It's extremely useful. Say there are two edge loops, one aligned vertical, and the next one over has an angle to it for some kind of geometry change. Insert loop, and now it's half way between these two, not straight, and not fully curved. If you want it to exactly mirror either of these to help hold a hard edge, you can just slide it over to the straight one till it stops, and now you have another straight one, or slide it over to the angled one till it stops, pull it back, and now it mirrors it exactly. It's extremely useful on high poly hard surface modeling, and I use it a ton, more than almost any other tool in max. You want it to stop so that the rest of the edges or verts can keep going till they stop also, getting an edge that mirrors the one you pulled it against exactly.
It's just not a difficult thing, it's not like it's for unwrapping purple spiral giraffe necks with UV stretching pinched at the base. It's a very simple constrain tool that aids in maintaining volume and getting tight edges on angle changes, it should be in every modeling tool that wants to be serious about high poly modeling.
XSI's insert edge loop does this exact thing just more intuitively, you can drop a preview of where you want to place it before laying it down permanently and it will actually stop sliding as a snap shortly before hitting the neighboring edgeloop, like max does. It also conforms in the way you described, like if two neighboring edgeloops aren't perfectly parallel and sliding it back and forth will conform it to either one. I actually find this way more intuitive than how you do it with standard Max tools, because doing ring -> connect, then shift-x and finally using the move tool to get it where you want feels like too many steps compared to just a point and click operation. But max 2010's graphite tools does it basically in the same way XSI and from what it sounds like Maya does.
j_bradford that's the problem, the edges conform, So if you make your loop close to the edges it gets the shape you want. Great, but when you slide them away with tweek they start to conform to the other edge, nooooooooooo! A case where you don't want this is when you are cutting stylish insets into your hard surface model. Say you have two loops defined. One has the shape you want the inset to have while the other holds the volume you need. If you insert the loop close enough in XSI it's the same to the shape you want and then slide this new loop something annoying happens. You get the volume (scale change, this is what max does) but you also start to see the loop start to morph into the other loop which is something max doesn't do. If you wanted the loop to change you would have to slap it to the other edge and reposition it. This is really really useful to have. When you insert loops with the split edge tool it also averages both. I'm not saying what xsi does is wrong by any means, but it be nice to have both options. Max has both options actually with polyboost. I imagine the keep curvature was made because of how edge constraint works I imagine. I hope autodesk doesn't decide to fix (break) this like they did shift to clone things.
I've always been a Max guy, however recently I've been messing around with XSI and actually been enjoying it a lot. Maya isn't horrible and its gotten better with recent releases, but i think Max still comes out on top. The chamfer (bevel) tool in Max is complete balls though. Seriously, it's so bad.
yeah I f-ing hate chamfer in max its so stupid it never gives me good results. Who's idea was it to make the edge flow like that? I mean really? REALLY?
What are you talking about, who doesn't want a triangle at the very tip of their chamfer. LOL Terrible, They did fix that in Max 2010 though, now you have the option to get it done the right way, cause the old way was sooo damn good! So peeps it's not horrible, it's a feature it's supposed to be that way.
Weird, I've never used Chamfer before. I always use bevel twice.
Why twice? What settings? I will play with this...I have used the chamfer recently on this crossbow, and I had to go welding verts on all these crazy N-gons that Max made. It really is crap!
Bevel has an apply setting, where it just keeps doing it every time you hit apply. I bevel once with a larger setting, then hit apply, and dial it down. It gives me rounded edges like those chamfer examples, but as long as I selected proper edge loops, none of that corner funkiness. Though truth be told I don't use it so often.
*edit* Whoops, spoke too soon. You have to manually select the new edges that the first one created while you have the chamfer window open, then it looks like Maya's example. Lame. Looks much nicer in Maya and XSI
I am not really sure what happened. I was working last night no problems. I wake up this morning, take a shower, get dressed and open Max. My Red Green and Blue move tool does not show up. I can click on the object and drag it around the screen, but not in one axis direction. The rotate tool, the scale tool do not show up, but I can still scale it. Just not in one axis direction.
I just noticed the X Y Z at the bottom of the screen. They will be okay for now, but I want my tool in the view port on the object.
haha yeah you might have accidentaly hit the hot key that hides the gizmo (x) max is full of stupid hot keys like that to f you up (stupid space bar), try and change as many as you can!
I love my max and its edge / face constraints plus its connect.
You should have seen Haz and I trying to learn maya last week. We filled up the swear jar till it was overflowing!
Mostly it was me going "WTF kind of shit is this? Where the hell is my (insert max tool)? OMFG maya just crashed! How the hell do you not have AUTOBACK!? FFFUUUUUUU-"
It's getting easier though. some things just take longer to do. MoP's tip about the Marking menu using gestures has really increased my speed. Though I still find myself pushing 2 for edge
Some things I am curious about:
In max I can select an edge ring and the using uniform scale scale the edge ring. When I do this it will only scale along the edges while retaining the edge loops scale.
This is different than if you scale using Vertices in Max, the whole thing will scale uniformally towards the centre. This is what happens in maya. It seems to work the way I want it to with one edge selected but as soon as I select more than one then it is scaled uniformally! Example: I have a pipe that is 10m long with a 2m radius, I want to scale the radius down but NOT change the length of the pipe, in max I can just select the Edge loops on the pipe and then using scale this will scale the diameter without scaling the length of the pipe. Or if I wanted to scale the length of the pipe and not the diameter I can then select the edge rings and scale that which will then scale the length but not the diameter.
Another thing, how do I scale non uniformally in maya? In max your gizmo has a little square that sat in between two axis, which you could then manipulate to move in those two axis or scale in those two axis.
No matter what I have done, I cant get the same result to scale along two axis in maya. I thought that doing a scale from the left front or top views would work, but it doesn't. Everything scale uniformally. Its annoying Edit: I was just farting around and I figured out that if you hold CTRL and click on the gizmos axis you want to NOT transform, it will then scale along the other two. Ugh.
Also I cant figure out how to set up a hotkey for poly modelling extrude face. Right now I'm having to use the marking menu, but I would love to set it up as a hotkey like I had in max.
I guess the max team accepted earlier that their software became rather unstable. Maya used to be very stable in the past but I can imagine that that is not the case anymore. But max back in the days of version 6,7,8 was horrible and till this day its by no means stable.
Also I cant figure out how to set up a hotkey for poly modelling extrude face. Right now I'm having to use the marking menu, but I would love to set it up as a hotkey like I had in max.
No autoback in maya makes me sad
Autoback on crash is in temp directory of your system. Warning: If the file you were working on has a messed up node, you will need to hunt through the file in a text editor and remove the node by cutting the text. Something you can't do in 3DS Max, even with autoback.
Change hotkeys is in Windows>Settings And Preferences> "!!!!" Hotkey Editor. It will warn you if you have conflicting hotkeys.
Autoback on crash is in temp directory of your system. Warning: If the file you were working on has a messed up node, you will need to hunt through the file in a text editor and remove the node by cutting the text. Something you can't do in 3DS Max, even with autoback.
Change hotkeys is in Windows>Settings And Preferences> "!!!!" Hotkey Editor. It will warn you if you have conflicting hotkeys.
I tried looking for the recovery file from the crash but I dont think it was able to save one :< Good to know about that node removal though. Cheers
For the hotkeys, do you know what the extrude faces is called in the hotkey editor? Because I cant seem to find it anywhere. It's supposed to be under Edit Mesh, but its not there. I did try a few that I thought could be extrude, but just renamed in some fancy way and they didnt work either.
If you could help with that I would be most appreciative!
In max I can select an edge ring and the using uniform scale scale the edge ring. When I do this it will only scale along the edges while retaining the edge loops scale.
Try using "Transform Component". I think it's in the Edit Mesh menu, but I usually just access it through SHIFT + RMB with any vertex/edge/face selection.
I was just farting around and I figured out that if you hold CTRL and click on the gizmos axis you want to NOT transform, it will then scale along the other two. Ugh.
Also I cant figure out how to set up a hotkey for poly modelling extrude face. Right now I'm having to use the marking menu but I would love to set it up as a hotkey like I had in max.
But the marking menu is super fast! SHIFT+RMB-down, baby!
MoP: I swear, I will owe you as many frosty beverages as you want, if you can deliver the auto save script with ALLLLL possible haste. Both Anuxi and myself are both learning maya right now... Autosave is a MUST, Maya 8.5 is not the most stable goat on the mountainside.. click click boom closed down... 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo'
How do I make those 2 objects one, to bridge that gap between the pieces?
1. I tried grouping, and then applying an edit poly modifier, then bridging the edges(which has worked on other single pieces). Nothing.
2. I also tried the attach button in the Graphite Editor, also the one in the right scroll menu. It made them one object, but I could not weld the verts together, or bridge the space between them.
3. I grouped them together, deleted the faces, and I am using the Bridge with specific edges. It will not let me select the edge on the opposite piece. I am going to try attaching instead of grouping.
4. I attached them together, deleted the faces, and now I am trying to weld the verts together. It will allow me to weld one of them together. Then no more? Going to try other things...
5. Tried various methods of extrude, then weld. I did the same for bridging. The closest I got was one vert welded to another. As shown below. After this it will not let me weld any more of them together?
mm yea its fast, but still slower than a dedicated hotkey (such as "Z", Silo default)
shift + rmb down requires 2 actions whereas hitting Z is just one
I dunno, I could each marking menu gesture as an "action". They're only separate "actions" if they occur separately. Therefore a marking menu 2 levels deep (eg. soften/harden edges) is more like 2 actions than one.
Consider also that you always use SHIFT in Maya for selections - your finger is over it anyway. Holding it down temporary to change a context marking menu is one action (the same as any other hotkey, yet more accessible - you don't even have to move your left hand or fingers), and your other hand is always on the mouse anyway. You only have to move a fraction of a centimetre in the appropriate direction to trigger the action.
Therefore, SHIFT + RMB drag down is actually one action, and just as fast as moving your hand to any arbitrary other hotkey and pressing it.
i'd be screwing some stuff up in silo with Z as maya uses Z and CTRL+Z for undos. i ended up getting in the bad habit of just hitting Z to undo stuff, and whenever i switch to Max, I end up framing the selection... i should do something about that on a personal workflow level, as well as a hotkey level :P silly me
two Maya > Max questions.
1) Align to objects in Maya with equal distribution over a selected axis. Anything like this in Max? (confused by the spacing tool)
attach the meshes, select those 2 faces that you keep deleting, and don't delete them. And then use the polygon-level "bridge" command and it'll connect it.
@ Mop
ok I'll settle for they're equal in speed, its just when you said it was "super fast", it made it sound like it was faster than anything else
Oh cheers MoP and Lamont (especially for that autoback plugin.) I do agree the marking menus are much faster, I just need to remember which button to hold down and which way to move the mouse. I'm sure I will get faster over time.
Oh another thing I was wondering about, is there a Shell type modifier in maya? I use that all the time in high poly mechanical modelling. I would love to have an equivalent in maya.
Also I'm a big fan of snaps in my UV editor. Two things bugged me;
When I wanted to snap a shell, I cant figure out how to get it to snap from a specific vert to the destination vert. If Move Shell didn't collapse into a point when I tried to snap it that would work fine. I have to use the move too with Retain Component Spacing checked, but I can only snap from the centre of the selection, not from a specific vert.
Also is there a way to freeze a UV in the editor so that I can safely snap another UV on top of it without the original getting accidentally edited?
In the move tool options, do you have "Retain component spacing" checked? That should keep the UVs from collapsing on each other.
Also, I don't know if it works in the UV editor, but at least in a regular viewport, with a few components selected, you can hit the "Insert" key on your keyboard to change the manipulator to a movable pivot for the selection. It's only temporary and will be reset when you deselect or change the selection, but will last long enough for you to use it for a transform.
Don't know if there's a way to lock an individual UV.
most 'autosaves' for maya I came accross were all "auto overwrite" - but what everybody wants is a max style autobak, that is to say incremental saves to a different folder. (meaning that if somebody else opens your files and screws it up badly, the changes don't get autosaved.)
Is that one plugin working correctly? Cannot try it atm
attach the meshes, select those 2 faces that you keep deleting, and don't delete them. And then use the polygon-level "bridge" command and it'll connect it.
I did not delete the faces, I did attach them. Selected the faces, and then bridged them. This is what happened?
If I play with the settings, this happens.
I am trying to understand why Max will put them together that way, and not a way that made a little more sense?
Yeah... that problem is the exact same in Maya and Max. If the model/polygon goes black it is usually a reversed/flipped normal.. Flip in Max... Normals>Reverse in Maya.
I had no idea, I thought it was just Max making the mesh black. Thanks, and I will try that today when I get home from work.
Awesome thanks!!
You can turn those black polys see through making them easier to spot. Do this by selecting the mesh, right clicking and going to object properties. Then turn on Backface Cull.
The half black mesh thing is normally caused by using the mirror tool. Which scales the mesh negatively flipping it inside out. Only you don't realize it until you reset xform or export the model to certain formats. Hello legacy tool that needs to be rewritten...
If you're working symmetrically, it can be better to use the symmetry modifier on top of your stack. It it properly flips the mesh, it welds the center seam.The big advantage is if you go back down the stack to Edit Poly it will let you work on one side of the mesh while it actively updates the other side.
If you have only two modifiers in the stack you might need to turn on "show end result" and turn off "show cage" in Editable Poly.
Quokimbo: For this stuff I'd just use the Symmetry modifier. It automatically welds the seam, updates in real-time, and doesn't create an extra object in the meantime.
Quokimbo: For this stuff I'd just use the Symmetry modifier. It automatically welds the seam, updates in real-time, and doesn't create an extra object in the meantime.
Yeah you learn the hard way. Whenever I mirror something in Maya and Negative scale it I always reverse normals out of habit... I remember when I use to have no idea what was going on.. It will do strange things (especially when trying to select edge loops)
Or when you generate normal maps and half the map is Greenish/yellow or black. That's always fun. 9 times out of 10 its from mirroring.
Just remember NOT to use the symmetry for the final model, it can create all kinds of problems. Always, for your final mesh use mirror copy and weld it yourself. Then reset the Xform.
So many problems and so much frustration happened when we had one contractor use symmetry on all his models and the client was getting back to us saying they had this nasty seam in the middle! Took us ages to figure out that it was symmetry! It may be better now, but to be safe always use the mirror
you should always reset Xform before export/rig anyway.
Just remember NOT to use the symmetry for the final model, it can create all kinds of problems. Always, for your final mesh use mirror copy and weld it yourself. Then reset the Xform.
So many problems and so much frustration happened when we had one contractor use symmetry on all his models and the client was getting back to us saying they had this nasty seam in the middle! Took us ages to figure out that it was symmetry! It may be better now, but to be safe always use the mirror
you should always reset Xform before export/rig anyway.
This was way back in max 8 or so - symmetry is probably alot better now. But man, weve had some symmetry blues let me tell you. Meshes exploding upon import into the engine NOT because of the mirrored geometry - but because of the nasty job the symmetry modifier did by dropping extra verts along the seam / weld line sometimes creating a 10 - 15 sided polygon WTF. Back in the days of using the Reality engine.. let me tell you it wasnt happy to see Mr 10 - 15 sided polygon.
Solution was so easy, Control A to select all verts, and click the remove isolated verts button. Insta-fix.
Or the real solution is just to not have geometry crossing the centre line. That's what causes those extra verts, because it welds the edges in the middle, and splits the polys at the centre line.
or blender also has some of my favorite tools for working symmetrically. forgive me for breaching the sacred duo for this comment, but for anyone who uses blender, if i recall ALT D creates a linked duplicate of an object, and will mimic whatever you do. you can scale this negatively to flip it.
also the mirror modifier is great, with "do clipping" welding the center and locking it.
DUNCE question time: In Maya how do I change the colour of my objects wireframe in the viewport ? There is a wireframe colour selection under display but when i change it to say black, or any other colour for that matter it doesnt do anything, im left with default green.
Or the real solution is just to not have geometry crossing the centre line. That's what causes those extra verts, because it welds the edges in the middle, and splits the polys at the centre line.
yeah just work clean and no issues will happen with symmetry
most 'autosaves' for maya I came accross were all "auto overwrite" - but what everybody wants is a max style autobak, that is to say incremental saves to a different folder. (meaning that if somebody else opens your files and screws it up badly, the changes don't get autosaved.)
i was looking for that, too. i found something and changed some lines. it works on state changes and works fine:
// Autosave Maya scene
//
// - add this 2 string to usersetup.mel in your scripts folder(if you don't have the file, create one..)
//
// source AUTOSAVE;
// AUTOSAVE();
//
// - the autobak files will be saved to your project/scenes directory
global int $AUTOSAVE_COUNT = 1; // 0 for immediate save on run
global int $AUTO_SAVE_FILES = 5 ; // set total numbers of file, how many files to store
global int $AUTO_SAVE_STEP = 50; // set number of steps before save, less number - save often.
global int $AUTO_SAVE_FILE_NUM=0;
global proc autosave()
{
global int $AUTOSAVE_COUNT;
global int $AUTO_SAVE_FILES;
global int $AUTO_SAVE_FILE_NUM;
global int $AUTO_SAVE_STEP;
Or the real solution is just to not have geometry crossing the centre line. That's what causes those extra verts, because it welds the edges in the middle, and splits the polys at the centre line.
Yep and it helps if you take care to put the local pivot in the right place. Hierarchy tab > effect pivot only > Type in transform coordinate system zero out X.
It also helps to do the same with your center seam and to start off with only half a model. Select center seam > type in transform coordinate system zero out X.
Replies
XSI's insert edge loop does this exact thing just more intuitively, you can drop a preview of where you want to place it before laying it down permanently and it will actually stop sliding as a snap shortly before hitting the neighboring edgeloop, like max does. It also conforms in the way you described, like if two neighboring edgeloops aren't perfectly parallel and sliding it back and forth will conform it to either one. I actually find this way more intuitive than how you do it with standard Max tools, because doing ring -> connect, then shift-x and finally using the move tool to get it where you want feels like too many steps compared to just a point and click operation. But max 2010's graphite tools does it basically in the same way XSI and from what it sounds like Maya does.
Maya
Cool.
XSI
Awesome.
Max
What.
i found this http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=603972 but it doenst give any REAL help to max's horrible chamferring
Why twice? What settings? I will play with this...I have used the chamfer recently on this crossbow, and I had to go welding verts on all these crazy N-gons that Max made. It really is crap!
Q: Can you turn off the cage in the viewport?
*edit* Whoops, spoke too soon. You have to manually select the new edges that the first one created while you have the chamfer window open, then it looks like Maya's example. Lame. Looks much nicer in Maya and XSI
I just noticed the X Y Z at the bottom of the screen. They will be okay for now, but I want my tool in the view port on the object.
WTF?
EDIT: Fixed. Thanks again! :thumbup::thumbup:
You should have seen Haz and I trying to learn maya last week. We filled up the swear jar till it was overflowing!
Mostly it was me going "WTF kind of shit is this? Where the hell is my (insert max tool)? OMFG maya just crashed! How the hell do you not have AUTOBACK!? FFFUUUUUUU-"
It's getting easier though. some things just take longer to do. MoP's tip about the Marking menu using gestures has really increased my speed. Though I still find myself pushing 2 for edge
Some things I am curious about:
This is different than if you scale using Vertices in Max, the whole thing will scale uniformally towards the centre. This is what happens in maya. It seems to work the way I want it to with one edge selected but as soon as I select more than one then it is scaled uniformally!
Example: I have a pipe that is 10m long with a 2m radius, I want to scale the radius down but NOT change the length of the pipe, in max I can just select the Edge loops on the pipe and then using scale this will scale the diameter without scaling the length of the pipe. Or if I wanted to scale the length of the pipe and not the diameter I can then select the edge rings and scale that which will then scale the length but not the diameter.
Another thing, how do I scale non uniformally in maya? In max your gizmo has a little square that sat in between two axis, which you could then manipulate to move in those two axis or scale in those two axis.
No matter what I have done, I cant get the same result to scale along two axis in maya. I thought that doing a scale from the left front or top views would work, but it doesn't. Everything scale uniformally. Its annoying
Edit: I was just farting around and I figured out that if you hold CTRL and click on the gizmos axis you want to NOT transform, it will then scale along the other two. Ugh.
Also I cant figure out how to set up a hotkey for poly modelling extrude face. Right now I'm having to use the marking menu, but I would love to set it up as a hotkey like I had in max.
No autoback in maya makes me sad
Change hotkeys is in Windows>Settings And Preferences> "!!!!" Hotkey Editor. It will warn you if you have conflicting hotkeys.
I tried looking for the recovery file from the crash but I dont think it was able to save one :< Good to know about that node removal though. Cheers
For the hotkeys, do you know what the extrude faces is called in the hotkey editor? Because I cant seem to find it anywhere. It's supposed to be under Edit Mesh, but its not there. I did try a few that I thought could be extrude, but just renamed in some fancy way and they didnt work either.
If you could help with that I would be most appreciative!
Try using "Transform Component". I think it's in the Edit Mesh menu, but I usually just access it through SHIFT + RMB with any vertex/edge/face selection.
Yeah, it's a bit weird, but you get used to it.
But the marking menu is super fast! SHIFT+RMB-down, baby!
Yeah, this is painful. I'm working on a script for this but it's not quite finished yet.
mm yea its fast, but still slower than a dedicated hotkey (such as "Z", Silo default)
shift + rmb down requires 2 actions whereas hitting Z is just one
How do I make those 2 objects one, to bridge that gap between the pieces?
1. I tried grouping, and then applying an edit poly modifier, then bridging the edges(which has worked on other single pieces). Nothing.
2. I also tried the attach button in the Graphite Editor, also the one in the right scroll menu. It made them one object, but I could not weld the verts together, or bridge the space between them.
3. I grouped them together, deleted the faces, and I am using the Bridge with specific edges. It will not let me select the edge on the opposite piece. I am going to try attaching instead of grouping.
4. I attached them together, deleted the faces, and now I am trying to weld the verts together. It will allow me to weld one of them together. Then no more? Going to try other things...
5. Tried various methods of extrude, then weld. I did the same for bridging. The closest I got was one vert welded to another. As shown below. After this it will not let me weld any more of them together?
Any suggestions? thanks!
I dunno, I could each marking menu gesture as an "action". They're only separate "actions" if they occur separately. Therefore a marking menu 2 levels deep (eg. soften/harden edges) is more like 2 actions than one.
Consider also that you always use SHIFT in Maya for selections - your finger is over it anyway. Holding it down temporary to change a context marking menu is one action (the same as any other hotkey, yet more accessible - you don't even have to move your left hand or fingers), and your other hand is always on the mouse anyway. You only have to move a fraction of a centimetre in the appropriate direction to trigger the action.
Therefore, SHIFT + RMB drag down is actually one action, and just as fast as moving your hand to any arbitrary other hotkey and pressing it.
i'd be screwing some stuff up in silo with Z as maya uses Z and CTRL+Z for undos. i ended up getting in the bad habit of just hitting Z to undo stuff, and whenever i switch to Max, I end up framing the selection... i should do something about that on a personal workflow level, as well as a hotkey level :P silly me
two Maya > Max questions.
1) Align to objects in Maya with equal distribution over a selected axis. Anything like this in Max? (confused by the spacing tool)
attach the meshes, select those 2 faces that you keep deleting, and don't delete them. And then use the polygon-level "bridge" command and it'll connect it.
@ Mop
ok I'll settle for they're equal in speed, its just when you said it was "super fast", it made it sound like it was faster than anything else
I'm a Maya user just starting to learn Max 2010. Looks like I'll invest the $50 in Switcher. That SteeringWheel is driving me mad.
Just a couple of concerns after reading through the thread:
I'm a big fan of snapping and the grid in Maya. What exactly are the limitations of snapping in Max compared to Maya?
Also, I've had a lot of bad luck with Maya plugins causing instability or just plain weirdness. Is this an issue with many of the Max plugins?
Finally, Polyboost sounds like a must-have for Max. Are there any others folks can recommend -- especially for modeling, UV mapping and texturing?
(From what I've learned here and elsewhere, I'll stick with Maya for rigging and animation!)
(Edit: Just learned that Polyboost is now built into Max 2010 as the Graphite Modeling Tools)
Oh another thing I was wondering about, is there a Shell type modifier in maya? I use that all the time in high poly mechanical modelling. I would love to have an equivalent in maya.
Also I'm a big fan of snaps in my UV editor. Two things bugged me;
Also is there a way to freeze a UV in the editor so that I can safely snap another UV on top of it without the original getting accidentally edited?
In the move tool options, do you have "Retain component spacing" checked? That should keep the UVs from collapsing on each other.
Also, I don't know if it works in the UV editor, but at least in a regular viewport, with a few components selected, you can hit the "Insert" key on your keyboard to change the manipulator to a movable pivot for the selection. It's only temporary and will be reset when you deselect or change the selection, but will last long enough for you to use it for a transform.
Don't know if there's a way to lock an individual UV.
Is that one plugin working correctly? Cannot try it atm
I did not delete the faces, I did attach them. Selected the faces, and then bridged them. This is what happened?
If I play with the settings, this happens.
I am trying to understand why Max will put them together that way, and not a way that made a little more sense?
Going to try some more...
Awesome thanks!!
The half black mesh thing is normally caused by using the mirror tool. Which scales the mesh negatively flipping it inside out. Only you don't realize it until you reset xform or export the model to certain formats. Hello legacy tool that needs to be rewritten...
If you're working symmetrically, it can be better to use the symmetry modifier on top of your stack. It it properly flips the mesh, it welds the center seam.The big advantage is if you go back down the stack to Edit Poly it will let you work on one side of the mesh while it actively updates the other side.
If you have only two modifiers in the stack you might need to turn on "show end result" and turn off "show cage" in Editable Poly.
OMFG It is done!
Thanks to all who helped!! I have found a bit out about max these past two days!!
True story, lesson learned two days later
Thanks! :thumbup:
Or when you generate normal maps and half the map is Greenish/yellow or black. That's always fun. 9 times out of 10 its from mirroring.
So many problems and so much frustration happened when we had one contractor use symmetry on all his models and the client was getting back to us saying they had this nasty seam in the middle! Took us ages to figure out that it was symmetry! It may be better now, but to be safe always use the mirror
you should always reset Xform before export/rig anyway.
This was way back in max 8 or so - symmetry is probably alot better now. But man, weve had some symmetry blues let me tell you. Meshes exploding upon import into the engine NOT because of the mirrored geometry - but because of the nasty job the symmetry modifier did by dropping extra verts along the seam / weld line sometimes creating a 10 - 15 sided polygon WTF. Back in the days of using the Reality engine.. let me tell you it wasnt happy to see Mr 10 - 15 sided polygon.
Solution was so easy, Control A to select all verts, and click the remove isolated verts button. Insta-fix.
But still!!!
also the mirror modifier is great, with "do clipping" welding the center and locking it.
DUNCE question time: In Maya how do I change the colour of my objects wireframe in the viewport ? There is a wireframe colour selection under display but when i change it to say black, or any other colour for that matter it doesnt do anything, im left with default green.
yeah just work clean and no issues will happen with symmetry
i was looking for that, too. i found something and changed some lines. it works on state changes and works fine:
// Autosave Maya scene
//
// - add this 2 string to usersetup.mel in your scripts folder(if you don't have the file, create one..)
//
// source AUTOSAVE;
// AUTOSAVE();
//
// - the autobak files will be saved to your project/scenes directory
//
// v3d.ru
// update 10.2008
// modifid 9.2009 by fade1
//
global int $AUTOSAVE_COUNT = 1; // 0 for immediate save on run
global int $AUTO_SAVE_FILES = 5 ; // set total numbers of file, how many files to store
global int $AUTO_SAVE_STEP = 50; // set number of steps before save, less number - save often.
global int $AUTO_SAVE_FILE_NUM=0;
global proc autosave()
{
global int $AUTOSAVE_COUNT;
global int $AUTO_SAVE_FILES;
global int $AUTO_SAVE_FILE_NUM;
global int $AUTO_SAVE_STEP;
if ( ($AUTOSAVE_COUNT % $AUTO_SAVE_STEP) == 0)
{
//get scenepath
string $fullpath = `file -q -loc`;
string $scenepath = `dirname $fullpath`;
//get filename
$getCurName = `file -q -sn -shn`;
print ("AUTOSAVE : _autosave_" + ($AUTO_SAVE_FILE_NUM % $AUTO_SAVE_FILES) + "\n");
file -rename ("_autosave_" + $AUTO_SAVE_FILE_NUM % $AUTO_SAVE_FILES);
file -save -type "mayaBinary";
file -rename ($scenepath + "/" + $getCurName);
$AUTO_SAVE_FILE_NUM++;
}
$AUTOSAVE_COUNT++;
}
int $AUTOSAVE_jobNum = `scriptJob -e "SelectionChanged" "autosave" -protected`;
Hierarchy tab > effect pivot only > Type in transform coordinate system zero out X.
It also helps to do the same with your center seam and to start off with only half a model.
Select center seam > type in transform coordinate system zero out X.
Sloppy modeling will always cause problems...