September 2011
21 posts
2 tags
Maya 2012 Node Editor Quick Look and Tips
So the Maya 2012 Subscription Advantage Pack is out and it’s pretty sweet. Apart from the OpenCL-accelerated Bullet Physics and Alembic, the big feature is of course the new Node Editor panel. Many people would agree that this was long overdue for a procedural node-based program like Maya, and the Hypershade just wasn’t cutting it anymore. You’ll be happy to know that it’s...
1 tag
Mudbox 2012 SAP - The Most Broken Software I've...
Excitedly launched Mudbox 2012 to find it’s a broken mess. Watch how it just discards the sculpting changes as I go up the subdivision levels but then keeps it as I go back down:
Any time I’m not doing anything in that video, the app is actually lagging. I really don’t know what’s going on with this app but, considering just how amazing ZBrush 4R2 is and how busted this...
5 tags
Send Standard Output to Maya
This is just a shell script version of the code from my OS X Automator service to send UNIX standard output to Maya as commands (this only works in OS X and Linux). Put this Ruby script in any binary $PATH and then make it executable:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require 'socket'
begin
mel = STDIN.read
s = TCPSocket.open("localhost", 2222)
s.puts(mel)
end
Open port 2222 in Maya, so that it...
2 tags
Restore Your Favourite Startup Brushes in ZBrush...
Want your Smooth Stronger and Slash brushes back in the pared-down startup set of ZBrush brushes? They aren’t gone, they’re just moved to the Lightbox sets, which is a bit buried so I’m going to copy my critical brushes back into the startup one as shown below:
So that’s copy from rootappfolder/ZBrushes to rootappfolder/ZData/BrushPresets.
nbreslow asked: On the blog twice! Awesome, thanks again. As long as we are on the subject of light card setups I wanted to share a tip I learned from Steven McClure at Gnomon. The Maya 'Bulge' 2D Texture always struck me as a bit of an odd inclusion. However, if you use it on a light card and set it's 2D Texture Placement Attributes\Repeat UV to 1,1 it works really well. Really softens up the...
4 tags
V-Ray Tuner 2.2 Posted for Download
While I wait for my ZBrush 4R2 update email and a render to finish, I figured I’d post this V-Ray Tuner 2.2 update with the recent additions. From the changelog:
Added a “Strip pasted__ from names” script to Utilities.
Updated GI dropdown menu so it accurately reflects current primary and secondary GI config.
Added a batch render file utility for all OSes. Writes a command...
nbreslow asked: Just wanted to drop you a quick note to say thank you very much for taking the time to answer my question on your blog! I look forward to the next version of the Tuner where Maya Spots/etc. are implemented and will give it a run through and pass along the results if I get anything that might be useful. No worries about the scene, can recreate it now that I know the lights you used. I saw some...
nbreslow asked: Long time reader of your blog/writing on Ars. Great stuff! I am a relatively new VRay user and have been following the development of VRay Tuner, specifically the per-light rendering feature you have highlighted recently. I must admit I am struggling a bit setting up scenes using purely VRay lights - I am pretty used to using Maya Spotlights and Mental Ray. I was wondering 1) Do Maya...
3 tags
Use Difference Mode in Photoshop to...
I found a bug in Mudbox 2012 where 16-bit channel PNGs load as 8-bit but wanted to preserve the edits I’d done on this texture. So I copied the edited map to the 16-bit original and used difference mode to show where the changes were done and loaded that as a mask:
This is a good way of checking if two images that look similar are actually different.
4 tags
To Add to Next version of Facer
Getting a bit out of just topology features for Facer but I think it still fits in the MEL scripts section (it won’t need any additional download). It’s an interactive slider set for scaling distances between objects without scaling the objects themselves:
Stupid me started writing an expression-driven thing to scale a temporary group and then scale the inverse on the children...
4 tags
Using Temporary UV Shells to Make Selections in...
I often select areas of meshes by using the select UV shell command – “polySelectBorderShell 0;” mapped to a hotkey and use temporary UV shells as a faster alternative to selection sets. It’s much easier to select an edge loop, split a UV shell in two and then use the command key to select the rest of an arm, as opposed to using a haphazard drag selection:
If you already have...
3 tags
Figuring Out How to Load Your MEL scripts
When I was first learning Maya, one of the more frustrating things was learning how to load those juicy scripts that looked so amazing but half the time I couldn’t get loaded, despite the scripts being in the proper folder (one of the many). Some needed to be sourced and some needed just to type the name of the script to load. Figuring it out for myself was simple once I knew what to look...
1 tag
7 tags
Coming in V-Ray Tuner 2.2: Exposure Round-Tripping...
Some of you have probably seen me using the per-light rendering features of V-Ray Tuner, since it gives me a lot of control over a complex light setup without having to re-render, similar to Maxwell Render’s multilight feature. But, seeing it in action, you probably also thought to yourself “that seems slow and impractical for animation.” Well, I’ve finally implemented...
3 tags
Tips For Working on Angled Surfaces in Maya
The first tip about working on an angle in Maya is to avoid it if you can. Tilt your camera whenever possible but, if you have to work on angled surfaces, there are a couple other things you can do to make your work easier. The second tip is to get HKLocalTools, which lets you perform relative transforms, much like modo. It’s an essential script so if you don’t have it now, run...
2 tags
Maya Modelling Basics: Transform Components
Maya is a deep program and one thing I was late in finding was Transform Components, which I only discovered about two years ago (after 11 years of using Maya). This transforms each selected face/edge/vertex relative to their normal, much like an extrude. It’s very handy for fattening/thinning objects by pushing and pulling on the blue Z-transform manipulator:
It might look a bit pokey...
6 tags
Using Nuke with Mudbox for V-Ray SSS Skin...
I’ve been doing a lot of skin stuff lately and getting into the proper SSS workflows for V-Ray. While many people have different settings they prefer for a different type of look, some favouring ultra-realism, where I set mine to be slightly on the illustrated side, the workflow is the same between those two looks: you make a V-Ray blend mat with a V-Ray SSS2 base material with its...
5 tags
Reset All Children Rotation Maya Script
I’m tweaking my hand rig and often want to reset all the selected joint rotations to zero so I wrote a small script (download) to do it:
It works for any parent/child relationship – not just joints.
5 tags
3D Image Breakdown: Per-light Comp of 3D...
I’m just putting the final touches on this 3D illustration and thought I’d show how I used the per-light rendering feature of V-Ray Tuner to render out light passes for all lights and the meshes with V-Ray Light Materials. This lets me really tweak the light contribution within Nuke (or Photoshop) for a well-honed studio lighting feel.
It also lets me add some roto tweaks to give...
thatsonnyguy asked: Just wondering if you will be reviewing Parallels 7 for Ars Technica or even this blog? And if so, being a bit more 3d orientated, such as using 3ds Max, Softimage, windows versions of 3d apps ect for basic tasks as a bench mark?
4 tags
Using Frischluft Lenscare and Hand-painted Z-depth...
When you work on a magazine that does a lot of stories about real people – not celebs who have nice photos – you often have terrible photos that you are forced to deal with. The current magazine contract I’m on has one of these cases; there is a story about a man who ran a marathon to raise money for cancer research and all the photos are pretty rough looking and we can’t shoot him...
