I'm working on a project with a friend of mine, Matthew Ebisu. He's really into robots and is most interested in applying the art of animation to robots. Below is a 3D-printed robot arm which is being controlled from Maya.

I designed the Maya rig to have FK and two versions of IK chains (arc and spring), and they can all blend between each other.

The IK arc chain is controlled by an expression that I wrote based on some simple geometry.

$pitch = 0.0;
if (IK_ctrl.translateX >= 0){
    $pitch = IK_aim.rotateZ;
    }
else {
    $pitch = IK_aim.rotateZ - 180.0;
    }

$lenRatio = `min 1 (shortDistShape.distance / armDistShape.distance)`;

shoulder_IKarc_jnt.rotateY = acosd (1.5 * $lenRatio - 0.5) + $pitch;
elbow_IKarc_jnt.rotateY = (-1.0) * acosd (1.5 * $lenRatio - 0.5);
wrist_IKarc_jnt.rotateY = (-1.0) * acosd (1.5 * $lenRatio - 0.5);

$pitch is used to tilt the base joint to meet the IK control.
IK_aim is a Locator on the base aim constrained to another Locator in the same location as the IK control.

$lenRatio is the ratio of the compressed arm length to the uncompressed arm length. I used Maya's Distance Tool for this.
If the ratio exceeds 1 (IK control pulled beyond limit), use 1 for later calculations.

...And the rest is geometry. Yay math!

For IK spring mode, the user controls the first joint, and the last two are determined by an IK rotate plane solver.

I also wrote an expression for calibrating the servos. When I first got to work on the project, I noticed the digital and physical rigs were off by about 90 degrees. I first hard coded the values, then later added keyable controls. This is because servos have a hard time maintaining calibration. If they moved too quickly, calibration would be thrown off by as much as 25 degrees.

$sFlip = ((-2) * options_ctrl.shoulderFlip) + 1;
servoWrite2.input = ($sFlip)*(calibrateNode2.valueY + options_ctrl.shoulderOffset);
$eFlip = ((-2) * options_ctrl.elbowFlip) + 1;
servoWrite3.input = ($eFlip)*(calibrateNode3.valueY + options_ctrl.elbowOffset);
$wFlip = ((-2) * options_ctrl.wristFlip) + 1;
servoWrite4.input = ($wFlip)*(calibrateNode4.valueY + options_ctrl.wristOffset);

The Flip controls determine the spin direction given the sign of the degree change. They are booleans, hence the need to convert from a 0 or 1 to 1 or -1, respectively.

The Offset controls are floats between -180 and 180 and currently stay at around -90 or 90 depending on the servo.

Lastly, I didn't play with the spinning servo much because the one installed now is very jittery, making it impossible to calibrate. We'll use heavier duty servos in later stages.

More to come later.

I wrote a document describing the thought process in the design of the shader used in our thesis film.

Below are the pages.

I made a 3D print of my mentor at Adobe, and SHM alumnus, Daichi Ito.

  

I did a one-time, one-hour lecture for my peers in the Shrunkenheadman Club. I talked about the basics of lighting theory and a few quick demos in Maya. I brought together what I learned from Autodesk and Solid Angle's documentation, a book by Jeremy Birn, and other bits I gathered from websites and my time as a theater tech.

The links on the last slide are as follows:
Maya Spotlight Documentation
Arnold Documentation
Functions of Light
Phase Angle
Digital Lighting and Rendering, 3rd Edition by Jeremy Birn
Lighting UI Script

The poster was designed by the SHM Graphic Designer of 2017-2018, Ulises Alvarado Llamas.

Here are the slides:

I've been listening to the podcast, Cortex, for a while. In the first episode, CGP Grey talks about having only one page of apps on his iPhone. I decided to give it a go, and I've come to like it. It forces me to strongly consider which apps I use the most, and which can be at most 2 taps away. The other day I've extended this to my Macbook Pro. I've removed all items from the dock other than Finder and Trash:

To open apps, I use the Launchpad gesture (4-finger pinch). There's 35 slots in the Launchpad, more than enough for the work I do. The only thing I can't open like this is the Eclipse IDE. For that I use Spotlight Search (Cmd + Space).

It takes a little getting used to, but I'm liking it. It's most practical when apps have a bottom scroll bar that can easily get obscured.

And if you're curious about the desktop... I've been using the School Work / Personal Work folders only for a long time. I don't want to dig through a desktop full of images.

I highly recommend at least trying this.