsule. What brought this concept about as something to apply sticky weights to, and why not just use Maya's native joints for sticky weights?
Michael Comet :
Well the main reason is I wanted a way to make Maya joints do more than just sticky weights. For example I wanted them to have a shape and a volume for sliding. So you can apply or convert any joint to a capsule and then that provides all the same functionality as a polygon object, but it's much faster since it is totally procedural. It also allows you to set custom coloring and such as well.
CGFocus :
What does the future hold for Michael Comet? Where and what would you like to do?
Michael Comet :
I think continuing to work in the feature film industry on computer animated films and helping to develop new technologies and tools to create that work. I am quite happy where I am right now. I've been given a lot of room to really develop and guide rigging and setup at DNA which is just fantastic.
A few people have asked if I will suddenly just start developing software or such, but I really do not want to do that. I think there is a huge huge benefit for working and staying in the industry. Personally I feel as soon as someone tries to just go and work outside of a studio, you will lose touch with real production flow and needs. Plus I really enjoy just working on films with other people around to interact with.
CGFocus :
Favorite movie?
Michael Comet :
The Incredibles
CGFocus :
Beer and pizza or beer and brats?
Michael Comet :
Definitely Pizza...and probably Dr. Pepper. :)
CGFocus :
Hehehe, had to end it on a fun note. Thanks for talking with me, Michael. I wish all the best in your future and I hope that cMuscle is a huge success.
Michael Comet :
Thank you for taking the time to talk with me!
For More Info on the Comet Muscle System For Maya Visit: cometdigital.com
