Maya 2014 finally gets a huge update to its modeling tools!
polycounter lvl 12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgjioOigaQA
-The functionality of the NEX tools are built in now with some nice added features.
-Selections are remembered on a per object and per component bases.
-Basic retopology features to clean up meshes right in Maya.
-Interactive and much more stable bevel tool.
-Better and faster ways of selecting loops, faces, and verts.
-Preserve normals when freezing transformations so normals do not get flipped when scaled by negative 1.
-Slide tool that lets you slide components along the existing mesh.
-A symmetry tool that lets you model in symmetry, as well as setting symmetry after the fact.
A few other nice things as well, but overall it looks promising.
-The functionality of the NEX tools are built in now with some nice added features.
-Selections are remembered on a per object and per component bases.
-Basic retopology features to clean up meshes right in Maya.
-Interactive and much more stable bevel tool.
-Better and faster ways of selecting loops, faces, and verts.
-Preserve normals when freezing transformations so normals do not get flipped when scaled by negative 1.
-Slide tool that lets you slide components along the existing mesh.
-A symmetry tool that lets you model in symmetry, as well as setting symmetry after the fact.
A few other nice things as well, but overall it looks promising.
Replies
1: A better algorithm for the UV Smooth and/or Unfold UV's tools. They work, sorta, half the time. Smooth UV gets "stuck" on many types of projections and needs a lot of finessing. Unfold UV's only works somewhat reliably by constantly toggling the unfold constraints between horz/vert.
2: Some type of tube UV unwrapper for tube/pipe shapes. There are tricks to unwrap these types of shapes but a more straight forward approach would be great.
3: Some UV straightening tools like the ones found in Ninja Dojo.
4: Color code UV edges like Softimage so it's really easy to see UV edge connections.
5: Transfer Maps gives me slightly better results with normal maps than Xnormal and I don't have to bother with exporting my envelopes/cages. Now, if only the Mental Ray AO baking gave me similar quality and speed results as Xnormal and also included a Cavity option, I wouldn't ever have to leave Maya.
hope it crashes less on mac, my workmates get 7 to 17 crashes a day sometimes
Nope, most people use a negatively scaled instance of a mesh.
There is something called reflection.. but it only allowed you to move stuff around, not add or remove geometry on both sides at the same time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fee_0dFYOyA
That's something I use a lot in my modelling and it's pretty essential.
> http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/
Was looking into combining cut + loop tools, that's going to be super nice.
Ged: yes. (a script I'd like to get around to making is one that lets you created "advanced" marking menus easier/better)
With the multi-cut tool when adding an edge loop, you only have the relative distance from edge option.
With the bevel, there is no option for absolute units for the offset. IE: If I want a bevel 2 units wide I better go back to the old tool. I suspect it is using the built in bevel function under the hood anyway because I see the same little glitches with both of them, so then why not expose the extra functionality in the modeling toolkit?
Really? You are stuck on that still?
I am more interested in this as well as Softimage XSI 2014. As I use both for my fiddles.
and a lot of things like the changes to the connect, bevel and extrude tools, can easily be made even more interactive than they are in nex with just a little python code, and also have them fit into maya better, instead of feeling like a whole separate system ontop of the existing system.
ya just seems so odd to me, the extra work needed to intergrad it into the marking menu system, and the tools pallet, really only takes a tiny bit of work, like 10mins work per tool.
but ya feels liek polyboost/graphite in max, has it;s own toolbar, and makes the original ones redundant. and in the backend it is the same tools, just with a new type of interaction.
Though the retop looks good!
I do agree they need to sort out their UV mapping soon! Its a complete nightmare doing the most simple of unwraps
Why is raycast selection only active when the toolkit is turned on? Why do the extra manipulator circles go away when I use the default widgets for translate and scale? Why does the insert edge loop tool (with a sweet new feature of respecting the curvature of your mesh when you add it in) break the symmetry added inside of the new toolkit?
I just want to use the tools and not have them break each other. Is that really too much to ask?
I have been a long time user of autodesk products and I really want them to be good, but lately I'm getting very fed up with these yearly releases of buggy software that actually breaks the workflow instead of improves it.
Also on a side note my co-worker just updated from maya 8.5 to 2013 a few months ago and hates how buggy it is compared to the old version. He says he would love to go back but since 8.5 is no longer supported it just isn't an option.
Basically just stuck NEX in there like they did Polyboost into Max.
Over the last few versions of Maya there has been some improvements to modeling (nips & tucks), but the inclusion of Nex is perhaps the biggest improvement thus far, but this is all part of an ongoing review of modeling and other usability improvement for Maya.
Interesting that someone mentions 8.5, as that's often cited by some as a 'sweet spot' build of Maya and things haven't improved since. Many believe that the software appears to be more stable then more recent releases but I wouldn't necessarily agree with that. I wouldn't go back to old versions now, not when you actually look at the amount of improvements made. But even that aside, the list of bug fixes is huge, despite some still managing to creep through.
I thought 2013 was very solid and that has been echoed by many customers. I've known several (games and VFX) studios that were using an older version of Maya (2008/9), but they've all gone current now to 2013 and even 2014.
This makes me happy.
I can't speak for others who cite 8.5 as the "sweet spot" but I can say that one of the main reasons my co worker says that it's great is simply because of the stability/features that worked.
I agree, maya has made a lot of steps forward since 8.5 and some of the newer features I can't do without. But when those features are buggy it really slows everything down.
You mentioned making sure to use the submit bug report popup but many of these issues don't cause a crash immediately. (if they do I try to send the bug report.)
But a lot of things that happen are more along the lines of:
- left clicking on the center box of the scale command and dragging in the uv view often only scales in U instead of U and V. I have to undo and try again until it decides to work.
- editing uvs wont update in viewport 2.0. (and the only way to fix it is to restart maya.)
- Booleons often delete both selected meshes for no reason or fails to do anything at all. (Softimage has great booleon support so I know you guys can fix this.)
- amd graphics cards (2012) would cause the uv editor to hang for several seconds when selecting uvs.
Events that DO crash maya often:
- Using the interactive split polygon tool often crashes maya.
- combining objects (the risk goes up to almost 100% when using instanced objects)
- I also have to be careful when using undo these days as sometimes maya will randomly crash while I'm using undo.
- Pressing the "3" key can sometimes trigger a crash on meshes with strange topology. (edges with zero width or lamina faces.) I never had this issue before 2012 and used to press the 3 key to quickily check my mesh for errors.
The percent of events in which maya crashes on me per version (2008 to 2014) is absolutely going up with each yearly release. I can't be the only one experiencing this.
I've liked maya for awhile but I am being literally forced to look for alternatives to use just to meet my deadlines. Please do something about this autodesk!
Oh and one more thing since I happen to be working with this right now... with color management turned on and set to input = srgb and output = linear, why do we still need to manually gammma correct the color swatches in maya? Can't you just add a checkbox to the color picker and set it to be on by default?
I'm sure other people love this update but for me it leaves a bit to be desired still, there are some great new features but I'd love to see some of them condensed and really optimized/efficient. Hopefully that happens within the next versions and Autodesk doesn't consider this update the end-all-be-all modeling update for the next decade of Maya users. Cause that's ridiculous, and seems like what had happened for a while, which is why other applications were able to take the lead for some pretty major functions/features.
That's just my opinion as a Maya user for the past 6 years or so, other people might be used to it but I'm still a bit frustrated.
can you list 5 modelling tools that maya does not have that you think are essential? other then the fact that some people like the modifier stack that max has apposed to maya nodes i don't really see anyone listing the tools they want.
@artquest
i try not to update until the service packs comes out. most of the showstopper bugs are fixed by then.
something you can try is to go into the plugin manager and uncheck all the plugins. only enable plugins as you need them. that seems to work for me. i don't have to many crashes. maybe a few more then the old alias versions but nothing like what you seem to have.
story of my life!!
I don't think it's just about tools that are missing, more about the tools working like they should and being archaic in that there not as interactive or smart has in other programs, not to mention work cleanly.
Take the Cut tool that worked great in earlier versions of Maya, it would let you cut in the centre of faces and carry on, not so in later versions, I love creating cuts around a model for them all to disappear when I close the tool. Maybe it's fixed in the newer versions, but just goes to show.
The bridge tool almost always creates double edges unless used on simple geometry.
A lot of the tools have these quirks to them that just impedes a good workflow
Splines. Yes the ones from 3ds max. No. Extrude along spline is not the same as render in viewport.
both are fixed in 2014...
now its the best time to report modeling issues... cause they are working on them...
i assume your talking about split polygon tool.
if you go into the options and you uncheck 'constrain to edge' then you can cut the interior of a polygon and make random cuts anywhere you like. when you click inside a polygon and drag to the edge the vertex will be welded to the edge or vertex.
you can never assume that the default behaviour is all there is in maya. most of the time there is a bunch of options that you need to look up in the docs. if its a node even more so.
@inside
i have not seen anyone advocate spline modeling for over 10 years. the lack of spline modeling is a feature
you can still get that cut tool just add SplitPolygonTool to your shelf and tada old cut tool is back! Yaaaaay! I only use the old cut tool, the new one is rubbish.