Maya 2012

[lazzhar]

That craft animation tool looks really cool.

[AJHP]

We saw this over at 3D World not so long ago - it's looking good! Here's our post with a little extra info from Rob Hoffman - product marketing manager over at Autodesk.

http://www.3dworldmag.com/2011/03/01/new-features-for-maya-2012-announced

[irwit]

Wow! Not being able to composite in hypershade using a passes system that doesn't work then rendering the composite using ipr that doesn't update when you drag the timeslider and crashes more than Kamui Kobayashi has been a feature the whole community has been waiting for for years!

[Venkman]

They are including the digital molecular matter plugin in Maya 2012. That is awesome!

[Magnus3D]

This is not easy to admit but i actually like some of the stuff i see in this release. The addition of DMM is sweet and so is the new viewportrendering and i also like that they added the procedurals. The animation stuff looks useful and good.

/ Magnus

[Kabab]

Physx for gpu acceralted physics is a nice stop gap till the Nrigids is done I guess! The fluids stuff looks nice to.

No modeling tools or Iray is a big disappointment.

[oglu]

there are new modelling tools... :D

[Kabab]

there are new modelling tools... :D
Details????

[JupiterSunset]

even if I had hoped for nRigids (wasn't unified nDynamics the goal once?)
instead of another plugin, physix and dmm look nice...!

let's wait and see until the full releasenotes are out,
usually many nice but smaller features are not covered
in the first announcements.

buuuuuut: where is the new hypershade we're all waiting for?

[oglu]

Details????

there is an new extrude with inset option and a project curve cut tool... and a new cut tool...

[mustique]

anything about mudbox?

hmm yes, not much other than Ptex.

[leviathan]

They are including the digital molecular matter plugin in Maya 2012. That is awesome!

Working with it for the last 2 months. Is really a good news for destructive TDs!!

[alexentremont]

Any word on availability for subscription members?

[Venkman]

Working with it for the last 2 months. Is really a good news for destructive TDs!!

Any juicy nuggets you can give people about the plugin? It came to my attention when Star Wars the Force Unleashed used the system, but I'd love to hear more about integrating it into maya for rendering in Mental Ray.

I know people don't like the way Autodesk acquires new features, but this one always looked really, really cool to me. The other acquisition I thought was a great move was the Comet muscle system.

[GQ1]

Will there be any updated grooming (Combs & Brushes) tools with-in Maya 2012?

[SheepFactory]

All I can say is you guys are going to have one big smile on your face when you use the new viewport 2.0. No more slow viewports in maya :)

[JWRodegher]

Hey sheep, you do any animation? I´m wondering what´s viewport 2.0 performance with deforming geometry/characters.

[mustique]

Hell yes it's no bad upgrade at all.
Viewport 2.0 look nice.
The liquid solver looks almost like it's usable.
HumanIK integration is huge.
substance, craft, physx and DMM sim...
Guess it's time to upgrade from v2009.

[SheepFactory]

Hey sheep, you do any animation? I´m wondering what´s viewport 2.0 performance with deforming geometry/characters.

Quite excellent. No need to playblast %99 of the time. Even with all the bells and whistles turned on like shadows, dof, anti aliasing, etc.

[JWRodegher]

Quite excellent. No need to playblast %99 of the time. Even with all the bells and whistles turned on like shadows, dof, anti aliasing, etc.

Now THAT would draw a really big smile in my face, just tell me you were not trying this in an over the top workstation with a quadro 6000 or something...(I´m on quadro 4000 though).

[SheepFactory]

I am on a i7 920 with a gtx 470 and 6gb of ram.

[JWRodegher]

Thanks a lot for the quick answer and the info!
Can´t wait to try it out.

[oglu]

feature list...
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/cory/maya-1

[Venkman]

I am on a i7 920 with a gtx 470 and 6gb of ram.

It's good to know that the consumer cards are getting good results, too!

[sacslacker]

Yeah, I'm glad to see we can use prosumer cards. Great upgrade. I've said this the past couple upgrades, I like the direction AD is taking their products. Whoever is at the helm there, keep up the good work!

[SePu]

I've been waiting for this .... and hopefully everything is more stable ....

[mthemelis]

..nice one!!

[GrimPixel]

Quite excellent. No need to playblast %99 of the time. Even with all the bells and whistles turned on like shadows, dof, anti aliasing, etc.

I am sure you're accurate in that statement I just can't wrap my brain around it. So used to playblasting to see animation. You really end up not playblasting 99% of the time? I am stunned.

Grim

[fig]

Quite excellent. No need to playblast %99 of the time. Even with all the bells and whistles turned on like shadows, dof, anti aliasing, etc.

That would be pretty awesome, even if I just playblasted less doing character animation it could save a ton of time.

[oglu]

ooh project "skyline"
http://www.cgchannel.com/2011/03/autodesk-unveils-project-skyline/

[SheepFactory]

I am sure you're accurate in that statement I just can't wrap my brain around it. So used to playblasting to see animation. You really end up not playblasting 99% of the time? I am stunned.

Grim

Indeed though I should clarify:

V2.0 is insanely fast in crunching raw non deforming geometry data. You can have a 10 million polygon scene with textures, lights and everything and it would run 100+ fps on a system like mine.

All my rigs have a low res proxy mode with parented geometry to speed up animation feedback and that is what I usually use for the bulk of my animation. For example if you have a heavy rig do not expect it to run realtime in v2.0. There is a cartoony doberman rig for Maya that is available on creative crash, that one runs slow regardless of what viewport render mode I use. But I haven't had to playblast with my own rigs and a bunch of others I tried.

Another reason to have a proxy low res rig is to be able to use motion blur. Currently v2.0 only supports non deforming geometry for motion blur.

In any case it is a HUGE improvement over the old maya viewport in every way. I don't think anybody will be disappointed with this release once they get to try it.

[Rickmeister]

Any clue on availibility? Can't find it anywhere...

Does anybody know if there are stereoscopic updates? I'm currently working on a stereoscopic project, and i'm having some Mental Ray/StereoCamRig problems.

[JWRodegher]

So if I have deforming geometry it won´t play as nice...
I´m gonna make some tests with maya 2011 and parented low geometry proxies so I can compare when I get my hands on 2012 and vp 2.0.

I guess deforming skinned geo is not just a matter of viewport though.

[DuttyFoot]

Any clue on availibility? Can't find it anywhere...

If i am not mistaken i read that the 2012 products will be available in april.

[kiaran]

Time to upgrade. My 2009 license is feeling pretty damn old now.

Am I the only one excited about the new Substance procedural textures? These are really, really powerful:

http://www.allegorithmic.com/index.php?PAGE=GALLERY.demos

[hanskloss]

I'm happy with all the updates and all, but...seems like us modelers have been flipped off yet again. Thnx ADSK.

[softimage69]

//// start rant here;

I'm happy with all the updates and all, but...seems like us modelers have been flipped off yet again. Thnx ADSK.

FX artists have, and always will get the flip in these releases. Even though 2011 received some great improvements in the fluid toolset (thanks Duncan, you rock), some of the major bugs were not fixed until 2011.5 on the Linux platform, not mention the lack of support for dynamics in Viewport 2.0 technologies.

I heard through the grapevine that DMM/PhysX is only available on Windows and not Linux? If this is true... there goes 75% of actual studios being able to actually use these tools. Really wish they implemented Dynamica and FractureFX instead, but oh well, one can dream.

////
... confirmed from Autodesk site, PhysX is windows only....
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/cory/maya-1
/////

I wish AD would focus on fixing what is lacking/broken in the FX tools and listen to those common issues people have using it in production. Please, focus less on cramming more flashy features in that "kinda" work for production as major selling points of these releases. I mean come on.... Max and XSI have had node based particle workflows for years..... Non-destructive FX workflows are the future. Sorry AD, SOUP is still the only "release" that had me excited for Maya again.

Sorry for the rant... but I see no reason for a major software release if there is no significant changes in the tools. Oh well, someones got to please the suits/shareholders and keep asking users for their money......

////end rant ;

[GrimPixel]

Indeed though I should clarify:

V2.0 is insanely fast in crunching raw non deforming geometry data. You can have a 10 million polygon scene with textures, lights and everything and it would run 100+ fps on a system like mine.


A slow rig is a slow rig/deformation set up is going to be slow independent of Viewport issues. Awesome to hear that a proxy rig is working pretty flawlessly for you. Given I spend a huge portion of my time animating with proxy rigs anyway.

Grim

[swag]

i agree 100% to softimage69 - please stop this plugin chaos (we want no max)
noone want this half baked 3th party plugins in production

[Stellios]

i agree 100% to softimage69 - please stop this plugin chaos (we want no max)
noone want this half baked 3th party plugins in production


yea, lets take a lesson from the max crowd, nobody wants an XBR for maya. Dont let it get to that. The craft GUI looks nothing like Maya to me

[GatorNic]

Time to upgrade. My 2009 license is feeling pretty damn old now.

Am I the only one excited about the new Substance procedural textures? These are really, really powerful:

http://www.allegorithmic.com/index.php?PAGE=GALLERY.demos

Cool, although last time I knew (when they released these in 2011.5 subscription only version) they do not render directly in Mental Ray. You had to bake out all the maps then you could render them in MR like a normal texture.

[dgovil]

I have to say, as an animator, the new motion trails feature is killer. Having that kind of tactical feedback will speed up animation so much.

And viewport 2.0 looks like it'll eb really good for playblasts. Most rigs have proxy geo anyway for speed so being able to instantly(ish) see what your renders might be like is great.

The new Sequencer looks like it'll finally be useful for layout and previz work. I found the 2011 one very lacking.

Also the new graph stuff will be nice to finally have, as well as the mocap stuff from the 2011.5 release.

Not so sure why the hypershade compositing is a major feature though. It seems slower than just reading the passes in a comp program and comping them there. Plus it seems like a duplication of efforts, even if it is just for look frames or previz because you'd end up creating the comp trees anyway later.


All in all, looks to be a pretty solid release for animators.

[Ollarin]

Wow! Now that is an exciting release, especially the new enhancements to viewport 2 and the animation tools.

Very, very nice release. I like how they're linking all the apps together as well, to work seamlessly.

The substance maps look amazing as well. I noticed on the allegorithmic website it shows it used on Unreal Engine levels. Does UE take the shaders directly? Or do you have to bake out the texture into images first?

This release has left me a very happy animator, along with the other features. :D

[dgovil]

Does anyone know what the shader support for Viewport 2 is? Any chance it supports MR shaders now? Doubt it would support Renderman shaders, but maybe it can do like a proxy shader?

Alos, I notice to enable DoF in Viewport 2.0, you have to set the DoF in the Camera. Is there a way to auto disable this on final render from your chosen final render?

[jasonhuang1115]

Not so sure why the hypershade compositing is a major feature though. It seems slower than just reading the passes in a comp program and comping them there. Plus it seems like a duplication of efforts, even if it is just for look frames or previz because you'd end up creating the comp trees anyway later.


Agree. If I really need to spend time setting up a pre-comp, I would rather spend time setting up a comp in the compositing application instead. Not sure the real benefit of this feature yet at this point. Hope to see some exciting news with new version of mental ray or improved integration though....

[PhilipeaNguyen]

Time to upgrade. My 2009 license is feeling pretty damn old now.

Am I the only one excited about the new Substance procedural textures? These are really, really powerful:

http://www.allegorithmic.com/index.php?PAGE=GALLERY.demos

I was excited until I saw their pricing: Substance (http://www.allegorithmic.com/index.php?PAGE=PRODUCTS.licensing)

[Jon A. Bell]

I was excited until I saw their pricing: Substance (http://www.allegorithmic.com/index.php?PAGE=PRODUCTS.licensing)

Those are standalone or middleware tools. The Substance procedural textures are included with Maya and 3ds max; you don't need to buy the textures separately.

[Venkman]

Another reason to have a proxy low res rig is to be able to use motion blur. Currently v2.0 only supports non deforming geometry for motion blur.

I'm curious - the demo on viewport 2.0 shown on the autodesk site here:

http://area.autodesk.com/maya2012


Shows the character from Deus Ex getting on a hover bike and blasting off - he's clearly motion blurred. Is this because they used vertex cacheing on the character?

Edit: Just watched the camera sequencer video, and WOW, that was nice. Way more useful than I thought! Autodesk really hit it out of the park on this one. by the time I've begun learning the features in Maya 2012, Maya 2013 will be out already!

[Kabab]

Anyone know if you can use Viewport 2 with modelling tools etc..

Also what version of MR is in 2012 and what's new / fixed in regards to MR?

[SheepFactory]

Anyone know if you can use Viewport 2 with modelling tools etc..


Yes you can.

[JWRodegher]

I'd like to see vray lights supported more than shaders to be honest.

[JonCG]

Looks awesome. Especially the DMM. I really think they should have named it something else though. Maya + 2012 with google is going to get annoying.

[bjoern]

still no nodebased dynamics.... Same old crap pimped with some plugins and a fluidsystem that
is even behind realflow and far faaaar behind naiad....

fail !!!

[-Sai-]

I see a lot of flashy features from other autodesk products ported but most of them are useless to my needs.

[francomanko]

I'm naturally looking forward to it, but i do hope they have spent time fixing some of the bugs in 2011, specifically the awful lag in the viewport with certain GTS gfx cards. I also hope they haven't rushed the testing with the new features, as it seemed they did with 2011. Fingers crossed.

[The4thAggie]

Will it have iRay? I want me some GPU rendering.

[Nick2970]

This is pretty lame, I bet all the fancy stuff in viewport 2.0 doesn't work with the mia shaders which is what everyone is pretty much using these days!

XSI has the biggest core improvement with modeling in ICE being exposed.
I was hoping for some serious hypershade/render interface improvements, but alas no.
Max pretty much got xsi's rendertree, this is what Maya sorely needs instead of its current mix of legacy and mental ray nodes, some living in 8 bit mode still!

I just wish they could concentrate on some core stuff, ergonomics and low level functionality

My 2c!!

Nick

[gauranga108]

when can we use the trail?

[SheepFactory]

when can we use the trail?

What do you mean?

[Braden99]

Does Viewport 2.0 for Maya 2012 now display components (vertices, UV's, faces), preselection highlighting, lattices, and other deformers? Is there anything it can't display from a maniuplator and tool perspective?

[eikonoklastes]

Hi SheepFactory. You seem to be the only one in here who has worked with a pre-release of 2012. This has been asked twice already I think, but does 2.0 support mia shaders?

[JonCG]

What do you mean?

I think he means trial. Anybody know when the trial will be released?

[mehran]

nothing on the MR side... so all the bugs are still there..do we get proper binary proxies this time ?

[Bitter]

The MR side will probably see parity with XSI and Max like they did before (means one version of Standalone) but what gets exposed is apparently different.

[SheepFactory]

Hi SheepFactory. You seem to be the only one in here who has worked with a pre-release of 2012. This has been asked twice already I think, but does 2.0 support mia shaders?

mia and mia x are supported.

2.0 also supports all manipulators, lattice, etc. You can model\animate in it no problem.

[mehran]

hmmm.. well the release looks great over all.... but it holds really little value for the render-lighting guys like me.. correct me if I am wrong please .. cause I am still at 2k9 and was really planning to finally shift over to the new version this year. but will it be worth it in terms of what speed and reliability for a lighting rendering guy.
The biggest pain to me are the render passes and poorly implemented render proxies.. from what I know the render passes still multiplies the render time by a couple of folds, and AD hasnt even touch the binary proxies. the bsp has been sped up in the last couple of releases, so the render times have improved too.
I mostly do product visualizations.

thanks

[Ryan11]

Hi SheepFactory. Does the release you are working with have mental ray 3.9 implemented. If so any noticeable improvements?
Thanks

[eikonoklastes]

mia and mia x are supported.

2.0 also supports all manipulators, lattice, etc. You can model\animate in it no problem.Beers on me :bounce:

[Braden99]

Awesome, sounds like I can spend most of my time in Viewport 2.0!!

[Bonedaddy]

Those are standalone or middleware tools. The Substance procedural textures are included with Maya and 3ds max; you don't need to buy the textures separately.

I played around with the textures a bit today (apparently we have a beta at work). They're neat. Work like well-constructed renderman shaders. Look pretty good, but unsure how far you can push them (I spent like 10 minutes before getting back to other stuff).

[dagon1978]

nothing on the MR side... so all the bugs are still there..do we get proper binary proxies this time ?

there are a lot of bugfixes in mray 3.9, expecially for assemblies (you don´t need binary proxies anymore), motion blur and BSP2, which is a lot faster
but i´m not sure which version of mental ray they´re using, maybe they´re back to the 3.6 since they don´t want to support any of the new features :rolleyes:

[mehran]

(you don´t need binary proxies anymore),
can you please explain (sorry this might be a bit off topic)

[spacerweb]

Way it go to for playing "need for speed" in maya, but from the side of the FX and dynamics, i believe that SideFX is quite happy today since after this, everyone will go to Houdini. Even Max and XSI users are laughing to us today...

[dagon1978]

can you please explain (sorry this might be a bit off topic)

assemblies (maya proxies) are much more flexibles than binary proxies (if you want you can include a scene graph instead of a single mesh)
the main rison to use binary proxies instead of assemblies was the rendertime, now this problem is solved

[Kinematics]

Sorry if I sound a little ignorant.

I thought the reason for using Binary Proxies was to reduce the huge weight load on system memory and only loading them as necessary. And it was the huge ram hit memory swapping that killed the renders.

What exactly is the difference between Binary Proxy and Assemblies?

[dagon1978]

Sorry if I sound a little ignorant.

I thought the reason for using Binary Proxies was to reduce the huge weight load on system memory and only loading them as necessary. And it was the huge ram hit memory swapping that killed the renders.

What exactly is the difference between Binary Proxy and Assemblies?

mip_binaryproxy is a shader, part of the production library, you can use it only with a single mesh, assemblies are more advanced, they´re part of the core of mray, as i said you can include an entire scene graph (not limited to a single mesh), as for the memory they´ve mainly the same advantages, since they´re loaded on demand
assemblies are already part of maya (from 2010 i guess), they still need some refinement (lika a preview), but it´s Autodesk, if you want a proper integration... you can wait...

[techmage]

I realized something.... Autodesk is not going to kill off Maya or XSI in favor of Max (fear of mine), they are just going to give you reason to need buy all three of them! They are doing this 1 click interoperability, then integrating one awesome feature in each app that the others don't have, so then you need to use them all.

Max is going to be the rendering and modelling app. Maya the animation app. XSI the dynamics and advanced effects app.

Although if max is to be the rendering app it really needs to have viewport 2.0 in it, also if max is to be the rendering app whyd they put a cooler pass system in maya? although I dont know about that, the pass system might still be horrid and maybe the new max viewport is as fast as maya viewport 2.0

[eikonoklastes]

Way it go to for playing "need for speed" in maya, but from the side of the FX and dynamics, i believe that SideFX is quite happy today since after this, everyone will go to Houdini. Even Max and XSI users are laughing to us today...
Come now, be nice. The viewport enhancements are a massive enough update. This will save countless hours of having to playblast or render.

Did you see the video where he does a 4k render with motion blur, depth of field, anti-aliasing and ambient occlusion in the blink of an eye? This kind of preview quality and speed is just gold.

[Kinematics]

mip_binaryproxy is a shader, part of the production library, you can use it only with a single mesh, assemblies are more advanced, they´re part of the core of mray, as i said you can include an entire scene graph (not limited to a single mesh), as for the memory they´ve mainly the same advantages, since they´re loaded on demand
assemblies are already part of maya (from 2010 i guess), they still need some refinement (lika a preview), but it´s Autodesk, if you want a proper integration... you can wait...

I see. In Vray. Are their proxies considered binary proxies or assemblies actually?

[mehran]

thanks dragon 1978,
well am sure they had mray 3.8 in maya 2011, so I guess 3.9 will be in maya 2012.
and thanks for the info on assemblies, I 'll wait for the trial to come out and than decide.
God bless!

[dagon1978]

I see. In Vray. Are their proxies considered binary proxies or assemblies actually?

binaryproxy/assemblies are just mray therms, vray proxies are pretty much like mray assemblies, but i can´t do a deep comparison on the technical side

[mehran]

Last time I checked Assemblies couldn't handle animation properly.. is that still the same...like can I easily burn a character to disk with Mr assemblies.

[spacerweb]

Come now, be nice. The viewport enhancements are a massive enough update. This will save countless hours of having to playblast or render.

Did you see the video where he does a 4k render with motion blur, depth of field, anti-aliasing and ambient occlusion in the blink of an eye? This kind of preview quality and speed is just gold.

Yes, it true is a great improvement, and that's why said that it's a real drawback from a dynamics and FX point of view... to me it looks like it's just a lot of, in majority of cases, uneccesary makeup.

[vfx]

From my first hands on, I'm confused.. can you not use raytrace shadows to view live interactive shadows in the viewport? Seems to only work with depth shadows.

[bjoern]

Way it go to for playing "need for speed" in maya, but from the side of the FX and dynamics, i believe that SideFX is quite happy today since after this, everyone will go to Houdini. Even Max and XSI users are laughing to us today...

you nailed it! Actually thats how I feel for the last 3 Years (FX wise...)

[Bitter]

well the release looks great over all.... but it holds really little value for the render-lighting guys like me..

I think you will want 2012.

@dagon1978

I assume you are on the beta. I missed seeing you on the mental images beta. Thought for sure you'd be there.

[dagon1978]

I think you will want 2012.

@dagon1978

I assume you are on the beta. I missed seeing you on the mental images beta. Thought for sure you'd be there.

OT
yep, i missed the "public beta" because of my new job, too many changes for me on these months, i couldn´t find the time for testing
but i was testing 3.9 from the first alphas ;)
/OT

[Venkman]

Yes, it true is a great improvement, and that's why said that it's a real drawback from a dynamics and FX point of view... to me it looks like it's just a lot of, in majority of cases, uneccesary makeup.

Do you guys not like the DMM plugin?

http://www.pixelux.com/movies/crash.mov

http://www.pixelux.com/movies/trestle.mov

http://www.pixelux.com/movies/cliffhouse.mov

[KidderD]

It looks fine. But this sentence leaves me wondering.

The DMM plug-in available with Maya is a full-feature version with some simulation limitations.

[cmogk]

Maya 2012 uses mental 3.9

[CKPinson]

Vector Displacement has to be the best feature here- it can achieve soooo much more than ol'school gray scale displacement and Nomral maps.

[Ptichat]

Vector Displacement has to be the best feature here- it can achieve soooo much more than ol'school gray scale displacement and Nomral maps.
Vector displacement is definitly usefull for modeleur, but displacing that much in different X Y Z position required a new UV map if you dont want visible strecht texture on your render.

[gauranga108]

When will the 2012 trail be available?

What's the release date?

It's hard to get to excited with new releases after the last one.

New features are great and all but are they going to work?

2011 had soooo many bugs when it came out. I really don't what to spend time learning new features unless they are stable.

All a really want to hear when maya announces a new releases is "More Stable".

[spacerweb]

Do you guys not like the DMM plugin?

http://www.pixelux.com/movies/crash.mov

http://www.pixelux.com/movies/trestle.mov

http://www.pixelux.com/movies/cliffhouse.mov

Don't get me wrong, it's very interesting, but to me it seams that they are trying to push Maya more to the gaming sector, and that's not what majority people are using maya for in the studios worldwide. Don't wanna go and post all the examples of Rayfire and other Max tools, Lagoa for Softimage, not to mention Houdini...
I'm not debating if maya is good or bad tool for job, but trying to point to the obvious, and that is that Maya didn't have ANY major usable improvement in past few releases...

[rock]

It looks like we finally get the mental material display on the viewport. I wonder why it takes so long for something so basic.

[gokalpgonen]

how does viewport working anyway? like a game engine and act like in a game screen? where i am trying to go,maybe gaming cards will rock on viewport?

[cmogk]

it seams that they are trying to push Maya more to the gaming sector

Maya's two biggest markets are Games and Film and we try to have a good balance in features for both.

Cory

[DuttyFoot]

Originally Posted by spacerweb
it seams that they are trying to push Maya more to the gaming sector


maya was used on uncharted 2. it was pretty cool to see that eidos used not only max and motionbuilder on deus ex but also maya.

[eikonoklastes]

It looks like we finally get the mental material display on the viewport. I wonder why it takes so long for something so basic.
mia_material works in the viewport from at least Maya 2009 (I don't remember before that).

Viewport 2.0 in 2011 was a bit of a let down in that it didn't support it.

[Kabab]

hrmmm these will make a bit of a dilemma for my company... So Maya is going to be the Film/Game app and I guess 3dsmax the design/product visualisation app XSI I'm not sure where that fits.

We are kinda deciding which way to go we do mostly product visualisation for advertising so we really just need slick rendering and modelling and CAD data support, we have been using Maya for over 10 years at various jobs etc so we have a lot of experience with that 3dsmax is a completely new package for us...

So really it comes down to get Maya and hope there are decent improvements in the future for what we do or just get Modo for a 1/4 of the price which is more focused on our needs, I'm really hanging to try 501 so we can decide.

I wonder how many other people are in a similar situation.

[tonytrout]

Maya's two biggest markets are Games and Film and we try to have a good balance in features for both.

Cory

Thanks for that, looks like I made a good choice :)

[arneltapia]

Thanks for that, looks like I made a good choice :)

Nice!! If you believe whatever somebody says. Good luck:applause:

[dgovil]

The biggest pain to me are the render passes and poorly implemented render proxies.. from what I know the render passes still multiplies the render time by a couple of folds,
thanks
Maya 2011 (at the very least, I hadn't touched them before that) had a pretty solid (in my opinion) framebuffer system in MR, so you no longer had to render out multipleRender Layers (passes) and could now do most of it in one Render Layer with multiple passes (framebuffers/AOVS).

The only one I found really broken was Ambient Occlusion that calculated light shadows as well for some reason so I had to have two layers setup, one for the general beauty and related passes and the other for AO.

I hope they've fixed the occlusion pass in MR. But I just ordered RMS for myself so probably won't be using MR too much in the near future.

[dgovil]

mia and mia x are supported.

2.0 also supports all manipulators, lattice, etc. You can model\animate in it no problem.
So with the general speed improvements, and now with the modelling and animation improvements, why might one use the old Viewport to work in?

Other than legacy support, I'm assuming by Maya 2013 or 2014, the old viewport will be relegated to being a plugin and replaced by 2.0 ?

[WesHowe]

Other than legacy support, I'm assuming by Maya 2013 or 2014, the old viewport will be relegated to being a plugin and replaced by 2.0 ?

I fully support steps be taken that will preserve it amidst other old technologies such as floppy disks, vinyl recordings, wired telephones, 300 baud modems and photographs shot on film. It would be a tragedy for a new generation not to learn of and study the primitive conditions their pioneering ancestors had to endure. :)

[doffer]

I have two concerns that didn't work as expected in 2011.

For one, the shadows in viewport 2 gets offset when I playblast. For that reason, viewport 2 became completely useless to me, which was such a shame, as it reacts to lights way better than the other two.

Does Substance render with MR?

And last (okay that's three), Sheepfactory mentioned motionblur is only on transform and not deformation, although it looks as if the rider gets motion blurred as well in the demo?

Cheers

[dgovil]

I fully support steps be taken that will preserve it amidst other old technologies such as floppy disks, vinyl recordings, wired telephones, 300 baud modems and photographs shot on film. It would be a tragedy for a new generation not to learn of and study the primitive conditions their pioneering ancestors had to endure. :)
Haha, even as a relative newcomer to 3D, I remember how much harder things were when I started and how my newbie friends just take them for granted.

"Why I tell you, back in my day, we didn't have things like Mental Ray inside of Maya!"

[HDReality]

i hope autodesk maya 2012 be good in default viewport :applause:

and support openGl 4.1 and shader 5 good not just in viewport 2.0 :drool:

and another hope the viewport 2.0 support Dynamic Like particles and N particles and fluid :buttrock:

[eikonoklastes]

And last (okay that's three), Sheepfactory mentioned motionblur is only on transform and not deformation, although it looks as if the rider gets motion blurred as well in the demo?

Cheers
Apparently deformed geometry will not perform as well in Viewport 2.0. The rider in the demo was vertex cached beforehand.

[doffer]

Well, for me it doesn't have to be realtime Motion blur, it can even perform fairly poor, I would only use it for a playblast far into the animation process anyways, but it would be nice if it was able to work on deformed objects as well.

[mehran]

the mudbox video says that maya 2k12 supports PTEX... anyone know anything if we will be able to use ptex with MR anytime soon?

[dagon1978]

the mudbox video says that maya 2k12 supports PTEX... anyone know anything if we will be able to use ptex with MR anytime soon?

;)

https://github.com/Mankua/PtexShaders

[mehran]

@ dragon1978 :yaay.. looking forward to that...

[fahr]

Will mental ray be able to render partial creasing. In 2011 it seems like it renders 100% or 0%. Nothing in between.

[joshbare]

Any word on iRay working in 2012?
Thats the top of my list along with stability ;)

[oglu]

no iray with maya...

[joshbare]

wow that sucks! :(
thx

[mehran]

no iray withe 2k12 too DOES SUCK bigtime..

[joshbare]

I would have thought it would have been definately included.
Really hope they slip it int there or add it in part way thru the year like they did to Max last year...
Just built a new workstation to make use of it :rolleyes:

[mehran]

@josh
that's sad man.. am sure there will be some sort of an unsupported version of it that comes with the installer, and there will be some wierd a** hacks available to use it in maya but there is just that thing about not getting it right out of the box...

[joshbare]

Tell me about it, just dropped a lot of coin on a setup preempting this so I could hit thr ground running.
Am aware there were some some what workable hacks if you had Mental Ray Standalone
but they were quite limited.
I am fine if they don't fully support it just would like to have access to something that is a start.
I am a lighting rendering artist like yourself and could really do with much faster preview renders...

(my folio on this site is very out of date so don't use that as a guide of what I am doing) :shrug:

[lazzhar]

Does anybody know if Maya Composite (Toxik) got any update ?

[dgovil]

I would have thought it would have been definately included.
Really hope they slip it int there or add it in part way thru the year like they did to Max last year...
Just built a new workstation to make use of it :rolleyes:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't iRay geared towards Windows systems for now?
That might be why they didn't include it since Maya is cross platform. Though you might be able to enable it for Windows.

[joshbare]

That is a good point Dhruv, didn't think of that. Of course Max is win only so easier to implement...

[mehran]

(my folio on this site is very out of date so don't use that as a guide of what I am doing) :shrug:
that was a trick to get me to look at your DA page wasn't it :D
Just kidding....:D
nice work though.. better than my 3d skill which I dare not put in my portfolio..

[joshbare]

Haha no it wasn't
That is more up to date but still not so...
Working on new folio pieces now so new stuff soon hopefully :D
Thx

[Venkman]

Apparently iRay for mac is implemented in an internal build of Mental Ray for C4d:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=6826290&postcount=4


Hi vid2k2,

the demo versions to download in our board work both for Windows and Mac. There are downloads for R11.5 and R12.0. The only limitation for Mac is iray. All the rest works perfect :)

As an additional info for iray on Mac: While the demo version is running on mental ray core 3.8, the current m4d version 0.8.5 implements mental ray 3.9 (beta) and iray's already working there. But you'll understand, we wouldn't pack a beta core into a beta demo of m4d... that would be too much "betas" then :)

[oneczech]

I wonder if the viewport 2.0 is able to have an artist set up lighting in real time without rendering each change etc. Kinda like real time rendering .. ?? just occurred to me when i read how fast it is ... cannot imagine a better way to set up lights then in real time

thanks

[Fingus]

Does anyone know if they've fixed the Linear Workflow? As in it no longer gamma correcting bump/normals/displacement and actually correcting swatches.

I looked through the feature list but couldn't see it.

[mattwood]

Does anyone know if they've fixed the Linear Workflow? As in it no longer gamma correcting bump/normals/displacement and actually correcting swatches.

I looked through the feature list but couldn't see it.

What's wrong with setting your bump/normal/displacement map's colour profile to linear?

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

Does anybody know if Maya Composite (Toxik) got any update ?Composite will be a bug fix only release, with fixes addressing a few specific issues.

-Eric

[wolverine]

Cory has a more complete Maya 2012 feature list on his blog. More than just one page like on autodesk's site.

http://www.the-area.com/blogs/cory/maya-1

[wolverine]

What's wrong with setting your bump/normal/displacement map's colour profile to linear?

Matt, there is however still a slight color difference between adding a gamma node set to 2.2 and using Maya's sRGB color profile in 2011 (SP1).

Would have been nice to set our own gamma option in those profiles though.. instead of picking from a few.

[DuttyFoot]

Cory has a more complete Maya 2012 feature list on his blog. More than just one page like on autodesk's site.

http://www.the-area.com/blogs/cory/maya-1

thanks for that link

[unparent]

Sort of off topic. It's been kind of funny if you google Maya 2012, Autodesk is way down the search link page. You get mostly Maya calendar end of the world doomsday predictions. :)

[bjoern]

Maya's two biggest markets are Games and Film and we try to have a good balance in features for both.

Cory

whatever tha maya team is balancing for... the underlying groundwork is simply crap...
If you look at houdini and XSI for dynamics/rendering... Modo or even Silo for modeling...
It is so obvious what the right way is todo. And its not about this Icon or this interface color....
And it is definitely not about what workflow a certain artist likes.... there is no such thing! You can always improve!

Maya does not
For some things there is simply the "ONE" workflow as the underling foundation.
Maya just sucks the hole way more and more... I would feel so stupid sitting in the Maya Dynamics team and working on a software that is not has a Nodebased system... It is absolutely ridicules... and completely senseless....About the MR-Maya connection I don't even wanna talk.. makes me go nuts...

It is very easy to improve or develop a software (interface workflow wise) these days because there are so many reeeaaaallyy good examples allready out there. Where simply the underling groundwork is done... Where things are thought trough...
And with easy I mean not programing.... but looking around finding the right concept....
And this does not mean everything needs to look like: XSI or Houdini... But there are simply some workflows which are with big distance: " THE best ways to do it" And this has nothing todo with taste. It just is like that. and you don't have to be a genuis to see that....
But You can be a softwarefanboy of your own tool to ignore it...

[darkjedi1929]

It is very easy to improve or develop a software (interface workflow wise) these days because there are so many reeeaaaallyy good examples allready out there. Where simply the underling groundwork is done... Where things are thought trough...



erm...not to sound snarky, but do you actually develop 3D software that you make such a sweeping comment about developing a 3D software package?

[dgovil]

It is very easy to improve or develop a software (interface workflow wise) these days because there are so many reeeaaaallyy good examples allready out there. Where simply the underling groundwork is done... Where things are thought trough...

I'm guessing from this statement, that you are:
1) Not a program developer
2) clueless to how many studios use Maya.

Now the reason it is hard for Maya to push forward is that it has been around so long. It's to the point that enough clients depend on the program that an all out rewrite can't happen. The interface color change you are talking about was actually a shift towards rewriting Maya that will happen over the next few releases. That is what you're seeing now as small features.

Maya is such a gargantuan program with such a long legacy that it's going to take a while to get it modernized. It is also the only one out of the big 3 that spans all 3 OS systems.

It's not being a fanboy, but realizing that sometimes the best features are not huge bullet-point tools, but rather getting the underlying system in place so that you can continue moving forward.

It's what Apple did with Snow Leopard and what Ubuntu are doing right now as well.

[uncle_frankie]

whatever tha maya team is balancing for... the underlying groundwork is simply crap...
I would feel so stupid sitting in the Maya Dynamics team and working on a software that is not has a Nodebased system... It is absolutely ridicules... and completely senseless....


Maya has had a node based architecture from day one. If memory serves it's explained in the first paragraph of the beginners manual. Something like

'Everything in Mya is a node that is connected'

[Braden99]

Maya is node based, however many connections could be difficult to make because of the outdated hypergraph and hypershade (node graph). It seems all the modern node graphs make the connections more obvious, and have an easy method to generate nodes. Also part of the effort of building a modern node graph is considering many typical workflows, and making sure nodes can be connected together in these instances.

No doubt once a 3D software adds a node graph which is considered a visual programming language like Softimage's ICE, many bugs will become apparent, as many users start to design increasingly complex node networks. So I imagine building ICE for Softimage must have been a huge task.

As a Maya user I am very impressed so far with Softimage's ICE (from watching vidoes) - and I hope Maya will go down the path of adding similar functionality.

That said i'm sure Maya has got other advantages over Softimage - every 3D software has a collection of pros and cons. But I do think this is a fundamental issue that should be in development now!

[HystericalKeyframe]

If this what I just saw is FULLY FUNCTIONAL, NOT BUGGY and doesn't require an endless loop of workarounds for workarounds for workarounds for the barely complete end result, then I salute Autodesk and keep using Maya definitely, if not I could very possibly quit it once and for all, just as I said many times.

DMM plugin looks amazing, Craft Tools look amazing, and certainly animation tools, motion trails, new humanIK and retargeting are the true rebirth! So many of us have been wishing for this!

I hope we can finally use Maya's new and improved humanIK as a standard rig and don't have to build our own rigs from scratch even for the simplest humanoid creatures, but instead just add the facial rig to this humanIK rig and we are ready to go. Am I right? is this new humanIK sufficient to replace standard custom humanoid rig? I relaly hope it is, cause in those videos I don't see any deficiency to it except the facial rig.

I don't want to sound ungrateful and insatiable, but well organized fixed and stabilized Mental Ray is always a dream of Maya users, so it would be great if there were some updates on that part as well.

Thanks for this update and I hope this really is as good as it looks! :)

[dgovil]

I hope we can finally use Maya's new and improved humanIK as a standard rig and don't have to build our own rigs from scratch even for the simplest humanoid creatures, but instead just add the facial rig to this humanIK rig and we are ready to go. Am I right? is this new humanIK sufficient to replace standard custom humanoid rig? I relaly hope it is, cause in those videos I don't see any deficiency to it except the facial rig.

Personally, I wouldn't hold out on using the HIK as a rigging tool. It's purpose is very clearly retargeting and I doubt they'd shift it to be a more general tool.

That said, I definitely agree that Maya needs something like CAT, or prefereably, Autodesk should just buy/license Anzovin's tools into Maya. TheSetupMachine is a really good rigging tool and I really dig the FacialMachine when it works.

[jipe]

TSM and TFM are good alternatives if you don't have any other options, but they can be really, really slow to animate with and the rig setup has plenty of quirks (no independent hip with FK spine? arrrrgh). I'm fallen in love with the RapidRig script over at CreativeCrash... lot of solid features and easy to set up, but also very lightweight which makes animators happy.

[HystericalKeyframe]

Personally, I wouldn't hold out on using the HIK as a rigging tool. It's purpose is very clearly retargeting and I doubt they'd shift it to be a more general tool.

That said, I definitely agree that Maya needs something like CAT, or prefereably, Autodesk should just buy/license Anzovin's tools into Maya. TheSetupMachine is a really good rigging tool and I really dig the FacialMachine when it works.
Thank you for reply :)
I just checked out both The Setup Machine/The Face Machine and Rapid Rig, they both look like what I am looking for, thank you both dgovil and jipe for mentioning them.
I actually think that www.suntoucher-labs.com is the best all-in-one solution for rigging that I've seen so far(now that I think of it that rapid rig might be even better cause it includes limb scaling, stretching, squashing per bone basis and I don't think this one does).

But again, all that would be great if it was included in Maya itself, darn it :(

[techmage]

So when will the 2012 release become available? Anyone know?

[DuttyFoot]

So when will the 2012 release become available? Anyone know?

I assume people on subscription will get an early crack at it before anyone else. i think the early part of April is when everyone else will probably get there hands on it.

[HDReality]

So when will the 2012 release become available? Anyone know?

8 - April - 2011

[oneczech]

i have asked my maya reseller yesterday and was told, that subscription members should have a downloadable version available next week .. DVD is shipped later after that (if you have a subscription) ... not sure about the rest ..

[bjoern]

Maya has had a node based architecture from day one. If memory serves it's explained in the first paragraph of the beginners manual. Something like

'Everything in Mya is a node that is connected'

Dude wake up... jeeeesssus!
everybody knows that Maya is under the hood nodeBase...
And what? who cares? Can you use it in a nodebased fashion like XSI and Houdini as a user?
NO. So then its not notbased from a usebility standpoint. End of story.... wtf...

[bjoern]

erm...not to sound snarky, but do you actually develop 3D software that you make such a sweeping comment about developing a 3D software package?

creating an interface workflow has todo with a concept dude, not with development! nothing with the programing language that it gets developed in neather with technical chalenges.. Its about How the grip of a Hammer is designed...
how the rubber for better grip is made so that it works for small and big hands... etc...
In maya terms (the devs lost track of reality).... they don't care that you can't hold the hammer propper or that it is maybe to heavy...
they just made up the math that if you could pick him up... you could smash the wall...
but thats just science... and not well though.... got it?

[bjoern]

I'm guessing from this statement, that you are:
1) Not a program developer
2) clueless to how many studios use Maya.

Now the reason it is hard for Maya to push forward is that it has been around so long. It's to the point that enough clients depend on the program that an all out rewrite can't happen. The interface color change you are talking about was actually a shift towards rewriting Maya that will happen over the next few releases. That is what you're seeing now as small features.

Maya is such a gargantuan program with such a long legacy that it's going to take a while to get it modernized. It is also the only one out of the big 3 that spans all 3 OS systems.

It's not being a fanboy, but realizing that sometimes the best features are not huge bullet-point tools, but rather getting the underlying system in place so that you can continue moving forward.

It's what Apple did with Snow Leopard and what Ubuntu are doing right now as well.

again. good workflows have nothing todo with the development site... You can see that the otherway around very well, when a bunch of scientist build a tool... you then get usually a piece of unusable crap software... Thats why people that are not developer but artists (who have some technical knowledge) comunicate to the developer the right workflow.
witch would be the right way todo it.

[eikonoklastes]

Dude wake up... jeeeesssus!
everybody knows that Maya is under the hood nodeBase...
And what? who cares? Can you use it in a nodebased fashion like XSI and Houdini as a user?
NO. So then its not notbased from a usebility standpoint. End of story.... wtf...
But you can.

What's XSI/Houdini doing with nodes that Maya's not?

[dgovil]

But you can.

What's XSI/Houdini doing with nodes that Maya's not?
From a user point of view, Maya doesn't really expose the nodes, and it's often faster to work without them.

On a technical level, and correct me if I'm wrong, but XSI/Houdini take a more easy to use/build approach and divide things up into better building blocks.

I can use the nodes in Maya, but honestly I find it a pain. Even the simpler hypershade nodes are a pain to use and reconnect. I long for a Nuke style drag/drop function in the hypershade. And purely cosmetic, I really want to be able to have curvy lines. Curves are sexy.

[dgovil]

again. good workflows have nothing todo with the development site... You can see that the otherway around very well, when a bunch of scientist build a tool... you then get usually a piece of unusable crap software... Thats why people that are not developer but artists (who have some technical knowledge) comunicate to the developer the right workflow.
witch would be the right way todo it.
I understand what you're saying. I'm just saying, with the mamoth program that Maya is, I'd rather the team focus on making the existing program a lot more stable and OS portable.
Every user can ask for their own specific workflow from the team, but in that case not everyone benefits. Stability and portability benefit everyone.
You'll definitely see more feature and workflow upgrades moving forward though. WHile that's speculation on my part, I don't doubt it. But in the meantime, everyone has their own requirements from the program and the team can't appease everyone on the yearly schedule, especially when Maya has so many free/cheap extensions and tools that tie in well to fill the gaps in the mean time.

Again, I realise I sound kinda fanboyish, but having seen both sides of a similar fence before, I feel the dev teams decisions so far are on a good path.

[eikonoklastes]

From a user point of view, Maya doesn't really expose the nodes, and it's often faster to work without them.

On a technical level, and correct me if I'm wrong, but XSI/Houdini take a more easy to use/build approach and divide things up into better building blocks.

I can use the nodes in Maya, but honestly I find it a pain. Even the simpler hypershade nodes are a pain to use and reconnect. I long for a Nuke style drag/drop function in the hypershade. And purely cosmetic, I really want to be able to have curvy lines. Curves are sexy.
I'm pretty sure XSI doesn't "expose" any nodes either and that you have to open up a special window to see them. Same with Maya. Never worked with Houdini.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that the Hypershade isn't the prettiest node editor, but it's pretty snappy to work with.

In Maya you have to MMB drag and drop. Perhaps you're not aware of this. Ctrl-drop will make the default connections (usually the one you want) and just dropping will provide a list of valid inputs.

You could also RMB over the output node to get a list of outputs, pick that one and then drop it over the input node.

I'm not sure how it can get any quicker than this, and if it can, then I have to say that it's nitpicking.

[dgovil]

I'm pretty sure XSI doesn't "expose" any nodes either and that you have to open up a special window to see them. Same with Maya. Never worked with Houdini.

Look, I'll be the first to admit that the Hypershade isn't the prettiest node editor, but it's pretty snappy to work with.

In Maya you have to MMB drag and drop. Perhaps you're not aware of this. Ctrl-drop will make the default connections (usually the one you want) and just dropping will provide a list of valid inputs.

You could also RMB over the output node to get a list of outputs, pick that one and then drop it over the input node.

I'm not sure how it can get any quicker than this, and if it can, then I have to say that it's nitpicking.
Oh I know how to work in the Hypershade. Thank you though. :-)
I just find it cumbersome in it's workflow. Nothing really wrong with it, but often enough it's equally fast for me to go through the panels rather than the nodes.

A few things I'd like to see added in Maya's node view, which stops me from using it (and both Houdini and XSI have, along with Nuke and most modern node based apps)

1)Exposed inputs. In the other apps, I can quickly see what output from one node goes to which input in another node. It's clean, organize and I don't have to hover over lines to visualize what I want.

2)Tab to insert. This is such a time saver. I can literally create most trees in other programs without leaving my keyboard. It genuinly speeds up the workflow.

3)Drop connected. So that if I have a node selected and add a new node, it'll connect it by default to the most logical input. Again, coupled with the above, it speeds up creation a lot.

4)Type conversion. I know XSI and Houdini do this by default, but I would like it if Maya dropped in the appropriate converters (Color to scalar etc...) when I try and connect the values. I know Maya doesn't really have a problem, but again it's one of those things that are great.

But again, none of these are massive dealbreakers for the program, but they make it so it's rarer when I drop into the actual nodes, and I love working with nodes.


I can totally see them integrating the Max Shader network or preferably the XSI shader/node system in a future release, just like they did with the animation system in this release.



EDIT: I apologize if I'm a little nonsensical. Very, very sleepy but up reading up on shader coding. Not helping the desire to stay awake though. Haha....

[eikonoklastes]

Oh I know how to work in the Hypershade. Thank you though. :-)
I just find it cumbersome in it's workflow. Nothing really wrong with it, but often enough it's equally fast for me to go through the panels rather than the nodes.
I see where you're coming from now, sorry.

You want Maya to have a node-editing system that can be used as the primary method for scene creation.

Well, not a half bad request I suppose. I'd like to see some of the stuff you mentioned earlier make its way into Maya too.

[HystericalKeyframe]

When I listen to you people discussing on the "nodes" thing I realize how huge newbie I am at Maya :(
I don't even know what is the proper definition of "Maya nodes" is the icon for nodes the array of three gray tabs/papers/windows/whatever they are? :) And if so, may I know whats the great deal with it?
Is there a way to make your own nodes entirely inside Maya, and I don't know about it? :)
I thought all those things like nodes yo can make only using C++ or eventually using Python or MEL, and as far as I know same case is with all 3D applications? Or am I simply being wrong yet again :D

[earlyworm]

A maya scene is made up of a bunch of nodes - everything you see in the outliner is a node (cameras, geometry, lights, etc). If you right-click in the outliner and untick "Show DAG objects only" - this will show you all the nodes within the scene.

Different nodes do different things. A piece of geometry will typically have three nodes associated with it - a transform node, a shape node and a shader node - each of these stores different things. Transform nodes stores information about the translation, rotation and scale of an object, the shape contains all the information about the vertices, edges and faces that make up the mesh while the shader node containing information about how it'll be shaded.

Most of the time Maya does the connections of nodes for you, for example when you assign a texture to a shader, it'll add a file texture node and a placement2D node to the shader and automatically make the right connections for you. There are times when you want to make your own connections, with which you can use the hypergraph/hypershade to drag and drop nodes.

The node-based visual programming thing that is being argued about here is already in Maya, it's not as user-friendly or as flexible as other 3D applications like Softimage or Houdini - but it is there.

Rather than use the hypergraph or connection editor to make connections I normally write little MEL scripts to make the connections based on the objects or nodes selected within the viewport/outliner.

[rock]

Maya did have major surgery, but cosmetic surgery, not liposuction or heart surgery.

[HystericalKeyframe]

@earlyworm, thank you for the explanation. Yes then I definitely know about the nodes I just didn't realize it is all nodes :)
I still don't think that hypershade or any other editor inside Maya is bad itself, but I think its rather the hierarchy and the way that maya uses to connect those nodes. And the worst is that Maya simply doesn't do it all automatically for you most of the time and for the most important things. If it would always provide you with some default node structure whenever you create something then you'd at least know how it should be done, so you can learn from it and use it as a template for some other node-structure that you want to make.
But instead you have a bunch of nodes without any templates or explanation, that you simply don't know how to connect in order to get the desired result.

And is it possible that writing a script can be easier than connecting nodes, for some reason I can't imagine it? if yes, than I definitely seem to never glimpse any complex node structure :D

@rock, hahaha that is my signature haha! :D but yes I did agree till now, but now if 2012 proves to be as good as it sounds, I'm getting my hopes back for Maya and I won't quit it.

[Venkman]

Is viewport 2.0 an olive branch towards people with gaming class cards? From some of the impressions earlier in the thread, there has been awesome performance using gaming hardware:

I am on a i7 920 with a gtx 470 and 6gb of ram.

But in doing research on building a PC, I've found tons of threads dedicated to poor performance of gaming hardware in Maya and even Blender - especially nVidia cards. I'm hoping 2012 lowers the barrier of hardware needed to consumer tech when appropriate.

[earlyworm]

And the worst is that Maya simply doesn't do it all automatically for you most of the time and for the most important things.

Quite the opposite, Maya does most of the connecting of the various nodes for you.


If it would always provide you with some default node structure whenever you create something then you'd at least know how it should be done, so you can learn from it and use it as a template for some other node-structure that you want to make.


Open up the hypergraph and look at all the connections and how they're made - then start reading the documentation - under the technical reference is a section on all the nodes used within Maya.


And is it possible that writing a script can be easier than connecting nodes, for some reason I can't imagine it? if yes, than I definitely seem to never glimpse any complex node structure :D


Yep, it's fairly trivial (but I guess that's relative to your scripting skills). You often have to use the hypergraph and connection editor to start with to figure out what goes where. After that it's a few lines of MEL and your done.

Say you'd like to link up a dimension node (which gives you the distance between two locators) with a camera's focal length. Do you A) open up the hypergraph/shade/connectionEditor and make the connection or B) select the camera and the dimension node within the outliner/persp view and hit a button on the shelf. Personally I'd rather go with option B.

[bjoern]

But you can.

What's XSI/Houdini doing with nodes that Maya's not?

Dude... you have no cloe what you are talking about!

[tonytrout]

Is viewport 2.0 an olive branch towards people with gaming class cards? From some of the impressions earlier in the thread, there has been awesome performance using gaming hardware:



But in doing research on building a PC, I've found tons of threads dedicated to poor performance of gaming hardware in Maya and even Blender - especially nVidia cards. I'm hoping 2012 lowers the barrier of hardware needed to consumer tech when appropriate.

I am using viewport 2 on maya 2011 subscription with a gtx 285 and its working fine as far as I can see though I havent used it hugely as Ive been busy on other things

[punchatz]

The node-based visual programming thing that is being argued about here is already in Maya, it's not as user-friendly or as flexible as other 3D applications like Softimage or Houdini - but it is there.

viewport/outliner.

While its true maya is node based...its just not the same thing as something like ICE. I am by no means a maya expert but I am pretty sure you cant make a new render engine by connecting nodes in maya ... http://www.vimeo.com/20652466 .. dig around the ICE page there if you want to see how ICE is very different then the nodes that live in maya.

ICE lets you do low level coding with nodes, the nodes people refer to in maya are really not coding but more of a very powerful way to set relationships with scene objects and properties to the best of my knowledge. As a Soft user I see there are things that are easier to set up in maya because of how the hypergraph works, but you wont be recreating siggraph white papers or creating crowd controls that rival massive by connecting nodes in maya....

This not a bash on maya at all, there are many things in maya I would LOVE to have in soft, but comparing the nodes in Maya to ICE or Houdini is a bit off base.

[earlyworm]

Probably not possibly without the creation of a few new nodes (or perhaps the use of mel and some expressions if your really up for some pain), but I wouldn't say it's impossible to create your own "renderer" within Maya using nodes.

Edit: To your point that Softimage and Houdini allow (the non-technical) artist much greater flexibility and usability in doing this - yes I agree.

[HystericalKeyframe]

Quite the opposite, Maya does most of the connecting of the various nodes for you.



Open up the hypergraph and look at all the connections and how they're made - then start reading the documentation - under the technical reference is a section on all the nodes used within Maya.



Yep, it's fairly trivial (but I guess that's relative to your scripting skills). You often have to use the hypergraph and connection editor to start with to figure out what goes where. After that it's a few lines of MEL and your done.

Say you'd like to link up a dimension node (which gives you the distance between two locators) with a camera's focal length. Do you A) open up the hypergraph/shade/connectionEditor and make the connection or B) select the camera and the dimension node within the outliner/persp view and hit a button on the shelf. Personally I'd rather go with option B.

Thank you earlyworm for explanations! Many things are clearer when I hear something like that.
Luckly for me I already do many things you mentioned although I have very basic scripting skills...so yeah its pretty encouraging to know that what you are talking about is not any programming rubicon cube, but is just a bulky version of what I already do from time to time. I might spend some more time looking at the scripting editor these days definitely...

I wonder if there are some straightforward tutorials on Maya nodes in general...that would be extremely useful.

[eikonoklastes]

Dude... you have no cloe what you are talking about!I really don't. Which is why I asked the question. So are you going to answer it?

[SoulVector]

I really don't. Which is why I asked the question. So are you going to answer it?

The easiest for you to understand would probably be to watch an introduction to proceduralism through node based editing. There are some good intros on sidefx.com on the topic but basically in Houdini you have a great freedom of non destructive creating of node networks with lots of interconnections and outputs which makes it really easy to experiment with different versions of an effect. It can be achieved in Maya but most of the times it requires scripting whereas in Houdini there are nodes made for the user to solve many calculations.

[dgovil]

Regarding nodes,

I think the simplest explanation for a Maya user would be:

"Imagine everything you do can be done like it is in the Hypershade."


On a more technical level, basically Maya could potentially behave like Houdini does but the way the nodes are set up is very limited, especially in regard to how the node parameters are exposed and what you can plug into them.

I would suggest downloading Houdini Apprentice (free) and watching this tutorial http://vimeo.com/16544171

It's a short quickstart and is a good way to bite into node based workflow.

[oglu]

im not sure what maya is doing with the nodes hand how they are working internaly...
but here is an explanation whats the difference between ICE and VOPs...
and why ICE is so fast in some areas...

http://frenchdog.wordpress.com/category/dev/houdini/

the trick isnt connecting nodes... its how they working under the hood...
if you like to know more about nodes in maya check out SOUP..
http://www.soup-dev.com/index.html


...

[leviathan]

Any juicy nuggets you can give people about the plugin? It came to my attention when Star Wars the Force Unleashed used the system, but I'd love to hear more about integrating it into maya for rendering in Mental Ray.

I know people don't like the way Autodesk acquires new features, but this one always looked really, really cool to me. The other acquisition I thought was a great move was the Comet muscle system.

Sorry for the delay. I was finishing 2 Tvcs using the DMM plug-in. Now they are on air.

I used the plug-in for "destructive" purpouses. We rendered it with v-ray, not mental ray, but there should be no problem. You can see DMM in action in this Tvcs:

http://www.vimeo.com/21254693
http://www.vimeo.com/21192506

I think is a cool move from AD.

[Stellios]

Sorry for the delay. I was finishing 2 Tvcs using the DMM plug-in. Now they are on air.

I used the plug-in for "destructive" purpouses. We rendered it with v-ray, not mental ray, but there should be no problem. You can see DMM in action in this Tvcs:

http://www.vimeo.com/21254693
http://www.vimeo.com/21192506

I think is a cool move from AD.


Great work, what was your personal opinion when using DMM on this production?

[leviathan]

Great work, what was your personal opinion when using DMM on this production?

Thanks!

I really haved a lot of fun working with DMM in this production. Is the first time I worked with it and I found it fast and predictable to use.

[jasonhuang1115]

Great works! :thumbsup: Any plan to do a making-of type of stuff to share your workflow of creating these destruction and/or rendering tips in terms of rendering DMM generated stuff with Vray.
I am actually at the moment of looking for solutions for doing destruction in Maya and rendering it with Vray and your demos come right in the perfect timing.

Sorry for the delay. I was finishing 2 Tvcs using the DMM plug-in. Now they are on air.

I used the plug-in for "destructive" purpouses. We rendered it with v-ray, not mental ray, but there should be no problem. You can see DMM in action in this Tvcs:

http://www.vimeo.com/21254693
http://www.vimeo.com/21192506

I think is a cool move from AD.

[DuttyFoot]

Originally Posted by leviathan
Sorry for the delay. I was finishing 2 Tvcs using the DMM plug-in. Now they are on air.

I used the plug-in for "destructive" purpouses. We rendered it with v-ray, not mental ray, but there should be no problem. You can see DMM in action in this Tvcs:

http://www.vimeo.com/21254693
http://www.vimeo.com/21192506

I think is a cool move from AD.


the DMM plug-in seems to do a really good job. love the work on the commercial.

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