Nov 03

Mental Ray Mel Script Command

Posted in: Maya
Does anyone know how to set Mental Ray to "Production" preset using MEL script?

I am working on a script right now which requires the Mental Ray renderer to work, so as an addition I thought I would save the user one extra step by having buttons available to set the render quality. Unfortunately, neither in the documentation nor in the command reference does there exist any reference to a command to set the "presets" for the mental ray renderer. Help!

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Oct 31

Lexus Concept Render – WIP (Personal Project)

Posted in: Maya
Been working on a Lexus Concept model all day, decided I’d start a WIP thread to get some feedback on it. I didn’t model the car, I am just shading/lighting & rendering it (Personal Project to up my skillz! ;)). These are my initial steps into automotive rendering, so please be gentle.

Technical Info:

Software + Renderer: Vray SP1.5 (I think!) on Maya 2011 x64
Rendering time: Around 3-4 mins at 640X480 res. upto this point.

Critiques welcome.

Cheers.

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Oct 29

CAPSULE MAYA MUSCLE PROBLEM

Posted in: Maya
ok so i finished my rigging and im ready for some muscle so i change my skin to muscle only to see horribly off capsules pointing everywhere. i fixed orientation but nothing changes….. its frustrating, i cant sleep an im gettin obsessive with trying to figure it out .. help 🙁
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Oct 26

polygon ids re-assign

Posted in: Maya
I would like to ask if someone knows how to re-assign vertex ids . Maya creates vertex ids by default(when we model),i.e. for example i need the id count to start from nose instead of ear …
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Oct 21

deformer to hold shape

Posted in: Maya
part of the arm to my model flattens out when I rotate it, would a sculpt or other deformer be used to hold it’s shape? is there anyway to set a minimum radius a mesh should keep to?

appreciate the help.

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Oct 18

productivity fixes for 2011 with MEL hacks?

Posted in: Maya
Hi Guys

I tried finding these on my own but have come up short. Hope you can help because these things slow me down so much.

In Maya 2011 I need to change some defaults.

1) When I load or source a script in script editor it defaults to python. I want the file browser dialog to default to MEL. I think this in in the scriptEditorPanel.mel but I can’t find where. I also want importing and exporting to default to obj and saving files from the render view to IFF.

2) When I go to save a file, the file name area is blank (I’m using my OS X file browser not the autodesk file browser). this never happened on Mac in previous maya versions and only happened in windows. Is there a MEL file that I can edit to force it to use the existing file name by default (or the next sequential number i.e. from 001 to 002) when the file browser dialog opens?

3) Is there a way to make the color chooser default to the old popup window instead of the dynamic popup that vanishes when the cursor moves away from it? you have to quickly double click the color box in the att editor to get this window now.

4) When moving components (ie verts, faces) is there a way to make it auto move on the first click? In previous maya versions I could click on the component and start dragging to move it. In 2011 I have to select the component and then click again to drag it. Big time waster when modeling and tweaking.

5) I hope to god we can do this. In 2011 "Assign New Material" does NOT have a contextual menu anymore. Instead it forces you to use a popup window to choose a new shader to create. This is so damn slow. Is there a way to force maya to have the context menu in the Lighting/Shading menu and in the hotbox like it used to have?

Thanks

LD

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Oct 17

Fluid Shaded Particle problem

Posted in: Maya
Hi,

Im trying to produce a meteor effect using fluid shaded particles. However im coming up with a couple of problems which im hoping someone on here might be able to help with. This is the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rei4o4YWtgI

firstly, for the first half of the sequence the particles show a lot of jitter from frame to frame but later this problem somehow fixes itself?

secondly, about every 5th frame i seem to get a grey render which also causes a more obvious flicker type effect that looks really bad but i dont know why?

thirdly, at the moment i am using the opacity input bias linked to a userscalar to fade the particles as they age, however this doesnt look right. I want the particles to fade more realistically. What would be the best way to connect to particle sampler to control this?

any help is much appreciated,

thanks

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Oct 17

Zbrush 4 DPRes

Posted in: Maya
a friend of mine is using Zbrush v4…and i noticed under his Tools > Displacement menu…there was no DPRes option listed.

just wondering where the setting went as I thought that set the resolution of the map.

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Oct 16

Map multiple Fur Descriptions to an object

Posted in: Maya
is there a way to map multiple fur descriptions to a single object, the only information i could find was to use the Paint Fur tool.

i was hoping to place different lengths of fur "patches" over a model and wanted to delineate borders via edge loops.

thanks for any help!

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Oct 14

Zbrush to Maya for animation

Posted in: Maya
i’m very new, so please excuse any ignorance.

so imported a simple basemesh into zbrush and subdivided it a few times. I then sculpted in some minor details (a bulge here, a divet there), but when i export it as an MA the mesh is unwieldy with way too many polys. Going to a lesser subdivision loses these details in Zbrush.

anyway of exporting out less heavy model to Maya or even keeping the edge loops, while still retaining the details?
the purpose is to rig and animate the model.
any advice on exporting out for animation would be greatly appreciated, Thank you!

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