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Autodesk Maya 2016

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  • bounchfx
    thanks smcclelland! was hoping for a vid like this.

    any word on when you guys might add projection painting? I've been able to move my Retopo workflow to maya, but texturing I still gotta run myself into 3D Coat. Would love to be able to shoot the mesh over to photoshop and back again.


    either way, I'm really liking 2016 so far!
  • artquest
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    artquest polycounter lvl 13
    Hi smcclelland!

    I just wanted to say that as I've been beta testing maya 2016 I can say it's for sure a great step in the right direction. I'm a modeler/texture artist currently working in games cinematics.

    I really wanted to let you guys know that as much as the new modeling features are great, they are really just catching up to what we wanted in maya about 5 years ago! So keep pushing and try to surpass modo! You guys are getting close...

    Also I'd love to know how long it will be before T-Spines are integrated into maya. I've been looking at autodesk fusion 360 and I must say that I'm quite jealous of how beautiful and precise that toolset is. It makes complex modeling tasks incredibly easy and it's so much more clean of a surface. Often time we spend hours or days cleaning a model to sub-divide properly. Using T-splines and baking normal maps from that model would save so much time in the games world. And being able to render them in maya with Vray or Arnold would make me giddy!
  • nervouschimp
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    nervouschimp polycounter lvl 4
    artquest wrote: »
    Hi smcclelland!

    I just wanted to say that as I've been beta testing maya 2016 I can say it's for sure a great step in the right direction. I'm a modeler/texture artist currently working in games cinematics.

    I really wanted to let you guys know that as much as the new modeling features are great, they are really just catching up to what we wanted in maya about 5 years ago! So keep pushing and try to surpass modo! You guys are getting close...

    Also I'd really like to know how long it will be before T-Spines are integrated into maya. I've been looking at autodesk fusion 360 and I must say that I'm quite jealous of how beautiful and precise that toolset is. It makes complex modeling tasks incredibly easy and it's so much more clean of a surface. Often time we spend hours or days cleaning a model to sub-divide properly. Using T-splines and baking normal maps from that model would save so much time in the games world. And being able to render them in maya with Vray or Arnold would make me giddy!

    It might be helpful to let them know what Maya needs in order to surpass Modo's modeling toolset.
  • bounchfx
    Happy to help.

    Can't say much on what is going on in the labs but I can definitely pass this onto the modelling/texturing team for you. Are you looking for a Maya -> Photoshop -> Maya roundtrip or a native painting directly in Maya type solution?

    Glad to hear! Let me know if you hit any snags or have any questions.


    Definitely Maya -> Photoshop -> Maya type thing, no reason to try to compete with the tools photoshop has because even a good effort will fall short and there will be people wishing there was xyz in maya and then just default back to using another app. Just letting it snapshot and project back on to the texture with a way of saving it to psd/png/tga/etc. would be really useful imo.

    really excited to see where you guys take maya from here though in general. The UI updated overall is one of the few program 'redesigns' that hasn't been for worse. It feels very nice.
  • genwu
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    genwu polycounter lvl 7
    lol i cant believe they got rid of shift + drag extrude in maya 2016..at least to my knowledge, i just downloaded the trial and it's no longer there. That was one of the biggest additions (of the very few for modelers at least) with their integration with nex..and they got rid of it..good job autodesk.
  • Aabel
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    Aabel polycounter lvl 6
    bounchfx wrote: »
    Definitely Maya -> Photoshop -> Maya type thing, no reason to try to compete with the tools photoshop has because even a good effort will fall short and there will be people wishing there was xyz in maya and then just default back to using another app. Just letting it snapshot and project back on to the texture with a way of saving it to psd/png/tga/etc. would be really useful imo.

    You can do this kind of projection painting in Maya, workflow is a bit of a headache but you can do it.

    Set a camera up with a view of the area you want to texture, render that view (and save this camera), take the rendered image to photoshop and paint your texture over it, bring the painted texture back to maya and use a projection node, set projection type to perspective, in camera projection attributes link it to the camera you used to generate the render you painted over in photoshop. Once you've got your new texture projected onto your model you can bake it down to your UV's with convert to file texture.
  • Klaudio2U
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    Klaudio2U polycounter lvl 8
    Happy to help.

    Can't say much on what is going on in the labs but I can definitely pass this onto the modelling/texturing team for you. Are you looking for a Maya -> Photoshop -> Maya roundtrip or a native painting directly in Maya type solution?

    Painting directly in Maya is way better solution! In v2016 Mudbox sculpting tools are brought in and that is great start. Now it would be the best to continue importing and other Mudbox tools like sculpting layers and complete texture painting tools.
    Important to add is to be able to paint in 3D view and UV view which Mudbox currently can't do.

    I would also say that there is no need for T-splines. Those are cool indeed but the thing is that Maya current curves and surfaces tool are in fact very capable when it comes to what tools are available. Unfortunately the problem is that they are ancient and not s single update has been made in last like at least 8 years! Insane! Those tools can be very unstable and the workflow of constant rebuilding and cleaning curves and surfaces in hope it will work is extremely tedious.
    It is possible to make simple models but something more complex... Huh. Then even you manage to do what you want, everything falls apart if you want to convert to polygons .
    So, instead of integration of T-splines it would be far better to make complete overhaul of existing curve and surface creation tools and to work great in hardsurface polygon modeling workflow so that everything just works for complex geo creation and that is fun to use.
  • Dataday
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    Dataday polycounter lvl 8
    It might be helpful to let them know what Maya needs in order to surpass Modo's modeling toolset.

    Nah more like, let them know who to buy out or what software package to acquire and kill.

    In all seriousness though, it will take a lot for Maya to even get its toolset up to par with Modo's (heck even Blender's) and show that its worth going back to. Autodesk has burned too many bridges and it makes it harder for an artist to want to go back even if Maya gets on par with those tools.

    All that said though, this is clearly one of Maya's better releases.
  • CafeNight
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    CafeNight polycounter lvl 5
    why no one not say about most usefull and most underrated function on Maya?
    they removed ViewCube!
  • dongyfeng
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    dongyfeng polycounter lvl 6
    Maya 2016 modeling, uv and sculpting improvements in one video: https://youtu.be/mv8nJp63eas
  • Tobbo
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    Tobbo polycounter lvl 11
  • nervouschimp
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    nervouschimp polycounter lvl 4
    Dataday wrote: »
    Nah more like, let them know who to buy out or what software package to acquire and kill.

    In all seriousness though, it will take a lot for Maya to even get its toolset up to par with Modo's (heck even Blender's) and show that its worth going back to. Autodesk has burned too many bridges and it makes it harder for an artist to want to go back even if Maya gets on par with those tools.

    All that said though, this is clearly one of Maya's better releases.

    Please be specific. What makes blender a better modeling tool? What makes Modo a better modeling tool?
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    I was playing around and noticed the offset values on the bevel operation are kind of messed up. Before if I beveled something with a 90 edge like on a cube the unit I enter in the width/offset value, is where the bevel would start on the vertical and horizontal plane, but in 2016 it goes beyond what the offset value is, and I can't find any correlation between the offset and how big the bevel ends up being.
    D955uor.png
    The top image is Maya 2016, and I took a 64^3 cube, and beveled it with a 32 unit offset, I would expect the bevel to end at the origin like it does in the lower image 2015 version, but it doesn't, and all the bevel attributes are exactly the same.
  • nervouschimp
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    nervouschimp polycounter lvl 4
    m4dcow wrote: »
    I was playing around and noticed the offset values on the bevel operation are kind of messed up. Before if I beveled something with a 90 edge like on a cube the unit I enter in the width/offset value, is where the bevel would start on the vertical and horizontal plane, but in 2016 it goes beyond what the offset value is, and I can't find any correlation between the offset and how big the bevel ends up being.
    D955uor.png
    The top image is Maya 2016, and I took a 64^3 cube, and beveled it with a 32 unit offset, I would expect the bevel to end at the origin like it does in the lower image 2015 version, but it doesn't, and all the bevel attributes are exactly the same.

    I've studied the new bevel tool in Maya 2016 and what actually happened in your example is your edge was offset 32 units in both directions to create a bevel that is 64 units wide (as measured from the 2 furthest verts of the bevel). Take the measure/distance tool and measure the distance between the outer edges of the bevel results. You'll see that the bevel is 64 units wide. So what that offset value represents, when you disable fractional, is the amount the edge will be offset in both directions relative to the edge itself. The result is always a bevel that is double the offset value, and this can always be verified with the measure tool. So if you want a 4 unit bevel, set the offset to 2. Maybe a little confusing, but the results are always consistent.
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    Okay, I get how it works now, but it is a fairly big change from how it worked originally. If I wanted a bevel like I have in the earlier versions, I would have to start doing a bunch of trigonometry.

    u9ASWNv.jpg
  • throttlekitty
    Does the new bevel still create incorrect faces on stairstepped meshes like this? (shown in 2015) The selected face intersects a pokey-outy face that you can see better-ish on the lower tier.

    edit, here's the input mesh for that. select all edges but the interior ones.
    http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13576177/Polycount/Maya2015%20Beveling%20bad%20faces%20for%20charity.obj

    Maya2015%20Bevel%20Badface.jpg
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    This is what I got, looks better to me.
    WR3sNoE.png
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    Still that way for me:

    aHVDSGB.jpg
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    Joopson wrote: »
    Still that way for me:

    aHVDSGB.jpg
    What do the options for your bevel look like in the channel box, I have been messing with bevel, so mine might not be the default.
    dqUjw8G.png
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    These are mine. A bit confused about why I have some settings you don't.

    QKQPMIz.jpg
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    Joopson wrote: »
    These are mine. A bit confused about why I have some settings you don't.

    QKQPMIz.jpg

    You sure you aren't using 2015, because those are the options I have in there.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    Absolutely Positive. I did import my preferences from 2015 though, but I wouldn't think that would be why. I'll check on my home machine too.
  • piXeL_ShiFter
    Joopson wrote: »
    Absolutely Positive. I did import my preferences from 2015 though, but I wouldn't think that would be why. I'll check on my home machine too.

    It looks like you're using our legacy bevel node. In Maya 2015, we introduced a new bevel node so that we could improve the bevel algorithm without affecting legacy (Maya 2014 Extension and earlier) files; i.e. you may have compensated for some of the shortcomings of the old bevel operation in Maya 2014, so we didn't want to mess those fixed bevels in your history when opening the file in a newer version. For Maya 2016, we did the same thing - we introduced a new bevel node.

    So for this specific scene you opened in Maya 2016, was it saved in Maya 2015? If you execute a new bevel operation, you'll get better results. Again, if you open older files, you'll have the same results from when you last saved it. We want to maintain the integrity of older files and that's why we do this.

    Let me know if that's the case on your end.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    No, but I did make my shelf in 2015, and am using it in 2016, so it's probably calling the old one when I click on it.
    Ok, thanks for the explanation!
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    It seems that the new bevel command is polyBevel3(), and I can still use the old one with polyBevel().
  • piXeL_ShiFter
    m4dcow wrote: »
    It seems that the new bevel command is polyBevel3(), and I can still use the old one with polyBevel().
    That's correct.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    On that note, are there any other modelling commands I should switch my shelf icons to, with this new version?
  • piXeL_ShiFter
    Joopson wrote: »
    On that note, are there any other modelling commands I should switch my shelf icons to, with this new version?

    No, that should be the only one.
  • Fomori
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    Fomori polycounter lvl 12
    genwu wrote: »
    lol i cant believe they got rid of shift + drag extrude in maya 2016..at least to my knowledge, i just downloaded the trial and it's no longer there. That was one of the biggest additions (of the very few for modelers at least) with their integration with nex..and they got rid of it..good job autodesk.
    This was an unfortunate loss when we merged a lot of the modelling toolkit functionality. The alternative method now for edge extrusions would be select an edge, hit Ctrl+E and then extrude from there.

    That is a shame it's gone. It's a big part of my modelling workflow.

    Would I be able to hold down Ctrl+E and continuously extrude (like you could do by holding Shift)?

    I guess I will have to try the demo to see. Grumble grumble.
  • Joao Sapiro
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    Joao Sapiro sublime tool
    does the Transfer maps still use one core ? is it even faster ? did anyone try it ? also the AO bake inside maya is it useable now ?
  • Fomori
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    Fomori polycounter lvl 12
    One more video that covers a lot of the modelling changes

    https://youtu.be/mv8nJp63eas

    This is a great video though. Properly informing us about the features/changes (unlike the terrible Autodesk ones).

    Really impressed with surface deform working with soft selection and the sculpting move tool. Awesome. Also lots of improvements to basically bring it to Max's level for modelling. And sculpting looks good, but that's something to try before deciding if it's any good.
    So I'm pretty pleased with this update.
  • oglu
  • battlecow
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    battlecow polycounter lvl 12
    It's longer then xnormal but the results are pretty good with turtle.
  • oskarkeo
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    oskarkeo polycounter lvl 10
    is the smooth uv tool gone? the one that let you grab your uvs and used a slider to unfold/relax?
  • oskarkeo
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    oskarkeo polycounter lvl 10
    phew. about the only tool i know how to use in the maya uv window. thanks smcclelland!
  • Jason Young
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    Jason Young polycounter lvl 14
    I'm really digging the new blendshape tweaks. It makes going back and editing blendshapes way easier and it's nice not having to keep the old meshes around.

    However, I'd really love to see mirror blendshape functionality directly integrated as well as the ability to re-order the targets easily. Would definitely save a few steps.
  • Klaudio2U
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    Klaudio2U polycounter lvl 8
    Yeah, believe me I miss it just as much.

    Unfortunately, no. Ctrl+E just executes the extrude command so it's not interactive like the old shift workflow where on drag we would fire off a new extrude operation for you.

    Give it a shot and let us know how it feels. Feel free to blame piXeL_ShiFter for this too ;)

    I find it awkward to extrude the edge using "new" extrude because the pivot goes into "normal" or object mode(?) i guess which is usually what you want in extruding faces but when extruding edges in 99% i want "world" space pivot.

    Now it is possible to click on that little circle on pivot to change the modes but on edges it gets annoying to quickly extrude the edges since when switching the pivot mode also pivot change place. So it is like 3-4 clicks and searching for pivot for one extrusion where before with shift+pull to extrude was super fast one click solution.

    Current workflow is actually great, it is just a bit wrongly set in my opinion and one would not miss shitf+pull to edge extrude if the default options are set for Maya to recognize whether you are extruding faces or edges.
    If Faces are extruded > normal/object pivot as default orientation (same as it is now) BUT
    If Edges are extruded > world space pivot as default orientation (not the normal or object one)


    Like this you can use Extrude shortcut for edges also and just quick repeat "G" + pull.
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    Klaudio2U wrote: »
    Now it is possible to click on that little circle on pivot to change the modes but on edges it gets annoying to quickly extrude the edges since when switching the pivot mode also pivot change place. So it is like 3-4 clicks and searching for pivot for one extrusion where before with shift+pull to extrude was super fast one click solution.

    Maybe a workaround could be to make sure your translate tool is set to world space, and press "w" to activate your translate tool after execute the extrude command.
  • meshiah
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    meshiah polycounter lvl 17
    "lol i cant believe they got rid of shift + drag extrude in maya 2016"


    if this is true i would highly encourage you guys to rethink this and keep it in. most of the heavy hitters i know use this extensively. we don't make a cube and a couple extrudes, we hack meshes to the nth degree frequently. are you guys consulting heavy production artists?

    this will repeat the pattern, and someone will have to build a new "nex" or whatever to fix maya again. i have like 20 scripts for basic program features that would have been better that tearing out useful stuff......ill have no problem adapting but strip extruding has been core workflow for years. bummer.
  • Klaudio2U
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    Klaudio2U polycounter lvl 8
    m4dcow wrote: »
    Maybe a workaround could be to make sure your translate tool is set to world space, and press "w" to activate your translate tool after execute the extrude command.

    True! You are right.

    Another workaround is to set custom hotkey to only "polyExtrudeEdge"
    I have it as Alt+x.


    Well, that is not for me that big of a program at all since it easy to make little change, workaround, adjust a bit to new workflow...

    For me new Bevel is still not reliableat all, especially on n-gons, "dirty" boolean edges..etc. where old one just worked.
    With new one i constantly have to check the mesh if everything is beveled properly and edges are not straight, spread, flat or similar...
  • Matt Fagan
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    Matt Fagan polycounter lvl 9
    To lose Shift+Drag is a tad of an overstatement to hear a maya user call out tbh. I mean, one thing Maya over throws 3ds Max in is the "G + Y" repeat commands which I use much faster than this 3ds Max user transition of Shift+Drag extrude functionality.

    Just do your extrude, and select any component you want after (faces, edges, vertices) and press G and you can do what you want to do with minimal effort. This has been around since Maya 4.0.
  • Fomori
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    Fomori polycounter lvl 12
    Matt Fagan wrote: »
    Just do your extrude, and select any component you want after (faces, edges, vertices) and press G and you can do what you want to do with minimal effort. This has been around since Maya 4.0.

    I'm not sure about other versions of Maya, but in Maya LT 2015 you don't move your extrusion with a normal transform handle (Like with shift+drag). It's some kind of screen based transform tool that it's locked to (not good):
    gTNMj9F.jpg
  • oglu
  • Litr_konyaka
  • jStins
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    jStins interpolator
    Try adjusting your near clipping value in the perspective camera settings. You may need to increase it slightly if you're using a high far clip value. You can also try bringing the far clip value down.
  • Litr_konyaka
    thanks. increasing near distance works well, but artifacts are still there in the far distance (
  • Cibo
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    Cibo polycounter lvl 10
    thanks. increasing near distance works well, but artifacts are still there in the far distance (

    Try change your units to, maybe from meter to cm or mm, its silly but it can help in Maya because the vieport can be silly too. :\
  • Brygelsmack
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    Brygelsmack polycounter lvl 11
    Can someone explain to me why every iteration of Maya is just painfully slow during startup and closing? Also what makes the same process so much faster in Modo? Closing Modo is seriously instant, while Maya takes a good 10-15 seconds to close every time, even more sometimes.
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    Can someone explain to me why every iteration of Maya is just painfully slow during startup and closing? Also what makes the same process so much faster in Modo? Closing Modo is seriously instant, while Maya takes a good 10-15 seconds to close every time, even more sometimes.

    I can explain that I've not personally experienced this. Closing is instant (less than two seconds, for sure). A cold open takes a little while, but no worse than previous versions.
  • throttlekitty
    Can someone explain to me why every iteration of Maya is just painfully slow during startup and closing? Also what makes the same process so much faster in Modo? Closing Modo is seriously instant, while Maya takes a good 10-15 seconds to close every time, even more sometimes.

    2015 only recently started doing this for me, and I can't figure out why. It used to be pretty close to instant.
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