Beaver Project???

#1

Is the Beaver Project still available? I’m an avid LW user, however, the school I go to is 99% maya so I’m required to do my animation and what not in it at least until my final project when I’ll be able to use whatever I please. I’m trying to find the easiest way to get my LW models into Maya for animation for class and then to be able to get them back to LW to render. I’ve tried the Maya2LW script, but have been unable to get it work right so far. Any suggestions would be helpful…thanks:D

#2

I’m sortof a newb but couldn’t you just save your model as a 3ds or whatever and load it into maya?

#3

Originally posted by jjburton
Is the Beaver Project still available? I’m an avid LW user, however, the school I go to is 99% maya so I’m required to do my animation and what not in it at least until my final project when I’ll be able to use whatever I please. I’m trying to find the easiest way to get my LW models into Maya for animation for class and then to be able to get them back to LW to render. I’ve tried the Maya2LW script, but have been unable to get it work right so far. Any suggestions would be helpful…thanks:D

yes. the beaver is still around. why dont you go email the programmer? there’s a contact link in beaverproject.com.

i havent tried the maya2lw script so i cant say anything about that.

but if you want to get lw model in maya, just use lw’s Export Obj saver.

#4

I feel your pain :). I just returned to SCAD to finish up my MFA. I am doing the majority of my Thesis in Lightwave. I bugged them for a few weeks before they finally installed all the Lightwave licenses. There is now a large Lightwave lab on the first floor and a larger one on the second floor! If you are taking the beginning character animation and modeling classes I would hold off on buying the Beaver Project until you are a bit farther along in your degree. If you can’t get acceptable results from the default Maya renderer, both Mental Ray for Maya and PRMAN 11 are installed in the labs. Devoting a day to doing the MTOR tutorials would probably be time well spent if at some point you are picked up by a Maya studio and do not have Lightwave to fall back on. If nothing else learning these other tools will make you appreciate Lightwave all the more!

To be honest, I go to the lab late-night to render stuff but I rarely work there, so I do not have a good sense of whether or not students are using Lightwave. Are there many of us? Good to know there is at least one other Lightwave guy around to spread the gospel!

#5

I’ve successfully taken my models from LW into Maya but none of the UV info or surface info is in tact. I can do my texturing in Maya, but I’d prefer to do it in LW.

faulknermano- I did email the programmer but haven’t heard back yet.

Fez- Definately good to know! There aren’t a lot of Wavers around SCAD that I know of, however, there are some really good ones. The guys that won the student Wavy last year, go to school here, I tried emailing them but go no response…oh well. I did however make one convert last quarter, I had a buddy who was Maya this and Maya that, and then he took Tan’s Advanced Intro to Computer Art apps. Tan teaches LW and now he’s gonna buy the student version of LW because he likes it so much:D. Most of the other 3d teachers I’ve talked to have bad perceptions of LW or just don’t have any idea what it’s capable of. I’ve got Surfaces and Shader’s (Intro Maya) class and I keep asking my professor if Maya can do this or that (this or that being things that I use a lot in LW). His answer is usually no, or I have to go through 3 submenus to get to it. Honestly, I really like some of the animation tools in Maya, and it’s texturing capabilities are pretty cool, but it feels like I’ve got 50lbs weights on my legs when I try and model. It seems to freak out (lock up or lose node info) quite a bit too. I haven’t touched much of the rest.

I’ve got a good friend who is a Renderman junkie (wants to be a TD) who will be happy to give me a hand learning it, so I might go that route. I’ve got my first character animation classes next quarter…so it’s not immediate. I like to work from home, but if I have to go in to render, I’ll just have to do it.

Thanks for the heads up on the LW labs, I’d been unable to find it. Did they at least install 7.5 on the Machines now, or is it still 7.0?

#6

Originally posted by jjburton
I’ve successfully taken my models from LW into Maya but none of the UV info or surface info is in tact. I can do my texturing in Maya, but I’d prefer to do it in LW.

Export OBJ should keep UVs intact. there was this major ‘bug’ with the 7.5 exporter though. i use the 7.0 exporter.

to properly export / import uvs from lw to maya:

1.) create UV maps.
2.) assign a texture map on those UV maps.
3.) save that object.
4.) export.

simply making a UV map wont work… it must be supplemented by assigning a texture map on it.

[QUOTE]faulknermano- I did email the programmer but haven’t heard back yet.[QUOTE]

oh ok. keep buggin him, though .:bounce: :wip: :wavey:

#7

Originally posted by faulknermano
[B]Export OBJ should keep UVs intact. there was this major ‘bug’ with the 7.5 exporter though. i use the 7.0 exporter.

I never seem to have ANY kind of luck with the OBJ exporter to maya. Things always seem to come out better with DXF. =D Don’t ask me how or why, but it seems like my model has a bad case of “what the hell just happened?” when I use the OBJ exporter. =)
Obviously I’m not the only lightwave person who goes to a Maya-obsessed school. =) Actually, I’m happy my school is obsessed with Maya. A few years ago, they were 100% 3ds Max. The sheer horror!

#8

The proper way to export from Lightwave 7.5 to Maya 4.5:

  1. Create a model.
  2. Create Surfaces.
  3. Create the UVMap.
  4. In the Surface Editor, apply your UVMap to ALL Surfaces.
  5. Select all Polys. and assign a Part Name.
  6. Export.

I’ve found Deep Exploration’s export to be the best. As for exporting from Maya to LW, I think Maya2LW will do the job.

#9

Have you guys tried using the.FBX file format yet in conjunction with Maya? I had some amount of fair success exporting LW models and scenes via the .FBX format and importing it into 3dsmax.

#10

Deep Exploration is the best. period. Even will convert most Maya “.ma” formats over to Lw and will bring some surface info (diffuse, color, transparency) from lw to Maya.

#11

Thanks for the advice, I will try them.

#12

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