Maya LT!!!!???

melviso

Okay,just downloaded Maya Lt student version and I am surprised that it's somewhat
limited.It does not even have ik handles,if they are going to remove the ik handles,they should have added biped as well.Btw,Autodesk should provide a download help documentation for Maya Lt.
For those of us who like to keep away from the internet(youtube playthroughs),in order to complete projects on time.
That being said,I am really digging shaderfx.Its the best thing about MayaLT.

Sinking

Have you been able to use any scripts with it? There are lot of useful scripts for Maya, which I am not sure the LT version supports.

shaderfx

I think the IK handles are being put back in.
But version 1 of LT should have Human IK.

So kinda similar to Biped in the sense that you can animate humans with IK with it, if that is what you are after.

melviso

@Sinking Nope,I haven't been able to use any mel scripts with it yet.Surprisingly,I just read on their website now that mel scripting,animation retargeting and ik handles are now possible with Maya LT but it comes with the extension 2 version.I don't know if the extension 2 version is available in the student version.

@shaderfx-Yeah they added ik back in but it's only available in the extension 2 version.whether that would be available in the next Maya Lt release,or for students to use is yet to be seen.

I am kinda feel like moving over to Maya Lt.I like Blender but I have to admit Maya Lt is just cool especially dx11,image based lighting and shaderfx.Its like a smaller,cooler version of udk/marmoset toolbag and I am very sure we haven't seen the best of this shaders yet.Blender needs a lot of improvements especially with the viewport capabilities,retargeting also.For movies,its a great tool but for games,its lacking.

Bartalon

If you have access to the student software you should just use full-fledged Maya :P

Sinking wrote:

Have you been able to use any scripts with it? There are lot of useful scripts for Maya, which I am not sure the LT version supports.

I think they recently released a second extension which allows MEL scripting.

melviso

Well,the full fledged Maya does not have shaderfx and i want to try it out as I am interested in indie game development and real time rendering.I do feel $795 is quite high after everything they have stripped from the app.

Sinking

They are putting some things back in, the lack of MEL scripting was a real dealbreaker. I think LT is on a good way and compared to the 3000-5000$ a full 3D studio software will cost you it is a fair deal. As long as you can do everything that is advertised + use the custom content (scripts) you are used to from the regular Maya workflow it seems like a great option for indie devs. If you want to render photorealistic images, obviously this is not the software you are looking for.

My problem with Maya is that it doesn't seem to bake very good normal maps for use in UDK. I have had better results with Xnormal, meaning I've had Normal Maps that look perfect in Maya, but have seems, etc. in UDK. So I'm curious about LT's render to texture results. Turtle is the name of the render manager, isn't it?

melviso

Yep..Turtle is the name.I am a little curious about its global illumination baking though.
I also hope one of the autodesk devs reads this and create a downloadable documentation for Maya Lt.
I think Autodesk has finally done things right.They are finally listening to their userbase.Thats good.Blender devs on the otherhand are becoming a little off in doing things right-the UI and the need to focus on improving their tools for game makers.

radiancef0rge

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=125122
Theres a running thread about Maya LT already.

Turtle is used for baking, it can produce some really nice results. What questions did you have about GI in turtle? It can be used to bake lightmaps for Unity and other game engines.

Also here is the link to the Maya LT documentation http://docs.autodesk.com/mayalt2014/en_us/index.html

melviso

Thanks for explaining about turtle.Is it like the way udk calculates indirect lighting using lightmass?
I know about the link.It is the online documentation for Maya Lt.I was wondering if there is a downloadable documentation for Maya Lt like the full fledged Maya.

radiancef0rge

Its very similar to lightmass - they are both GI solutions. Theres some documentation on it here http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=17208914 as well as a few video tutorials on there as well.

Im actually not sure why the documentation isnt downloadable, I can ask though. Thats really as I can see the maya proper one is downloadable.

Bellsey

MayaLT 2014 now has MEL scripting and IK Handles, although these features are only available to Subscription (and rental plan) customers only, as they were included in extension releases.

The downloadable trial is the 2014 launch version and does not contain the featurs from the Subs drops. This is consistent with other Autodesk software trials.

Sinking

Another reason to try out Maya LT is the "Shader FX" materials, which can be exported straight to the game engine * (or so it claims). I don't think this same shader is available in regular Maya, though it does have node-based shaders to be used with the DX11 preview.

*I do seem to recall that XSI had this feature, too. Or a version of it. Autodesk really made a good deal with buying Softimage. Good for Autodesk, I mean.

shaderfx

Hi sinking,

ShaderFX does not claim you can export your shaders straight to any game engine.

You CAN export the shader to HLSL/CGFX/GLSL 1.2 and GLSL 4.

But these are generic shader files, so they may or may not work in your game engine of choice. Some game engines have their own material format and those do not always support importing generic HLSL/GLSL/CGFX files.

That said, I still think you should check out ShaderFX :P

Sinking

Thanks for clearing that up. I'll definitely try ShaderFX materials out when I can. In the Autodesk videos they are not entirely clear about how much work it is to use the shader compounds it exports in the engine of your choice (or how to import them). I wonder if there are any videos about this process available yet? I'd like to export the shader compounds to Unity and UDK.

shaderfx

Unity and UDK both have their own material format.
So it will not be easy to take your Maya ShaderFX materials into them.

But...we do want to make this easier in the future.
For example: support exporting of shader parameter values from Maya to Unity via FBX.

No guarantee this will happen of course, but it sure would be nice.

Sinking

Hmm, perhaps I should ask this in the existing LT thread...

But since I already asked, here I go again: Do you know of any videos that picture the workflow of getting the shader compounds into UDK or Unity? I'm no coder, so I need detailed instructions on getting that kind of thing to work. Plus I'm really curious how elaborate the materials are that will be created in UDK.

Seeing how UDK is no lightweight when it comes to shader compounds, I expect to actually learn a bit from the material instructions Shader FX exports.

shaderfx

Currently there are no videos nor is it easy to manually convert the ShaderFX shaders into Unity or UDK.

In UDK, you will probably find the nodes that exist there to be similar to what you find in ShaderFX, but you would be rebuilding the graph in both places (which sucks).

In Unity, you have "ShaderLabs" which is their text based material format.
You can, theoretically, convert the CGFX that ShaderFX outputs to a ShaderLabs text file.

But honestly, that workflow is highly technical and probably defeats the purpose of even using ShaderFX if you have to go that route.

Alternatively in Unity you can download a plugin material node editor. I believe there are several and then rebuild the graph.

In short, I don't think it is suitable to take ShaderFX shaders to either of these two engines at this time.

Sinking

Okay thanks! At least I can build my model with material in viewport 2.0 with Maya LT. It's not much different from what I used to do with regular "Phong" materials. Just plug in the diffuse, specular, normal and look at it. BTW, do you know why Maya LT resets my settings every time? I always have to switch my rotation back to "radial" for example (in Settings). Also, why is there no Viewcube? I was getting used to it.

I was hoping Shader FX would somehow build its own compound materials from my input in Maya. That would save sooo much time, though I guess it's best to learn everything in UDK from scratch. And materials in UE4 seem more like the architectural materials anyway, so this whole approach with Shader FX will probably work best with the coming generations of engines.

I'm actually quite surprised there is no Game Engine from Autodesk yet. With all the middleware they produce it is probably only a matter of time, until they bring their own game engine about. Or maybe they can strike a deal with Havok. Their proprietary engine is so damn impressive.

Mr_Cyberpunk

well the good news is that they finally added MEL scripting and OBJ exporting to MayaLT.

The bad news is that its for Subscribers only.. Dick move Autodesk lol. I hope they offer it to perpetual licenses but somehow I reckon you guys will be waiting till 2015 comes out for it to be fixed.

http://area.autodesk.com/products/features/mayalt

perfect_paradigm

I've wished for many years that there was a Maya-like 3D package targeted at game developers so that we can get excited about every new release, knowing it will be relevant for game development. It's also nice that it was cleaned of the stuff irrelevant to indie game devs.

However, I'm concerned that Maya LT was "cleaned" a little bit too much and is now a little incomplete in rigging and animation for indie game developers. And I also really hate to see the wrap deformer and wire tool removed which are very useful for modeling as well.

Since I currently know little about rigging and animation, I would like to ask those more knowledgeable how important those removed features, such as animation layers and spline IK, are for low-budget game developers. Are some important things impractical or impossible to do without some of the removed features?

Here's the comparison between Maya and Maya LT. Look at the top for the extension features in which they added back a few things.

http://www.autodesk.com/products/maya-lt/compare

I really appreciate Autodesk trying, and the devs conversing with us in the forums. And I realize they are trying to strike a difficult balance of it being complete for low-budget indie developers while still incomplete for the other Maya markets(film, high budget games etc.) I just hope they can do just a little more to make it complete for me, then I'll be very happy to get that annual rental deal soon. Right now though it's just not quite there for me yet.

melviso

Doesn't this video show the importation of files with shaderfx materials into unity and they show up correctly?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb5fXKOTspw"]Unite 2013 - Your Next Modeling Tool (Autodesk ) - YouTube[/ame]

perfect_paradigm

@melviso Yeah I'm confused. ShaderFx(Polycount user) seem to say a few posts above that it was really hard to get the materials from ShaderFX into Unity; he made it sound impractical. And yet in that video the Autodesk guy makes it sound like a piece of cake.

shaderfx

Yea I can see the confusion there.

The person in the video is an experienced shader author, so for him, he calls it "A little bit of wrapping you have to do to take the shaders to Unity".

Which is true. That is what you would have to do.

If you are a technical artist who has written Unity shaders before, it is not that big of a deal. But in my opinion, for the average artist, this is not very easy.

So I think it depends on your experience level with writing shaders by hand on whether this is hard or a piece of cake.

I think for the average artist, this is a hard task that I don't think they would want to do.

perfect_paradigm

@shaderfx Oh ok, thanks for clearing that up.