Max to Maya: Help Make It Easier

Oniram

So I've been using maya for about 3 months now and im pretty comfortable with it.. in some cases i prefer it to max.. but regardless, there are still some small things that i wish i could do but cant. I dont know if its a thing with maya that is just like this, or if i need to change settings.. so thats where you all come in. To preface this.. I HAVE A WORKAROUND TO ALL OF THESE PROBLEMS! so if at all possible, dont tell me how i should do this. :P i just want to know if whether or not what i want is possible.. if its not, tell me so and ill go cry a little and get over it.

I thought id start this thread out pretty light, with only a few issues, but as i run into more ill add them. so here we go.

Issue #1: Beveling

Problem: When i started using maya 2012, bevel worked fine. beveling by an amount of 0.5 (default) would make the bevels land halfway between the original beveled edge, and the outer edge containing the face. now it draws over and i always need to adjust the amount to somewhere around 0.3 to be inside the face.




Issue #2: Beveling (cont.)

Problem: If i have a skewed shape, and i bevel, the bevel will not conform to the outer edges. I forget if max does this but regardless.. if its possible, id like it to be able to do that.




Issue #3: Scaling

Problem: While i understand negative scale is the way to go for mirroring (an issue ill address later), when using the widgets i do not want that. If i want to flatten a face or pair of edges/verts (without the aid of scripts), can i?




That is all for now. Like i said, pretty light. More will definitely be added as i come across them, and anyone else who has recently made a switch from max to maya, feel free to post your issues here so it can make the transition better for everyone.

poopipe

1 dunno
2 max does. maya is just a bit crap - its probably easier insert edge loops
3 average vertex position option in the mesh menu behaves like the flatten button in edit poly . unfortunately i don't think you can constrain it to follow edges

throttlekitty

1/2, I got out of the habit of beveling inner edges long ago due to bugs in older versions of maya, it tended to do a few bad things to the geo/uvs. I only use it for external beveled shapes. No clue if that's still something to avoid, but worth keeping in mind.

I use Insert Edge Loop for things like that, Offset edge loop would do more what you're looking for.

Oniram

yeah for now i do use insert edge loop the same way id use swift loop in max, its just a bother since it doesnt quite constrain to edges as id like it to. typically i end up inserting edge loop with relative.. sliding it to the edge, then pulling it back with absolute. kind of a pain in the ass after a while though.

@poopipe: the im not seeing anything for average vertex position.. what i thought it was, average verticies, ive just found acts like set flow in max.. which is good.

GrevSev

For 3 Hold J and scale in the desired direction or press the "Snap to Points" Button on the status line and scale

m4dcow

The Bevel tool is all sorts of fucked up, and is one of the most requested things to be updated on the Maya feedback site.

For the 1st example use offset edge loop on that loop going down the center.

For the second I would use split edge ring tool with "equal distance from edge" checked. It would be cool if there was a value you could set to have consistent bevels, but you gotta eyeball it for now. I actually have a feature request on the maya feedback site if you wanna go vote for that http://mayafeedback.autodesk.com/forums/160518-small-annoying-things-to-fix-in-maya-forum/suggestions/2960902-insert-edge-loop-world-unit-offset

For the negative scale you scale a few times, once till it's pretty close then a few more times annoying I know and sometimes it won't be perfect. Personally if I have the grid or another object that shares the center line vertex, I just use the translate tool with "retain component spacing" unchecked and use the snap controls hold x for grid points or v for verts, and snap them together that way.

m4dcow

GrevSev wrote: »

For 3 Hold J and scale in the desired direction or press the "Snap to Points" Button on the status line and scale

Haha, always learn something new in these threads :P

onionhead_o

3)first have the edges selected > goto rename toolbar > Change it to relative tranform in the dropdown menu> type in 0 into Y axis with the scale tool active > then it will snap to the pivot center(depends on location of pivot)

Oniram

GrevSev wrote: »

For 3 Hold J and scale in the desired direction or press the "Snap to Points" Button on the status line and scale

YES!!!!!!!

onionhead_o wrote: »

3)first have the edges selected > goto rename toolbar > Change it to relative tranform in the dropdown menu> type in 0 into Y axis with the scale tool active > then it will snap to the pivot center(depends on location of pivot)

THATS AMAZING! however whenever i do that in the Z axis.. it snaps to 0 on the grid (for both relative and absolute). still though.. awesome. thanks

haiddasalami

Learn something new everytime one of these threads open up haha. awesome tips onion and grevsev.

onionhead_o

thanks Oniram, haiddsalami

GrevSev's way works best haha. Yeh for some odd reason typing 0 in Z axis snaps to grid, must be some bug or the values are totally different, need more investigating lol.

throttlekitty

Oh man, I feel stupid for never even trying that with scaling. Thanks!

Oniram

New question! Should be a quick yes or no answer i imagine. Ive tried searching up on this, and even asking people at work and i just want to know.. is it possible to get UVs in maya to scale 1:1?

BARDLER

What do you mean by that? Like just scale them up or down equally in all directions? Or scaling multiple shells all equally?

Oniram

scaling all shells equally. so they all have the same texel density

BARDLER

Well you can just select the shells you want and the scale tool will scale them all the same amount. If you want to get all your shells to have roughly the same texel density you can use the layout function in the polygon menu in the UV editor, or personally I use a free plug in called UV Deluxe.

Oniram

hmm.. i tried the layout option and what it seems to do is just scale things to pack them into the 0-1 space, leaving their individual density alone. i will try uv deluxe though. thanks

Oniram

so i dont have a .gif or anything for this, hopefully the question is pretty straight forward.. i have an object made up of say 5 boxes.. i want to select all of the elements and scale them relative to each other. i know this is easily done if the elements are different objects, but im looking for a way to not have to separate each element and then re-combine it.

and the opposite.. is there a way to have multiple objects selected and scale them relative to their center without grouping them?

Sean VanGorder

If I understand your question correctly, you should be able to scale elements of the same object by using the transform component tool.

I'm not sure about the second part, I usually just group them, scale, and ungroup.

Oniram

ah alright. yeah transform component works.. it defaults to moving at first which is why i didnt realize that you could scale uniformly (on all 3 axes). so i guess its a matter of scaling on a single axis, allowing the tool to switch to scale, then scaling uniformly. if there's a way to bypass that first step.. let me know

Sean VanGorder

I'm not sure if there's a way to get the scale controls to show up by default, but you should be able to just click one of the scale boxes, instead of actually scaling, to bring up the uniform scale gizmo.

Oniram

sweet. new one.

is there a way to keep "Retain Component Spacing" on by default.. always. for UVs. i dont know why in the world anyone would ever want that off..

Hayden Zammit

is there a way to keep "Retain Component Spacing" on by default.. always. for UVs. i dont know why in the world anyone would ever want that off..

Ha, and the worst thing is, you don't remember its off until you try to snap a UV shell.

Would like to know if there's a way to keep it on for good too.

o2_is_alright

UVDeluxe got a checkbox for "Retain Component Spacing" plus some other neat features. Maybe it can help you.
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/texturing/c/uvdeluxe

onionhead_o

I just found a way to scale the density of the shells 1:1. select the shells> goto Unfold uvs options> check on Rescale > make the scale factor around 0.01 or lower (depends on how many UV shells you have)> click Apply> done.

only downside is that this is not relative to your other shells. meaning you have tweak the scale factor. Unless someone comes with a method to determine scale factor for Shells that you want to set as basis/reference. also it is possible that it will change the shape of your shells a bit since this method uses the unfold uv.

Brygelsmack

Oniram wrote: »

scaling all shells equally. so they all have the same texel density

I have a script for that. It kinda blows up your shells really large you so you have to select them all and scale them down, but they're 1:1 at least. Simply paste it into the MEL command line at the bottom and Ctrl - Middle Mouse drag it up to your shelf.

Dunno who made the script but big props to him/her. I got it from my teacher... maybe he made it, I dunno.

Hope it does what you want. ^^

unfold -i 0 -ss 0.001 -gb 0 -gmb 0.5 -pub 0 -ps 0 -oa 0 -us on -s 0.1;

Sean VanGorder

UV Deluxe has an option for setting a desired texel density and scaling all selected shells to it. Use it all the time.

poopipe

my solution to all these problems is to get very good at using FBX

onionhead_o

ah. what do you mean by that? poopipe. you mean like exporting to 3dsmax to do the uvs? thats not very effective, since the OP wants a Maya solution.

poopipe

onionhead_o wrote: »

ah. what do you mean by that? poopipe. you mean like exporting to 3dsmax to do the uvs? thats not very effective, since the OP wants a Maya solution.

Pretty much -
I don't see any difference between going out to max for your UVs and going to something like roadkill (except licensing costs which I'm going to assume are a moot point)

onionhead_o

you dont need roadkill :P. I only use maya uv texture editor

bk3d

Ninja UV will map to a specified texel density.. it will automatically scale based on the diffuse texture size or you can input a texture size.

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/marketplace/scripts-plugins/texturing/c/ninja-uv--2

you can also check out Ninja Dojo for more tools.

http://www.bk3d.com/Ninja_Dojo/Dojo.htm

Oniram

poopipe wrote: »

Pretty much -
I don't see any difference between going out to max for your UVs and going to something like roadkill (except licensing costs which I'm going to assume are a moot point)

oh how id love to be able to send stuff out to max to do my uvs.. but at work we only have maya. :P


ok so new question.. how can i preserve an instance in maya when combining objects? max reference: i have instanced geometry, and i use attach within edit poly to attach a new object to my parent object.. the instance inherits the new object. whereas in maya.. the instance just deletes and becomes a transform node

meathead

I love to jump into different 3d apps all the time. Maya is good for this and max is good for that, I even use sketchup for some of my work then import it into max, Every program has its pro's and con's So why not use them all

Brygelsmack

Personally I try to stick to one program because it speeds up my workflow. I only go outside Maya to bake my AO in Xnormal because Maya refuses to add Edge padding for AOs... And when I sculpt stuff obviously.

poopipe

Oniram wrote: »

oh how id love to be able to send stuff out to max to do my uvs.. but at work we only have maya. :P


ok so new question.. how can i preserve an instance in maya when combining objects? max reference: i have instanced geometry, and i use attach within edit poly to attach a new object to my parent object.. the instance inherits the new object. whereas in maya.. the instance just deletes and becomes a transform node

We have a script here that preserves history when combining/separating meshes so it is (probably) technically possible - i can't share the code I'm afraid though

passerby

ya such a script is pretty easy to make. think it might also be a feature of the fbcombine script on creative crash iirc.

Oniram

new one.. i want to be able to use deformers on instances.. this is vital to my workflow and i cant believe maya doesnt allow this.. on the left, ive got a row of instances that id like to deform together.. but i guess maya doesnt allow that.. is there anything i can do as a workaround to keep my instances and still effect them all uniformly with a deformer?

BARDLER

The problem is that the deformers are designed for animation and rigging, and that stuff doesn't work on instanced geometry. However a work around could be when you create the instanced geometry tell it to create a new group, not a parent. Then apply the deformer to the original mesh, and the new group it created.

Oniram

OH MAN!!!! FINALLY! a solution to my first issue has come.

Issue #1: Beveling

Problem: When i started using maya 2012, bevel worked fine. beveling by an amount of 0.5 (default) would make the bevels land halfway between the original beveled edge, and the outer edge containing the face. now it draws over and i always need to adjust the amount to somewhere around 0.3 to be inside the face.

the issue is that my settings were in inches instead of centimeters. apparently having inches creates that bug, so switching it back to cm made it work perfectly.

haiddasalami

Just thinking off the top of my head but maybe having a script that ran through the scene gathered up the instances to that object and then offsetting the main deformer using the world rotation and translation.

Oniram

new one. big request and if you have an answer ill love you forever. is there any way to rotate or scale along edges, similar to max's edge constraint?

some thoughts before i get an answer from you..

holding C for curve constraints, slide edge tool, and "set to edge" in the move option are all things that are nice.. but not what im looking for. AFAIK all of those apply to moving verts.. i want to be able to scale and rotate them.

BARDLER

Open up the tool settings, the little wrench icon in the top right, and with each tool you get different options in there. With the move, scale, and rotate tool you get set to point, edge, or face options.

Oniram

nope thats not really what i need. at its very basic form, this is what im trying to accomplish

BARDLER

Hmmm I don't know if default Maya can do that, so you might need to look for a script. If I needed a shape like that I would use the "cut faces tool" under the edit mesh tab. It basically lets you draw an edge through everything like if you were slicing it, so that might work for you. Example below.

Oniram

well i was just using that gif as a general example. its not a matter of "hey im looking for a way to make a 45 degree segment on a cylinder" but moreso of i need a way to move, rotate, and scale, a segment or set of vertices without breaking my mesh's silhouette or edgeflow. there's tons of situations when i need something like that, but the cylinder example was just one that popped into my head at the time.

BARDLER

That makes sense, but unfortunately I do not know then. I feel like a script would be easy for someone to do, if it isn't out there already. Hopefully someone with more knowledge then I can help you out with this one.

BARDLER

Did you ever figure this out? I would like to know if there is a way to do this.

Oniram

i didnt. ive been kind of just coping without it. i did however have our tools guy at work write up a small script that will activate the "set to vert" "set to edge" and "set to face" options.. but automatically set the custom axis of the vert, edge, or face that is selected for both move and scale. made working with angles a lot easier.

passerby

ya that's exactly how i handle that type a thing in maya.

edge constraints are one of the few thigns i always loved about max, that a lot of packages dont do.