Maya 8 features that I like.
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Apparently Autodesk for the win? I'm trying out Maya8 today and I'll post the features I find useful for those interested.
1. alpha textures now sort correctly in the viewport so you can model trees.
2. the split polygon tool can now jump past edges and split right across them.
3. normal maps can be rendered in mentayray now, contrary to what Cody told me fucking bastard. Unless I'm missing something you just turn the feature on, I did a lame test but I would imagine it works since it is a new feature in the what's new doc.
4. layout uv's now works and gets tighter packs.
5. overlapping uv's are now rendered red in the texture view.
6. there is a select uv shell button for easy organization.
1. alpha textures now sort correctly in the viewport so you can model trees.
2. the split polygon tool can now jump past edges and split right across them.
3. normal maps can be rendered in mentayray now, contrary to what Cody told me fucking bastard. Unless I'm missing something you just turn the feature on, I did a lame test but I would imagine it works since it is a new feature in the what's new doc.
4. layout uv's now works and gets tighter packs.
5. overlapping uv's are now rendered red in the texture view.
6. there is a select uv shell button for easy organization.
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Do you know if there's a "preserve UV" feature yet, that lets you move geometry around but keep UV positions relative? I think XSI calls it "Texture Swimming", Max calls it "Preserve UVs"... I think that's one of the features I'd really miss if I had to switch apps.
alpha textures now sort correctly in the viewport so you can model trees.
[/ QUOTE ]We'll be upgrading our entire team for this feature alone.
It does seem to be a bit light on for exciting features though.
Nvidia anything newer than 6800 gt is not supported by Maya, like their whole 7800 series and above I don't think you can even use the interface.
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That's fucking ridiculous.
Once I set maya.exe to win2k compatibility mode, Im running high quality rendering with a 7900 just fine.
I'm using a 7900 and Maya 7 right now and everytime I have the UV editor open in UV mode the perspective viewport crawls. I've heard some nasty stories on the CGsociety Maya forums too which have kept me from switching over. Well that and it doesn't seem worth the switch right now (the enhanced split polygon tool looks great though).
As with a lot of graphics intensive software, a lot depends on individual pc configurations and setup. I'm really not having any issues running maya 8.0 and a 7900 at all, but that could well be just the luck of the draw.
All worked like a charm.
Alias just didn't want to *support* not workstation cards for nVidia's buggy drivers... they knew it would work... but if nVidia frigged 'em up over some stupid Battlefield2 patch, Alias didn't want to have to deal with Maya users over it.
The only display issues I have are when I turn on viewport shadows. With the shadows on the lighting will constantly flicker in the viewport, so it's really only useful for taking screenshots. If I leave the shadows turned off everything displays as expected though.
As far as slowdown, the only time I get noticeable slowdown is when I have transparent objects overlapping each other.
It's annoying, but I'll take it if that's what needed to be done for them to display alpha properly.
by the way : 8.5 features revealed...
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=7635643
and for the record im totally gonna install it when we get it at work
Once I set maya.exe to win2k compatibility mode, Im running high quality rendering with a 7900 just fine.
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Are you serious? I suppose I ought to try that, as nothing else has worked for me. Normal Maps showed in the view port in older versions, but not in maya 8 for some reason. Thanks for mentioning that, I was about ready to give up.
http://download.autodesk.com/3dportal/news/bonus_tools/preserve_uvs/index.html
Nice to see them getting around to adding such a handy tool. Some of the Maya guys here nearly died when I showed them how useful Preserve UVs is in Max
not thats a update worth having!
Taken from an Autodesk press conference earlier in the week:
"we changed the load screen, on both Maya8 and Max9 which constitutes a version change under the current US anti-piracy laws. NOW GIVE US MONEY!! oh yea and we also spent more money last year than we should of so... we-laid-off-our-R&D-team. Bob, the mentally handicap night janitor will be in charge of thinking up new features for the next two versions until we can pull in enough cash to actually start thinking of new features".
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I wasn't too impressed with the Max9 features either, I'm not sure if they are just being lazy or what but I can come up with 10 things that need fixing in Max above the hair tools. For the love of all that is holy when are they going to fix the atmospherics load/unloading issue. Or how about making a decent camera queue list that remembers post production settings? How about an optimize modifier that works on polys instead of just tris? And doesn't effect UV's... I'll stop now before the headache starts...
(Sorry, needed to vent after a full days work lost because I forgot to save and Maya fucking sucks).
fmnoor, none of those are new features they've been there since maya 2.5, how else did you rename models before you double clicked them in the outliner.
new feature I found last night, when merging verts if you only have two verts selected there is a toggle to merge these without a max distance, handy when you like to set the merge distance to 0.001 like me but also like to have the ability to quickly merge two together without opening the options box.
Let me share some of the things I've been pleasantly suprised at finding:
1. Double click on the scale tool and select discrete scale. Now you can scale the space between a set of vertices down to 0 almost instantly, great for getting edges straight.
2. Right click and a a quick flick in the general direction will work when you need to switch components (no need to way for the menu to show up).