Switching from Max to Maya =[

mixeh

Apart from Maya's baking/viewport being synched, I really can't seem to bond with the rest of it. I have recently aquired a job using Maya and need help with a couple things. I'll be sure to add to this, but here's it from the first day.


1. How can I scale two seperate faces along their local normals?

2. The UV editor! In Max, the relax tool is amazing. Maya can't seem to relax well at all! Do people use an external program for UVing? What's the go?

3. How can I constrain verts along a face or an edge?

4. How can I align two objects together based on their pivots?

5. (This may sound lazy but trust me I've searched everywhere). Where is the Isolate Selected command in the hotkey editor?

6. Are there any good threads covering good tips and workflows in Maya? Most online training nowadays is done in Max.

Thanks in advance everyone.

m4dcow

1. I'm not sure about separate faces, but you can set a custom axis orientation in the tool settings of the scale menu by click "set to face" and clicking the face whose axis you want to be on and then scale. Or you could use the extruse tool and then delete the edges of the original face after.

2. Don't use Max so I'm not too sure about how it's relax tool works, but in maya I will use a combination of the smooth UV tool, and the old unfold tool with leaving certain UVs pinned.

3. You can use a custom axis orientation as mentioned earlier, or the slide edge tool works for edges.

4. I tend to have my pivots on a grid of some sort so its a matter of snapping to the grid (hold x when translating) to align things. Doing a script for this would be fairly easy though.

5. Shift + I, it was the 1st result on google.

6. Not really sure since I learned Maya at school, I know there are some good script threads around polycount though.

PredatorGSR

Unfold in Maya is very similar to relax in max, you need to adjust the slider between face and edge to get the best results. Pinning or unselecting some uvs will improve your results too. I always felt like I got better results with unfold than relax.

mixeh

Thanks for the responses. It's late here so I won't be able to test these till tomorrow. I haven't used unfold yet so that could be handy. Relax in Max can unfold the most contorted heap into perfect UV's (as long as the seams are right), which is amazing. So hopefully this does the same.

Anyway I'll update tomorrow, I hope to hear how others tackle my questions.

CheeseOnToast

In answer to #1, I think this is what you're after :

Select the faces you want to scale.

Hold Shift+Right click and select "transform component" from the marking menu that appears.

Click any scale cube from the manipulator (Gizmo) that appears. This sets it to local scale mode rather than local move.

For a uniform local scale, click and drag the centre of the manipulator handle.

Hope that helps.

o2_is_alright

In answer to #1, I think this is what you're after :

Select the faces you want to scale.

Hold Shift+Right click and select "transform component" from the marking menu that appears.

Click any scale cube from the manipulator (Gizmo) that appears. This sets it to local scale mode rather than local move.

For a uniform local scale, click and drag the centre of the manipulator handle.

Hope that helps.

Thank you CheeseOnToast! You just made my life a lot easier:) I've been using custom axis orientation up until now and even though it does the trick most of the time it doesn't compare to this. So much quicker and easier!

cdizzle

I didn't see this mentioned as an answer for #3, and I only just recently found out about it myself. In order to constrain a vertex along an edge while moving it, you can use the 'C' hotkey - which is snap to curve. This will treat the edge as a curve, and you can then slide your vertex along the edge.

For #2, people mentioned both the Unfold UV tool and the Smooth UV tool. If you want to take a jumbled mess of UVs and flatten them out - like you mentioned - I think the Smooth UV tool will do this faster, and then you can refine using Unfold UV.

For #4, going to Display > Local Rotation Axis will show the local rotation axis UI thing for the selected object(s) - which represents their pivot. This gives you a new thing to snap to when using the 'V' hotkey.

Hope this helps. Don't give up on Maya, she's a classy lady.

Toast

Sorry to bump an old thread yoou can use thi sscript as a shortcut for #1 - mines alt + a (for align). it will align both the move and scale to to the selected face/edge's axis.

global proc alignAxis ()

{
$compselection=`ls -sl -fl`;
if (`size($compselection)`)
{
if (`size($compselection)`<=1)
{
manipMoveOrient 3;
manipMoveAlignHandleWith($compselection[0],{});
manipMoveContext -edit -mode 6 Move;
manipScaleAlignHandleWith($compselection[0],{});
manipScaleContext -edit -mode 6 Scale;
select -r $compselection;

setToolTo Move; 

print "// Result: Aligned Axis ";
}
else
{
print "// Warning: Invalid Selection";
}
}
else
{
print "// Warning: Please select face";
}
}

Save it as a .mel file and in the hotkey editor put the shortcut as this command: alignAxis.

Works a treat. Although As far as my MEL skills go it'll always go back to move tool when running the command, perhaps someone can fix it here or if I'm not lazy I might get around to doing it!

Since while I'm at it and your coming over from Max as well, berniebernie on CGTalk wrote this script which will align the scale axis to the camera view.

string $objs[] = `ls -sl`;
string $obj = `match "^[^\.]*" $objs[size($objs)-1]`;
//NathanN @cgtalk vv
setToolTo moveSuperContext; 
vector $centerPos = `manipMoveContext -q -position Move`;
$tmp = `group -em`;
move -r ($centerPos.x) ($centerPos.y) ($centerPos.z ) $tmp;
$cam = `lookThru -q`;
$ac = `aimConstraint -offset 0 0 0 -weight 1 -aimVector 1 0 0 -upVector 0 1 0 -worldUpType "objectrotation" -worldUpVector 0 1 0 -worldUpObject $cam $cam $tmp`;
float $ro[] = `xform -q -ws -ro $tmp`;
delete $ac $tmp;
$ro[0] = deg_to_rad($ro[0]);
$ro[1] = deg_to_rad($ro[1]);
$ro[2] = deg_to_rad($ro[2]);
select -r $objs;
if(`nodeType $objs[0]`!="transform"){
    hilite $obj;
    setSelectMode components Components;
}
setToolTo scaleSuperContext;
manipScaleContext -e -ah 3 -useManipPivot 0 -useObjectPivot 0 -oa $ro[0] $ro[1] $ro[2] -m 6 Scale;

If your feeling brave you can modify this so that all references to scale become "Move" and you can have a script that moves based on screen as well.

Yes this is Maya. You want something basic done you'll probably have to script it....:poly142:

mixeh

Hey everyone thanks for the responses, and cheers toast I'm just about to try those scripts out.

I'm still struggling on #3, I tried your technique cdizzle, it doesn't seem to work. I guess I'll have to bind something to the slide edge tool.

bludragon

The constrain feature seams hard to get at first in maya (esp snap to curve) but as I found theres a certian place you need to click on the gizmo or it wont constrain properly.

nfrrtycmplx

I personally found that switching from max to maya was extremely difficult, and that's why I went back to max... but i did realize something in doing that. Learning how to do in maya what you would normally do in MAX is a difficult task because the paradigms are so different. You gotta think like a "maya guy" to get the tools... I watched my boss use Maya and was soooo envious because he was able to model so much quicker the things that max would normally take a bit longer to do... but wrapping my head around it took 5 months and i was like, "nah dude... " SO good luck to you sir, curious to see if you eventually fall in love with Maya

Toast

I think the best thing to do in Maya is customize the hell out of the marking menus/hotbox as it'll speed up your workflow immensely. Forget the menus!

mixeh

bludragon - Thanks I got it working you were right!
nfrrtycmplx - Haha thanks it's good to know I'm not the only one.
Toast - I guess that's the best option!

I am still running into a problem of moving multiple verts that constrain along their respective edge normals. In cases where you're not moving just 1 vert, nor one edge.

I guess Maya just can't do it, it's just frustrating as I can get away with losing alot of things, but that one's a realllll pain. If you need examples of exactly what I mean I'll post pictures.

Thanks again guys.

CheeseOnToast

It's not the same as edge constraints, but "slide edge" in the edit mesh menu might help in some instances.

mixeh

hey again guys, real quick question this time.... how come my ao bakes in maya keep coming out with no edge padding? my normal bakes work fine. i have filter texture seams set to 30 in the mental ray common output, and ive selected 'use mental ray common settings', and still nothing, do you guys know what could be causing this?

mixeh

urgent bump :<