[Maya] Quick Pipe : Curve-Edge Based Path Creation Tool

Fansub

Hey there,it's Fansub !

You can grab the Beta right here !

https://gum.co/QPipe1a

I've been working for the past three months on my first and biggest MEL script yet,and today i can finally talk a bit more about it !

Quick Pipe is a curve-edge based path creation tool for Maya.With it’s selection-based formula,Quick Pipe lets you create multiple shapes like tubes,pipes,ropes,corrugated pipes,floating bevels,welds,caves,corridors,etc...

http://i.giphy.com/l3V0qii9ogYOimUVy.gif

You can choose to stay in the tool’s comfort zone and prototype with it as much as you want to see the results happening in real-time,or go crazy and play with different profiles to get some weirdly unexpected results.
Quick Pipe comes with a relatively small documentation and a dozen of videos to show you how to create multiple shapes with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0WDjqNE4EA

The tool is developed completely with MEL scripting and i used Sublime as my IDE.Quick Pipe is currently compatible with Maya 2015,2016 and 2016.5.
Maya 2014 and Maya LT support will be added in the coming weeks !

Quick Pipe is currently being beta tested but you can already get it on Gumroad for 8$ !

jRocket

It would be nice if there were an interactive mode for this...kind of like bevel, extrude, and most of the other built in modeling tools where there is that popup that lets you adjust the parameters of the tool. The way you're doing it by executing the script command again to cycle through the attributes does save me from manually changing them in the channel box, but it's not very intuitive or consistent with the rest of the modeling toolset in maya.

*edit*
It is called the In-View Editor -> https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-C9C88AA3-CE61-4389-9A19-B6456427EBA2-htm.html

Fansub

One of the first things that i wanted to do when making Quick Pipe was use the In-View Editor window instead of the cycling command, but the inview editor appeared to be too primitive (it has been introduced very recently in Maya 2016 AFAIK) and it's MEL command doesn't have enough controls for me to properly work on it.In fact it has only one flag,which isn't very useful.

As soon as they start making it more editable i'll start working a way to use it,but in the meantime the toggle is your best friend

Fansub

New update is available ! check out your emails

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbFqk3pMrGQ

This new update is more of a fixing issue update than features,here's what have changed :

- Open Profiler was revamped and the profiles format changed from FBX to QPprofiles,which means no more FBX-related errors !

- Fixed 2015 compatibility where command melOptions would not be found.

- Improved support for both locators and Bezier curves.

- And a few bug-fixes here and there that no one cares about

Also wanted to say that the price of both Quick Pipe and AMT will be moved from 8$ for Quick Pipe to 10$,and from 5$ for AMT to 8$. This price increase might seem small but will be enough for me to afford working even more on updating them and working on my next big tool which everyone single Maya user no matter what his background is will absolutely love ! The price increase is not going to affect anyone who already owns the tools.

coccosoids

Woohoo! So I just signed up to ask what that tool is!

ceebee

Abelo said:

Thanks a lot!
I unfortunately seem to keep getting a third error:

// Error: file: C:/Users/aoroz/Documents/maya/2014-x64/scripts/LaunchQuickPipe.mel line 1288: Invalid flag '-lt'



Cheers!

Hey Fansub, bought this script recently. Seems like I'm getting this error as well. I'm on Maya 2013 though so I assume there's not support for that at the moment. Any quick fix?

Fansub

I've sent a temp fix to Abelo,just sent you one too   I'm looking into blending this fix with the other versions atm.If someone has this issue please send me a PM,will give you the script asap

ceebee

That was quick! Thanks a lot man, can't wait to try it out

Polynaught

Cannot buy. Gumroad doesn't offer paypal. I'm sure I've seen that option before though.

Fansub

Looks like they're having problems with Paypal  :

due to volume limits with our payments processor, this functionality may disappear at times. You can make it always show up by upgrading your account until we have a permanent fix later this year.

I'll be upgrading my Gumroad account in a few weeks,only need to set certain things up first.

Gilgamesh

 Yer I wont use anything but paypal these days, let me know when it's upgraded and I'll have both pipe/adn

dmilligan277

Hi Adnan,

First of all, great tool! I bought QuickPipe today in work as i was making so many ropes that i needed to something to speed up my process, and this helped lots. After work i got home and installed it on my home PC also, problem is that at home i use 4k resolution monitors and the UI windows for the tool don't  scale with my 4k monitors so i am not able to see all the buttons. Can you please help me with this?

Dave 

Fansub

Hey dave,thanks a lot for getting the tools !

I'm currently having a big move (new country,new life and shit) and already packed my computer,so can't provide to you proper support before the 20th of this month when i have sat down,got internet,etc...
In the meantime,do not worry too much,as that window doesn't have any super important stuff in there.It's just the welcome page.

Really sorry for the inconvenience.I've never tried Quick Pipe on a 4K monitor but got a few people who use it fine,so i will most likely have to look into it asap and see if there is anything i can do.

I saw your message in my inbox today too,and will be responding you from there once i've set foot in my new home

dmilligan277

Thanks for the quick response Adnan. Just so you know it is not just the welcome page window, but all the windows, including the main tools window, meaning i can't use the tools. Do you know if there is anyhting i can do quickly so that maybe i can make the windows manually scaleable? 

dmilligan277

Also, good luck with the move.

akewt

Hello, bought and installed QuickPipe but when I use the command LauchQuickPipe it runs CleanQuickPipe instead.  Any help appreciated.
edit:  saw your earlier post, all I need right now is a command to show the command list!  ha!  don't need intro page right now.

akewt

Still waiting for a response on this.  Your quite happily sending me promos for new plugins but not fixing the one i have already bought.    Redeem yourself  

Fansub

CreasePlus is not my plugin and i don't get a dim from that promo but it's cunt-y from me to not respond,so sorry for that ! ^^

when I use the command LauchQuickPipe it runs CleanQuickPipe instead.

And that's the expected behavior.Quick Pipe is context-sensitive,so depending on your current selection the tool will run different operations.
If you have a curve selected and run the script it will create a pipe from the selected curve, and if you don't have anything selected the tool will clean all pipe's histories and hidden groups in the current scene.

I say this a lot to everybody and will say it again : Please read the doc.It's not super long and every behavior you might be interested in is available in there.I know documentations suck and I've already worked on a more motivating to read documentation for my other tool ADN Modeler Tools,but Quick Pipe is a completely different beast as it doesn't operate on buttons for most of it's operations.
With that said,you can definitely expect more intuitive helpers with the tool in the future !

akewt

OK, thanks for the response.  I get it now.  Although imho this UX is not intuitive.  
I would expect Launch Quick Pipe to launch the menu not execute a contextual fucntion.  Also in that menu you should have a complete list of options including 'run start-up page again', 'open command lister' etc.  Also your documentation lacks a full glossary of commands and scripts.  Open Command Lister mel I had to find from initially resetting the launch starter window function amd then echoing the command in the script editor.
  
Fix those probs and we should be getting close.  ;P

Shapeshifter and all your tools are very powerful however and I am enjoying using them.  Thanks  

Fansub

Yeah Quick Pipe's UI still needs a lot of work,i'm working on another big update for the tool (version 2.0) but still need to fix a lot of things before releasing it

Falkrum

Hi there! Thanks for the amazing tool! Really helping me in my work.

One thing I really need you to add to this tool is rotate pipe along the central curve. So please, take a look on this option! It shouldn't be too hard to add, but it will be very helpful! 

Thanks once again!

Fansub

Hmm can you tell me what you mean by central curve ? if you could have a picture/gif/video to showcase what you want,that would be even better !

throttlekitty

@Falkrum It already has a twist attribute if that's what you're talking about?

Fansub

Yeah that's what i thought about,too.There is actually a bug that rotates the pipe around the center of it's curve and it creates horrible stuff

Toast

Hi, can the pipe generate when there are more than one 90* angles? 


I tried generating a pipe on this shape and got some twisting. 

Fansub

Quick Pipe and AFAIK any other piping/extruding tool that uses the Maya curve system doesn't work on hard angle
I've talked with someone on this matter and they gave me a lot of pointers as to how i could solve this and I've been working on it for version 2.0

xChris

Hey @fansub ! I've got a problem with the automap no working. I'll model for a good while and than once I get to start uv'ing and hit automap I'll get this error:

// Error: file: C:/Users/cvasq/Documents/maya/2016/scripts/AMTools/AMTScripts/ADN_AutoUnwrapMesh.mel line 18: Cannot find procedure "Unfold3D". //

It was working fine for a good while than it started happening randomly. 

Fansub

It was working fine for a good while than it started happening randomly.

What version of Maya are you using and did you by any chance recently updated it ?

xChris

Fansub said:

It was working fine for a good while than it started happening randomly.

What version of Maya are you using and did you by any chance recently updated it ?

I haven't updated either machine, and both machines are on 2016 SP6

Fansub

Ok will look into it,thanks !

Did you use the command often,and if so,did it always work until now ?

xChris

Fansub said:

Ok will look into it,thanks !

Did you use the command often,and if so,did it always work until now ?

Yeah I used it pretty often the first couple of weeks, than this past week it started giving me that error. Thanks for the response!

Toast

Very cool Fansub! Thanks, it is good news. (PS it's a great plugin.  I really like using it).
The only feature request I'd have is a mirror option. Sometimes the profile faces the wrong direction so it would be awesome to be able to flip it 180 degrees. 

Falkrum

Fansub said:

Hmm can you tell me what you mean by central curve ? if you could have a picture/gif/video to showcase what you want,that would be even better !

I am talking about same option as Shape Twist, but able to rotate whole pipe, not just one end as Shape Twist do it.

Fansub

Toast : Hmmm i think i see what you mean.Will add it to the list !

Falkrum : So if i understand you want to twist the whole pipe from both end,right ? is that to create ropes ?

Can't promise anything,but will definitely see how it can be integrated

Falkrum

Falkrum : So if i understand you want to twist the whole pipe from both end,right ? is that to create ropes ?

Can't promise anything,but will definitely see how it can be integrated

Not to twist, but rotate. For example i am create low poly pipe, i need to rotate profile for the whole pipe to set it like it shown on the left side. I cant use Twist because it fixed the profile on other end.

Fansub

Oh i see what you mean what i generally do in this case is Edit Pipe to show the profile and path of the pipe,then select the profile and rotate it.It works most of the time.Might implement a feature for this,not 100% sure.

Falkrum

Fansub said:

Oh i see what you mean what i generally do in this case is Edit Pipe to show the profile and path of the pipe,then select the profile and rotate it.It works most of the time.Might implement a feature for this,not 100% sure.

Thanks for the tip! Will be very useful if you will implement it, I think its a base feature.  

sgtkoolaid

New Pipe created !

// Error: file: C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2017/scripts/others/drInit.mel line 1961: Object '' not found. // 

it works and creates a pipe. but however, I do not see any window. I put all the folders in their proper place. I have maya 2017. thoughts?

derp! just figured it out lol. was using ep curve had to go into control vertex mode. YAY moving on. 

Aerashi

Hey Fansub, I've got a new monitor and it's default resolution is 2560x1600, the result being that when I fire up QuickPipe I get this : http://take.ms/iIFqg. I'm guessing this is the same issue dmilligan was getting on a 4k monitor. Any ideas on how to fix it? Would rather not have to switch back to the smaller screen :P

venain

Hey Fansub,

I'm evaluating quick pipe for my company to see if we can use it in our current project. So far it's been pretty great, but one feature in particular would help us a bunch. Would it be possible to drive the ramp scale with a curve? This would allow for more complex tapering shapes. If this is already possible, how would I go about doing it? If not... It would be a great feature!

Edit:

Another great feature would be the ability to reverse the direction of the pipe (also another issue that comes up when using lots of tapered pipes)

Visum

Just bought this and ADN for LT. Baby Maya doesn't suck that bad anymore thx to this

Torch

Yo Fansub, loving Quickpipe, great work Is it possible to set it up so that the pipe can be adjusted in realtime when moving points on the curve, similar to Max's renderable curve?

EDIT: Also, how can I re-scale the UI dialog to be larger? I don't seem to get the 'scaling arrows' when placing the cursor at the edges of the dialog.

Fansub

Hmmm, you mean like moving the curve points and seeing it change accordingly in realtime ? that's already the default behavior just select a pipe, hit EDIT PIPE, select your curve path and start playing with it to see it change in realtime

Torch

Awesome One last thing - is there a way to scale up the UI dialog so its possible to see all the menu options? Like so:

http://i.imgur.com/a9YQSuK.png

Fansub

Sent you a PM with a fix

raul

Quick pipe is great! it cuts down a lot of manual work i have to do! However, i have a bit of a problem ,where I am using it to generate roots on world space. Meaning, im not just making modular assets and im assembling a unique group of geo in different locations away from the world origin.  The issue is that after creating the tube/pipe, using the ramp scale stretching the mesh in a spring like fashion, rather than tapering at the end as expected. For some reason it only happens on the scene that im working on. If i open a brand new maya scene everything behaves properly. 

ewetcr

Hello, Maya modeller student here, never touched vertexes/edges/faces before october.
Just wanted to ask if Quickpipe generates triangles or ngons for its meshes. I know, don't get at me! teacher is telling us "at this very point QUADS ONLY PLEASE" and that's how I want to learn it. 

Fansub

@raul That bug has been known for quite some time now, never got to really understand what made it happen happen unfortunately, so yeah for now restarting the scene is the only option

@ewetcr Nope Quick Pipe only generates quads

Fansub

Hey there !

Couldn't finish the new ADN Modeler Tools update in time, so for the late black Friday sales you can go and grab Quick Pipe for free !

https://gumroad.com/l/QPipe1a/blackfriday

125 licenses are available, so go take 'em faster !

matchapeilin

Hi! thanks For your tool
I do not know why I used Shape Twist be that

even already center pivot
I want to make a rope 

thanks!!

Fansub

When you click on General Settings, is the checkbox "Keep source geometry influence."  activated ? if yes uncheck it and click on save settings, then create your pipe again to see if it works.
If it doesn't i would recommend you to create a new scene and try again in it.Sometimes certain operations in Maya interfere with Quick Pipe's behavior, and they can only be fixed with a brand new scene as of now