Maya to Max Dictionary

Silva_Spoon

I have just purchased the book "Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right" and am very pleased with it so far. I was wondering if any of you knew whether the types of interfaces that are setup for animating faces in chapter 12 can be made in 3dsmax? I would imagine that they can I am not familiar enough with maxscript and expressions, however to know if it is even possible. Do you know if there is such a thing as a MaxScript to Melscript dictionary? I am only at the end of chapter one in the book, and I want to follow along with the first lip sync setup tutorial but instead of doing it in Maya PLE I want to do it in Max. The tutorial calls for a Locator and I cant find a match for that in max user reference. I can find translate (which is also mentioned) in max script user reference as well as expression & script controllers and so on, and I have a feeling maxscripting will be the direction I should be searching, but I was just hoping you could point me in he right direction as to deciphering the difference between mel script and maxscript terminology. Thanks

MoP

I don't have that book, but what exactly does it call for that you want to do? Are you sure you have to use Maxscript? The functions you want might be already built in to Max...

Silva_Spoon

Well like I said I am not far at all in the book but when i get to where I want to be I will have created a complex facial animation setup like this:

MoP

If that's a facial setup using morph targets (Max's Morpher modifier), then something extremely similar to that setup would be to use Parameter Wiring and create Sliders in the viewport for controlling each part of the expression.

Look up Parameter Wiring, Manipulators and Sliders in Max Help, that should help you out. Also I believe there's an example scene that ships with Max called "Anibal with Manipulators.max" (or something to that effect), open that scene up and you should see what I mean.

Eric Chadwick

You might be interested in this.
http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/mel2mxs/mel2mxs.htm

"This document follows the MEL User Guide describing the concepts and usage of the Maya Embedded Language and presents the differences and similarities in syntax and usage to the 3ds max scripting language - MAXScript (usually abbreviated as MXS).
This reference is intended to help MEL users to start coding in MAXScript, and MAXScript users to quickly jump into MEL."

arshlevon

i would do a search on the cgtalk forums in the max section for "stop staring" not only has almost every possible question been asked.. there have been some really awesome maxscripts written just to translate some of the maya specific features to max..

sinistergfx

Silva: When you get that far: make it into a shape of a face so that it's more intuitive. I've seen setups like that, and they look like a joy to work with.

Jay Evans

ya, that book makes use of one of Mayas greatest strengths in my opinion. Set Driven Keys. Makes it so easy to set up controls like that. I did a test one at work with a seperate viewport which contained all the sliders, and had a fancy fancy, texture in the background that served as directions and labels for all the sliders. Was good fun.

Hopefully thats one feature they will incorperate into Mayax\Maxya :P

Apparently this is all posible in Max now, but I haven't dug through all the scripts and work arounds.

Snowfly

Just to answer your question about Locators, they're pretty much just Point Helpers in max.

Silva_Spoon

Thanks for all the feedback guys it is definatley helpful.

Silva_Spoon

Oh and btw I think I found what I was looking for. A combination of the link above from EricChadwick and the script I found by running a search on cgtalk max forums like arshlevon suggested should do the trick. The script is a joystick manipulator that is exactly the kind of slider I need for this set up. Thanks again guys.

Silva_Spoon

Ok so i now have morph targets done and am ready to roll wiring up the manipulators. I am having trouble wrapping my head around getting the joystick manipulator to control my asymmetrical blend shapes. I want for instance to set it up so that the positive and negative values of the manipulator are wired to 4 different morph targets. I want to set it up so that the Frown L and Smile L are controlled by the bottom left and bottom right hand side of the manipulator and the opposite for the Right sides of the manipulator. And if you put the controller to the dead center top of the manipulator it will smile with both sides equally and if you pull the contoller to the dead center bottom of the manipulator then the frown on both sides will show. I believe I will need to use expression for this. Can anyone shed some light on expessions for me so I can achieve this?

Silva_Spoon

Some one has pointed me in the right direction and when I turned my attention that direction I saw a ray of sunlight pouring out of the heavens onto the Reaction Manager. And all was well