Maya&Lightwave

[Lyr]

I once upon a time used lightwave, all maya now.

[Nemoid]

Ok.
how you solved problems for a faster workflow, overall
in modelling? i found it very slow.

[schmu_20mol]

well...after reading the LW [8] thread in the LW-forum i downloaded mayaPLE....just for some little trying and 'coz it seems maya is simply used more in the industry ;()....

one thing that disturbs me pretty well too is the modeling workflow....compared to lw it's kinda slow....does anyone know some way to improve that....or is it more at hand to model in eg wings3d and then work on in maya regarding animation and so on?

[Lyr]

yeah factory setting are not so hot for modeling. Main things that make modeling better in maya are keep faces together set to on, unchecking face centers from the polygon preferences, Mjpolytools, maya 4.5-5.0 bonus tools (also called bonus game tools in 4.0).

I also find artisan extremely useful for modeling but you gotta know a few hot keys or you will get bogged down in sliders. pressing and holding down the b key will let you interactively adjust brush size (make sure you are in a workspace window) and for editing values like opacity, max displacement, auto smoothing move your cursor to the float box and press ctrl key and drag with one of your mouse buttons. Which mouse button you use determines the speed at which the value changes, lmb changes values slowly, mmb changes values at medium speed and rmb changes values very fast.

Another cool little trick with artisan is to smooth your mesh after the edges have been layed out and then model it. Once you are satisified with the form delete the smooth node and the changes you made with artisan remain intact. When using artisan smaller steps are better don't try to do everything with one stroke, it takes some getting used to but once you are used to artisan your modeling speed will skyrocket and working will become very intuitive. The mere thought of going back to working without brush tools will be enough to give you heart attack.

[Bliz]

I've used LW from v4 to v7.5. I've also modelled in Maya since version 2.5. There's this common perception that LW modeling workflow is much faster than Maya's. For my first year with Maya I went along with that. The modeling learning curve in Maya is a lot steeper than LW's. After that first year with Maya though things have really started to click into place and I like modeling in Maya just as much, if not more in Maya.

I think the basic reason for the two schools of thought is this, with LW, because Modeler is a seperate program, you could give somebody Modeler and give them the modeling manual [or rip the User guide in half] and within a few months they could be a Ninja with LW Modeler without ever loading up LW Layout.
With Maya though things are very different. The modeling is so much more intergrated into the rest of the program and to the deepest heart of Maya a transform node is considered the same thing as a wave function node, i.e. internally Maya, as far as it's concerned is dealing with 'nodes'. Lot's of different types of nodes but nodes none-the-less.
This forces you to not 'learn' modeling, then 'learn' keyframe animating, then textureing, then shading etc. With Maya you've sort of got to learn a lot of things at once because everything depends on each over to work smoothly.

But I digress, here's some of my tips for modeling on top of the ones already suggested.

Download Dirk's Connect Poly Script from Highend3D. This is a Sub-D simulation that's a little bit more involved than hitting the TAB key in LW but you can do so much more with it. Namely it has a symetry mode that works flawlessly (something LW still doesn't have) and your control cage can be offset from the smoothed surface. I love it. I haven't looked into Maya's native Sub-D implementation but it looks like it has some heirachial advantages etc. but I'm not sure if it does the symetry and offset modeling yet?

Sort out your own shelf or add your own buttons at the end of the standard shelf.
A couple of buttons I added were

move -r 0 5

and

move -r 0 -5

I called these Up 5units and Down 5units respectively. I came up with these because in Maya3 the process of making polygons and objects invisible and visible again was cumbersome [the Bonus Tools fix that now] and I hadn't learnt Maya's layer system at that point. So these buttons were used to quickly put an object out of the way while I worked on another one. I've got into the habit of using them so I haven't got rid of them [they work on anything BTW, polys, whole objects, verts etc.]

Find out and learn the conponent snapping ability of the manip. cursor i.e. you can quickly align a set of verts with another vert [or locator etc.], selectively on one axis by holding CNTRL and clicking on one of the three axis cursors. When you get the hang of this point by point modeling and box modeling get very enjoyable.

Anyway stick with it!!!

[Bliz]

Oh a couple I forgot, :p

Make friends with the conponent editor

[ Windows > general Editors > Conmponent editor ]

It will make poly editing a lot easier, you can accuratelly adjust vert position, vert normals, vert colours etc. etc. with it. Use it as the equivelant of LW's Set Value Tool.

And learn the Layer system. No it's not as quick as LW Layers but as is the pattern with everything Maya it has more features and is more flexible.

[Lyr]

Here's another important thing, marking menus, in this thread here http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30917 it is explained how to set up a marking menu that displays tools based on what it is you have selected. One hot key all tools.

[Nemoid]

I thank u all for these great answers!!!:buttrock: :buttrock: :buttrock:

i'm happy to see that there are many tools around the web, and also i liked so much all the tricks and tips u gave me.:beer:

for now i've hotkeyed the main move, rotate and scale tools,as well as some tools like extrude face or cut faces.
i set faces together and whole face selecting.also click and drag to move components.
sometimes ago (i've not used Maya for awhile) i downloaded "my poly tools." they seem to be great.

Yesterday i tried artisan for first time and found it very interesting. a bit difficult to control, but i think i have to get used to. i had some problems with simmetry as well as the power of the stroke, but i have to experiment a lot.

then, maybe all Maya users use artisan to organic modelling?

i'm wondering if can be useful modeling in artisan, then convert the mesh in sub-D (in animation they work better)?

maybe with this method i can avoid using polygons and convert them into sub-D?

last but not least.

can i use the manipulators with hotkeys to move components in
x, y or z axes without clicking the arrows??

Thanx!!

Ciao from Italy

:wavey:

[Nemoid]

Originally posted by Bliz
I've used LW from v4 to v7.5. I've also modelled in Maya since version 2.5. There's this common perception that LW modeling workflow is much faster than Maya's. For my first year with Maya I went along with that. The modeling learning curve in Maya is a lot steeper than LW's. After that first year with Maya though things have really started to click into place and I like modeling in Maya just as much, if not more in Maya.

Thank you Bliz, u have to be great in modelling in Maya!!

I think the basic reason for the two schools of thought is this, with LW, because Modeler is a seperate program, you could give somebody Modeler and give them the modeling manual [or rip the User guide in half] and within a few months they could be a Ninja with LW Modeler without ever loading up LW Layout.
With Maya though things are very different. The modeling is so much more intergrated into the rest of the program and to the deepest heart of Maya a transform node is considered the same thing as a wave function node, i.e. internally Maya, as far as it's concerned is dealing with 'nodes'. Lot's of different types of nodes but nodes none-the-less.
This forces you to not 'learn' modeling, then 'learn' keyframe animating, then textureing, then shading etc. With Maya you've sort of got to learn a lot of things at once because everything depends on each over to work smoothly.

Yap, i noticed it i still have to understand well how to work with these nodes and manipulate them. i think i will try to keep a bit separated the process of modelling , animation etc, if i can, for a more organized way to work

But I digress, here's some of my tips for modeling on top of the ones already suggested.

Download Dirk's Connect Poly Script from Highend3D. This is a Sub-D simulation that's a little bit more involved than hitting the TAB key in LW but you can do so much more with it. Namely it has a symetry mode that works flawlessly (something LW still doesn't have) and your control cage can be offset from the smoothed surface. I love it. I haven't looked into Maya's native Sub-D implementation but it looks like it has some heirachial advantages etc. but I'm not sure if it does the symetry and offset modeling yet?

Great i'll download them and see!!! i think Maya sub_D are different from Lw. for now, i didn't found any simmetry tool in Maya (every suggestion is useful here)

Sort out your own shelf or add your own buttons at the end of the standard shelf.
A couple of buttons I added were

move -r 0 5

and

move -r 0 -5

I called these Up 5units and Down 5units respectively. I came up with these because in Maya3 the process of making polygons and objects invisible and visible again was cumbersome [the Bonus Tools fix that now] and I hadn't learnt Maya's layer system at that point. So these buttons were used to quickly put an object out of the way while I worked on another one. I've got into the habit of using them so I haven't got rid of them [they work on anything BTW, polys, whole objects, verts etc.]

Did u made these buttons clicking on ctrl+shift+alt key or something?

Find out and learn the conponent snapping ability of the manip. cursor i.e. you can quickly align a set of verts with another vert [or locator etc.], selectively on one axis by holding CNTRL and clicking on one of the three axis cursors. When you get the hang of this point by point modeling and box modeling get very enjoyable.

Anyway stick with it!!!

Sure! i like experimenting. for now i choosed Maya as my backsoft to work after Lw because many apps have a node structure and i want to get used to it too

last question. do u render in Maya or use an external render??

Ciao and thanx for the answers:wavey:

[Nemoid]

OOPS Bliz, hope u can distinguish my questions from
your quoted words in my last message!!

sorry, maybe i have to take some coffee to get awake..:rolleyes:

[wgreenlee1]

That is a differant take on it so far of all that Ive heard....

Being that Modeler is not apart of Layout you learn to basically model...where as in Maya you have to consider that modeling and the animation and rendering is all one ...."studio" to say..

[Bliz]

"last question. do u render in Maya or use an external render?? "

At the moment because I'm only rendering still images I use the native renderer and it suits me fine. I think a lot of the "Maya's renderer sux!!" comments come from people trying to render animations with it. Though I don't know what issues they have.

As in any package, if you are rendering a still image you can tune a render till it's just the look you are looking for by adding extra lights in places, tuning the shaders etc.

One quick tip that seems to give me 'fuller' looking lights is to instead of having one normal light with an intensity of 'X' I duplicate the light and set the intensity of the two lights at 'X divided by 2' Then go into one of the lights and set it to 'emit diffuse' only and change it's colour [eg. blue if it's used as a skylight], go into the other one and set it to 'emit specular' only, change the colour of this light to something complimentry to the other light [eg. warm yellow].

After doing this youll get the same light intensity but a wider range of light colour.

[twidup]

ok, what about tools like Knife and bandsaw? I have heard there are mel scripts and plugins that duplicate this in Maya. if so, where?

[MasonDoran]

twidup: you answer is here

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60639

[Nemoid]

Originally posted by Bliz
"last question. do u render in Maya or use an external render?? "

At the moment because I'm only rendering still images I use the native renderer and it suits me fine. I think a lot of the "Maya's renderer sux!!" comments come from people trying to render animations with it. Though I don't know what issues they have.

As in any package, if you are rendering a still image you can tune a render till it's just the look you are looking for by adding extra lights in places, tuning the shaders etc.

One quick tip that seems to give me 'fuller' looking lights is to instead of having one normal light with an intensity of 'X' I duplicate the light and set the intensity of the two lights at 'X divided by 2' Then go into one of the lights and set it to 'emit diffuse' only and change it's colour [eg. blue if it's used as a skylight], go into the other one and set it to 'emit specular' only, change the colour of this light to something complimentry to the other light [eg. warm yellow].

After doing this youll get the same light intensity but a wider range of light colour.

Very interesting tip!!

i've heard many things about Maya renderer, even that it can forget shadows, so u must pay attention when you render animation , to check the results. this was said from a Maya
Italian demo artist.

i think that with introducing of MR A/W has improved the soft very much, even if its not integrated like in Softimage XSI

Lw renderer is not fast, but i think it rocks for its quality, wich i heard can be a bit compared to that of renderman.

in Maya i like very much the IPR because its equal to normal renderer, not like Lw VIPER, wich fakes all.

in the same time, i have G2 prewiew wich is great!!!

Ciao!!:wavey:

[BigErn]

Nemoid, you can also use best of both packages and use The Beaver Project.. www.thebeaverproject.com although it seems like its been dead for a couple of years its not really. If you want model in LW and render in it but animate in Maya then you can with this.. just exports deformations.

Its not as good as working in 1 package but unless Maya implement the LW modeller and renderer or LW make animation tools like Alias its the only way around it :)

[wgreenlee1]

After running with Maya for a few weeks...
I'm beginning to belive that Maya has just as good if not better modeling program than Lightwave.....
Its just that its such a deep program that everything is is not as organised and everything is there ,its just a matter of getting used to the Maya~speak.....
I mean when I got Lightwave I was totally blasted away by the depth of it......Maya,is going to be that way also...but it is that depth that really intrests me about these programs....
I dunno...the challenge....the feeling of just being able to move around and do the operations like they should be done and feeling confident when doing something....modeling animating rendering....

What really gets me and slows me down is even thing like hotkeys...
After a while you train youself to react a certian way to accomplish something and when you change and those things arent automatic anymore then it really throws a wrench into your creativity........making learning all that more difficult....

I know its still going to be strange trying to learn something new like this but I for on am going to still have fun.....

[Nemoid]

Originally posted by BigErn
Nemoid, you can also use best of both packages and use The Beaver Project.. www.thebeaverproject.com although it seems like its been dead for a couple of years its not really. If you want model in LW and render in it but animate in Maya then you can with this.. just exports deformations.

Its not as good as working in 1 package but unless Maya implement the LW modeller and renderer or LW make animation tools like Alias its the only way around it :)

that sounds very interesting!! in fact i was talking about
this Beaver project with a Lw great user friend just last weekend!!

He said the project was quite dead, but probably was wrong,
so i have definitely to get informed about it.

i'd like that Lw grow in animation possibilities, with a rewrite, if possible, and i'm waiting for the Lw8 at Siggraph, but i like equally to explore other apps features to understand what's strong and weak about one app and another.

so thanx for your help.:beer:

Ciao from italy to all Maya & Lightwave community:wavey:

[rock]

I used to think this:

1. LW modeler > Maya modeler
2. LW renderer > Maya renderer
3. LW workflow > Maya workflow
4. LW community > Maya community

After I started to learn Maya and mental ray, the first three seemed to be not true anymore.

Rock.

[Ibanezhead]

ok, what about tools like Knife and bandsaw? I have heard there are mel scripts and plugins that duplicate this in Maya. if so, where?

Maya has the cut tool that is similar to the knife tool. For bandsaw get MJPolyTools. You can find a link at Highend3d.com. It basically works on an edge basis. It has connect, and multi loop split among other things.

I agree, Maya was a little clunky coming from LW, and even Max. But now that I have my Marking Menus, and hotkeys setup I find it pretty easy to model in Maya. It gives you far more options, and flexibility.

LW is now completely removed from my hard drive

Vic

[Lyr]

There is also draw split in the bonus tools. I find this tool to be the best solution for me, no selecting, just grab the tool and cut, back to sculpting, tough if I am going to be cutting a very long set of edges I will use MJpolytools. For general clean up, maya's regular split polygon tool is ideal.

Rendering wise, I am still learning alot but maya's renderer is not crippled like the common perception believes it to be. The renderer is very deep and requires much knowledge to get what you are looking for from it. Fortunately what you learn in making shading networks is transferable to even deeper and more robust rendering solutions like renderman compatible renderers and of course mental ray. I haven't used MR much yet but I haven't generally been a big fan of raytracers but we'll see.

Just a side note, the Lightwave renderer doesn't really come near the quality or speed of Prman. It's good but it's certainly no Prman.

[lwbob]

Originally posted by wgreenlee1

What really gets me and slows me down is even thing like hotkeys...

First -- don't take this as a slam against Maya, this is just me letting off some steam while learning it. I'll be going back to it after this post. :)

What get me and slows me down is the extra amount of stuff you need to do. All this "extra control" requires you to do so much extra work to get to "Point A". Sure it is great for complicated stuff you need massive amounts of control over (that you are no doubt writting the controls for). If you need to do something simple you can pick any other software and chances are it would be much easier in it because Maya make you take the more (I didn't say impossible) complicated approach. Now before someone mentions that they have no problem doing some simple stuff, I am talking about a relative scale. There should be no real need to do as many steps as Maya requires to do EVERYTHING.

Another thing. Look in any book or any post on a public forum/newsgroup and find the really helpfull tools people NEED to use. Selections/modifications/etc... Why are all these things buried in the menu many many levels deep while factory settings (I know these CAN be changed) stick crap like the NURBS primitives on the shelves? Why doesn't someone at A|W get their head out of their butt and make preset shelves with tools people use? It isn't like they only have so many shelves to make until the program breaks.

[Omita]

For me the biggest change from going from LW to Maya was setting up HotKey and getting a couple tools.

I use

1. MJPolyTools ( Is like Bansaw ) plus some other cool tools. I have a special Shelf for MJTools.

2. SetValue ( my port of SetValue from LW)

3. GeoSphere ( nice tool for Tess Shperes)

Other then that you need to switch gears in your brain. But for the most part just setup some hotkeys to speed up modeling.

ie. Shift-F for Flip poly.

Another thing that makes it easier for me is always use the HotBox and have the hot box show all menus. That way you don't have to waste time switching menus.

It took a couple months to get up to production speed but you will get their. The only thing I miss from LW is TAB. I still don't like the Sub-D's in Maya. Or at least, I don't like modeling Sub-D in Maya. But anything involving instances is way better in Maya.

I use LW for 1 or two things these days... like if I need a SeaShell. :)

-Omita

[rock]

Also as mentioned before, two of the features that LW users enjoy are the drag/magnet tool and polygon selection by clicking on the polygon face and not the center. Maya has both features, but you have to turn it on. In fact, I feel that the drag or magnet tool in Maya is as powerful as XSI and more so than the drag/magnet tool in Lightwave. To turn these features on in Maya:

Window >Setting Preferences > Preferences

In this Panel, click Setting > Selection, in the upper right, there is a check box call "Click Drag Select ", check it. Now you can Drag and Move in One Click - very powerful stuff.

The same panel also contains the polygon selection method. Choose Whole Face, as opposed to the Center.

[Munson]

I`m not going to argue which is best. I like LW because its pretty good at turning around stuff quick, its got its strengths as much as Maya has, obviously I`m a Maya man at heart which is why I got the Beaver project.. it did exactly what I wanted, model in LW transfer to Maya for rigging and back to LW to render out.. yeah its a pain but certainly beats rigging in LW. So if you like both then its cool. Some people only like one or the other and thats cool too..

beaver isn`t totally dead.. hopefully a Maya 5 version out soon.

[wgreenlee1]

Originally posted by Munson
I`m not going to argue which is best. I like LW because its pretty good at turning around stuff quick, its got its strengths as much as Maya has, obviously I`m a Maya man at heart which is why I got the Beaver project.. it did exactly what I wanted, model in LW transfer to Maya for rigging and back to LW to render out.. yeah its a pain but certainly beats rigging in LW. So if you like both then its cool. Some people only like one or the other and thats cool too..

beaver isn`t totally dead.. hopefully a Maya 5 version out soon.


Ooooooh...that sounds good....:thumbsup:

[Nemoid]

Originally posted by Munson
I`m not going to argue which is best. I like LW because its pretty good at turning around stuff quick, its got its strengths as much as Maya has, obviously I`m a Maya man at heart which is why I got the Beaver project.. it did exactly what I wanted, model in LW transfer to Maya for rigging and back to LW to render out.. yeah its a pain but certainly beats rigging in LW. So if you like both then its cool. Some people only like one or the other and thats cool too..

beaver isn`t totally dead.. hopefully a Maya 5 version out soon.

The question about Maya/Lightwave is not about one soft being better than other.
personally i am used to Lw, cause its the first 3D app i started to use, but i want to get an overwiew about other apps expecially Maya, because they are different.

i like the concept of a person like Bill Fleming wich examines different apps to work with, because this way make grow my knowledge about 3D.

if Maya requires to me a different way of thinking, then i'll think in a different way when i use it.

surely Lw modeler is better than Maya in certain things, and not for others. it has great sub _Ds , but it has no NURBS, for example.

the main reason i asked people about the passage from LW to Maya is that Lw users are used to a way to work similar to mine, so they get into my same problems.

i am very happy with the overwiew of maya that i can get in this thread and i'll keep on experimenting with it as wellas using Lw

Ciao from Italy:wavey:

keep on posting!!

[Nemoid]

Originally posted by Lyr
Just a side note, the Lightwave renderer doesn't really come near the quality or speed of Prman. It's good but it's certainly no Prman.

Right, obviously Renderman its a high end rendering system!!!
i hope that in Lw they enhance render speed as well as the porting to Renderman

[lwbob]

Originally posted by Nemoid

i like the concept of a person like Bill Fleming

Bill--- The guy who steals people's money for some magazine/website that never happens. Stay away from anything Bill does. If you need proof go to the LW yahoo groups and do a search for "Bill Felming".

[Munson]

Indeed, while LW renderer might not be PRman, its also not as complicated, which for artists! is pretty important. If you working at a place with a rendering TD then thats fine, or your one of those freaky programming artists who can write shaders great! but I`m not, and I`m sticking to LW.. at least until something else comes out.. like whatevers going down at Luxology ( just to stir up that hornets nest :p )

PRman is :drool: especially when you see the amount of films using or that have used it !

[onlooker]

Does anyone know if these LW user loved tools work in Maya 5.0? Connect Poly Shape, and MJ Poly Tools? I was thinking about upgrading.
I've never tried the MJ Poly Tools, but CPS is an awesome set of tools.:buttrock:

[Kaiser_Sose]

Originally posted by Omita


2. SetValue ( my port of SetValue from LW)

3. GeoSphere ( nice tool for Tess Shperes)


Could you post your script

I use sett value all the time

[Nemoid]

Originally posted by lwbob
Bill--- The guy who steals people's money for some magazine/website that never happens. Stay away from anything Bill does. If you need proof go to the LW yahoo groups and do a search for "Bill Felming".

his tutorials were great about Lw. and a book like 3D creature workshop is useful for understand how to work with different softs.
i have some tuts and they were helpfull.

i don't like people wich make money over newbies desires about learning, but i found his tuts great.

do u prefer a person like Ablan wich makes misleading books adding some stuff here and there and calls them inside 6, inside 7 or other?

[Lyr]

Originally posted by onlooker
Does anyone know if these LW user loved tools work in Maya 5.0? Connect Poly Shape, and MJ Poly Tools? I was thinking about upgrading.
I've never tried the MJ Poly Tools, but CPS is an awesome set of tools.:buttrock:

Haven't tried CPS but Mjpolytools work in 5.

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