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Q: What is Rigging Mentor?
A: Rigging Mentor is an online school providing personal customized training for character rigging and technical arts. See our About page to learn more about the school.
Q: How much does a Rigging Mentor course cost?
A: A single 6 week session is $825 USD and there is a discounted rate for returning students. For group or studio training pricing discounts and details Contact us. (Included in the price is alumni access to your course materials and the private community site.)
Q: How long is a course?
A: 6 weeks. This allows enough time to learn important material while limiting the demands on the the students work/life schedule.
Q:What kind of training can I take?
A: We customize our courses to each student. For example custom training from Rigging Mentor helps students improve techniques from beginner to advanced for skinning and deformations, scripting (MEL and or Python), mechanical rigging , skeleton design, tool creation, animation UI, pipeline improvement, setup and rigging for motion capture editing in Maya.
You can chose to just focus on facial rigging or deformation, learn new back and spine rigging options or just brush up on a mix of techniques so your job skills are current.
You can learn MotionBuilder if you never used it or get advanced help with physics, editing and story mode, relation constraints,working with motion capture between Maya and MotionBuilder or 3dsMax or how to build custom rigging for characters and props.
If you a Maya artist that has to learn Max or a Max user trying to transition existing skills to Maya we can help with that , including custom scripts and tools and training get you up and running as fast as possible.
Our classes are tailored to your learning needs so you can focus and gain true understanding of the material.
Q:What kind of artist is ideal for Rigging Mentor training?
A: All artists within a production pipeline should have some sort of technical knowledge of the software they are working with, but to be more specific, here are some examples:
Modelers should have rigging knowledge in order to hand off clean, animation friendly models to the riggers.
Animators should have rigging knowledge in order to know what to request from riggers, and how to communicate efficiently between departments.
Artists that want to be more efficient when working with their software. TD’s should be the masters of the software used in production, as they need to support all other departments.
Artists that want to be able to make tools to aid in their workflow or production needs.
Artists that want to have the skills and opportunity to jump between any of the departments mentioned above. It is common for a modeler to rig, or an animator to rig, or build tools.
Q: When can I start?
A: Here are the Rigging Mentor 2010 start dates: Open registration will start after Session 1 is underway.
Session 1- February 1st (full)
Session 2- April 19th
Session 3 – July 5th
Session 4- September 13th
Q: What if the current session is full?
A: Preregister now and you will be placed on our waiting list for the next available session. The wait list is priority based where existing students wanting to continue with another session get first choice and then students on the waiting list are added based on registration order and session date selected.
Q: How do the courses work?
A: One of the advantages of our teaching approach is that the we build the course based off of your needs.
For example: (character rigging or scripting)
Your learning goal for the 6 weeks might be (skinning and deformation work flow efficiency and speedups assuming you know some rigging all ready).
This would be then broken down in to a few smaller targets like, weight painting best practice, layering deformers, tips and tricks beyond base skinning, updating strategies
for model changes.)
Once the course starts:
Your mentor would ask you questions on your current work flow, you might post a short video capture demo and then back and forth from there during the 6 weeks…to work through each area with video, sample files, assignments etc.
Q: What makes Rigging Mentor different?
A: We designed our personal learning site around a customized social networking software. Students and mentors can network and share with each other including following updates like Twitter or Facebook, while still receiving personal traning that is exclusive to the individual student. After the course is finished, students are allowed continued access to their training session for review and can continue using the open areas of the school site. If a student enrolls for another personal course they will then be assigned a mentor and training will continue in their “virtual private classroom” keeping all material in one easy to find location.
Q: Will I have homework and be graded?
A: Mentors do assign work to be completed for review and critique in order to help the student improve. Assignments can include but are not limited to a mix of production-like problem solving and tutorials to complete and then uploaded for review.
Q: How much time per week will I have to work?
A: Depending on what your trying to learn and how fast you are we expect an average of 1 to 2 hours per day of work from the students 5 to 6 days a week.
Q: What are the software and hardware requirements?
A: We use Autodesk Maya and Autodesk MotionBuilder software for our courses and 30 day trials are available from Autodesk Media and Entertainment website if you don’t currently own the software. We recommend a high-speed internet connection for watching video feedback and other video content. Files and code examples, as well as text posts are small and can be received over a slower connection but it is not recommended. Firefox or chrome web browser is also preferred. A computer capable of running Autodesk Maya and MotionBuilder or equivalent software is also required. Additional helpful tools would include screen capture software (Jing Capture software , CamStudio or Screener all allow free capture and video export), microphone or webcam for narrating screen captures as needed.
Q: Who are the people behind Rigging Mentor?
A: Josh Carey, Brad Clark and Chad Moore are the co-founders of Rigging Mentor and directors of the education program.
The three founders are actively working in production and as educators. We do what we teach and teach what we do. We all have worked together and with clients both on-site and remotely from all over the world. With years of teaching and training experience, including college level courses, short form masterclasses and in-house production training, our experiences make us a uniquely valuable source of knowledge for both amateurs as well as industry professionals. Learn more about the founders.
Q: Is this part of Animation Mentor?
A: No, we are not, repeat not in any way related to the Animation Mentor school. We were, however, very inspired by them and Keith Lango’s Animation Personal Trainer program. All of those guys are amazing talents and the animation community has benefited immensely from their dedication to sharing their knowledge. We hope to help do the same for the character technical art community.
Q: What if I have more questions?
A: Ask us, its easy on our Contact page.