Software Discussion
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Maya
I Love Maya!!111!!!
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05 Jul 2005
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05 Jul 2005
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05 Jul 2005
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Toni 65 posts05 Jul 2005 -
06 Jul 2005Yes. I am going to be binging (sp?) on Video Tutorials.
I think the most annoying things right now are the ways in which you have to select things (doesn't seem to be a "select from list" function or anything....and objects are highlighted in green as opposed to white so I can never tell if something is selected
), the things you have to do to pan/zoom/dolly in the viewports (ie....hold alt etc)...the timeslider is also really weird....and its VERY bothersome that you have to hold "shift" in order to select keys :S...that would be a major slowdown while animating.
Some GOOD things are:
-I like the transform gizmos. For example, to scale an object you simply drag the little box etc.
-There is still an "undo" function
Ta-ta for now...I'm sure I'll be back very soon with more questions and images that I made hehe -
06 Jul 2005
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06 Jul 2005Viewport rotate. How can I change the point of orbit to the object I have selected?
It's just sooo wierd this Maya thing just moving around in the viewports feels strange with my finger on the alt button - hehe.
So... bad things today are:
Navigating the Perspective viewport - But I'll get used to it if'n I can find out change the point of orbit.
Spinners - What no spinners?!?!... do you have to actually type everyting in??!?!
No right-click mid transform You know when you are transforming something in Max and you're not happy with it as you are holding left-click and a simple r-click cancels that transform - You have to CTRL-Z in Maya
Good things today are:
Q,W,E and R shortkeys remain the same for select/ position/ rotate/ and scale YAY!
Create Project This'll be a handy one specifically for you Tyson. If you go to File > Projects > Create New you can then set up folders for your file management. Maya creates all the folders in a subdirectory of your projects folder... keeps it all nice and neat like
Meh... and not much else really
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06 Jul 2005
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06 Jul 2005
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06 Jul 2005
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06 Jul 2005Perhaps in answer to your quesiton Tyson:
In some programs you just click on the label for the input and drag it up and down, the field sometimes increases or decreases. Same kind of thing happens in realflow + photoshop. Perhaps here? -
06 Jul 2005If I remember correctly, I tried that already.....I'll try it again though for kicks, and report back in the morning (unless someone else beats me to it)
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06 Jul 2005Still can't find the spinners! It's gonna be a MARE to animate without spinners!!!
Another question - display drivers... Can I change, or at least see what Maya is using??? Scoured the help files and found nothing
I'm asking because I have a pitiful frame rate at the mo - I use OpenGL for Max which works rather well (even with my 16MB ATI mobility graphics card), but as I'm getting about 6fps maximum in an empty scene I can only assume that it's decided to use software.
HELP!!! -
06 Jul 2005WOOOOOOT!
Ok... spinners have been found!
They're called 'virtual sliders' Here's what you do...
You click to highlight the attribute you want to change (the actual name of the attribute, not the value beside it - say the Scale Y). Move your mouse to the viewport and with the middle mouse button pressed you then move up and down to change that attribute.
Which doesn't work too well with my very slow frame rate, so if anyone can help me there I'd greatly appreciate it
ciao -
06 Jul 2005Hey Global...glad you found the spinners
Although you're framerate problem is really weird. I'm running a cheap ATI9700Pro....and I'm actually getting quite a good framerate in teh viewport....it's especially noticeable with really high poly counts....faster than max's viewports imo.
Anyways...I'm starting to get a hang of this a bit more. Getting used to the navigation for sure....so now it's just a matter of figuring out Maya's features. Also...the hypergraph is a bit confusing....sometimes when I delete one attribute the whole object gets deleted. I guess I just need to play around a bit more.
Here's what I came up with after like 10 minutes of messing last night. Maya definitely has some really cool poly tools...and I like the fact that every aspect of maya can be animated (as you'll see in the vid, showing you some animated poly deformations)
http://www.theonlyt.com/Main/maya/wiggle_rock.avi -
07 Jul 2005
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07 Jul 2005
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07 Jul 2005Could be your old graphics card is conflicting with the newer version of Maya...:S
Anyways...well...that's the trick...no animated vertices or anything...simply an animated transform that controls a deformation "modifier" (or node, or whatever they're called in Maya)....that's what I was referring to when I was mentioning the cool poly tools I've found. Can't do anything like that in Max (to my knowledge)
Here are some more playings by me. At this point I'm still learning the UI, and browsing some of the features. Fluid system seems REALLY nice so far....and the fur system offers some great control. Overall...I'm definitely getting more used to this program...can find my way around...make use of the hypergraph etc etc.....it's growing on me I guess
http://www.theonlyt.com/Main/maya/hair1.avi
http://www.theonlyt.com/Main/maya/ocean1.avi (I apologize for the shortness of this anim--only 30-some frames--it was just taking too long to render, and I stopped caring) -
07 Jul 2005wow dude you learn FAST!
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07 Jul 2005Meh....I'm just using my Max skills and re-applying them in Maya....once you find out where the opossable (sp?) buttons/functions are....it's not that difficult.
I'm also happy to see that MEL isn't too much different than MaxScript -
07 Jul 2005
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07 Jul 2005
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08 Jul 2005man i dont know if i can memorize another set of hotkeys...
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08 Jul 2005
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08 Jul 2005
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09 Jul 2005Well to tell the truth I've just been watching the buzz video tuts and not really working on anything... just really trying to familiarise myself with what Maya is about and the differences/similarities in workflow an UI so I'll have a rough idea of where things are when it comes to working with it. What with the videos and solving problems that I encounter (re. the set particular keyframes prob... I'm slowly getting to understand it)
I haven't yet moved on to graph editor or dope sheet yet, the crucial aspects of animation. I did find out today that modeling is quite a bit differnet though! I don't really intend to concentrate on the modelling side of things right now but its way different as it is nodes based, but looks quite cool!
One down side I have at the moment is that my PC doesn't relly like Maya. I'm now thinking it is more of a memory leak of some kind rather than a driver problem (works fine in a maximised viewport, but when I go to 4 views then back to a single viewport the whole thing grinds to a near halt... about 2 Fps! even with an empty scene or in the hypergraph) Not sure how to get round this, though I have found that if I tear off a viewport I get a better frame rate... very weird :S -
ant- 73 posts10 Jul 2005the problem you described sounds very familier. are you using the latest graphics drivers, i know this can be solved easily I just cant remember what I did to solve it on one computer. -
14 Jul 2005
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14 Jul 2005Hey man....no the timeslider is pretty crappy it seems.
First of all...no distinctions between keys....ie, like in max where position = red, rotation = green, object = yellow etc etc....all of maya's keys in the timeslider appear as red.
Secondly, you have to Shift+drag over the timeslider to select keys, then let go and click+drag on the red (newly) selected area to move them around. VERY not-fun/good.
If someone can find a way to smarten up the timeslider I would highly appreciate it!
Btw...check out my first finished Maya model!!!!
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14 Jul 2005Haha, that is one funky character.
It sure does seem like you two are getting into the feel of Maya quickly!
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14 Jul 2005Oooh! Nice quirkly little character you have there bud!
Can't see a way to clean up the timeslider There is that method of setting only the transforms that you require (Caps Lock and hit W, E or R) If you are on a keyframe in the timeslider you'll notice in the channel box that the channels with keyframes are highlighted a light red (and from here you can remove whatever keyframes you want)
You can also add and remove keyable attributes (using the channel editor) of your controls / helpers. Though I'd much rather have something like Max's 'Key Filters', so I can key only moves or rotations say, across the board with every object.
Not got anything to show as yet but I'll be looking at the dope sheet today and hopefully have something soon -
15 Jul 2005ya'll are makin me want to go back to the maya i started a long time ago. just for lauighs, i'll post the first render and model i did the first day i opened maya.
hooray for maya's mental ray! also, the blades were kinda spinnig so there's a little motion blur, its real funky though so i dont think it came out very well. -
08 Sep 2005
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08 Sep 2005
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ant- 73 posts08 Sep 2005a few tips
z will undo, no need to press ctrl
you press f to switch focus to an object or componant to rotate round (oops u got that one) theres also a camera cente of interest control in the camera channel box
dont bother using the timeline to actually move keys its more of a visual guide. the dope sheet or graph editor does a better job
you can switch to expert mode by pressing ctrl space, no buttons!
careful of caps lock accidental activation is the number one cause of death among maya newbies
insert switches to pivot rotate, but clicking the widget circle over the manipulater freezes it there -
08 Sep 2005Good tips ant..
Aden, loool. I can see it too which is scary. -
08 Sep 2005haha yea still makes me laugh that photo everytime i see it. lolol
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10 Sep 2005LOL - I think Cam has a new avatar
Going back on topic though... it's only been 7 weeks for me now - and you know what? I really do love Maya!
Ack, maybe it's still just the honeymoon period, we'll have a sweet time together for a while but then Maya will become more demanding - want to settle down and start talking about a future and stuff... then things may become difficult... we'll argue and stuff. Like yesterday Maya just got in a huff and walked out on me! I only mentioned the word 'upgrade' and that was it - bang! gone! -
11 Sep 2005Tyson: lol yeah, dude i can do all the water nd hair stuff, just not poly modeling in maya. Wanna learn with me? haha
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Gangstashers 4 posts28 Sep 2005Hey man Tyson! I just switched form Cinema 4D to Maya yesterday ^^
By the way cool forum love your work!
Let's learn togher!
Wich tutorials did you use so far?!
Sheherryar -
28 Sep 2005Hey Gangstashers....welcome to the forums
There are lots of tutorials in the tutorials section of this on gallery (lots on maya) for you to check out too
-t -
Gangstashers 4 posts29 Sep 2005Argh i just wrote alot of questions but pc crashed!
Anywayz
Tyson few questions
When i look at your hair clip its pretty neat, what i did was create a surface sphere and then hair/ create hair and when i click on play it moves just as i wanted. then i keyframe the sphere up and down, but the hair seems to be De-ataching the sphere and going his own way, i post the clip in just a sec.
But how did you do that?
And on the ocean secne, i created an ocean and then i tried to make a object flat on it but it dident work, so i used create boiyu dynamic or something, thats a sphere that floats on the wather, but in your clip it doesent show a sphere but some other object.
How did you do it?
Can u maby re-direct me to some cool tuts you used?
Sheherryar -
29 Sep 2005Hey man...well I made those a few months ago so honestly I have no idea how I did it haha
But I learned everything I know about Maya from the tutorials that come with Maya....so look through those and you'll see how to make hair and floating objects -
Gangstashers 4 posts29 Sep 2005
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29 Sep 2005
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Gangstashers 4 posts29 Sep 2005
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King Mango 8 posts28 May 2006
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01 Jun 2006Hehe... thanks Mango. Wow, that seems like quite an age ago! Think I've been using Maya now for about 8 or 9 months and I've come quite a way since then
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01 Jun 2006
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King Mango 8 posts13 Jun 2006np Global
Oh you can also frame up your selection and set the rotation centered on the selected objects by using 'F' as a hotkey. That's one of my absolute favorites.
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