November 2010
8 posts
4 tags
Let's talk about CMYK, baby – part 1: line screen...
Now that I’ve covered a lot of 3D stuff, let’s talk about some printing stuff, for those who don’t know too much about print. My background is as a magazine art director, and I’ve dealt with some tricky CMYK scenarios through the years. Today was one of those.
This morning I was awoke at 5 a.m. by a call from a press check. It was from a rep who was concerned about some...
5 tags
Dangerous Indesign "feature" rids you of your...
Last week when we were doing press stuff for Bell, I found out that Indesign does something very dangerous with Pantone colours and placed EPS/AI/PDF images. If you have a Pantone converted to CMYK in Indesign and import a logo or something that has a Pantone in it, it will convert it to CMYK if the name of the Pantone in the file is the same as the one you’ve converted:
You may be...
3 tags
Using GREP in Indesign
Since my last post dealt with regular expressions, I thought I’d mention GREP for those who’ve seen the name in Indesign, but have no idea what it’s for or how it’s used. I come from a non-techie design background on the Mac (my Bachelor’s is in Painting and Drawing), so I was among those people until relatively recently. So here is a tip on how to get started with...
3 tags
Updated Nuke Collector script with relinking!...
I wrote a shell script for OS X and Linux that collects Nuke files and the latest version makes a relinked duplicate of your scene:
nukecollectscript.zip
Sorry, I can’t make a Windows version since this is just passing the Nuke file through a lot of UNIX filters like sed, it’s not a binary.
4 tags
Grab my Maya Crash File opener for OS X 10.6 and...
Update: If you grabbed the very first version posted, you might have a problem with this not working after November. I had forgot to replace an “N” with a wildcard so it would work year-round. The file is updated now to fix it and it’s the same link. At the bottom of the post is a post to talk about what the script does, for people looking to understand the UNIX script inside the...
3 tags
Workaround for Maya 2011 Photoshop settings on Mac
Maya 2011 switched to Qt as a development platform, and Qt tends to lag a bit for Mac-specific features like application bundles or aliases. One of the casualties in Maya 2011 was the ability to set Photoshop as your image editor. It simply can’t be done without typing the path out:
With Mudbox, you can at least dig into the application bundle and set the Mudbox binary as your app. But...
3 tags
V-Ray Tuner 1.7 posted
I updated my V-Ray Tuner MEL script today. It’s now an automatically docked palette in Maya 2011 and above. Pretty slick, if I do say so myself:
I plan on doing this by default for my new scripts. It’s a good way to save space and keep things out of your face. It also shows up in the right click UI elements menu:
I done hacked the Maya interface!
4 tags
Key commands for Maya UI stuff - save tons of time
It’s no secret that Maya 2011’s Qt UI is noticeably slower than previous versions. Palettes are slower to load (the first load is the worst) and marking menus can be sluggish. I’ve always been a fan of using keyboard commands for things I do often so 2011 prompted me to go a step further and make some more, to keep working efficiently. So here is a master list of commands...
October 2010
6 posts
3 tags
Pattern brush techniques for 3D models in...
I’m just working on a job for Bell Canada and had to insert a USB internet key they sell into fake laptop on a cover shot. I’m working on a cross between baked textures and a detailed model, which I’ve created in Maya. It’s not going to be very large, so I get away with this. Anyway, I just wanted to share some video of my Photoshop Pattern Stamp Tool workflow that I use...
3 tags
V-Ray for Maya slow with dynamic render-time...
I have been trying to weed out the cause of some slow initial passes with my machine, and I recently found the cause. It seems that render-time subdivisions are very slow compared to simple in-scene object smoothing. The benefit to V-Ray’s subdivision scheme is that it should conserve memory, but it does this while rebuilding surfaces on the fly (dynamic subdivision). This doesn’t seem...
6 tags
Retopology for 3D sculpting with type
3D and typography is something you see often but it’s not something that’s written about beyond the “how to make easy 3D logos” type tutorials, since the target of these kinds of things are usually designers. A lot of programs like Maya make it easy to create extruded and beveled type but the problem comes to when you have to deform it. The topology is always a problem and...
4 tags
My 12-core Westmere 2010 Mac Pro Review is Live
I reviewed my recently purchased 12-core Mac Pro for Ars Technica. Read the full review here.
5 tags
Use Photoshop to generate stock model previews
Yesterday, I picked up a pack of Dosch models to make things a little easier for this visualization job. The problem was that they didn’t come with a PDF or rendered previews, so I had to use Adobe Bridge to wait for them to render previews, which was slow since they were the kind of models with 300,000 polygons for a coat hanger. Anyway, I knew that Photoshop CS3 and above can open 3D...
6 tags
Grab my FBX Converter Service
I’m in the thick of production here and, since Autodesk still hasn’t released a 3DS plug-in that works for Maya 2011 x64 OS X, I’m having to use the FBX Converter to translate these Dosch models. To speed things up, I made an OS X right-click service for this so I don’t have to leave the Finder:
Install Autodesk’s FBX Converter and put this Automator workflow file...
September 2010
14 posts
5 tags
Maya subscription pack fixes for dumb 2011.5 names...
If you downloaded the Maya subscription pack, you probably noticed that the install puts the app in a “2011.5” folder instead of “2011.” I assumed it was because they were using a new version Qt or something else that would break plug-in compatibility but after some testing, I found that’s not the case. Everything I loaded (V-Ray, Shave and a Haircut, The Setup...
My review of 3D-savvy virtual machine software... →
4 tags
Made a MEL script for quad cleanup tasks
I got tired of reaching for my shelf when doing mesh cleanup for sculpting so I put together a little palette I called Facer. It’s nothing crazy but I like it because it’s streamlined for this task, with some handy commands for finding ngons, tris, holes, and it has some nice toggles:
Grab the Facer script from the files section of my site. I’m going to make a marking menu...
6 tags
Script to toggle OS and Qt style dialogs in Maya....
I hate the new Qt open/save dialogs for Maya 2011. They don’t work with Spotlight on OS X, they can’t preview images, and they just feel like a step back for me personally. Fortunately, you can set them back to OS style in the application prefs, but you occasionally need to use the Qt ones to set export/import preferences. So I made a simple script to toggle the style and tell you...
2 tags
Maya 2011 Quick-scroll Tip
Maya 2011’s panels are really slow to navigate with the mouse wheel but there is a way to scroll page-by-page. Use the command key on OS X (usually control on Windows) with scroll wheel and it will jump larger distances. Feels like having someone lift a weight off of your mouse.
3 tags
Part Two of my "3D on the Mac" is out
My extensive two-part piece about 3D on the Mac (with plenty of platform-agnostic info) is up:
Click to read a lot.
