Meet Pixo Jr - Our Favourite Animated Lamp

Pixo Jr - a great training rig for Maya animators

Meet Pixo Jr - a free Maya rig created in homage to Pixar's pioneering animated short - Luxo Jr. - the film that made the studio's name and proved that CG animation could connect emotionally with audiences.

We recommend Luxo for the early stages of learning animation - it's a great way to get used to the Maya animation controls without things getting too complex, too quickly.

Pixo Jr is an excellent rig, free for student download at highend3d.com.

Luxo Jr. Part of animation history

Who created Pixo Jr? And Why?
Pixo Jr. was a joint project way back in 2006, and was created by animators Amrit Derhgawen and Alex Crouch.

Inspired by Pixar's Luxo Jr., Pixo was created to "help animators practice animation principles, such as timing, weight, spacing, phrasing, and overlapping. Pixo is simple, so you can do basic animations without being distracted by a whole lot of gadgets and gizmos that get in the way."

Lamp Hop Tutorial

You can find our tutorial on Pixo lamp animation here.  https://vimeo.com/showcase/5793268

Pixo Jr. Quirks
Like any rig, Pixo Jr has a few quirky features that might fox you when you first give him a test drive. Below are some commonly encountered problems to help you on your way.

Turn the Light On 

Lamp head options

To turn on the light bulb inside Pixo Jr.'s "head", first select the yellow star-shaped icon next to the lamp head, which controls the light bulb settings.  In the channel box you can control the intensity of the lamp, the cone angle and also colours. To turn the lamp off completely, set Intensity to 0.

In order to see the effects of these changes, go to the lighting tab in the top left hand corner of your viewport, and click on "use all lights".  Also, you can render the current frame to see the rendered effects of the light bulb.

To turn the bulb itself on, go to Incandescence Red, Green and Blue and set the values to 1. Now the bulb itself will light up.  To further adjust the bulb, go to Outputs in your Channel Box and click on Bulb_Phong. Here you can adjust the settings for the bulb.

Change Evaluation Mode from Parallel to DG

Change Evaluation Mode from Parallel to DG

Pixo doesn't work as well in Maya 2016 and up. This is because of Maya's implementation of Parallel Evaluation, designed to make rigs perform faster in the viewport. 

To fix this, go to windows > settings and preferences and then in the settings > animation category, change the drop down menu for evaluation mode from "Parallel" to the older mode "DG".

Pixo Jr Animation

To see what other animators have done with Pixo Jr, watch the videos below:

Lamp Animation by Jeff Smith

Pixo Jr Animation by Victoria Bailey



Pixo Jr Animation by Jinng Hwee Tan


Lamp Hop by Joris Van Laar



Lamp Hop with Pixo by Bella Al-Mahdiova



Lamp Hop by Jonathan Humphries



Most of all, have fun with Pixo! And be inventive!

----Alex

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our new BA/MArt starting in September 2016, follow this link.