Maya for Level Designers

Laughing_Bun

I recently joined a studio who uses maya for their levels and environment work, I am switching from 3ds max and am wondering if you could list any useful maya addons/user content, such as:

Scripts
Toolsets
shelfs
curve tools
UV tools

Or information that might help me make the jump from 3ds max to maya, or anything related to modeling in maya.

I'm trying to bring my workflow from 0-60mph, so any help would be great!

SpeCter

I think the Nex tools are one thing every maya user should have. Aside from that i really don´t know

ceebee

The snapping alone is a awesome compared to Max IMO. Holding down: X->Grid, C->Curve/Edge, V->Verts. Hitting insert lets you change pivot.

UV Tools probably Roadkill, or this one that another Polycounter mentioned recently that I saw: http://www.castorlee.com/maya-tools/auto-uv-mapper

Also I agree with SpeC, NEX is pretty essential.

DLoud

You can also hold down D and then X/C/V to move and snap the pivot.

m4dcow

Ninja UV (formerly KAM mapper).
http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/marketplace/scripts-plugins/texturing/c/ninja-uv--2
it costs $25 now, but it is a great script, and the author is always adding cool new features.

malcolm

m4dcow, I tried that ninja thing when it was called kam mapper and after 10min of use found that it didn't offer anything the default maya interface didn't already have. Has he added something to it that is actually useful?

m4dcow

@Malcolm

The edge mapping is good, for mapping tubes and stuff, has an option to unitize those UVs.
Normalizing with certain values of U and V.
UV Snap alignment, you can overlay a bunch of slightly different meshes and have the UVs snap to a target shell so that are all overlaid properly.
Select interior UVs, or select uvs along hard edges.
Align a shell horizontal based on a selected edge.
Alignment tools per UV shell. (left, right, top, down, center etc...)
It has options to rescale to a certain texel value, so you can be consistent across assets.

While alot of these functions can be achieved in maya, many of them are tedious or simply take too long, so being able to hit a button and have it done is useful.

Some of these functions might not seem important to some people eg: well I can align an edge horizontal I just rotate it freehand till it looks right. or I unify my texel density by scaling my UVs with a checkerboard pattern till the "look right".

rebb

Depending on your Maya Version there is "LevelTools" or "LayoutTools", which are meant to help with Level Design.

8 and lower : http://area.autodesk.com/downloads/plugins?word=level&where=1&software=8&script=&os=
2009: http://area.autodesk.com/downloads/plugins/leveltools_35
2010: http://area.autodesk.com/downloads/plugins/layouttools2010
2011: http://area.autodesk.com/downloads/plugins/layouttools2011_for_maya_2011_windows_and_osx