Jean-Denis Haas

Hi everyone! I’m excited to share a small but powerful Rigging Tip that can make a big difference in your workflow Controller Visibility Based on Mouse Proximity 🎮✨ This smart feature in maya automatically hides rig controllers when your mouse isn't near them, helping to keep your viewport clean and distraction-free. As you move your mouse closer, the controllers reappear smoothly, ready for interaction. 💡 ✅ Cleaner Workspace ✅ Improved Focus While Animating ✅ Ideal for Dense Scenes with Multiple Controllers ✅ Works with Custom Objects Too! It really feels like magic✨ especially when working on complex rigs where too many visible controls can slow down both your scene and your mind. This technique helps you stay focused, organized, and efficient. Hope you find this helpful! #Maya #Rigging #AnimationTools #TechArt #CharacterRigging #CleanViewport #AnimationTips #MayaRigging #CGI #IndieAnimator

216

20 Comments

If your game lives or dies on connection…why would you remove the human from it? I spent a lot of time at GDC hearing teams talk about using AI for voices. And I get it, budgets are tough. Especially in indie. But when it comes to performance, voice isn’t just a delivery system for lines. It’s emotion. It’s nuance. It’s culture. It’s lived experience. It’s the thing that makes a player feel something. And that will never come from a dataset. It comes from a human being who has spent years training, working, and honing their craft. There are so many incredibly talented voice actors out there, at every level, who bring depth, connection, and truth to the work. And there are ways to work within different budgets that still respect both the project and the performers. Going fully AI should not be the path forward. All that time, energy, and care you’ve put into your game? This ONE choice risks losing the player connection that makes it truly resonate. #GameDev #IndieGameDev #GameAudio #VoiceActing #Storytelling #NarrativeDesign

79

12 Comments

No pithy hook for this one.  Just a thought about what separates quality from crap.  I think it's best described as "dynamic range". I regularly see vfx artists making demo reels full of bright flashing stroboscopic particle effects, dwarfing the character they are attached to.  Five different variations of the same effect.  But how can you possibly care?  There's no depth or subtlety to it when everything is turned up to 11. It's impossible to scroll through more than a dozen posts without seeing a character juggle some hapless punching bag of an enemy 20 times with exceedingly ridiculous airborne attacks, such that none of them stand out because they are all as over the top as they could be.  Turned up to 11. The lack of dynamic is desensitizing.  If you have no small, how can there ever be big?  If you have no quiet, how can you have loud?  The music industry figured out a long time ago that compressing the shit out of the music and pushing it as close to clipping as the storage medium allowed would make one song louder than the others... Until everyone did that and nobody is louder, just all max volume all the time. It's harder to be subtle.  It takes more effort to be careful.  It can be scary to trust the end user to notice the difference. Really great creatives get this, and embrace it, across all industries.  Quality requires the quiet.  It demands the small.  It should be obvious that without dynamic range, nothing you're making will have impact.  You're just making another forgettable pop song.

7

6 Comments

Sharing this rigging tutorial by Harris Wu. Clear language, well-structured logic, and a great step-by-step progression from fundamentals to a complete rig. It’s very approachable even if you're just getting started. Definitely worth trying!

3

Building a Bizarre Universe: From Character Rigs to Proprietary Systems 🛠️🎨 I'm creating a full-scale animation studio from the ground up! Behind the scenes at BizarreBeasts, we are merging '90s-inspired, hand-drawn aesthetics with enhanced, proprietary infrastructure and onchain technology. Every character and system is a building block for a brand-new way of storytelling. Here is what is currently coming to life in the studio: - The Cast: Advanced rigging for Jasper, Cecil, Hans, and Angus; enabling everything from talking and dance sequences to guitar playing and coffee-sipping. - The Atmosphere: HD parallax and weather systems designed to give Bizarre City its signature depth and mood. - The Infrastructure: An expanding library of environment art and custom-built tooling to scale the production as the project grows. - The Sound: Production is officially underway for the theme songs and sound design of our upcoming miniseries. Pioneering an original animated series onchain is an inspiring and BIZARRE undertaking. I'm honored to have the support of the Decentralized Pictures Foundation as we push these boundaries and produce the series. Watch the first BTS episode on the BizarreBeasts company page to see the progress in action 👇 #Onchain #Web3 #Animation

5

1 Comment

🚀 What technology will change the VFX industry the most in the next 10 years? Possibilities include: • AI-assisted pipelines • Real-time rendering • cloud-based production • digital humans The pace of change in our industry is incredible. If you had to choose one technology that will dominate the next decade, what would it be? #FutureOfVFX #Technology #VisualEffects #NareshTalks

1

I'm thrilled to announce GSOPs EDU! At CG Nomads Ltd, we believe the next generation of artists, engineers, and researchers should have access to the most advanced tools available. That’s why full access to GSOPs, including Early Access features, is now available for educational institutions to use for free. We would like to extend a huge thank you to our inaugural educational partners: -Stuttgart Media University (Jan Adamczyk) -USC Ganek Immersive Studio (Jordan Reece Halsey) -UTS Animal Logic Academy (Raphaël Gadot) We’ve already seen incredible student work using Gaussian Splats to solve complex production challenges. Educators: please reach out if you're interested in leveraging the full power of GSOPs in your curriculum. Students: If you’d like these tools in your lab, give your instructors a gentle nudge! 😉 Please help us get these tools into more classrooms by sharing this post. Let’s empower the next wave of creators to master one of the most significant innovations in computer graphics since texture mapping. More information in the comments. #GSOPs #GaussianSplatting #3DGS #SideFX #Houdini #VFX #ComputerGraphics #EDU

78

3 Comments

At VOS 2D Academy, our goal is simple: To help build the next generation of 2D rigging artists through real production-focused training. Over the years, we’ve reviewed hundreds of demo reels and submissions, and one thing has consistently stood out: Almost everyone has potential. But almost everyone also has gaps in workflow, structure, problem-solving, or production understanding. That’s where we come in. This is NOT a collection of scattered tutorials with no direction. It’s NOT thousands of dollars just to get a solid education in rigging. And it’s NOT “watch and hope you figure it out” training. Our course is designed around the proven workflows production studios use to rig characters professionally, guiding artists through 8 key modules. From prep work all the way to retake submissions. The goal is not just to teach isolated techniques. The goal is to teach production psychology. Our Q3 2026 LIVE classes officially launch June 10th, and it’s not too late to register. Message us the word “Interested” at version1studiosinc@gmail.com to save up to 50% on enrollment. www.vos2dacademy.com

2

The 12 Days of Scriptsmas continues! 🎄 For Day 10, we are making complex follow rigs effortless. Introducing Trail Blazer. 🎁 Creating a "motion trail" or follow-the-leader rig usually requires complex expressions or manual keyframing. This script does it all for you. Simply select your leader, select your followers, and click the button. It builds a complete rig with custom controls for delay, falloff, and spatial offsets automatically. Create organic, flowing motion in seconds. Watch the demo and download it for free here: https://lnkd.in/gA-5Vyyz

17

3 Comments

Grateful to Agustin Chavarria for giving me the opportunity to explore and test the Carbon Fiber Plugin Suite inside my DAW (FL Studio). In this video, I experimented with KSHMR loops alongside FX plugins from the suite - Analog Memory and ChronoVerb, pushing them beyond their default character to sculpt a vintage lo-fi tone, drenched in a reverb-heavy hall space, finished with a subtle touch of ValhallaVintageVerb on the master bus. What stood out to me is how flexible these tools are when it comes to sound shaping, whether you’re aiming for clean modern textures or deliberately imperfect, nostalgic atmospheres. This is just the beginning. I’ll soon be testing more plugins from the Carbon Fiber ecosystem and will be sharing a dedicated video on how I use them for game sound design, especially for cinematic, ambient, and interactive audio workflows. Thanks again to Carbon Fiber for the trust and support. Looking forward to diving deeper. #GameAudio #SoundDesign #MusicProduction #FLStudio #PluginReview #GameDevAudio #LoFi #CinematicSound #AudioPlugins

8

Does anyone ever find themselves wondering what it means to be an editor and compositor on an animated series? 👀 In this behind-the-scenes snippet of Maddie + Triggs, James McDonald aka compositing SUPERSTAR, breaks down everything you need to know in regards to his role at Sun & Moon, while also sharing some insights on how he composited footage with a visually impaired audience in mind. Thank you to the folks at Turnip + Duck for helping organise this absolutely brilliant and inspiring Q&A.

111

4 Comments

for my vfx peeps who have an LLC i have a question. When you get hired for a gig, do you just ask to be paid through your LLC? And how receptive are they to that?

4

13 Comments

I couldn’t agree more. Before you start cooking, decide what you want to make so you know what ingredients to get.

1

Phoenix Sonic Atlas: Urban Fundamentals and 'their' Harmonics This is what freeway resonance and mechanical rhythms at 3 AM sound like through the lens of an orchestra. A small excerpt from my current orchestral work Mímēsis Lḗthēs for orchestra and field recordings, exploring how environmental sound can be reconstructed acoustically through listening rather than notation. #NewMusic #OrchestralMusic #FieldRecordings #ContemporaryMusic #SoundArt #Composition #Listening

7

4 Comments

I’m thrield to share a project I’ve been working on one of the most time-consuming parts of the rigging pipeline: Naming conventions. Whether you’re working on a stylized game character or a complex VFX creature, this Python-based tool provides a quick solution for maintaining clean, scalable hierarchies in Autodesk Maya. Key Features: Context-Aware Naming: Specialized presets for Biped, Quadruped, VFX, and Game-ready skeletons. Smart Prefixes & Suffixes: Manual entry or automated "By Position" and "By Type" logic to ensure consistency across the rig. Advanced Search & Replace: Quickly swap characters or strings across complex hierarchies. Batch Indexing: Rename multiple objects with a clean, sequential numbering system. Flexible Scope: Apply modifications to your current selection, the entire hierarchy, or everything in the scene. Built for riggers who need precision and speed. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts! This tool was one of many applications that we did inside Python workshop with Anas Elkinawy #MayaPython #Rigging #TechAnim #GameDev #VFX #Automation #Python

68

11 Comments

Check out the latest Weekly Wrangle interview with Tidals Chan - FX artist for Path of Exile at Grinding Gear Games. In this, we talk about gamedev, Tidals story, and how to align your skills for success if you're interested in making real time vfx. https://lnkd.in/g4CjWQ5X #sidefx #vfx #poe2 #3d #cgi #animation

27

My second ''Insight'' for Mixing Light, where I dive deep into the contrast operations in DaVinci Resolve. I explain why they work the way they do, so you can easily replicate the concepts in other software or environments — and, as usual, I give you more reasons to avoid Camera RAW altogether 🫡

7

1 Comment