Maya 2017 - animation updates!!!

slipsius

Omg, Maya 2017 is taking a few things from motion builder and becoming even better at animation!! 

Time Editor (Mobu's story tool) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8VKxhJCkXo


Improved graph editor (Much like mobu's) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCecoi00s7Q

Hito

Time editor looks sweet.
is graph editor in LT same as full Maya? Been doing some MoBu 2015/2016 lately, I'm not a fan of its graph editor to be honest.

slipsius

Should be the same. What don't you like about it? I love that you can just click and drag things. No move tool needed. And in maya, when you had to select the key, then select the handle was so bloody annoying. 

Hito

a lot of selectable things active at the same time, easy to click the wrong manipulator... step mode doesn't apply uniformly to all selected objects/affectors. plotting animation seems a poor substitute for euler filter. Also seems twitchy response overall to tablet input... clicks will randomly unclick or double click, scale/scroll way over responsive.

maybe I'll learn to like it eventually. for now it's just a bit irksome.

slipsius

Half of that seems like it's mobu over all, not necessarily mobu's graph editor?

EVernier

I'm on the fence...on one hand this looks great, on the other the BS they're pulling with the Arnold renderer doesn't make me want to try it. I like to render my shots for my demoreel without a watermark

Hito

slipsius said:

Half of that seems like it's mobu over all, not necessarily mobu's graph editor?

yeah probably. So far there doesn't seem to be anything spectacularly great about motionbuilder, just to usual pains when switching apps.

AGoodFella

Does motionbuilderHito said:

slipsius said:

Half of that seems like it's mobu over all, not necessarily mobu's graph editor?

yeah probably. So far there doesn't seem to be anything spectacularly great about motionbuilder, just to usual pains when switching apps.

Does MoBu still crash/freeze regularly. Last time I used was at uni and it was the most buggiest/unstable piece of software I've used.

Hito

seems pretty stable. no crashes so far. but then again nothing real heavy either, just single character and keyframes.

slipsius

I constantly work with 10-20 characters in my scene, plus level geo, and have no issues. I've gotten maybe 2 crashes in the last 14 months?

It's funny. When you talk to animators about their preferred tools, it seems like everyone hates the one they hate because it crashes a lot. But what's killer is that everyone has different experiences. Some say maya crashes a lot. some say mobu. For me, mobu and maya almost never crash. But when it comes to Max, it crashes ALL. THE. TIME. In fact, it's the only program I've ever gotten an error for having too many errors... yes, really! 

AGoodFella

Haha! That's funny! I've never had a "proper" PC that can handle 3D work so that might be one of the main issues.

My PC right now has such a crappy graphics card, it won't even boot MoBu. Something about OpenGL.

kaspersp

Isn't the Time Editor basically just what the trax editor ought to have been all along? Assuming the Time Editor works properly. 

I must say, looking at Maya 2017, I am slightly disappointed. Especially with the watermark thing in Arnold. We were so close to get access to a contemporary renderer. 

Hito

the watermark thing with Arnold is a real d*ck move

EVernier

I tried out 2017 and used the parallel rig evaluation and gpu instancing...dramatic increase in performance from 2016 for animation playback, even using those features in 2016. I went from 10-12fps to 25-30 using one of the heaviest iAnimate rigs in viewport 2.0, and that was on my laptop. Couple of improved layouts for different productions, like modeling, rigging animation and UV. Still have to check out the graph editor and time editor.