maya questions

[thecook]

which you guys think is the best maya forum to ask all the newbie questions?
and which ya'll think is the sweetest resource page for all the essential tools and plugins, like our precious the rray.de?
and whats the hotkey for the ICE editor?

[csaez]

Hi thecook,

CGSociety forums (a.k.a. cgtalk) seems very active and has a long history as a community hub, you can try there or, of course, ask here!
If you're into coding and enjoy mailing lists, there's a good one called python inside maya, it's not as cool as the softimage mailing list but comes close (for non-coders there's maya3d_he, but it's not quite as active as the other ones).

Regarding to resources, take a look at creativecrash (previously known as highend3d), it's the goto site for resources in the maya world.


Good luck with your transition,
Cheers!

[thecook]

appreciate your information.
thank you.

[thecook]

alright, simple questions.
in soft this would be treated as an edge loop.
something in the selection tools settings i miss here?

[csaez]

There's no way to change the ring detection algorithm afaik.

As workaround you can select the pole vertex and go ctrl+RMB up (there's no need to wait for the marking menu to show up, use it as a quick gesture).

[luceric]

that's called an Edge Ring and in this particular case, because all the edges are sharing a vertex (so it's more of an edge fan) maya doesn't recognize it as an edge ring.

Normally you'd just rectangle-select around the shared vertex (in edge mode) and it will select all the edges.

[thecook]

unbelievable how little i worshiped softimage' deform by curve tool over the last 10 years...
i should have build a shrine for this tool.

but now in maya i have this motion-path-flow-path-objects-twist-party-and-dealing-with-2-lattices-ffds-fun-tool...

[thecook]

anyone still using this?
smartTwoRailDeform
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/scrip ... raildeform

hoping to get better results with this, than with the motion path / flow path ffds curve twist lattice tool.
just have no clue how to proceed...

unbelievable how little i worshiped softimage' deform by curve tool over the last 10 years...
i should have build a shrine for this tool.

but now in maya i have this motion-path-flow-path-objects-twist-party-and-dealing-with-2-lattices-ffds-fun-tool...

[FXDude]

the motion path / flow path ffds curve twist lattice tool

[FXDude]

Sorry, that made me giggle, but to write something more useful,

the script you referred to seemed to have satisfied a number of people,
but the following from http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=686390 also seemed to have helped.. (if it's the same problem?)

ahhh the good ol' unavoidable flipping of curve normal. Basically your curve normal faces the convex of your curve, or concave cant remember which, so if your curve does a 360 degrees for example your normal will flip hence the twisting. Unfortunately I never found an easy solution, (you could probably use mel with a duplicate curve to tell Maya which way is up). Fortunately somebody else did find an easy solution...

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downl...eform-4011.html

[thecook]

thank you guys for all the infos so far!
next question.

to create a flat polygon surface from a closed curve.

i know the maya surface > planar tool.
but anything that get me a result without any tesselation?

e.g. the surface > bevel plus tool does the job (uncheck bevel, output geometry polygons).
but again, dont need the extrusion here, just flat planar poly face...

[luceric]

thank you guys for all the infos so far!
next question.

to create a flat polygon surface from a closed curve.

i know the maya surface > planar tool.
but anything that get me a result without any tesselation?

e.g. the surface > bevel plus tool does the job (uncheck bevel, output geometry polygons).
but again, dont need the extrusion here, just flat planar poly face...

I'm not sure if this works for you,
but do surface->planar with the output type set to Polygons.
then in the attribute editor, go in the nurbsTessellate tab and pick Polygon Type to Quad,Format to General, turn the U Number and V Number to 1, and select
Smooth Edge

But it might as well be worth to just leave it as Nurbs surface at that point, because it's going triangulated again anyway during rendering.

[thecook]

thats exactly what i was looking for.
quiet a workflow though.
but it works.
thanks!

I'm not sure if this works for you,
but do surface->planar with the output type set to Polygons.
then in the attribute editor, go in the nurbsTessellate tab and pick Polygon Type to Quad,Format to General, turn the U Number and V Number to 1, and select
Smooth Edge

But it might as well be worth to just leave it as Nurbs surface at that point, because it's going triangulated again anyway during rendering.

[/quote]

[FXDude]

Typically Maya

quite a workflow though.
but it works.

[thecook]

that's called an Edge Ring and in this particular case, because all the edges are sharing a vertex (so it's more of an edge fan) maya doesn't recognize it as an edge ring.

Normally you'd just rectangle-select around the shared vertex (in edge mode) and it will select all the edges.

btw, thnx for this one.