Organizational Philosophy within Maya's mesh tool-sets? Help Appreciated.

Bumper

Hey - I am teaching (for the first time) a beginning modeling class this semester, at a local college, where we are using Maya. I've got heaps of experience modeling, but Maya not so much. I more or less know enough to teach beginners, but there are a few characteristics of Maya I don't entirely get, having used Max for the better part of 10 or so years.

So can anyone explain the philosophy/rational of the way Maya groups its Mesh functions and tools? To my eye they all seems rather jumbled together within Mesh, Edit Mesh and Mesh Tools. I know that some effect objects, where as others are used for components, but there seems to be a jumble, particularly between Edit Mesh and Mesh Tools. Then of course you have the Modeling Toolkit (I realize used largely for retopo) which reminds me of the Graphite tool-set in Max, which was something of of an add-on.

I'm sure there is a good reason for this arrangement, and I'd love to pass it along to my students (not to mention understand it myself.)

Thanks!

pior

One little bit of context related to the naming : IIRC around the time of the acquisition of Maya by Autodesk, the term "polygon" got replaced by "mesh" (probably because renaming "edit polygons" into "edit mesh" would then sound a lot like Max's own "Edit Mesh" mode/modifier). I vaguely remember hearing people complaining about it at some point.



Good luck for your class !

Bumper

pior said:

One little bit of context related to the naming : IIRC around the time of the acquisition of Maya by Autodesk, the term "polygon" got replaced by "mesh" (probably because renaming "edit polygons" into "edit mesh" would then sound a lot like Max's own "Edit Mesh" mode/modifier). I vaguely remember hearing people complaining about it at some point.



Good luck for your class !

Thank you!

thomasp

i think it's just the same in maya as it was in max really. bought-in addons like the modeling toolkit, various integrated bits from the bonus tools, things they keep around for compatibility reasons and the history of a 20 year old program that even when brand new was quite the collection of functionality from a few older, standalone apps and already had a heavy interface.
any consistency the toolset may have had must have vanished literally decades ago.

perhaps you can use it as an example to show how software gets bloated over the years.

Butthair

Mesh refers to operations done to a model at the object mode level.
- Like combining or separating elements, smoothing, fill hole...

Edit Mesh refers to operations done to a model at the sub-component mode.
- like merge to center, detach, duplicate face, wedge...

Mesh Tools are a collection of tools that can be used on models at the object or component level. Use them with option box as that's their intended usage.
- Insert edge loop tool, connect, crease, quad draw, sculpting... and of course modeling toolkit menu toggle.
- Mesh Tools is a newer addition to maya, so if it's redundant, well, it is. I suppose it's autodesk making the two software similar to each other, but I really just think they make it for the group of people that use maya but wanted these pile on of menus - possibly to appeal to newer users.

Mesh Display, primarily, refers to vertex display attributes like normal, facing direction and vertex colors. (I know you didn't ask, but I include anyways).

As for the terminology, it's dumb, now we have mesh and polygon scattered throughout the maya interface. Look at Modify > Convert > they use the "polygon" term.

Anyways, a lot of what's in the modeling toolkit is taken from the mesh tools, so I don't really use it much, Connect works just as great as Insert Edge loop tool, and even then I'll tend to use multi-cut for putting in loops, whether they're eyeballed or snapped.

Bumper

thomasp said:

perhaps you can use it as an example to show how software gets bloated over the years.

You hit the nail on the head. Bloated indeed.

Bumper

Butthair said:

Mesh refers to operations done to a model at the object mode level.
- Like combining or separating elements, smoothing, fill hole...

Edit Mesh refers to operations done to a model at the sub-component mode.
- like merge to center, detach, duplicate face, wedge...

Mesh Tools are a collection of tools that can be used on models at the object or component level. Use them with option box as that's their intended usage.
- Insert edge loop tool, connect, crease, quad draw, sculpting... and of course modeling toolkit menu toggle.
- Mesh Tools is a newer addition to maya, so if it's redundant, well, it is. I suppose it's autodesk making the two software similar to each other, but I really just think they make it for the group of people that use maya but wanted these pile on of menus - possibly to appeal to newer users.

Mesh Display, primarily, refers to vertex display attributes like normal, facing direction and vertex colors. (I know you didn't ask, but I include anyways).

As for the terminology, it's dumb, now we have mesh and polygon scattered throughout the maya interface. Look at Modify > Convert > they use the "polygon" term.

Anyways, a lot of what's in the modeling toolkit is taken from the mesh tools, so I don't really use it much, Connect works just as great as Insert Edge loop tool, and even then I'll tend to use multi-cut for putting in loops, whether they're eyeballed or snapped.

Awesome, thank you. That makes complete sense. I think the redundancy is what largely threw me off. I also didn't know that Mesh Tools can be used on both models and components. I really appreciate the help.