mayzie

Panelize

Mayzie — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:20:53 +0000

Very simple script, but useful for what it is. It’s basically just a prompt dialogue shortcut to thickness and offset. A very quick way to make panels, especially if you use linear subdivides in Maya with this multiple times.

Unfortunately though, this requires Maya 2012 though due to the thickness attribute that was introduced. But this is a good thing as it is *much* more reliable than the translate z method of making objects thicker – thanks Autodesk!

Call script in MEL via “panelize” without quotes – it will work also on multiple objects selected.

Download

panelize.mel

Edge Length

Mayzie — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 09:37:11 +0000

Here’s an edge length script that will return the values of an edge(s) in metres and millimetres to the status line. Of course feel free to edit the MEL yourself to add in your own conversions as I’m too lazy to add in the imperial system!

The nice thing about this over other edge scripts is that it will round the decimals to 2 places making things a little cleaner – however to do this you will need both scripts in your Maya folder for it to work.

Download

Credits to Duncan Brinsmead for the roundoff procedure.

Automatically Assign V-Ray File Path Cache

Mayzie — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 11:29:26 +0000

Here’s some quick code so Maya will automatically fill out the tedious Irradiance Map Cache file name paths and Light Cache File paths for V-Ray.

string $fileName = `file -q -sceneName`;
string $workspace = `workspace -q -rd`;
string $workspacevray = "renderData/vray";
string $result = `confirmDialog
	    -title "Assign Cache Paths"
	    -message ("Would you like to assign this as the correct cache path?\n\n" + $workspace + $workspacevray +"/")
	    -button "OK" -button "Cancel"
	    -defaultButton "OK" -cancelButton "Cancel"
	    -dismissString "Cancel"`;

	if ($result == "OK") {

setAttr -type "string" vraySettings.imap_fileName ($workspace + $workspacevray + "/" + "cache.vrmap");
setAttr -type "string" vraySettings.imap_autoSaveFile ($workspace + $workspacevray + "/" + "cache.vrmap");
setAttr -type "string" vraySettings.autoSaveFile ($workspace + $workspacevray + "/" + "cache.vrlmap");
setAttr -type "string" vraySettings.fileName ($workspace + $workspacevray + "/" + "cache.vrlmap");
}

If you have customised your fileRuleEntry’s with, say a Custom V-Ray Cache rule. you can substitute this line of code

string $workspacevray = "renderData/vray";

with a fileRuleEntry if you have added one. Heres’ mine:

string $workspacevray =`workspace -q -fileRuleEntry Vray`;

Just remember to declare the “Vray” variable in np_getSecondaryProjectFileRules.mel by adding this simple line of code.

(uiRes("m_np_getSecondaryProjectFileRules.kVRay")),     				"Vray",      "renderData/vray",

and np_getSecondaryProjectFileRules.res.mel

displayString -replace -value "V-Ray" m_np_getSecondaryProjectFileRules.kVRay;

Batch converting Max files to Maya

Mayzie — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 05:11:43 +0000

Recently I worked on a project that required converting hundreds of models in 3DS .Max format to Maya.

Instead of doing all this importing manually it’s obviously always better to script!

To batch convert Max files to FBX within Max, use this script:

(
	local dir = getSavePath "Pick a folder with .max files to convert to .fbx" initialDir:(getDir #scene)
	undefined
	if (dir != undefined) do (
		local files = getFiles (dir + "\\*.max")
		if (files.count > 0) do (
			if (queryBox ("About to convert " + files.count as string + " .max files to .fbx.\r\n\r\nContinue?") title:"Continue conversion?") do (
				for f in files do (
					if (keyboard.escPressed) do (a
						if (queryBox "Abort processing?") do ( exit )
					)
					loadMaxFile f useFileUnits:true quiet:true
					exportFile ((getFileNamePath f) + (getFileNameFile f) + ".fbx") #noprompt
				)
			)
		)
	)
)

To batch convert FBX into the Maya ASCII (.ma) format use this script:

string $path = "C:/temp/";
string $filelist[] = `getFileList -folder $path -filespec "*.fbx"`;
string $newFileList[];
int $cnt;
string $parts[];
for ($i=0;$i$cnt = `tokenize $filelist[$i] "." $parts`; //strip out "." from fbx suffix
$newFileList[$i] = $parts[0];
FBXImport -f ($path + $filelist[$i]) -t; //open the fbx file
file -rename ($path + ($newFileList[$i]+".ma")); //rename to .ma
file -f -save -options "v=0" -type "mayaAscii"; //save the .ma
file -f -new; //create a new scene
}

You’ll have to manually change the first line of the code above to match the directory where all your FBX files are stored. Always make sure to end the $path with a forward slash (/) otherwise Maya will not execute the script properly.

Thumbnail Support for CG Formats in Windows x64

Mayzie — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 22:00:55 +0000

The other day I took the plunge, departed with $15 USD, and bought FastPictureViewer Codec Pack for Windows 7 x64. I couldn’t be happier.

Now a tonne of other formats can now finally be viewed natively in Windows 7 x64 Explorer.

Relevant formats for Maya users that are supported:

Adobe Photoshop CS (.psd, .pdd)
Autodesk Maya (.iff)
Open EXR (.exr)
Radiance HDR (.hdr)
Truevision Targa (.tga, .tpic, .vda, .icb, .vst)
Tagged Image File Format (.tiff)
DirectX DDS (.dds)

Not to mention my Canon 7D RAW files are finally viewable and most other RAW formats are supported too. For a more comprehensive list of supported formats, there is one here.

As far as I know it is possible to enable some of these thumbnails in Windows 32bit via some hacks, but as of this post I haven’t seen anything able to get it to work if you are on a 64 bit system. I tried.

I should also probably mention I’m plugging this without any affiliation or incentive for these guys, I just think it is the most useful $15 USD I’ve spent on software to be honest.

Also one less reason to keep on using Adobe Bridge!

June 2011 Update

The pack has been updated to support Maya .iff files

Render View / V-Ray Framebuffer Shortcut

Mayzie — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 12:26:33 +0000

Sometimes when using V-Ray I do not want to use the framebuffer (initial test renders mainly). However sometimes I do actually want to use it.

I created this little shortcut to help out. Basically when I have “Use V-Ray framebuffer” checked, using this script will launch the framebuffer, if it is off…well just the default Maya Render window launches.

Pretty simple!

To call script, use the command “rlauncher”.

Download

Maya + mental ray ArchViz Guide

Mayzie — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:51:55 +0000

I’m not normally one to use mental ray for a project these days, but I thought I should share this wonderful guide that Alex Sandri has put together through years of hard work and experiments.

400 pages of tutorials, instructions and more. For more information, visit Samui3d.com or Alex’s CGTalk thread.

Links

I’m not sure if the site is broken as it is not loading for me in Chrome or IE, so I’ll post the links to the book:

Samui3d.com

Manipulator Axis Orientation Shortcut

Mayzie — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 09:41:14 +0000

After getting a little tired of using Maya’s marking menus when changing the manipulator’s axis to “Set To Edge” or “Set To Face” all the time, I thought I might try creating a shortcut to speed things up.

To use this script, just select a face or edge and run the script. Maya’s manipulator will automatically snap to the custom axis of whatever is selected. Much faster than the marking menu and it will also retain the selection.

It’s probably best to assign this script to a shortcut key as well for even faster use. I prefer to use alt + a (easy to remember as a = align).

To call the script use “alignAxis”.

Download

Texture Based Instancing In Maya

Mayzie — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:37:04 +0000

While I have previously mentioned a ray-cast geometry based instancing script, this script gets the same result but the process is very different.

rvInstancer is a MEL script that will generate instances based on black and white areas of geometry that are painted by the 3D texture tool inside Maya. As a result I find it to be much more useful when it comes to large areas of instancing geometry (forests, grasslands etc..), rather than spPaint3D which I find to be better when accuracy or small areas of instancing is needed (street trees, cars etc). Both these scripts complement each other nicely.

Anyway, instead of boring everyone any further on how it works, check out the video from Robert Vari. I highly recommend this time-saving script!

For all the advanced people out there, there is also SOuP to check out.

Download

rvInstancer (Redirects to CreativeCrash.com)

Paint Effects Foliage Brush Presets

Mayzie — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 05:05:54 +0000

Personally I prefer something like Onyx for modelling trees, but I have been playing with Paint Effects recently trying to get a handle on how all the settings fit together.

I thought I’d share some that turned out okay during my experiments.

Feel free to convert these to mesh for rendering and apply some custom shaders to suit your own scenes as these are only really preset “base” brushes.

Also feel free to use these presets in any production if you want, all I ask is a small credit if they ever do get used.

Instructions

To get these presets working, just place the mel files into your “maya\[version]\presets\attrPresets\brush” folder.

These Paint Effects presets will probably require Maya 2011 due to the new parameters introduced in 2011.

Another thing to note is that you might have to adjust these trees to fit your scene. To do this simply adjust the “Global Scale” parameter on the brush node to suit your own scene scale.

Downloads

All images are rendered as native Paint Effects in V-Ray for Maya 2011. There have been no special shaders assigned or special geometry conversion – just pure Paint Effects rendered in V-Ray with a basic sun + sky set-up. They’d probably look a better with proper 2-Sided leaf shaders on them, leaf textures and after a bit of tweaking etc…

Neat Tree - Small

Generic Tree - Medium

Pine Tree - Small

Street Tree - Medium

Basic Tree - Medium/Large

Palm Tree - Large

Again, these trees are probably best suited to background rather than “hero” trees.

As I mentioned earlier, dedicated tree generators like Onyx or X-Frog are probably best at more realistic and higher resolution models, but I think Paint Effects is not bad!

Credits

Credits go to Duncan Brimsmead for the basis of the Pine Tree model and Christian Stejnar for the basis of Palm Tree model.