Maya and it's Weighted Vertex Normals

mpuLse

Hey there, quick background on me real quick, and then on to my question to the professionals and hardcore enthusiasts

I'm primarily school and self taught for Maya, and have been working on an independent project with some colleagues for the last 8 months or so, on something that is quite exciting and I look forward to revealing in the near future. Will probably post that here when the time comes to you grand folk!

I've put my hand extensively into most modelling programs to see which gives the edge in some fronts, and to see their different aspects. Currently I am finishing my adventure in 3ds Max, (and loving it so far, it does... so many genius things when it comes to mesh manipulation in comparison to Maya's one size fits all toolbag; Which has its own merits)

TL;DR I'm not proven season AAA professional by any means, but I know a thing or two. In some regards :P

Anyways, on to my question.. to the wiser. While back, I saw the fun break through Cloud Imperium games was doing utilizing Weighted Vertex normals, and how effectively they were getting it. You can do some really fun things at med-poly and having the right weighting. Now, I found with 3DS max and it's addition to having  weighted Normal modifier. It is the best bar none that I have encountered for this type of modelling. It lets you get away with damn near murder. Quite impressive for sure.

but for everything else I am definitely quick and well honed in Maya for your standard SUBD modelling work flows and bouncing to Zbrush when I need to crack the tomb of dark voodoo and back again to Maya or whatever your 3d package may be. That is definitely my comfort zone, although I am very quickly adapting to 3ds max.

That being said... if you had to use Maya for weighted vertex normals.. Is there a way that I am just... not aware of? cause as it stands... I have got to say it sucks for weighted vertex normals. Without 3rd part interaction (which is what I am basically inquiring about) I have done research for the last... bout month straight now, and I have found plugins among plugins.. AMT or ATD tools whatever it was called, random custom made scripts for setting face weighting..made by independent small youtubers.  All sorts of those things. They all suck compared to 3ds Max and Blender's weighted normal modifiers...

So..what gives? Anyone have any inside scoop or plugin or.. holy grail script I am not aware of? I am aware that Maya auto weights accordingly. I know all about hard and soft edge setting. BUt to the experienced modeller/ asset maker.. you know that doesn't quite cut it.. and there are situations where.. there just appears to be no support in Maya for it?

The one thing I did try and actually didn't have success with getting it to work properly, was transferring normals from a SUBDed version of the mid-poly mesh. Just gave me black faces. Or making a more micro beveled version of (found a video of a guy on here somewhere in polycount who posted their, "how to do that method") I followed it step for step. Works for him.. not for me..

So, alas.. I am at a loss and I am checking out what your guys and gals thoughts are on the situation. Or at the very least, a point into a direction that could be helpful.

Bigger TL;DR The f*** maya where are your vertex weighting controls?¿!@!#

Cheers!

pior

Hello -

It sounds like you may be mixing up custom/manually edited normals (allowing for seamless destructable models, billboard trees looking smooth, grass blending well with the ground, controlled shading on anime faces, and so on), and weighted normals (the very specific kind of normals editing consisting of bending the normals in favor of faces and/or edges based on their relative size).

The thing is ... ever since Maya2012, Maya does weigthed normals on everything by default unless proactively instructed to do otherwise. And this is a constant headache when dealing with vendors authoring their models in Maya, as 99% of Maya users seem to be blissfully unaware of the issue (and why should they, as it makes models "look good"). It sends a big fat wrench in any pipeline relying on normalmap bakes as it forces someone to straight up redo the bakes after having to remove the custom Maya shading. Whereas this problem never happens with vendors using Max or Blender, as these apps don't do anything special to their normals by default, therefore export clean raw models.

So to go back to your question : my advice would be to first be extremely familiar with how to desactivate that option/behavior, running some tests to make sure that your models export as expected, and so on. As I assume that this peculiar aspect of the Maya behavior must have some consequence when editing normals further.

mpuLse

pior said:

Hello -

It sounds like you are confusing custom/manually edited normals (allowing for seamless destruction of models, billboard trees, controlled shading on anime faces, and so on), and weighted normals (the very specific kind of normals editing consisting of bending the normals in favor of faces and/or edges based on their relative size).

The thing is ... ever since Maya2012, Maya does weigthed normals on everything by default, unless proactively instructed to do otherwise. And this is a constant headache when dealing with vendors authoring their models in Maya, as 99% of Maya users seems to be blissfully unaware of the issue (and why should they, as it makes models "look good"), yet that sends a huge wrench in any pipeline relying on normalmap bakes. Whereas this kind of problem never happens with vendors using Max or Blender, as these models don't do anything special to the normals by default.

So to go back to your question, my advice would be to first be extremely familiar with how to desactivate that option, running some tests to make sure that your models export as expected, and so on. As I assume that this peculiar aspect of the Maya behavior must have some consequence when editing normals further.

Thanks for the quick reply, no I am definitely not confusing the two. I understand both, and I know Maya does it by default, to an extent.. but when it comes to ... modifying them, changing the weight of how these verts are being affected on the faces, within maya. There just seems to be zero options for it. I have some pictures where I can show some basic tests.

mpuLse

Here is an example I just modelled up quickly to better present the problem. The artifacty cube which is the one on the left, is the Maya cube. That's the best I could get it. The cube on the right is 3DSmax, and using the normal weighted modifier

Ghogiel

I don't think you are doing anything wrong, you aren't going mad. That's just the difference in the way the normals are weighted in the respective algorithm for weighting normals. I don't know about the 3rd party solutions and if they are up to snuff with Max and blender. 

I'm just here for moral support and hopefully someone else replies with something useful (I've tried bashing this to work myself, but haven't managed. Came to the conclusion the most I would do with custom normals in Maya would be putting the ol dome on the tree leaves trick and tranfering normals. Other that, weighted normals is off for me (and should be by default tbh) and avoiding custom normals in Maya liker the plague.

mpuLse

@Ghogiel haha Thanks man. Appreciate it regardless. Yeah it's a funny thing maya.. cause for how comfortable and easy it is to pick up and master, it does have those.. weird.. dark corridors and suddenly you're like. "Hello!?..."

I guess that just basically answers my question then if no one else ends up chiming in eventually. I guess that is the majority of the reason why CIG, chooses to use and finalize their models with max. Gives that extra bit of control.

I know couple of their concept modellers use maya though :P

oglu

Most Artists (me included) dont care about the dark magic. We hit bake and if it does look right we are fine.
We know how to use the dark magic but we dont need to understand the interals.

CheeseOnToast

Maybe @Fansub has an up to date solution for this now. He's pretty active on this forum. He did have a limited version of face weighted normals included in a tool he made, but IIRC it relied on Maya bevels.

pior

Oh also, you are probably aware of this but just in case as it hasn't been mentionned : Maya has two different models for face weighting. So who knows, maybe one might fit your needs better than the other.

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU/Maya-Modeling/files/GUID-232E99F8-96B4-4870-8BA0-4887C1C8F0F2-htm.html

But yeah at the end of the day the most straightforward solution would probably be to export to Blender, kill any leftover of the "special Maya normals" there, and apply the regular/predictable face weighted normals modifer before re-exporter. Sure enough Maya should at least be able to import these custom normals without any change to them.

mpuLse

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it. I'll check into that @pior, you've been a great help to bounce this off of. As were the rest of you.

@CheeseOnToast hmmm that sounds interesting hopefully he sees the tag in this. Thank you for relaying that!

mpuLse

@pior So I checked into the different modelling weights, and just for documents sake in case someone else comes down this road so to speak, the default angle and face weighted option that it is set on, is in fact the best option out of the others. It's 'auto weighting' is at its best out of the box default.

=\

morgannilsson

Following, as I am also struggling with this at the moment. 

Kinda seems like people who are accustomed to modeling in Maya is blissfully unaware of this issue as it does generate the best defaults out of the bunch... But, it doesn't quite get there 100%... What is missing is face size priority, which I've yet to find a way to manipulate the value for. (Assuming it is either not even part of the equation or hardcoded.)

One would think setting it to just Area in the mesh control options would be the solution, but nah.