Using a modeling technique from Blender in Maya
polycounter lvl 5
On CG Masters there is this tutorial: Complete Vehicle Production in Blender
https://cgmasters.net/training-courses/complete-vehicle-production-in-blender/
in which the tutor uses this technique alot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rlMzsBWtPY
In a nutshell, the tutor creates a guidemesh, and shrinkwraps everything onto it the keep the model smooth.
As modifiers are unavailable in Maya, how would you replicate this to Maya?
The problem with maya is, that in order to work this way you need to have your mesh (not the guide mesh) at subdivision level 2, and from that level shrinkwrap the model onto the guide mesh, as done in blender in the video, but in maya you don't have a subdivision modifier, you would have to actually subdivide the mesh, shrinkwrap it onto the guide mesh, and by thus losing your control on the mesh, as its no longer a simple base mesh with a modifier but a subdivided mesh.
The video explains it perfectly to Maya users.
Thank you for reading and taking your time to respond
https://cgmasters.net/training-courses/complete-vehicle-production-in-blender/
in which the tutor uses this technique alot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rlMzsBWtPY In a nutshell, the tutor creates a guidemesh, and shrinkwraps everything onto it the keep the model smooth.
As modifiers are unavailable in Maya, how would you replicate this to Maya?
The problem with maya is, that in order to work this way you need to have your mesh (not the guide mesh) at subdivision level 2, and from that level shrinkwrap the model onto the guide mesh, as done in blender in the video, but in maya you don't have a subdivision modifier, you would have to actually subdivide the mesh, shrinkwrap it onto the guide mesh, and by thus losing your control on the mesh, as its no longer a simple base mesh with a modifier but a subdivided mesh.
The video explains it perfectly to Maya users.
Thank you for reading and taking your time to respond
Replies
For your base/cage, shift+right click>Smooth. When set to exponential, this works the same as smooth mesh preview, but in a history node where you can bump divisions up and down as you please. However, you can't jump down to subdiv 0 to make shape changes, since they happen after the Smooth, so it's not that useful as a control cage. But if you don't need to make further edits, then the rest here is just fluff.
You can get around this by using the smoothed mesh as a proxy from your real control cage and a tiny bit of node editor work. First, make a clean duplicate, let's name the original "CarPart_smoothProxy", and the duplicate "CarPart_Control". Apply your smooth to the CarPart_smoothProxy. Normally we'd hide this when working, but leave it visible for this test run.
Now in the node editor, have both meshes selected and graph the inputs. (the icon looks like a box with an arrow coming in from the left) You'll get the transforms, shapes, and the smoothFace node. This smooth operation creates an interim Shape node for the _smoothProxy object to avoid cyclic problems, we're simply going to connect the Out Mesh plug from CarPart_Control to In Mesh on this interim shape like so:
Now, anything that you do to the control cage gets piped out to the smooth proxy, this includes any geometry edits like bevels or extrudes. The proxy is what you'll shrink wrap your pinchymesh to.
I probably made this sound more complicated than it needs to be, but it's a simple step really. We also have a built-in Subdiv Proxy which does nearly the same thing, which I was originally going to suggest. But I found that the shrinkwrap responds very poorly, if at all to any sort of cage edits. Hope this helps!
I wouldn't touch maya with a bargepole if I was making something like that tbh. You've just demonstrated there are free tools that do the job significantly better..
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-C8D52151-9DA0-4CDD-BA8F-AB5ACAA09720-htm.html
And yeah, not as intuitive as blenders layout in this case, but it's a goofy workflow to begin with.
You could've said something like "I'm sorry, but that's not what I'm looking for, but thanks anyway. Anyone else have some tips and tricks to get that Blender-ish workflow?", and you'd still be respected here. Not saying that you ruined your career with what you just said, but that was a red flag already.
Coming back to topic, stick with Blender for that workflow, because it seems to be the best option. You can import your model back to Maya if you want to keep learning it for other things it might handle better. If you're originally a Maya user, this helps you to make Blender to work more like Maya:
Last advise, be a nice guy in the future, and you'll be fine.
Disrespect leads to disrespect, think of peoples motive to saying something before commenting about it, do this in the future and you will be fine.