NEX for Maya released!

[rebo]

Have been using the beta's this plugin really revolutionises the modelling tools available for maya. The quad draw tool is the fastest retopologising tool i've used yet.

[Ollarin]

Probably the most dedicated team i've ever seen, and one hell of a great plugin. :thumbsup:

[Koogle]

yes thumbs up for this plugin, great stuff :thumbsup:

Been testing this with maya since its first announcement and the development and response to user suggestions has been awesome. So if you are using maya for modelling, or gave up and went elsewhere, you might want seriously consider giving this plugin a go ;).

I know I certainly won't be going back to maya default modelling tools anymore.. this stuff makes maya default modelling workflow a joke in comparison to this which has been developed in a fairly short period. Looking forward to seeing what's coming next.

[NUKE-CG]

Hi there,

Is there a full feature list somewhere, with out having to install the demo?

Thanks

[ZippZopp]

awesome! great to see this released. This has some really great tools which speed up my workflow and make my life easier. the quadDraw is awesome for resurfacing and the move tool is perfectly integrated with the soft selection. Using those together in multi component mode makes shaping a mesh fast and intuitive. also, as I said before, every suggestion or question I had.. you had already thought of it and integrated it...or better yet, had a much easier and nicer solution. i'm glad you really put a lot of thought into the tools and the way they work. great release! i'm happy to be using this for maya :)

[SePu]

are u guys going to realease a OSX Version of this plugin ?
that would be awesome

[CoolDuck]

Great to see the plugin is released. It is a great plugin!

I hope the license will be platform independent (like modo). I have an iMac and currently run Maya on Windows/bootcamp. If I should decide to use Maya on the mac, I'd not want to purchase 2 licenses.

Or if I want to install the plugin on 2 computers, 1 desktop, 1 laptop, I'm the user of both... is that possible too?

[bluepoly]

Congrats with the release my Fren! I use NEX Quad-Draw for all my resurfacing. Luv it better than PolyBoost. Thanks

[Cig74]

I've been looking for something like this. Thanks! Can't wait to try it out.

[PaulAdams]

Sold. This is a really great addition for Maya.

[CGmonkey]

Hey.. Great to see you're getting a release! I loved the tool in the beta phase.

One question though - The rotation gizmo, did you get free rotation implemented?

[Refuznik]

Bof, only for window.

[mech7]

:buttrock:best plugin for maya yet, this is awesome.. finally somebody fixed the selection / modelling tools.

[Selpakius]

Awesome!
Thanks for your hardwork guys!
I'm sure that this will be a must for every serious maya user/modeler!

~s~

[ttesla]

great news! i did not expect 1.0 to come up so fast but YEAH!!
you guys at dRaster really pushed the bar - huge congrats! :)

[faya]

This plugin is soooo intuitive. It's such a great piece of software. You guys have done an amazing job. The pricing for the license is just right, if not a little too cheap for what you're getting. It reminds of me how tools in Modo work. Modo is my main package for modeling but looking at this plugin and what it can do and how it improves maya's modeling workflow. I'm quite sure that I'll be going back to maya more often now that I'll have NEX by my side.

Question:
Will the subsequent updates be free or will you have to pay for them?

[sacslacker]

Yay, off to purchase this. Great work and thanks for working so closely with the Maya community and providing free betas. Although, I'll admit, it was a good bit of marketing, getting us all hooked on NEX.

Great addition and worth every penny!!!

[cornel H.]

great - best software in a long time !!! a must buy !

question arises: what have Alias/Autodesk been doing for the last few years ?
why doesn't the maya dev. team come with innovative stuff like that in the modelling department ???!!!

[eldee]

ETA on Max9 release? :)

... one can dream

[chadtheartist]

I'm sure you guys are glad this is finally released! You've done an outstanding job with the NEX tool. I'm quite amazed at how much you've improved Maya's polygon toolsets, especially in such a short time. :)

If I make it out to San Diego any time soon, we'll definitely have to get together again! There is an awesome Thai restaurant downtown that I'm sure you guys would love! :)

I can't wait to see what you guys develop next! :)

- Chad

[puch]

:buttrock:best plugin for maya yet, this is awesome.. finally somebody fixed the selection / modelling tools.

I say definitively one of the best. I put it up there with Syflex, MTOR and the Comet Muscle System.
Contratulation guys...it's pretty amazing what it's possible to achieve with the Maya API these days.

[Eidan]

Amazing tool guys!! Di exist a script to have a simple button that allow me to see a smoothed version of the mesh like TAB (Modo) or PAGup (XSI)??? I swithed to xsi for that reason and the proportional modeling tool. Now the proportional modeling in maya is developed in this script...what about the smooth? :)

TNA A LOT FOR THIS!

[DimitrisLiatsos]

Well those are just some awesome tools and this is something that Maya was missing...definitely will get this. Bravo guys...awesome plugin/toolset.

P.S ; that QuadDraw really got me spill my coffee today morning... :)

P.S 2; I really hope u make an OSX version of it.

[John-S]

I do hope now that its in beta you are ready to begin the mac version like stated in the other thread :)

Congratulations!!! I can't wait to purchase!
(mac version)

[StephD]

very nice stuff judging from the videos.
I'm always surprised alias or autodesk never fixed the basic issues for modelers like the lack of soft selection (I mean something usable), maya still needs a lot of inhouse development to be an efficient modeler for production, which is not possible in a lot of studios or for freelancers (hence modo or topogun trying to get the market...).
really glad to see this tool then, the quad draw looks especially interesting.

[Danzarin]

Looks great. Having been using XSI, I was missing most of this stuff on Maya.

What are the limitations on the demo? Is it a time limit? How long can we try for free?

[ghib]

Shame there's only one ID per license. Would make sense to have at least 2, as Coolduck mentioned earlier in this thread. Anyway, purchased mine last night as this is one extremely well thought out plugin. Congrats on a solid release dRaster.

[MasonDoran]

I can only hope Autodesk would pay you a healthy sum for your work.

[JBoskma]

Great plugin, Looks like this is going to be mandatory for any studio that uses Maya in their modeling department.

[CoolDuck]

I can only hope Autodesk would pay you a healthy sum for your work.

Yes I agree, I'd rather see it integrated than as a plugin. In my opinion: Maya 9 would need the features of NEX integrated, whether NEX existed or not. Or they will fall behind. (in terms of features for poly modelers)
XSI, modo, LW all already has these nice soft selection/tweak features... But nonetheless, NEX is a great plugin! You guys have given the Maya community a tool that we have needed for a long time. You have nothing to do with Autodesk, but I hope Autodesk has a lot with you.

[akeissami]

Is there a full feature list somewhere, with out having to install the demo?Full textual documentation and help files will be available on our website before the end of the week.are u guys going to realease a OSX Version of this plugin ? that would be awesomeWe are starting work on that next week. As well as a Linux port. Our initial estimates are that it may be a few months before we have it done but we'll have more information as we get started.Hey.. Great to see you're getting a release! I loved the tool in the beta phase. One question though - The rotation gizmo, did you get free rotation implemented?Yes, even better than the native Maya one. Mouse-over highlights and behaves a little more intuitively when you drag your cursor far outside the "sphere".
Looks great. Having been using XSI, I was missing most of this stuff on Maya.

What are the limitations on the demo? Is it a time limit? How long can we try for free?Currently, there's a license reminder window that displays periodically, but you should be able to get a taste of the NEX features. Down the line, we hope to have an uninterrupted trial as an option as well.
This plugin is soooo intuitive. It's such a great piece of software. You guys have done an amazing job. The pricing for the license is just right, if not a little too cheap for what you're getting. It reminds of me how tools in Modo work. Modo is my main package for modeling but looking at this plugin and what it can do and how it improves maya's modeling workflow. I'm quite sure that I'll be going back to maya more often now that I'll have NEX by my side.

Question:
Will the subsequent updates be free or will you have to pay for them?All updates of NEX will be free all the way up until v2.0.

The plan for NEX v2.0 is to integrate our animation, texturing, and rendering tools. There will be a significant discount upgrade-path for existing customers that have purchased earlier versions of NEX. Until then, you can expect plenty of refinements and additions to NEX.

Thank you for all the kind words everyone. NEX would not be what it is today if it wasn't for all the alpha and beta testers that supported us throughout the development cycle of NEX. We first introduced NEX last year in the Maya forums right here on cgtalk and there was an overwhelming response. We were praised for what we did right and we sure did hear it when we did things wrong. Thanks again you guys. We have a lot of fun features in store for you as free updates.

I'm kind of new still to cgtalk--never realized the brain power in such a public forum. I've practically lived on this site for past several months and it is an extreme honor to see NEX on the front page.

p.s. It seems that our server hosting the videos and website didn't appreciate the front page as much as we did. The server is down and we're working on getting that back up asap.

[elektronaut]

very nice! I'm glad to see this plugin released!

[el_diablo]

I have just one thing to say...

respect.


Add a tighten op and i'm buying it right away.

[ErikSvensson]

Great tool! I love it a lot! :)

One question, is there any way to de-activate it from loading into maya without having to delete it? It's kinda hard to animate when the dialog with the reminder pops up when i dont use it. Still, I want to try it some more in trial mode before buying it.

Cheers ! :)

Erik

Edit. Never mind, found it under settings and preferences -> plugin manager :)

[DruG]

I`ve been using Modo for some time, because I found Maya anty-modeler soft (please don`t kill me, I love Maya except that ;) ).

And now I see a lot of Modo`s features, that stole my heart, right inside Maya. NEX is awesome!

I`m not thinkin about returning to Maya modeler yet, cuz there`s a lot of stuff I use in Modo, but it`s good to know that when it will come to this, I won`t be left alone with billions tools for simple things ;)

Great job. I don`t know if you would like that, but I hope that one day Autodesk will buy your plug and plug it into their package. ;)

I really think that Alias has rely on community way too long...


Oh, one question: could you tell more about your "animation, texturing, and rendering tools"?

[Bart_K]

Absolutely mindblowing, this plugin of yours. Just what maya needed - in your face, Modo :P

Could you please, PLEASE shed a little light on what you're planning to implement as far as animation/rigging etc.? Animation layers, perhaps...? Oh please, let it be animation layers ala Motionbuilder (holds breath)...


Anyways - great work guys!

[thematt]

Didn't test the pluggin just yet, but it does look amazing, particulary enjoy the quad retopo tools, that is the best idea in term of modeling i've ever seen.
Congrats on that.

if you're keeping that pace with inovation in term of animation,rendering and FX, it's going to be a software all by himself.

great great job

matt

[ekah]

ETA on Max9 release? :)

... one can dream

Hi eldee. Looks like you haven't looked at Polyboost or Orionflame.

http://www.polyboost.com/features.htm
http://www.orionflame.com/

Sorry. I don't mean to hijack the thread.

[Cometsoft]

Looks great. I'm tempted.

Can one tie the license to the maya dongle so you can use it on any computer you've got the dongle on?

[dousman]

akeissami: Really nice looking tool!
Quad draw looks like a copy of poly draw of Poly Boost for Maya, which is good news!
My only request would be a bit lower price, after all you could buy Silo for half less.

Keep it up!

[Stormraider]

Amazing tool guys!! Di exist a script to have a simple button that allow me to see a smoothed version of the mesh like TAB (Modo) or PAGup (XSI)??? I swithed to xsi for that reason and the proportional modeling tool. Now the proportional modeling in maya is developed in this script...what about the smooth? :)


You can actually do this now if you assign another script to tab. Download active smoothpoly and assign it to tab, i did that trough the beta period of nex and it works perfectly.
http://www.3dbe.com/ActiveSmoothPoly/

Great work on the Nex plugin, i like that you listen to the users and add the features we want. Will be interesting to see what happens in future releases. :)

[inguatu]

sexy plugins but the trial pop-up is extremely annoying, even when I'm not trying to use the plugin in a Maya session. Despite that.. gj DRaster!

[Djampa]

Wow, I'm working on XSI most of the time, and I confess that Maya was somewhere behind XSI on the modeling side of the story... with this NEX... wow... it's truly faster.
What I most loved was the quad draw over a reference mesh, that tool for modelers like me who use ZBrush to create complex meshes is just perfect. I had to develop a different workflow to get with it faster, but this way is just... PERFECT to generate a low density mesh in a short time.

I can't wait to put my hands on it and speed up some of my "never-ending" projects.

BTW... please whoever responsible... integrate it to native maya tools. It could be a great deal for both Autodesk and Digital Raster, as much as for us users, also for us company owners or CG business guys I think the best is integration of such great tools.
Otherwise we become crazy looking for new plugins all the time, that can make the workflow better on our tools.
And NEX seems to be something essential to the maya modeling, it should not be a "plugin" in my point of view. If you work with the intuitive workflow of XSI for organic modeling you know what I mean.
Plugins in my point of view should fill the more complex and rare needs of a production, such as special particles systems, special scripts to automate certain features of animation and so on. But what NEX does... isn't something that modelers will "rarely" do, actually it is something they will almost ALWAYS do. That's why I think it can't remain as a plugin.

Well, congratulations to Digital Raster for this amazing achievement and I wish my best to all of you there !
Thanks for CGTalk sharing such great news and productivity tools here.

Cya,

[raffael3d]

great stuff.

altough its clear pretty much every feature is a 1 to 1 copy from XSI.

[Eltarbos]

This is more a copy of Modo and Silo. That's why it's so good.
You know, Softimage didn't invent anything in modeling. They just use the best tools of others apps...

[raffael3d]

This is more a copy of Modo and Silo. That's why it's so good.
You know, Softimage didn't invent anything in modeling. They just use the best tools of others apps...

XSI had most of this stuff before those apps, not to forget silo and modo are way younger than xsi.

[Eltarbos]

Yes but before, there was Mirai, Wings ...
And XSI didn't have all those tools in the first releases...

[inguatu]

Yes but before, there was Mirai, Wings ...
And XSI didn't have all those tools in the first releases...

I guess none of that really matters. It shouldn't matter who had what first, other than cheap and poor bragging rights that don't amount to anything in production.

[eldee]

Hi eldee. Looks like you haven't looked at Polyboost or Orionflame.

http://www.polyboost.com/features.htm
http://www.orionflame.com/

Sorry. I don't mean to hijack the thread.
Hey, thanks for the response! I have heard of polyboost in passing, but never seen it until now. Thanks for these links :D

[3D Matrix]

Thank you :)

[Eidan]

Guys...i was using Maya...but i've swicthed to XSI...is like when i switched to OS X from Windows :)

I've to pay Maya a lot of money...and than buy a lots of plugins whit other money to do things that less expansive software does for default??? CRAZY!!!

I respect all the guys who developed NEX. Amazing work! I've no problem whit them, but I hope Autodesk will buy their amazing plugin and code it into Maya for default!

NEX cost: $148.00
SILO: $ 109

That's all

All my respect again to NEX guys :)

[CIM]

XSI had most of this stuff before those apps, not to forget silo and modo are way younger than xsi.

Nobody cares who had what first.

[inguatu]

NEX cost: $148.00
SILO: $ 109

That's all

All my respect again to NEX guys :)




that's not really all. I'd pay the lil extra bit to have the functionality within Maya versus wasting time to learn a new modeling program from scratch. Again, good job DRaster and I think the price is just right (of course free is good too) :)

[Eidan]

that's not really all. I'd pay the lil extra bit to have the functionality within Maya versus wasting time to learn a new modeling program from scratch. Again, good job DRaster and I think the price is just right (of course free is good too) :)

Ok...so buy plugins to model like other programs...spend 20.000 $ in plugins + software :)

Maybe if anyone use Maya start thinking that have a lots of limitations things will change...is like Windows...everyone use it. But there's something better? I think YES.

[hakanpersson]

Great plugin dRaster! For one, it really takes one giant leap towards making maya a great sculpting tool aswell.


I have one problem with the Quad Draw (correct me if theres a way around it).
Moving the "spots" around with middlemouse makes them snap in the middle in either front/side.
My approach on modeling, is by using nurbs as start, and by having front+side camera up at once you can easily build nurbs along the body (or whatever). I was hoping to be able to replace that approach with quaddraw, but as it managed to get it now, you can only build 2 dimensions at the same time. Hope that made sense..

/Håkan

[Gwot]

Silo itself is a plugin if you are using it to build models that will be animated or rendered elsewhere by that logic. Having more than one option to do work is great for users, whether they want to stay working within one application or spread it out over several. Aguing about which came first or what is better is pointless.

[inkyspot]

Makes maya interesting for me again, I will definately get this incredible Plugin. You figured that Maya should've had these option intergrated, that's to your genuis.

Hey this works with Maya 7?

Great Plugin by the way.

[nemuro]

I am sorry for the guys who put hard work into this plugin, but I am not fond of it.

I wanted maya to be used as is, not turn it into Max and model away, I didn't do the switch to make maya Max-Like, I'd rather stick with the traditional tools and the popular scripts like MJPolyTools and such, than lose my time with this plugin.

And also, FYI, ~148 USD is high above "expensive" for this plugin who hasn't got that many useful features, and many being reinvented.

[hakanpersson]

and many being reinvented.

better with a dead horse, than no horse at all:D

[corneliu]

I am sorry for the guys who put hard work into this plugin, but I am not fond of it.

I wanted maya to be used as is, not turn it into Max and model away, I didn't do the switch to make maya Max-Like, I'd rather stick with the traditional tools and the popular scripts like MJPolyTools and such, than lose my time with this plugin.

And also, FYI, ~148 USD is high above "expensive" for this plugin who hasn't got that many useful features, and many being reinvented.

penibil... comentarii de visualart

I think these tools are great.
There is clearly a lot of work behind.

[ShiroEd]

I am sorry for the guys who put hard work into this plugin, but I am not fond of it.

I wanted maya to be used as is, not turn it into Max and model away, I didn't do the switch to make maya Max-Like, I'd rather stick with the traditional tools and the popular scripts like MJPolyTools and such, than lose my time with this plugin.

And also, FYI, ~148 USD is high above "expensive" for this plugin who hasn't got that many useful features, and many being reinvented.

nemuro: Sorry dude but I really can't understand your thinking!

It is universally understood that Maya is lacking in the poly modelling department and these tools greatly improve the poly crunching workflow. You give no real reason why you don't like this plugin. Have you even tried it? Subjectivity and irrational 'package bias' aside these tools are a much needed addition to Maya. It is of course your choice to not use these tools but in a professional production environment time is money and I'd put my money on an artist who was open to new workflows and methods.

Great work dRaster!

[DruG]

Heh, I think the only thing you can argue about is the cost.

If you willing to use free scripts and you like the workflow - your choice.

But I don`t know any script that would work just like the plug we`re talkin about.


Someone said that the overall cost of Maya and plugs would be huge and not worth it.
But hey! Who`s fault is that?!

IMHO Alias, for making out-of-the-box Maya something I would rather call Better-Stay-In-The-Box software ;)

(still talkin about modeling tools)

[GennadiyKorol]

akeissami:
Just a little note about the ad video, you don't have to hunt the manipulators in Maya to use them. Mmb, ctrl Mmb allow you to transform without selecting or even seeing the manip. With shift Mmb you can even translate right by the axis your pointer is moving along. Like if you shift Mmb drag up, you'll move up in y axis automatically. That's a great feature of Maya manips.
It might be a good idea to be sure about application features before jumping into improving it :)

Cheers,
Henry

[Ollarin]

Wow. So many rants. Why can't people appreciate things once in a while? Even when 8.5 was out there was a ton of rants about "Why couldn't they do this, why couldnt they do that?". They never look at what they DID do.

Not meant to offend anyone, just wish people would cool down more, and appreciate something for what it is, and not always what it could be. (Anything in this world could be better, including yourself.)

*Runs away from the angry mobs*

[PorkpieSamurai]

I love this plugin all the way its like having a seperate modelling program within maya. Worth every dollar the only gripe i have is that its only one license. I would say my modelling has sped up by 25% at least, the fluidity of modelling is very impressive.

[warpy]

if you dont want it dont buy it, it is clearly a speed pill for any real modeller.

[swag]

sorry but i cant get it ... this tool has a bad workflow i feel like working in max
and for the money you can get silo and it brings much more as a bad implemented maya plugin
the only nice one is the quad draw but look at topogun it looks much better and retopo in maya
is a bad idea cause the polycount you can handle is not what you need
so iam not impressed :sad:

[nickz]

I think the work you have created here is great. I love the resurfacing workflow. It looks like it could save a ton of time.

Peace,

NickZ.

[inguatu]

sorry but i cant get it ... this tool has a bad workflow i feel like working in max
and for the money you can get silo and it brings much more as a bad implemented maya plugin
the only nice one is the quad draw but look at topogun it looks much better and retopo in maya
is a bad idea cause the polycount you can handle is not what you need
so iam not impressed :sad:

have you actually given it a chance, or opened it without looking at the videos and trying the workflow for yourself? How can retopo in Maya be bad and how does the polycount you can handle not what you need? Plz explain?

[Goon]

Dayam, I'm really on the fence about buying this. Quad draw looks fantastic, and the other tools would be a welcome addition to maya. I'd pay most of that price for component highlighting alone (does it work with objects, for rig controls?). Of course, that would mean I'd have to start using maya for modeling again :\

Can you guys make a quad-draw silo plugin :D ?

[deli-rium]

Gee,

As warpy said...

Maya is pretty bad modeler out of the box, that's why draster guys have put enourmous amount of work into a pretty neat plug to help remedy some of the Mayas shortcomings.
There are different tastes and you should talk about how usefull or useless it is. I don't like Silo or Modo but I don't come and whine. :)
I think people should appreciate this great tool or simply don't buy and watch some discovery channel instead.

It costs. Well, how much any of you would evaluate your own work? It has been in developement for some time now and I guess it wasn't developed only for making Draster guys feel good.

I hope I didn't offend anyone, just people have this annoying habit of whining for no reason.
Download it and enjoy some modeling.

See Ya. :p

[trickday]

Awesome plug-in, guys! Looks like you put a lot of thought and hard work into Nex. Now that I've used it, I can't work in Maya without it. It's very intuitive and intigrated. Sold!

:)

[kursad_pileksuz]

if this works as expected 150$ is not a bad price. I have not tested it yet. But from videos it looks swell. I am hoping to test it in a few days myself.

k

[nemuro]

penibil... comentarii de visualart

I think these tools are great.
There is clearly a lot of work behind.

I have the right like anyone on this forum to state my oppionion, if it is not the same as yours, it isn't my problem.
You can't make everyone happy you know...

And for ShiroEd:

The post was made after I took v1.0 to a test run, and uninstalled it in the next 10 minutes.

Shell selection can be made with selection growth ( shift + >).
Edge loops cand be made with MJPoly Tools and also with "Insert Edge Loop Tool" wich is integrated within Maya.
Ring and Loop selections can also be made with the Maya tools, just a menu away, complete with settings for the angle that the selection continuity should not exceed.

And I could go on.

And if there are some tools that this plugin offers and Maya doesn't, they do not worth the fee for the entire plugin.

[hanskloss]

First of all NEX is a pretty nifty little plugin I must say. As much as I agree that Maya needs updates as far as modeling tools go I also have to agree with few of the responses here. Maya already has looping tools, granted they might not be as intuitive as many would like they are there. If one does not like Maya's native looping tools OpenMaya Toolbox is pretty good at it. The only thing that IS nice and worth checking out in NEX is the raycast selection, vertex locking, quad draw and the weld tool. I have to agree this does not warrant a $150 price tag. Just my thoughts.

[ghib]

It's not so much about the tools themselves but the way in which they are implemented. I've been using OMToolbox, MJPolytools and the like for a while now and they are great, but what I think is unique in NEX is the smooth flow you can achieve while using it. The essense seems to be on having access to the most commonly used modeling functions within one tool in order to keep keyboard shortcuts to a minimum. I for one feel that this is a natural evolution in modeling which coupled with pre-selection highlighting & sticky keys has opened up doors for experimentation and methods I haven’t experienced before. The Quad Draw tool is pure inspiration.



I don't think anyone can honestly argue that vanilla maya has modeling tools that are applied in a way that is up to date with more forward thinking apps ie silo/modo etc.. No adequate soft selection, tweak modeling, decent retopology tools, custom pivoting, target weld, the list could go on. All of which NEX has that has won me over.

p.s. Would be nice to have that 2nd ID per license :)

[emeyers]

The problem with mel scripts like OMToolbox or MJ poly tools is that they are unstable and an absolute joke on large meshes. The edge loop and ring tools in maya are a joke as well, considering there is actually a THIRD loop tool that you have to use just for border edges.

I find it annoying that somebody creates a much needed plugin addressing what Alias/Autodesk has painfully neglected since Maya's inception, and in response they get people coming out of the woodwork and acting like they dont have the right to release such a tool. And a bit funny that someone affiliated with Autodesk would take their time to point out the "only thing that IS nice" about the plugin.

The slide tool seems very underappreciated. The edge loop/ring tools work as real loop/ring tools should, which includes vertex and face loops/rings all under the same procedure. Lets see Maya's native (and half-assed) loop tools do that. Much needed soft selection performs incredibly. Multi-component selection and selection highlighting is always welcome. Dynamic pivots are very powerful additions. All these tools work together beautifully and best of all, they are stable and fast.

As a Maya guy turned XSI guy, I can easily see myself modelling in Maya now, which hasn't been true since the great old, but flawed, Byron's Poly Tools. My only request would be subd modelling similar to xsi, modo, silo, where you can quickly smooth the mesh and the vertices live on the surface of the model, not out in space on the lower res cage.

[hanskloss]

"The problem with mel scripts like OMToolbox or MJ poly tools is that they are unstable and an absolute joke on large meshes. The edge loop and ring tools in maya are a joke as well, considering there is actually a THIRD loop tool that you have to use just for border edges."

Third loop tool? What tool are you referring to? Be specific please. Large meshes? What do you consider a large mesh? I use OMT constantly together with Maya's native looping tools and I have absolutley no problems modeling. Stable as anything out there.

"The slide tool seems very underappreciated. The edge loop/ring tools work as real loop/ring tools should, which includes vertex and face loops/rings all under the same procedure. Lets see Maya's native (and half-assed) loop tools do that."

I have no problems selecting a loop and converting selection to vertices, two step process but doable. How does a REAL loop/ring tool work in your world?

"I find it annoying that somebody creates a much needed plugin addressing what Alias/Autodesk has painfully neglected since Maya's inception, and in response they get people coming out of the woodwork and acting like they dont have the right to release such a tool. And a bit funny that someone affiliated with Autodesk would take their time to point out the "only thing that IS nice" about the plugin."

This is a public forum and everyone is entitled to their opinions no matter if you work for company X or Y. I am entitled to my own, unaffiliated to my company, opinion right? Why are you holding me accountable for the lack of tools in Maya? I'm just a consultant not a product development director. Besides I stated that yes, Maya is short on modeling tools and functionality didn't I? That sounds a bit funny. Did I ever say NEX has no right to be released? What are you talking about? Why the hostility? Relax:)

[PaulAdams]

First of all NEX is a pretty nifty little plugin I must say. As much as I agree that Maya needs updates as far as modeling tools go I also have to agree with few of the responses here. Maya already has looping tools, granted they might not be as intuitive as many would like they are there. If one does not like Maya's native looping tools OpenMaya Toolbox is pretty good at it. The only thing that IS nice and worth checking out in NEX is the raycast selection, vertex locking, quad draw and the weld tool. I have to agree this does not warrant a $150 price tag. Just my thoughts.

If those features are as nice as you say, surely they should have already been added to a package that costs what Maya does. It's pretty shocking that you can't even edge slide within Maya, frankly. Soft selection is another thing, I know some like the Soft Mod tool, personally I hate it - but why they couldn't have included vertex soft selection too is beyond me. I don't know if you're able to suggest such things to them, though you'd have to imagine a company of their size must hear their users frustrations by now.

[emeyers]

I didn't mean to be hostile, I was just addressing some of the issues that were brought up. And I wasn't specifically referring to you other than the Autodesk affiliate part. Sorry for that misunderstanding.

But on the issue of stability, last I tried OMToolbox it repeatedly crashed maya (this was relatively recent, a month or two ago) to the point where I just did away with it. The meshes being quite low, maybe 10k polys. This was on both Linux and Windows. And MEL script commands are noticeably slow on dense meshes, in my experience. Maya's built in loop and ring tools are stable and fast, but they are seperate tools and only work on edges. The third tool I was referring to was the Border Edge Loop tool, which you need to use if you want to select border edges. Hotboxing an entire edge loop/ring is nice however

This is indeed a public forum, and indeed you have your right to voice your opinion, as everybody else does. I just find it disrespectful to trash the work of these guys when they produce a legitimately useful plugin that addresses REAL needs and REAL concerns with Maya's modelling tool set, especially when it is done with ill-thought arguments

edit: since you added the bit about the edge/loop selection and converting to vertices afterwards: 1, It's faster to just select the vertex loop to begin with. 2, You can't do that with faces without selecting TWO rows of face loops. 3, All loop/edge selection uses the exact same procedure without having to use seperate tools. It's intuitive, not a bunch of hoops you have to jump through

[DarkTure]

Looks like a really nice tool. Will probably get it soon.

[lanedaughtry]

Looks amazing. We're doing some internal testing here to verify its stable with our tools then we'll definitely pick it up if so.

And to the detractors... It may be expensive for a hobbyist when similar functionality is in the package in various forms but in production the 15 - 30 minutes saved a day per artist with tools like this turns into thousands, if not tens of thousands if not... you get the idea... of dollars of time spent on a big project. And thats just in regards the simpler functionality in this package. When I think about my character people working on enormous poly models, selection and bulk modification tools that work well are paramount to our production pipeline. And quite frankly, most packages like this are made with production artists in mind.

-L

[Koogle]

well I agree with emeyers :)

The workflow enhancements NEX brings with many of its tools and shortcuts is what makes it so great to use.. my personal favourites are vertex locking, quick edge looping, edge sliding.. and being able to quickly use and adjust soft selections in all transforms modes, including shift+mmb to use edge sliding with soft selections on. You also got built in shortcuts to do edge beveling, face extruding, which make modelling things just a bit more faster to do in maya.

I personally I don't think NEX demo videos do much justice the workflow enhacements NEX provides.. and that is why I would suggest people actually give the trial a go.. Quite why the NEX team didn't have a full feature list or manual detailing all the areas of NEX and how to use them, ready for the 1.0 release i don't know.. but maybe it won't be long now.

About the price.. I paid $98 for being registered during the beta, and i'm fairly happy with that. I think supporting the future development of NEX for maya is a good thing and I want to see them go into other areas of maya and improve workflow(+interface) and add features to make it quicker and easier for the user.. Area's that I don't think the maya team don't seem to put much thought into at all. And being honest the modelling side of maya ain't the only area that could do with such improvements.

I'm also looking to see what new enhancements and updates are following the 1.0 release, maybe when more is announced about the future development of NEX the price right now might not seem so bad. The price is something people will really have to decide for themselves on how usefull this is to them, but if there is any complaining to be done though, it should be directed at Autodesk really :)

[Mikewilson2k5]

I've used Nex for sometime, I love it!

[cornel H.]

This is the first time I hear a Maya representative admitting a shortcoming. Seriously, whenever I speak to a Alias/Autodesk representative I sense that there is a complete lack of understanding on what the competion is doing and what tools are needed to be on par with state of the art tools elswhere. They seem to be full of conviction and absolutly convinced that Maya is perfect as is. Try explaining to them how Subd's work in XSI, They will explain that Mayas Subdivision are much superior, which is a joke. It has also become a very very slow company. Our studio is trying to relocated licenses, this proccess is now in month number five without any results. They know that Maya is the industry standard and they know that people like us are stuck with it no matter what, as for Game engines it is mostly: Max or Maya (and Max is out of the question for other reasons). Maya does not have an edge anywhere anymore, for us it has become merly a hub to plug in other solution, because most everything can be done better elsewhere. Modeling: Silo/Modo, Texturing: Bodypaint, UVs: Unfold3D, Animation: Motionbuilder, Rendering: Finalrender. Show me an area where Maya excels ?! It is a cluncky outdated software with a very unattractive interface. But before I get in a rage, I should admit on the positive side: that it works very well for what it does, which is indeed the most important part. But I just wish that Maya would get us excited again, bring back the WOW-factor, just as draster is doing with NEX ...



"The problem with mel scripts like OMToolbox or MJ poly tools is that they are unstable and an absolute joke on large meshes. The edge loop and ring tools in maya are a joke as well, considering there is actually a THIRD loop tool that you have to use just for border edges."

Third loop tool? What tool are you referring to? Be specific please. Large meshes? What do you consider a large mesh? I use OMT constantly together with Maya's native looping tools and I have absolutley no problems modeling. Stable as anything out there.

"The slide tool seems very underappreciated. The edge loop/ring tools work as real loop/ring tools should, which includes vertex and face loops/rings all under the same procedure. Lets see Maya's native (and half-assed) loop tools do that."

I have no problems selecting a loop and converting selection to vertices, two step process but doable. How does a REAL loop/ring tool work in your world?

"I find it annoying that somebody creates a much needed plugin addressing what Alias/Autodesk has painfully neglected since Maya's inception, and in response they get people coming out of the woodwork and acting like they dont have the right to release such a tool. And a bit funny that someone affiliated with Autodesk would take their time to point out the "only thing that IS nice" about the plugin."

This is a public forum and everyone is entitled to their opinions no matter if you work for company X or Y. I am entitled to my own, unaffiliated to my company, opinion right? Why are you holding me accountable for the lack of tools in Maya? I'm just a consultant not a product development director. Besides I stated that yes, Maya is short on modeling tools and functionality didn't I? That sounds a bit funny. Did I ever say NEX has no right to be released? What are you talking about? Why the hostility? Relax:)

[hanskloss]

This is the first time I hear a Maya representative admitting a shortcoming. Seriously, whenever I speak to a Alias/Autodesk representative I sense that there is a complete lack of understanding on what the competion is doing and what tools are needed to be on par with state of the art tools elswhere. They seem to be full of conviction and absolutly convinced that Maya is perfect as is. Try explaining to them how Subd's work in XSI, They will explain that Mayas Subdivision are much superior, which is a joke. It has also become a very very slow company. Our studio is trying to relocated licenses, this proccess is now in month number five without any results. They know that Maya is the industry standard and they know that people like us are stuck with it no matter what, as for Game engines it is mostly: Max or Maya (and Max is out of the question for other reasons). Maya does not have an edge anywhere anymore, for us it has become merly a hub to plug in other solution, because most everything can be done better elsewhere. Modeling: Silo/Modo, Texturing: Bodypaint, UVs: Unfold3D, Animation: Motionbuilder, Rendering: Finalrender. Show me an area where Maya excels ?! It is a cluncky outdated software with a very unattractive interface. But before I get in a rage, I should admit on the positive side: that it works very well for what it does, which is indeed the most important part. But I just wish that Maya would get us excited again, bring back the WOW-factor, just as draster is doing with NEX ...

First of all, I'm not a Maya representative, but a mere Autodesk software consultant. I am not affilated with the Maya Product Development Group, meaning I don't know of future development plans on Maya or other Autodesk software. I have nothing to do with the quality of Maya as a 3d application. As a result my criticism or opinions have absolutely no bearing on the future development plans of Maya. Any admitance to Maya's shortcomings are not the views of the Maya PDG directors, managers and developers or Autodesk for that matter, but mine and only mine as a user like many here on CG Talk. I sincerelly hope everyone finally understands this. I am sure many others on the Maya PDG team have similar views as many users here that so religiously and meticously complain about Maya's faults.

Second. Being aware of Maya's flaws, shortcomings, whatever you want to call them, before everyone starts beating it down to the ground for its lack of features understand this: Maya is soon going to be 10 years old. Yes it's been that long. Comparing it to the likes of Modo or Silo or any other application that has been released over the past 2 to 3 years isn't fair. Besides comparing those two to Maya isn't fair to them either since were comparing modeling features only, because it's the only thing they do, with the exception of Modo. Maya is a huge software: modeling, animation, dynamics, Live, rendering....It's an old architecture, yes, we all know that. But it IS flexible, something we can't really say about many other applications. Adding or modyfying the existing code base is probably harder than many think.

What many of you need to understand is that behind every software development lays a roadmap. Priorities. Budgets. I wish, just as others here do, that whoever is responsible for the development of Maya listens, prioritizes and makes the right decisions. That is not always the case.

Nobody here knows, I for sure don't, how much more Maya has left in it. What I know is that even though Maya is old it still does whatever you want it to do and more. It still has the WOW factor, maybe not as big as when it was first introduced, but it does. Give the old lady a break, wait for the next release, it may just WOW you again.

[leuey]

Yes..I mean c'mon. People wouldn't be this excited about a modeling plugin if it wasn't addressing what are some serious shortcomings. A lot of people don't even bother with modelling in Maya - many (or even most) have moved to Modo (or another app).

The price is a steal imo. It's nothing - one job and it's paid for. It's refreshing to see somebody step in and take a shot at making modelling in Maya more usable.

I may even request that sexy target weld feature for Modo. : )

best,

G

This is the first time I hear a Maya representative admitting a shortcoming. Seriously, whenever I speak to a Alias/Autodesk representative I sense that there is a complete lack of understanding on what the competion is doing and what tools are needed to be on par with state of the art tools elswhere...

[hakanpersson]

Show me an area where Maya excels ?!

I always though half the idea with Maya IS the ability to custumbuild interfaces.
Max inface is "sexier", but also alot more pre-defined than mayas and thus also less flexible (just my oppinon). And yes, Nex just gave us those tools we really wanted (quad paint, improved sculpting etc), and it a shame alias didnt give us those long ago.

Also remember that alias have great part in LOTS of those "wow"-feelings when watching some kick-ass movie or computer game. And if your looking for wow-feeling, try 8.5 and nCloth.

This is just silly, any flaw mentioned in maya could be countered with another flaw in any other 3d software that maya does NOT have.

/Håkan

[ThomasMahler]

Honestly, I think 150 USD for a plugin that's stable and eliminates all basic shortcomings in Maya (and there's a shitload of them) is a very fair price. Because we're not talking of new software here, we're talking of a plug-in, a tool that'll help doing things faster within the pipeline. 150 USD is an okay price, even though at first it seems crazy, since you can get Silo for the same price, BUT it's just not comparable. Speeding up your pipeline without introducing new software for 150 USD? That's great.

Having said that, I don't think that NEX is worth 150 USD. Last time I used it - and let's be honest here - it popped up some annoying messages all the time and was pretty much a hack, meaning that some native Maya tools would stop to work, meaning that it wasn't all that stable, meaning that it was nice to look at, but pretty much sucks. Any plugin or software that looks great in videos but turns out to be very inefficient thanks to the way the plugin has been created isn't worth it.

I don't think that the NEX creators actually understood a lot of the features they've been implementing - let's just look at the way they have implemented 'pre-selection highlighting'. Know what pre-selection stands for? NEX doesn't pre-select anything, it just highlights the components. A lot of what's been shown are half-baked solutions that have been brought in through requests by other people but haven't really been understood and thus, aren't making as much sense as in packages that actually got it right.

Now, I don't want to play the jerk here, but I'm sure there'll be a lot of disappointed modelers and studios shelling out the money and realizing that NEX isn't that great after all - that it can give you quite some trouble and maybe even **** up your Maya installation (that's what I had to do, since I just wasn't able to uninstall the damn thing) and that's the worst thing a PlugIn could do.

I still don't quite get why Alias/Autodesk is practically forcing their users to use third party software (All the modeling applications out there have better polygonal modeling tools than Maya has) and as much as I love Maya from an Animation/Rigging (even though there could be done a shit load in that areas as well) and TD point of view, it's modeling suite really is outdated and, what's even worse, quite a bit buggy. And I don't think that'll change. There have been so many threads and complaints about this already, I'm sure Alias knows about the lack of good tools in that area. But I actually do think that the Alias guys responsible for the modeling toolset have absolutely no idea of how a good polygonal modeling toolset should feel like. They've no idea about integration. Looking at softmod, I've been told that it's based on great, effective code. The problem isn't how the tool's build up, but how it's integrated into Maya. It just plain sucks compared to the other Magnet/SoftSelection Solutions we've seen in other packages. It really does. I cringe everytime I have to use SoftMod, SmoothProxy and most of the other crappy tools that Alias has introduced.

Now, it's very obvious that the users are asking for a solution in these areas - that's why simple MEL scripts and stuff like NEX, even though it's quite a bit sucky, makes such a loud noise. That's why this thread is actually on frontpage, gaining a lot of attention. Sadly, I think it's more of an outcry than actually a solution.

Now, that's quite a smack in the face, since I still think that Maya is STILL the best thing out there when it comes to node-based architectures, when it comes to rigging and animation, but in some areas, it's just so very clear that the people behind the software have lost touch with their users, with what's important and have little or no interest or idea to serve a remedy. Too little, too late.

[Imhotep397]

The Max interface is not "sexy", and that's just a pretty twisted description anyway, but I'm not going to get into that. It's kind of funny how some people attempt to turn anything really positive into witchhunt for Maya. Obviously "Sour Grapes" by a bunch of insecure artist/dorks that shy away from using Maya mostly because they just want to rebel against the 300 lb. gorilla, but anonymously. Every software application has it's weaknesses, but obviously Maya isn't #1 for no reason and as a Maya user I don't really see that changing any time soon. I use other tools, but ultimately keep coming back to Maya because of it's stability and because of the team's SPEED in delivering new features.

Maya's "old" codebase is one that just gets better and is in demand because of it's age and the features most industry professionals demand. Pieces of the codebase are developed test and re-developed and re-integrated without the end user even knowing and the only way they would have the time to do that is to develop tools and assets that are popular and stay in demand. "Younger" codebases need the time to prove they won't breakdown and that they were actually well thought out enough to be able to accomodate state of the art features 10 years from now. Those programs also have to stay popular enough for that long to afford to ATTEMPT to do the same thing ("HUGE BILL") Maya 8.5 kicks ass and I'm more excited about where it's going than I've been in a while and I'm not the only one either.

[MattH]

I just downloaded the demo, and after just 30 minutes of use I'm pretty much sold. There are some amazing tools here! As long as they prove to be stable, I think the price is just about right for Nex. Good work guys. =)

One thing that sort of bugs me is that I'm used to using Click-Drag-Select (an option under Preferences>Selection) which allows me to simply click and start dragging to move a component without having to click, then click AGAIN to start the transform. This is good for moving verts around quickly, and cuts my workflow time literally in half.

Is there anything like this in Nex?

EDIT: UPDATE: I found out that I can middle click and drag over a component to instantly start transforming it. However, I would still prefer if I could do it with my left-click. I use a Wacom tablet exclusively, so the middle mouse button is actually toggling the top button on the side of the pen. This isn't nearly as accurate as left click, and actually get tiring if I do it constantly.

Comment: Nex is worth the price for the soft selection and slide tools alone! Why Maya doesn't have these already is beyond me.

[Kabab]

Who knows the next version of Maya may come out with uber poly tool's just look at how much cloth was upgraded...

The development cycle/roadmap is something like 3 years if i recall correctly and i can assure you they probably have a massive wish list of features from their large customers which they are probably going through i think its just a matter of time till they hit the "polygon modeling" one on the list...

The Alias team still deliver some of the most innovated features out of any developer Fluidfx, Paintfx, cartoon rendering, nCloth, marking menu's etc etc

Its one thing to create a standalone product which excels at one task its another to build something that does everything well and i think Alias have done pretty well so far.

So why not have a little faith I'm sure good things will come...

[warpy]

site is still down and i want to try it. draster guys please fix it up :)

[GennadiyKorol]

warpy:
It's not down. Their site was locked for Israel IP's after I first posted in the NEX thread on maya boards. There's even a thread about it on cgtalk.co.il. Go figure :)

[akeissami]

Thomas and Henry, I wish you two lived closer so we can sit down and talk. I'm convinced that both of you are bent on spreading lies. First of all, installing and/or uninstalling NEX couldn't be easier. It's a single plugin file and can be removed with its associated icon files using the uninstall wizard or by simply deleting the plugin file manually. Both of these instructions were made clear in our original forum post. But what's more obvious is that you both know that we have always been dedicated to helping anyone that has had any issues with NEX or anything associated with dRaster as a company. Unfortunately, we've had several issues with international ips having trouble connecting to our server (if my memory serves me, China and Russia being the most prominent). I can give you my cgtalk password so that you can read all the private messages that illustrate this fact. In all circumstances, I've went out of my way to help these individuals. In cases where we couldn't resolve the connection problem, I have offered to email or ftp files to another server so that they may be able to access it elsewhere. As to blocking all of Israel as Henry suggested? Henry, you're quite fond of yourself, aren't you? To block all of Israel because of you? The fact is that I've been wrestling with our admin for months over some blocks that were added due to some DoS stuff. Having said that, we've had a number of signups from Israel too, so I don't think it's some kind of blanket Israel thing. Anyway, I'm not sure how widespread it is, but I'll push harder for a resolution. In the meantime, I know you're young but I ask that you please be careful about making any assumptions, this isn't the first time.

Thomas, I'd be happy to address some more of your points, most of which are grossly inaccurate or based upon an early alpha version of NEX, but first, I respectfully ask that you drop the attitude. I've always had a certain respect for your knowledge, but there is usually some underhanded implication that NO ONE else knows what they're doing, and that your way is the only way. It makes it extremely difficult to listen to your points.

Just as an example: "I don't think that the NEX creators actually understood a lot of the features they've been implementing..."

Here, you have an opinion about what some other people understand or don't understand, and you feel the need to share that. That is of course your right, but I don't really get the purpose of making that kind of comment. Why not simply state specifically why and how you think things could be done better? That may have been the start of a meaningful and productive discussion, which is what these forums are all about. If you think that we or others in the community haven't thought about workflow too, and that you're the only one that has opinions about it, and that your way is the One True Way, I think you are mistaken.

We're listening. You already had our attention, just as we have always had our attention squarely focused on all artists (ask any of our beta testers). All the implications are insulting, and it's very hard to see any valid points through your vague rhetoric. And they are vague.

Ori, I sincerely apologize about you not being able to connect to our website. I will talk to the server admin first thing in the morning and I will contact you privately if we can't get this resolved by this afternoon.

Coolduck, in the midst of my pasting together all of my responses, I must have lost your response in the clipboard abyss. Sorry, I will respond to your question as well as everyone else later today.

[ghib]

Thomas Mahler I have to totally disagree with you and say that NEX does not 'pretty much suck' at all. I know you don't want to play the jerk and neither do I but which version did you last use btw, as the creators of NEX listened to their testers and decided that it needed to become more transparent within maya. Gone are the hijacking of hotkeys and only really switches on if you need it.

Contrary to what you said about half-baked solutions, I believe dRaster to be very much on the ball with regards to what modelers actually need while working. The most common functions are at the same level in your tool shell. Meaning there is less need to jump in and out of different tools. Thus allowing you to get into a greater flowing state of mind and think about topology and poly placement rather than the extra steps it takes to achieve the required result.

As for the pre-selection highlighting (PSH). I think you have possibly missed the point slightly on this one. The point of PSH is to give you a preview of what you're about to select. It is a visual aid to help with decision making in your topology. I've been using NEX now for a number of weeks and am by no means disappointed, quite the opposite in fact. There are obvious enhancements that could be made to NEX which exist in other apps eg mirroring across an object ala silo. However I must say that the benefits I get while resurfacing a mesh with quad draw and a decent soft selection has been worth the money alone.

The guys at dRaster have to be applauded for the work they've done on this plugin and, more importantly, they have listened to and continue to listen to their users. More power to them...

[GennadiyKorol]

akeissami:

I really don't want to sound rude, but I'm always straight. Don't get me wrong.

I'm convinced that both of you are bent on spreading lies

Lies? pin point me to one, I know you're great at talking. It's not a secret that we're friends with Thomas, but he as any other person has his own opinion on matters, that he's free to express.


As to blocking all of Israel as Henry suggested? Henry, you're quite fond of yourself, aren't you? To block all of Israel because of you? The fact is that I've been wrestling with our admin for months over some blocks that were added due to some DoS stuff. Having said that, we've had a number of signups from Israel too, so I don't think it's some kind of blanket Israel thing. Anyway, I'm not sure how widespread it is, but I'll push harder for a resolution. In the meantime, I know you're young but I ask that you please be careful about making any assumptions, this isn't the first time.



As you noted I'm young, so I don't believe in coincidences. Your site worked perfectly for me. Then in your thread I noted that you claimed for some super originality while copying out some of my work (I think it was flat out clear there, thought it happens through out the industry). I ended that in peaceful manner without replying to your ridiculous arguments (about special transition for Wings3d users and alike).
After that, your site was down for anyone is Israel, and I have a lot of friends here. Also people from israel have created a topic on israel cgtalk site, about your site being down. Those are people I don't even know.

So to me those who succeeded registering are either using custom internet provider or are very lucky;)

That's just to explain my thinking, I'll be glad if I'm wrong.


I really have nothing against you or your team. Totally not against you personally. So next time you decide responding in an arrogant tone like that please think twice.

Cheers,
Henry

[akeissami]

My tone was somewhat stern because I found your assertions to be outrageous. Coincidences DO happen, and I've tried to explain things as best I can, but I think you'll agree that we're not going to see eye to eye on this.

In other news, we have a new update available. It's rather important, fixes an issue regarding undo in Quad Draw.

http://draster.com/nex_download

[inguatu]

My tone was somewhat stern because I found your assertions to be outrageous. Coincidences DO happen, and I've tried to explain things as best I can, but I think you'll agree that we're not going to see eye to eye on this.

In other news, we have a new update available. It's rather important, fixes an issue regarding undo in Quad Draw.

http://draster.com/nex_download


great... thanks!!!

[Ollarin]

In other news, we have a new update available. It's rather important, fixes an issue regarding undo in Quad Draw.

http://draster.com/nex_download

Weeeee! Thanks!

[ThomasMahler]

Gee, I certainly didn't want that to happen.

Okay, first things first: Maybe my attitude was a little sucky, happens to all of us, I'm sorry about that. I'm actually happy that we see a PlugIn like Nex, because maybe the Alias guys will wake up and work out some of the core-problems of Maya that go deep down to a lot of things you guys are adressing.

Now, I even remember that I was very enthusiastic about NEX. I tried it out back then and also sat down to give you guys some suggestions, because I thought you guys didn't get everything quite right. My personal belief is that you guys are trying to fix a lot of things in a very short amount of time but just don't get everything quite right. Like you'd just try to solve 60% of the solution and then stop. I'll give you an example for that in a bit, but this is exactly what makes me think that you guys didn't think it out the way you should.

I'm convinced that both of you are bent on spreading lies.

Dude, that was way uncool. I dunno how much time I have already spent during the last... say 3 years, to help out with software development. I have been in a lot of beta tests and I always tried to hand out suggestions about how to make things better. I love working with tools that just feel 'right' to me and I think everyone who's trying to make a living with 3d tools really appreciates it when tools just hit the spot on an issue that used to be nerve-wracking. I've been using so many tools over the years and somehow you just know how certain things should work after a while. Especially in computer animation, people tend to overcomplicate tools and especially the workflow associated with them, making them a pain to use when the base behind it is actually great. Seen that a lot of times and it's always sad. That's why I'm helping out wherever I can, cause it's just great to know that you can solve a problem that used to take you hours in 5 minutes, that means that you can spend your time on the more creative tasks, which I think everyone loves to.

Now, saying that I'm spreading lies, implying that I want you guys to go down is just a slap in my face. I'm not too fond of NEX, I don't think it became what it could have been, true. But I still wish you guys the best and if NEX suits a lot of studios, kudos to you, you guys are certainly addressing issues a lot of people are having and that's always a good thing. I have no, not even the slightest intention to say anything against you guys. I personally just feel that NEX is not the solution to the many problems you guys tried to address, whereas the answers are already out there. That's why I don't think that NEX is worth its money - it's nothing personal at all, I've always been very honest and maybe even harsh when it comes to defining problems and looking for a remedy, that's just my way of doing things.

Thomas, I'd be happy to address some more of your points, most of which are grossly inaccurate or based upon an early alpha version of NEX, but first, I respectfully ask that you drop the attitude. I've always had a certain respect for your knowledge, but there is usually some underhanded implication that NO ONE else knows what they're doing, and that your way is the only way. It makes it extremely difficult to listen to your points.

Just as an example: "I don't think that the NEX creators actually understood a lot of the features they've been implementing..."

Here, you have an opinion about what some other people understand or don't understand, and you feel the need to share that. That is of course your right, but I don't really get the purpose of making that kind of comment. Why not simply state specifically why and how you think things could be done better? That may have been the start of a meaningful and productive discussion, which is what these forums are all about. If you think that we or others in the community haven't thought about workflow too, and that you're the only one that has opinions about it, and that your way is the One True Way, I think you are mistaken.

We're listening. You already had our attention, just as we have always had our attention squarely focused on all artists (ask any of our beta testers). All the implications are insulting, and it's very hard to see any valid points through your vague rhetoric. And they are vague.

Okay. Now, I'd even take the time now to talk about all the problems I'm having with NEX (And I promise to do so in your guys thread in the Maya board, if you'd still like me to do that), but my Core2Duo Box just burned and I can't load the thing up to talk about it feature-per-feature, so I'll give you one big example for now where I think that you guys just failed at delivering and what I think pretty much sums up what you have been doing for a lot of areas.

Just as an example: "I don't think that the NEX creators actually understood a lot of the features they've been implementing..."

Now, what I was implying by that is one of the bigger features you guys 'came up with': Pre-Selection highlighting. This one's very interesting, it actually came from Mirai and it's so darn useful. I think about every major dev has copied it now, thank god, but you failed to actually analyze the feature.

Now, pre-selection highlighting is based on 2 components that make this thing work. In it's core, it's there to make it very easy to know what'll be selected or modified as soon as I invoke a command AND - very important - it's there so that I don't always have to select things when working. A lot of devs forgot or were unable to implement the second component, the actual pre-selecting. The problem with that is that it changes the feature into something purely cosmetic, which is a shame, really. It's not just about components blinking up while working, it's about the computer lending you a hand, since it's pretty sucky to work with a mouse on a two-dimensional screen. It's an aid and it's a way of working a shit load faster than you normally could.

So, let's put this straight with an example of how this should work:

Let's say I want to bevel an edge. With pre-selection highlighting, you'd:

1) Hover near an edge.
2) Since the pre-selection highlighting engine would actually already pre-select (hence the name) the component, you'd just bress your bevel hotkey
3) You'd set the radius, done.

Now, your implementation looks like that:

1) Hover near an edge.
2) The edge highlights, but it's not pre-selected. So I have to still select the component.
3) Bevel Hotkey.
4) Radius, done.

Now, the problem with that is that modeling is a very repetitive, technical process. It's not freeform, a lot of technical thinking is involved and often times, a lot of cleaning up or spending lots of time to getting the topoflow right is involved.

Now, having one more step to do may not sound as amazing when writing it down, but in praxis, it's just kickass, it's just so much better than having to select components all the time. Imagine having to delete a few isolated verts: With pre-selection highlighting correctly implemented, you'd hover near the vert and press your delete hotkey. Hover near the next, press delete, etc. etc. With your engine, you'd have to hover near the vert and still select the component all the time. Hover near the vert, vert gets highlighted, I select it, I press the delete hotkey. Hover near the next vert, vert gets highlighted, I select it, I press the delete hotkey, etc. etc.

So it turns pre-selection highlighting into simply 'highlighting', taking away one of the core-ideas behind the feature. Making it just something cosmetical, smoke and mirrors.

And this way of rushing tools and not really thinking about the workflow or not correctly analyzing the beta-testers feature-requests is what I really don't like to see. If you do something, do your research and then do it right. Pre-Selection highlighting is now in a lot of packages (Luxology did a bad job including it into Modo as well), so you guys could've just looked at why the hell it's so useful and think about how you guys could do it in NEX. Instead, you just did the funky blinking stuff without looking deeper into the issue.

Ouch, that was a long text. Sorry bout that, I'll take some more time to be clearer about specific issues I had with the plugIn once my C2D box is back, but I felt like I had to clear things up and being called a liar sure sucks.

[Zeicon]

I didn't have problems uninstalling the plug-in. I just deleted the plug-in file and everything was back to normal. Not exactly rocket science.

[ghib]

I agree that pre-selection highlighting isn't fully integrated into NEX but I would hardly go as far as to say that it is half-baked. I guess it's just your 'tone' that is getting my (and other's) back up somewhat, you're passionate about your tools. Currently you can extrude faces, split loops, bevel edges, extrude vertices in the way that the likes of mirai, silo etc do by dropping the tool once the job is done and without actually selecting the component.

It's a shame that you don't have the latest version installed before you began ranting as it's alot nicer to use than you describe. I'm sure you'd have some further valid criticism if you did.

[hanskloss]

I have to agree with Thomas though. It's not only NEX, but every other application that is trying to mimic certain tools thinking they are working the way they should. Anyone who had the opportunity to ever work in Mirai knows exactly what I'm talking about. Mirai had and still has, if anyone even uses it today, by far one of the best suite of polygon modeling tools ever assembled. I'm not taking about plugin functionality, but in app tools. I wish every developer took the time to create fully functional, streamlined and efficient tools.

[Koogle]

ThomasM you probably should have checked the tool again before writing all that blurb..


1) Hover near an edge.
2) Since the pre-selection highlighting engine would actually already pre-select (hence the name) the component, you'd just bress your bevel hotkey
3) You'd set the radius, done


did you know that is actually possible to do that in NEX? .. while in vertex/edge/face or even multicomponent mode.. all you have to do is hold download [ctrl]+[shift] and use the [mmb] while hovering over any of the following: vertex(extrude), edge(bevel), face(extrude)..then just use the mouse movement to set distance etc, or click [lmb] for more specific settings.

I'm not saying NEX is perfect..because there are things i'd like to see improved, but its alot better than what some people are making it out to be. And I was kinda hoping to see a post from akeissami detailing some of the future areas of NEX that will be updated/improved etc now that its out, but he seems to be spending his time defending their plugin here.. really thanks guys :shrug:

[ThomasMahler]

ThomasM you probably should have checked the tool again before writing all that blurb..

did you know that is actually possibly to do that in NEX? .. while in vertex/edge/face or even multicomponent mode.. all you have to do is hold download [ctrl]+[shift] and use the [mmb] while hovering over any of the following: vertex(extrude), edge(bevel), face(extrude)..then just use the mouse movement to set options, or click [lmb] for more specific settings.

Yeah, I already thought that this would come up.

I've been a bit imprecise here - What I was saying is that pre-selection highlighting should actually pre-select the component so that I could use ANY native Maya command on it. That's the big difference. Having a hard-coded command on a mouse hotkey doesn't change the thing, it just solves the riddle to the example I was giving, but for every other example I'd give, the hard-coded function wouldn't be enough. Imagine how much that could help in areas other than modeling... and imagine pre-selection highlighting on objects, curves, etc. without needing to go to the channelbox to change attrs. Get it? I think you'll see something like that soon enough. That's how things should work.

And yes, I haven't tested the 1.0 demo yet, but I tried NEX throughout development and I think my comments don't go back to just the earlierst alpha.


I'm not saying NEX is perfect..because there are things i'd like to see improved, but its alot better than what some people are making it out to be. And I was kinda hoping to see a post from akeissami detailing some of the future areas of NEX that will be updated/improved etc now that its out, but he seems to be spending his time defending their plugin here.. really thanks guys :shrug:

I'm not saying it's bad or whatever, cause it's a step into the right direction and if studios can use it to speed up their pipeline then that's just the way to go. It's not even a step, it's multiple steps. Let's say it's 20 steps into the right direction. But I feel that every other step has been left out whereas it's really, really needed to build a strong foundation at the beginning instead of just throwing out tools in every area you could imagine without solidifying the base first.

[mech7]

EDIT: UPDATE: I found out that I can middle click and drag over a component to instantly start transforming it. However, I would still prefer if I could do it with my left-click. I use a Wacom tablet exclusively, so the middle mouse button is actually toggling the top button on the side of the pen. This isn't nearly as accurate as left click, and actually get tiring if I do it constantly.


As you can allready left click by pressing with the pen, you might want to put the middel mouse button on the downside of the button :) It really works better with me for maya as it realies rather heavily on the middle mouse button.

[MattH]

As you can allready left click by pressing with the pen, you might want to put the middel mouse button on the downside of the button :) It really works better with me for maya as it realies rather heavily on the middle mouse button.

I think Maya relys just as heavily on the right-click, which is default set to the lower part of the wacom pen button. I'd still like to be able to leftclick and drag to instantly start a transform.

[ghib]

ThomasMahler, It's good to see you've gone from spurious rubbishing of NEX to highlighting shortcomings in maya's toolset. Some of your claims in the 1st post may have be founded on some truth during the alpha/beta stage, but are now erroneous and misrepresentative. It'd be a downright shame if some people are put off giving this plugin a trial and experiencing it's true awesomeness.

#107 I'm not saying it's bad or whatever
#96 Maya tools would stop to work, meaning that it wasn't all that stable, meaning that it was nice to look at, but pretty much sucks.

It's hard to take you seriously when you contradict yourself like this.

You have some valid points about pre-selection highlighting, will be interesting to see if this can be fulfilled. Instead of Autodesk/dRaster I believe a better marriage would be Nevercenter/dRaster

[polo84]

has anyone had issues after installing the trial download. I am running Maya 7.0 and at start up I receive a window stating:
"An unexpected event was encountered in a dRaster application. Unfortunately, the application may not behave as expected until this problem is resolved, We take bugs very seriously, and want to ensure that they are resolved as quickly as possible."

I also get this error message:

Error: initializePlugin function failed (dRasterMaya)

I am using a NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS OC graphics card. I checked the dRaster forum on there website and found that NVIDIA cards are causing this plugin to act buggy, but not when loading the plugin, more so when using it while modeling.

has anyone shared this issue or knows how to remedy it.

thanks

[akeissami]

has anyone had issues after installing the trial download....

Hi polo84,

Your best bet (assuming you haven't already) would be to click the "Report Incident" button in that dialog that pops up. That'll submit to us the exact reasoning behind the error and we should be able to provide you a solution fairly quickly. If you have done this already, we'll be in touch very soon.

We did resolve a couple of issues regarding redraw on NVIDIA during the beta, but if you encounter anything in v1.0, please do let us know.

[BigSky]

First up, congratulations draster folk for releasing this. It is a major improvement to the native modelling toolset, and, in alpha and beta usage for me pretty much rocks. :hmm: Quad draw is excellent, and the workflow with the one tool (which I think is the major timesaver) is well throught out.
It's a bit of a shame to read nay-saying when the fruits of labour are released, especially on these forums, but don't be discouraged, there is some excellent work represented here, and the plugin is well worth a look. :thumbsup:

[CoolDuck]

Just wanted to say that this 1.0 release of NEX is amazing! You guys have done a superb job. Congrats on the release by the way, I hope you guys make a lot of sales.

I do partly agree with a few guys here, that it is still a plugin. An integrated solution would be better in the long run. If the new manipulators would also work with nurbs or subdiv for example... or even poly objects, not the components.
Even having said the above, NEX helps A LOT (can't imagine modeling without it) and that's just what matters for now.
I highly doubt Autodesk would do a better job than NEX in Maya 9, even develop a few tools close to NEX, so for the time being NEX is great... but of course, these things should be standard in Maya. I think the key for NEX is keep developing and innovating, striving to give added value...

I think we should all stop the ranting and focus on the positive things. Criticism is good, but it can also be given in a nice manner constructive manner. The NEX team deserves every praise they can get.

A few things that I love about NEX:
- the regular workflow improvement stuff of course like soft sel and tweaking. Duh...
- especially the interactive 'stay in the same tool but do a different operation' functions, like CTRL+middle mouse=move on normal, shift+middle mouse is slide. Very handy.

A few things I would like to see:
- interactive operations can be futher enhanced... I'd love a split poly tool, just like the above mentioned. For instance, press and hold s, and you can draw or click new edges.
- interactive delete edge tool for cleaning up, and interactive spin quad. Everything interactive. :-D
- the same for soft selection, a option to use b interactively. Hold down b, goes in temp soft sel mode, release b, soft sel mode is off.
- interactive ARTISAN! Without the need to go out of NEX into object mode to smooth out parts of surfaces.
- NEX now remembers the last active axis, and uses that to determine which axis to "tweak", I always want it to be on XYZ, so every time when I have used the single X, Y or Z handle, I have to deselect, move in xyz directions, deselect, and now I can tweak in xyz again.
- I'd prefer to use the left mouse button (tap with wacom), to tweak... But I guess this would be a problem in the interaction design, as left mouse is already used for raycast selection.
- mirror modeling! >> all operations (even extrude) done in NEX mode, mirrorable.
- Silo has a great example of mouse/keyboard customisability! You can choose which mouse button to tweak.

I agree, everything should be in 1 tool, limiting the need to switch tools...

A few probs:
- For some reason, when I have used NEX... click drag select goes on. That's very annoying. I'd keep moving objects accidentally.

[puzzledpaul]

<< (about special transition for Wings3d users and alike). >> [HenryKorol]

Could this be fleshed out / expanded a little, please?

pp

[GennadiyKorol]

No, I don't want to pick this up. You're free to make a search on the board.

edit:
Sorry if I was a bit terse, I just want to stay out of it. Just noticed you're a wings3d user, I will reply to you privately.

[puzzledpaul]

Thanks for your quick, helpful and insightful response - much appreciated.

pp

[bash]

This looks like a very handy plugin. QuadDraw, the soft selection modification and constraining
the selection to the geometry looks great.

I was wondering.. Are you planning on making a Solid Chamfer function anytime soon? Like
the one in Byrons Polytools (http://www.byronimo.de/bpt_details.htm) Solid Chamfer.
That's a function I really miss when modeling.

[AVTPro]

Mac OSX versions and split at edges.

[goleafsgo]

I was wondering.. Are you planning on making a Solid Chamfer function anytime soon? Like
the one in Byrons Polytools (http://www.byronimo.de/bpt_details.htm) Solid Chamfer.
That's a function I really miss when modeling.
I really don't want to hijack this thread but what is the difference between Byron's Sold Chamfer and the duplicate edge in Maya 8.5?

[Kabab]

http://www.byronimo.de/bpt_details.htm

Have a look at that link and click on the icon on the left to watch the animated gif.

[P_T]

You know how when you insert a new edgeloop, it basically divide the faces in half. Can NEX average the position of that inserted loop so that it follows the curvature of the surface? That'll really save time tweaking the verts/edges manually, not to mention when it comes to hard surface modelling, you'll get smoother surface.

[goleafsgo]

Have a look at that link and click on the icon on the left to watch the animated gif.
I did look at that and the first split that is done looks exactly like using the "Offset Edge Loop" tool with absolute distance set. After that it looks like he splits only on one side of an edge loop but I found it hard to see what exactly was going on...

[GennadiyKorol]

puzzledpaul (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=27315): I apologize if I sounded terse, I just want to stay out of it. I wanted to contact you privately, but you can't be reached neither by email nor by a private message. Contact me and we'll talk about it privately.


akeissami: Now your website is working for me, wasn't that hard :)

Thank you for addressing the problem,
Henry

[bash]

I really don't want to hijack this thread but what is the difference between Byron's Sold Chamfer and the duplicate edge in Maya 8.5?

The Solid Chamfer tool works like a regular Bevel with segments set to 2++, while keeping the original geometry like it was.
The Duplicate Edge Loop tool only does one edgeloop at a time, making it more tedious to achieve
the same result with an evenly spaced "solid bevel". Especially on "non loopable" surfaces like a 1x1x1 cube.

So what I'm looking for is basically a "Keep original edges" option on the polyBevel node. :)

[puzzledpaul]

HenryK

<< Just noticed you're a wings3d user >>
From day 1, v0.80 - so I suppose that's an accurate comment, amongst others :)

<< I apologize if I sounded terse, I just want to stay out of it. >>

No problem - 1st not needed and 2nd understood / your choice ...

No need to waste your time re contacting myself (as post alluded to now found) ... but if you still wish to, pl. use the HM adr on my site ('saying thx.' section) in profile...

pp

[Imhotep397]

I recently emailed the makers of NEX about the fact that there wasn't a Mac OS X compatible version of NEX available and how they were alienating a big chunk of the Maya usergroup and they said that OS X and Linux versions are in the works, so hopefully those will come to fruition relatively soon so the rest of the Maya community can take advantage of those cool features. Keep movin DRaster and keep us informed about progress on the OS X and Linux version of the NEX plug-in.

[analogue]

Just purchased NEX and am wondering now how I built anything in Maya without these tools. Great job - thanks!

The one thing I'd like to add right off the bat is interactive offset/scale for face extrusion instead of having to set this in the pop-up window. That would make things even more intuitive (like extruding verts).

Thanks again,
-Ben

[akeissami]

Thank you everyone for all the support, feedback, and kind words. :)

I have just one thing to say...
respect.
Add a tighten op and i'm buying it right away.Thank you. What is a tighten op?Oh, one question: could you tell more about your "animation, texturing, and rendering tools"?I'll have more details soon. I know that doesn't help much, sorry.
Looks great. I'm tempted. Can one tie the license to the maya dongle so you can use it on any computer you've got the dongle on?We're looking into various dongle options and we will be able to provide more information about that soon. sexy plugins but the trial pop-up is extremely annoying, even when I'm not trying to use the plugin in a Maya session. Despite that.. gj DRaster!This was actually a big concern for us going into release. We really wanted to have something that allowed for uninterrupted use for 30 days or so. In fact, we had a system like this in place internally bit not long before the release, we unfortunately had to back out of that plan for a bunch of technical reasons. We'll likely be addressing this again at some point in future. I'm sure we'll send out a newsletter announcing it, so you may want to sign up for a free account on dRaster.com if you haven't already.Great plugin dRaster! For one, it really takes one giant leap towards making maya a great sculpting tool aswell.
I have one problem with the Quad Draw (correct me if theres a way around it).
Moving the "spots" around with middlemouse makes them snap in the middle in either front/side.
My approach on modeling, is by using nurbs as start, and by having front+side camera up at once you can easily build nurbs along the body (or whatever). I was hoping to be able to replace that approach with quaddraw, but as it managed to get it now, you can only build 2 dimensions at the same time. Hope that made sense..
/HåkanYou can bounce around from view to view to create and/or transform vertices within Quad Draw. This should behave very similarly to how you would draw a curve with multiple views. If you don't want to snap to the grid, assemble a mesh that you can assign as a reference mesh within Quad Draw to create/transform along that.Makes maya interesting for me again, I will definately get this incredible Plugin. You figured that Maya should've had these option intergrated, that's to your genuis.

Hey this works with Maya 7?

Great Plugin by the way.Yes, Maya 7, 8, 8.5 (32 and 64 bit). Sorry, somehow I missed that point of interest in the announcement.Dayam, I'm really on the fence about buying this. Quad draw looks fantastic, and the other tools would be a welcome addition to maya. I'd pay most of that price for component highlighting alone (does it work with objects, for rig controls?)...Not yet, NEX v1.0 is currently designed and focused primarily on polygon modeling. We're working to extend its scope towards rigging controls and beyond with v2.0.

akeissami:
Just a little note about the ad video, you don't have to hunt the manipulators in Maya to use them. Mmb, ctrl Mmb allow you to transform without selecting or even seeing the manip. With shift Mmb you can even translate right by the axis your pointer is moving along. Like if you shift Mmb drag up, you'll move up in y axis automatically. That's a great feature of Maya manips.
It might be a good idea to be sure about application features before jumping into improving it :)

Cheers,
HenryThank you for offering the advice but you're actually making a wrong assumption. Indeed, I do know that you can use the MMB for transformations. Here's a link to an old video (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=4131517#post4131517) I did that actually demonstrates and advices the use of it. Shift+MMB is another feature I'm intimitantly aware of, in fact NEX has an option to change the default behavior: http://draster.com/images/forums/predictiveTransform.gif
As far as this: "ctrl Mmb allow you to transform without selecting or even seeing the manip", I have no idea what that means. I know that you can hold Ctrl to specify an axis plane but that feature of Maya is very different than what you're describing. So I'd be very interested in learning more about whatever you are saying, if you don't mind elaborating further. Finally, I really hope we can communicate in the future without the need to make snide remarks, false assumptions, or outrageous assertions. And if you ever have any problems with anything related to connecting to our website, please feel free to contact me directly so that I can help you personally.I just downloaded the demo, and after just 30 minutes of use I'm pretty much sold. There are some amazing tools here! As long as they prove to be stable, I think the price is just about right for Nex. Good work guys. =)

One thing that sort of bugs me is that I'm used to using Click-Drag-Select (an option under Preferences>Selection) which allows me to simply click and start dragging to move a component without having to click, then click AGAIN to start the transform. This is good for moving verts around quickly, and cuts my workflow time literally in half.

Is there anything like this in Nex?

EDIT: UPDATE: I found out that I can middle click and drag over a component to instantly start transforming it. However, I would still prefer if I could do it with my left-click. I use a Wacom tablet exclusively, so the middle mouse button is actually toggling the top button on the side of the pen. This isn't nearly as accurate as left click, and actually get tiring if I do it constantly.

Comment: Nex is worth the price for the soft selection and slide tools alone! Why Maya doesn't have these already is beyond me.We have plans to implement a more full featured Tweak tool within NEX that, among other things, will allow you to use the left-mouse button.I've always been very honest and maybe even harsh when it comes to defining problems and looking for a remedy, that's just my way of doing things.You don't have to be harsh with us. We're all professionals here and I promise that you would be more effective if you didn't spend so much time saying that we don't know what we're doing. And making references to a product as "sucky" without having tried it is not really fair (alpha version doesn't count).Now, I'd even take the time now to talk about all the problems I'm having with NEX (And I promise to do so in your guys thread in the Maya board, if you'd still like me to do that)Even if I didn't want to hear from you, I would have no right to say that you couldn't post in the NEX thread. The fact is, I appreciate your enthusiasm. Please remember that we're hear to serve you and that we would be more than happy to work with you on any suggestions.This one's very interesting, it actually came from Mirai and it's so darn useful. I think about every major dev has copied it now, thank god, but you failed to actually analyze the feature.You're making a false assumption here. We did analyze this feature and we were hoping to have it available for NEX v1.0. Ideally, NEX would have every feature that everyone suggested in our forums. But as you already know, nothing happens magically. A feature with this broad of a scope takes time and needs to be done well. We'll get there, perhaps sooner than you think. Also, as far as I know, only Mirai and Wings have a fully integrated pre-selection highlight feature. Who else are you referring to when you write "I think about every major dev has copied it now"?Just wanted to say that this 1.0 release of NEX is amazing! You guys have done a superb job. Congrats on the release by the way, I hope you guys make a lot of sales.

I do partly agree with a few guys here, that it is still a plugin. An integrated solution would be better in the long run. If the new manipulators would also work with nurbs or subdiv for example... or even poly objects, not the components.
Even having said the above, NEX helps A LOT (can't imagine modeling without it) and that's just what matters for now.
I highly doubt Autodesk would do a better job than NEX in Maya 9, even develop a few tools close to NEX, so for the time being NEX is great... but of course, these things should be standard in Maya. I think the key for NEX is keep developing and innovating, striving to give added value...

I think we should all stop the ranting and focus on the positive things. Criticism is good, but it can also be given in a nice manner constructive manner. The NEX team deserves every praise they can get.

A few things that I love about NEX:
- the regular workflow improvement stuff of course like soft sel and tweaking. Duh...
- especially the interactive 'stay in the same tool but do a different operation' functions, like CTRL+middle mouse=move on normal, shift+middle mouse is slide. Very handy.

A few things I would like to see:
- interactive operations can be futher enhanced... I'd love a split poly tool, just like the above mentioned. For instance, press and hold s, and you can draw or click new edges.
- interactive delete edge tool for cleaning up, and interactive spin quad. Everything interactive. :-D
- the same for soft selection, a option to use b interactively. Hold down b, goes in temp soft sel mode, release b, soft sel mode is off. - interactive ARTISAN! Without the need to go out of NEX into object mode to smooth out parts of surfaces.
- NEX now remembers the last active axis, and uses that to determine which axis to "tweak", I always want it to be on XYZ, so every time when I have used the single X, Y or Z handle, I have to deselect, move in xyz directions, deselect, and now I can tweak in xyz again.
- I'd prefer to use the left mouse button (tap with wacom), to tweak... But I guess this would be a problem in the interaction design, as left mouse is already used for raycast selection.
- mirror modeling! >> all operations (even extrude) done in NEX mode, mirrorable.
- Silo has a great example of mouse/keyboard customisability! You can choose which mouse button to tweak.

I agree, everything should be in 1 tool, limiting the need to switch tools...

A few probs:
- For some reason, when I have used NEX... click drag select goes on. That's very annoying. I'd keep moving objects accidentally.We're working on a "split poly function", should be in the next feature update. The interactive tool is also in the works. The b key idea can be integrated into the full Tweak mode function that is planned for a future release of NEX. The artisan idea is also in the works. There is an option to have the NEX manips reset back to screen space (NEX > Show Options... > Categories:Manipulators). You'll be able to use your LMB within the full tweak mode that is on it's way within NEX. More mirror functions are planned for future updates. I have also noticed the click-drag option turning on within the NEX context as well. We'll get a fix for that in our next update.

Finally, in response to your first post: currently, you'll need to purchase seperate licenses in instances of when you need to use it on multiple machines. We realize that some individuals use multiple machines so we're currently investigating dongle solutions as well as other options. Now that NEX v1.0 has been released, we want to start the process of bringing it to the Linux and Mac OSX platforms.

This looks like a very handy plugin. QuadDraw, the soft selection modification and constraining the selection to the geometry looks great.

I was wondering.. Are you planning on making a Solid Chamfer function anytime soon? Like
the one in Byrons Polytools (http://www.byronimo.de/bpt_details.htm) Solid Chamfer.
That's a function I really miss when modeling.I've never used Byons Polytools but we'll look into it. Thank you for the link.

Mac OSX versions and split at edges.We're starting on a Mac OSX version hopefully within a week and sorry, not completely sure about the other suggestion. Please elaborate further.

You know how when you insert a new edgeloop, it basically divide the faces in half. Can NEX average the position of that inserted loop so that it follows the curvature of the surface? That'll really save time tweaking the verts/edges manually, not to mention when it comes to hard surface modelling, you'll get smoother surface.Already in works and we're hoping to have it ready in our next feature update.

[Cometsoft]

We're looking into various dongle options and we will be able to provide more information about that soon.

I hope you can consider using Maya's dongle instead of a new one. Alternatively you could allow people two copies, like ZBrush, Mudbox or Photoshop (a few that come to my head). They validate two copies and if you get a new computer are "reasonable" about it.

[GennadiyKorol]

akeissami:
As far as this: "ctrl Mmb allow you to transform without selecting or even seeing the manip", I have no idea what that means. I know that you can hold Ctrl to specify an axis plane but that feature of Maya is very different than what you're describing.

That was a note about you saying in the video: "well who likes to have to hunt around for the manipulator all the time, in NEX you don't always have to", as if in Maya you do... But you don't, because you have those features I now see you are aware of, which makes the above statement even more hazy :)
Could you please elaborate more on when and how do you have to hunt for the manipulator?

Thanks,
Henry

[ShiroEd]

That was a note about you saying in the video: "well who likes to have to hunt around for the manipulator all the time, in NEX you don't always have to", as if in Maya you do... But you don't, because you have those features I now see you are aware of, which makes the above statement even more hazy :)
Could you please elaborate more on when and how do you have to hunt for the manipulator?


Standard Maya still needs the manipulator to operate. If you've ever used Max you'll know that you can specify translation axis with F5, F6, F7 and F8 keys. You can translate in Maya without seeing the axis but only along the last 'active' axis. You need to see the manip and set an axis every time you want to change translation axis. I may be wrong on this but if its possible to do this then its very VERY well hidden and undocumented. Nex allows axis locking and the click-drag/translate workflow that really speeds things up. The Shift Mmb axis thing in Maya is only useful on pre-selected components. The Nex solution is a dynamic selection, axis locked system that much more useful.

[GennadiyKorol]

I don't think I can agree with you. It's not the last axis every time, and you DON'T have to pick axis, due to that same shift mmb feature. What is dynamic selection? Enable click drag in options window, if that's what you mean. You can also constrain the tool to work only in a single plane by ctrl clicking the axis. Having only one axis on at a time has pretty much never proven itself useful to me.

Anyways, that doesn't answer my question :)

Cheers,
Henry

[chrisWhite]

Edit: NEX is amazing, I used it throughout the betas and I hate modeling in Maya without it now. Because I work on two computers almost everyday I really wish you got two system unlocks or you could activate and deactivate a system easily. On a student budget I can't afford a second license right now, but maybe I'll get another license over the summer and I'll live without it on one of my machines for the moment.

Anyway, fantastic job guys, this really speeds up my modeling in Maya and I have a lot more fun doing it too.

[sacslacker]

From what I can tell, you can deactivate and reactivate your license currently.

[chrisWhite]

Okay, I'll give it a try, I know I tried to deactivate in the beta version and I didn't have any luck with it. Thanks man!

[Glenfx]

I dont know where all the hate towards modeling in maya comes from since its quite easy and fast to work with.

Nex toolset seems to be quite a cool adition to maya, though i dont think i would pay 150$ on just a pluging that it's most interesting feature is fast selections and maya allready has a paint selection tool built in it. :shrug:

Actually most of what ive seen nex do can be done without the plugin, nex is just a graphic update.

For the creator, have you contacted autodesk? usually they purchase outside software to include it in theyr packages.

[ghib]

Glenfx, on a superficial level it seems as though NEX is just a graphic update, in practice it becomes a tool which dramatically increases the workflow.

You are right about the duplication of tools but each of the tools that appear in maya have been tweaked to become something that is more useable.

Take for instance the paint selection example you gave. Currently, in maya, you must change tool to paint select, your circle of influence must go into the center of the poly to select. With no visual pre-selection highlighting going on it quickly becomes quite fiddly and inaccurate when selecting finer detail. Whereas the NEX paint selection you don't change tool (just hold down TAB) your cursor will select any poly it goes through no matter where on the poly it lands. Once finished selecting just release TAB and you're back in the mode you started with. Call it a sticky key.

In practice this becomes a more solid and accurate method for paint selection. Just one example of improvement to maya's tools that NEX gives you.

If I didn't enjoy using this plugin so much I wouldn't bang on about it so often.

Not saying that maya's tools can't do the job adequately, they've just needed an overhaul in recent times. Give the plugin a trial and you might change your mind.

[akeissami]

Could you please elaborate more on when and how do you have to hunt for the manipulator?Apologies for the late reply. ShiroEd explained (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=4175479&postcount=132) it perfectly. Basically, in Maya manipulator axis handles reset back to screen-space whenever you make a new selection, some artist's like that, some don't. NEX has an option to set it to either screen space or to the last active handle.

The benefit of having it not reset back to screen-space may seem subtle but it's just another one of those things that you can't live without once you've used it. We're working on some training videos as well as feature videos that will demonstrate the benefit of this feature. These videos will be available as downloads on our website very soon.

Beyond that, with NEX there are other instances that I can think of, off the top of my head, that reduce the need of having to use manipulators. Here are a few examples:

Extruding along face normal (with NEX, hold Ctrl + Shift and Middle-Click-Drag to instantly pull out an extrusion).

Translate along normal (hold Ctrl + middle-click-drag)
Rotate along normal ("")
Scale along normal ("")

Sliding edges (hold shift and middle-click-drag)

...Try doing any of those without fiddling with a manipulator in Maya by default--not possible. ...Or how about uniformly scaling using the Soft Modification tool (that requires at least 3 clicks whereas in NEX: one). I can give you more examples but I suggest that you give the demo a try and play with it yourself.

You still never fully explained what you meant by "ctrl Mmb allow you to transform without selecting or even seeing the manip". :) I understand the context of it but I still don't understand what that means specifically.

[Mikewilson2k5]

Huh, thats pretty interesting, I should read the documentation eh? Thanks Again DRaster!

[GennadiyKorol]

Shift + MMB activates the 'predictive' transformation, allowing you to move things without hovering over the manipulator or selecting any specific axis, it is then automatically selected by your mouse movement.

As for remembering the current active handles, unfortunately I can't imagine that being useful. What Maya does remember is the currently locked axis. So if you wish to work in a specific plane, it remains constrained with each new selection. I believe that with NEX you'd have to hover over the correct circle each time, which is the same way it works in Modo/Max. But this could of course be a question of the personal preference.

[akeissami]

Shift + MMB activates the 'predictive' transformation, allowing you to move things without hovering over the manipulator or selecting any specific axis, it is then automatically selected by your mouse movement.You're using terminology (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=4174254#post4174254) that I used earlier in this thread to explain what I already know. I asked what you meant by "ctrl Mmb allow you to transform without selecting or even seeing the manip", just to clarify, you originally said Ctrl not Shift.As for remembering the current active handles, unfortunately I can't imagine that being useful. What Maya does remember is the currently locked axis. So if you wish to work in a specific plane, it remains constrained with each new selection. I believe that with NEX you'd have to hover over the correct circle each time, which is the same way it works in Modo/Max. But this could of course be a question of the personal preference.This is not correct. NEX doesn't require that you hover over the circle "each time". It'll preserve 2 axis handle constraints just as it does for a single axis constraint--this has always been the case within NEX and I'm not sure how or why you got the impression it wasn't.

We're getting ready to release a new update of NEX (1.0.0.7). We're waiting on that to get passed the last stages of testing and should have it ready for download by tonight.

Also, not sure I mentioned this in this thread already but NEX now has a fully functional 14 day trial period that you can download here: http://dRaster.com/NEX

We appreciate and welcome any feedback on the trial and any of the features within NEX.

[GennadiyKorol]

Just a little note about the ad video, you don't have to hunt the manipulators in Maya to use them. Mmb, ctrl Mmb allow you to transform without selecting or even seeing the manip. With shift Mmb you can even translate right by the axis your pointer is moving along. Like if you shift Mmb drag up, you'll move up in y axis automatically. That's a great feature of Maya manips.
It might be a good idea to be sure about application features before jumping into improving it :)

This is what I've said. I meant both Shift mmb and Ctrl mmb features. Ctrl mmb allows you to translate by Ctrl mmb click dragging. I'm sure you knew that too, but that's why I think you do not have to hunt the manipulators to transform things.
And about that 2 plane feature, it has been a while since I used NEX, my bad.

[chenboyu]

HELP PLEASE!!

I can't download the demo videos for NEX!!
any ideas??

best regards
Bryan

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