Questions about maya

Sure thing.

There are two ways. First is by using View Planes, the second is just by using planes with textures.

View Planes.

You will need to do this for every View Panel you wish to place it in as the View Planes will always face that camera.

1. Tap Spacebar to get your four View Panels to be displayed (top, front, side and persp).
2. Start in the Front View Panel. In your Panel Menu, go to View > Image Plane > Import Image....
3. Just Select the pic you want to use.
4. In the Channel Box, you can then play around with placement options. They are all in Maya units.
5. Repeat for every View Panel you want to have one.

Planes with images

1. Make the poly planes and texture them.
2. Align the planes to the angles you need them at.

The pros and cons of each. Image Planes take less time to set up, and will always have the texture on them (even in wireframe mode). The bad side is that they are SLOW. They will definitely slow your system down if your pics have a fairly high res. Keep them low res. The editin options for them are also pretty weak. Hiding them and working with them can be a bit of a pain in the arse. Poly planes with images have more flexibility and control, but you have to make that control. You can easily place the planes on a layer so that you can hide them quickly and easily (and reference them so you cant touch them). They run quicker than Image Planes but lack the level of transparency of Image Planes (you can make the whole Shader transparent, but to have area specific transparency, you need to have Maya 6 and Hardware View Panel rendering enabled). The pics on the poly planes will also only be visible if the panel has textured mode enabled. This can be annoying unless you know how to destroy shaders from objects or use CPS (Connect Poly Shape).

It is up to you how you do it, but I prefer polys with textures. Hope that helps.

thanks so much for the help :)

Aven, has once again out done himself, if you got all the help Avens given people especially with Maya, then you could get a massive books worth.

I have just helped my friend out with his Uni Assignment. He has to learn something new this year. He chose to learn 3D and he wanted to learn Maya as he knew someone who could give him a hand :p It has just basically been re-writing bits that you get with the Maya help files and the video tutes, but his teacher wants it done.

There was a lot of writing and how the hell are you meant to explain to someone what and Input and Output Connection is when they are just learning what everything in the Interface is? The major part of it is done, and I will get the URL off him and post it. It is just intended to help out those who are new the Maya and maybe even new to 3D. Anyone else will probably find it pretty boring and pointless. I know I did and I helped write it :)

He is now working a tute for modelling a realistic car. He is a car nut so that is all he wants to do. A pimped up Mazda 121 Bubble Car B)

something good if your doing tutorials, video tutorials!! (note, this captures what is on screen, very nifty)
http://www.brothersoft.com/Multimedia_Graphics_Screen_Capture_CamStudio…
also ive just actually whacked em in and yeah the image plane thing works great :)

Thanks for the link Moony. I downloaded it but I'm not too sure if I will ever install it. I have had troubles with those lousy screen grabbing apps before, so I'm pretty creful with anything like that now. Some of those older Screen grabbers really should be classified as virus' :)

That's good that the planes worked. If you have any other questions, just ask. I'll try my best to help (just don't even bother asking me about dynamics/particles :) )

Well if you dont like studio i know the name of the product that 3DBuzz use is "camtasia" or something similar, so i dunno do a google for that, might be shareware.

sorry for double post but since im allready asking my maya Qs here i thought id just add on,

when using the paint weights tool for some reason my model does not go black and show the white influence but rather stays textured, how can i fix this?

Ooo. I have never had that problem or heard of it. Can you just press 5 and go into Smooth Shaded mode without Texturing?

Another dumb suggestion, but you do have the mesh selected before choosing the Paint Weights Tool right?

Let me know if that doesn't work and I will have to try some other things. Me109 may know. With all the weight painting he has been doing :)

dw about it i got it fixed (dunno what was wrong but i just re-smooth skinned the skeleton and all was peachy *shrug*).

but now i got another problem :P
when im viewing my texture on my model (to see how its lining up and all the rest of it) theres some weird problems happening with the display
[img]http://www.vooks.net/moonunit/mayadodge.jpg[/img]

got any ideas whats wrong and how to fix it?

Cool. *shrugs back* :p

Pic isn't loading. Check the link :)

EDIT: It just fixed up.

Another odd one. It is difficult to tell if it is a mesh based issue or a texture based one. the whole front of his neck looks pretty messed up. Does it happen at all different zoom lengths or just at some points (ie: when really close up)? If it only happens at certain points, it may be a graphics card/driver issue. Try changing the res of the texture. Open up the Attribute Editor. Select the Node for the Shader (ie: lambert2). Go down to the Hardware Texturing list. Change the res for the texture and see if that helps. Failing that, could you take a grab of the model in just Smooth Shaded Mode (no texture) and put it side bu side? It is difficult to tell what is happening.

what happening basicly is that some parts of him are dissapearing as i move around in perspective mode, it happens at all angles and you can often see through him (like down one arm to the other even though there are no holes). It also happens in plain grey smooth shaded mode.

oh and aven, that is absolute jargon to me im afriad :( you need to explain things menu button by menu button as im only new to maya.

ok what-ever it is its somehow object dependant, i tried making another object and it didnt have any problems. It only started happening since i put the skin on it via the hypershade window... any ideas?

hmmmm actually how can i rid a model of its texture (but dont kill the UV layout ofcourse).

Ah okay. Now I think I know what is wrong. By the sounds of it, some of your polys don't have any UV cordinates. You can actually delete some or all or the UVs. When you delete all the UVs off a model, it will be semi transparent and not have any textures on it (even if one is applied). You may not have an UVs on the polys you are having troubles with. Just select those polys and apply a UV Placement option to them. You can then just place them with all the others in your UV Editor.

Next thing. Sorry about my jargon. If I say anything you don't know, just tell me to slow down a bit. I thought you may have a little bit of knowledge with it since you understand what the Construction History is :) A lot of people don't actually understand it.

Attribute Editor (I'm sorry if thsi is really basic).

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/tutes/ae.jpg[/img]

The buttons up the top are part of your Status Line. They can be used to switch the bar on the right side of the screen between those Windows. The Window that is up in the pic is the Attribute Editor. It can be confusing at first, but learn to use it. It is friggen useful. The tabs up the top select the Nodes that the object has. This is just a default Cube, and it comes standard with five Nodes (the last one is the global Shader). All the Attributes are listed below. They are just catagorised into different areas to help you out.

To rid a model of it's texture. There are two ways you could mean this. Removing the Shader or removing a Texture Node from one of the Shader's Attributes. Deleteing the Connection to Shader is done through Hypergraph. It is generally something that you probably wont want to do. If you want know though, just ask :) To delete a Texture Node, have a look at the Attribute Editor. You will have your File Texture Node applied to the Colour Attribute (I have just applied a checker texture). When you have a Texture Node Connected to an Attribute, the checker box on the right will change to a little box with an arrow (the Output Connection Icon). If you wish to delete a Texture Node from an Attribute (ie: Colour), Right-Click on the Attribute Text and choose Delete Connection. The Attribute will return to it's default setting. It can also be done through Hypershade by Mapping the Shader and deleting the little arrow that runs between the Shader and the Texture Node.

I hope that my wording is understandable. If not, just let me know :) You should just change this to the 'Questions about Maya Thread' :)

i know that there is not a poly on my character that has not been mapped, i made a planar prajection of him to use as a reference so i would see if that happened (which it did and i fixed during the mapping stage).

Unfortunatly i tried all those techniques (bar the hypershade one, again, not familiar with the UI enough to understand that yet) and none of them worked :( (well the attribute editor thing got rid of the texture, but the problem is still there).

sorry for double post but it seems that it only happens when i texture the object with a file of my own creation, texturing it with the maya checker texture for example dosent arise these problems at all :S

EDIT____
PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

for some reason it didnt like tga files (which every tutorial ive read on making Unreal characters has said to use) and that was what was causing the problem, dont ask my why or how but that was it. I put on a bmp version (which i needed to make anyway) and everything was peachy :D i have to re-skin him unfortunatly but hell be up in no time as the hollidays start saturday :)

ok triple post i know but another problem...

i need to detach something from the rest of the geometry (i need to take a hand off a wrist actually). how do i do this?? also make note to tell me which part to select (ie the whole hand?, the ring of verecies around the wrist? etc).

Two ways.

Way One. The longer way.

1. Duplicate your mesh (Shift+d).
2. Select one mesh.
3. Highlight the slected faces. In this case the hand.
4. Press Delete (Delete :p). You will have the mesh without the hand.
5. Repeat in reverse for the original mesh to just get the hand.

Way Two. The easy way.

1. Select the faces on the mesh. In this case the hand.
2. Go to Edit Polygons > Extract.
3. The selected, Extracted faces will now be a new mesh.

number one method:>

select the vertices around the wrist where you want to divide, choose edit polygons > split vertex. this seperates all of the vertices that you have selected....to see your effect..turn on display > head up display > poly count and then select the vertices that you previously split and you will see double the amount of vertices.

to seperate the two objects, select the model in object selection and then select edit polygons > seperate...your hand will now be seperated from the arm.....

you will then have to merge the vertices from the join....select the arm in object mode, change to vertice selection mode, select the vertices (double the number viewable)...select edit polygons > merge vertices OPTION MENU (make sure you open the options....

input a value of 0.0001 and then select the MergeVertex button... you HUD should show now halve showing that the vertices are welded...

Now select the hand in object mode...select the vertices of the border and then 'g' on the keyboard which is 'do last command' short cut..(sometimes this doesn't work so just repeat above)...

now this is the procedure i use, i'm sure theres another, possibly less complicated and winded....

number two method:>

select all of the faces of the hand you wish to seperate from the arm.

choose edit polygons > extract faces (go to the options and make sure Seperate Extracted Faces is turned on). press the Extract button.

all the faces of the hand are now seperate objects...(halfway there)

select all of these faces again (the operation reselects the arm) and choose polygons > combine.

Now to tidy up the vertices, select all the vertices of the now seperate and combined faces hand and then merge all the vertices with the 0.0001 value.

done..again

Beaten at the post...

when i try to use extract i get the following error:
Error: polySurface1 has only one piece. Ignored.

????

I have no idea why it would be getting irritated about that. Check the options on the option box when you select the action. If that doesn't work, try just duplicating the mesh and work on the duplicated mesh. I have had troubles where meshes get to the point where it will not even let me delete the history from it.

well i used the double the mesh and delete the opposites method, somethings dodgeriffic with my mesh though nowadays, the handles for the move/rotate/scale tool are at his feet (as apposed to being at the center of the geometry) and theres no extra parts or anything.

Okay. To re-centre the pivot. go to Modify > Center Pivot. Pressing Insert will also allow you to move your pivot to wherever you would like. Press Insert again the return to normal.

You may want to try Freezing the Transformations on the mesh. Select it and go to Modify > Freeze Transformations. Freezing the transformation will keep the mesh where it is and at the scale and rotation it is at. It will just make all the Transform values their default again. ie: If you have scaled the mesh up to a scale of 2, and freeze the transformations, it will stay the same size, but return the value back to 1. Some Tools and Actions needs to have the Mesh have it's transforms at a default level so it wont do crazy things.

not sure about the extract problem either, i only get that if i use separate in correctly, probably the options, just reset the tool from the options window from the edit menu

the transform handles centre to the world 0,0,0 when you sometimes do various operations, not sure specifically. you can re-centre you tranform handles by selecting modify > centre pivot.

or if you want to place your transform handles wherever you like, select move in object selection mode, hit the insert key and now you can place the transform tools whereever (holding various keys allow you to do various snaps; x- snap to grid and v - snap to vertice are the ones I use the most). hit the insert key to go back to normal transforms

thanks for the help guys, hopefully this is the last strand before i get him in game, allthough this skeleton is the death of art i tell you, i so dont like him skinny and tall.

hurray more questions :D

i wanted to know if theres something like a "merge faces" tool. I know you can merge vertecies but sometimes itd be easier if something like the above was present. Now that im working on a project with a poly count things like this have become important :P

You are making this easier and easier :) One of the biggest flaws of Maya is all of it's redundent and excessive tools. Three Extrude commands and so forth :/ Here is a general Merge Component Script. Either drag it to your shelf or make a Hotkey from it.

string $selected[];
clear $selected;
float $buffer4[];
clear $buffer4;
float $finalResult[];
clear $finalResult;
$selected = `ls -sl -fl`;

if(size($selected) > 0)
{

int $convertSelection = false;

//check if components other than vertices are selected

if(size(`filterExpand -sm 32`) > 0)
$convertSelection = true;
else if(size(`filterExpand -sm 34`) > 0)
$convertSelection = true;
else if(size(`filterExpand -sm 35`) > 0)
$convertSelection = true;

if($convertSelection)
{//get the converted selection

PolySelectConvert 3;
$selected = `ls -sl -fl`;
}

if(size($selected) > 1)
{

for ($vertex in $selected)
{//average the positions

$buffer4 = `xform -q -os -t $vertex`;
$finalResult[0] += $buffer4[0];
$finalResult[1] += $buffer4[1];
$finalResult[2] += $buffer4[2];

}

$finalResult[0] /= size($selected);
$finalResult[1] /= size($selected);
$finalResult[2] /= size($selected);

for ($vertex in $selected)
{//move vertices to averaged position

xform -a -t $finalResult[0] $finalResult[1] $finalResult[2] $vertex;

}

//finally, apply polyMerge
polyMergeVertex -d 0.015 -ch 1 $selected;

}
else
warning("Your selection should contain more than 1 vertex");

}
else
warning("Please select some polygonal components");

The Script was taken from a read me file from Byron's site (Home page - www.byronimo.de/mainpage.htm Document - sebastian-thiel.bei.t-online.de/BPTDocs/ByronsPolyToolsHelp.htm). If you have EUR-50, I highly recommend you look at perchasing his tools. They are friggen fantastic :D It will work on any Component type.

the script takes two faces and merges them into a single vertex (effectively deleting the two faces), thats not exactly what i wanted. What i wanted was to take two faces and merge them into a single face (not vertex).

Right. Thats a more odd one. I probably have misunderstood you again, but just select the edge between the two faces and select Edit Polygons > Delete Edge. You can just press delete, but that will leave any excess verts on the mesh. Other than that, I dont actually think there is a quick way of doing it. Just delete edges, merge verts and shift the whole thing around.

wait, so if i go through the menu then it dosent leave the exess verts (and create 5 sided polys and the like)?

oh yeah, what is wrong with 5 sided polys?

I never actually said that nGons are bad (5+ sided polys). I don't really like them due to that radial smoothing effect on higher poly models, but they can be useful at times. The other problems with nGons is that Maya's auto Edge turning on invisible edges can make for some very odd tesselations on non smoothed meshes (ie: game ones). Each to their own though :)

Here is the difference between using the Delete key and the Menu Action.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/Tutes/DeleteEdge_01.jpg[/img]
[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/Tutes/DeleteEdge_02.jpg[/img]

In 1.1 and 1.2, you can see that you can just press dlete and it wont leave any excess verts as there are none to be left. There is no need to use the Menu Action for deleting the Edge.

In 1.1 and 1.2, you can see what happens if you just press Delete. It leaves an extra vert that you probably don't want, and will create more tris. 1.3 shows how the mesh will end up if the Menu Action is chosen.