How to transfer models from Rhino to Maya

#1

hi everyone!

Im working with a modeller who works with Rhino and the workflow right now is a totally pain and time consuming.

I have to animate and render a mechanical design but the files I recieved are impossible to solve.

My deadlines are near and Im starting to going crazy.

¿Whats the correct workflow for transfer models from Rhino to Maya (assume we are going to work with animation and polygon mesh)?

I´ve read a few wikis and saw some videos but nothing solves my problem.

We tried first with obj and fbx without converto to mesh, absolute mess.

Now we are working with .iegs files…but I cant work with that. The forms are there (and so much more), but after the cleanup I´ve founded that a simple small piece of my model have at least 60 parts. Maya is not NURBS friendly I havent enough time to convert that 60 pieces to meshes, joining them, clean…and continues with other 100 parts of the model. I cant even work grouping that, because tiny gaps may make problems with rendering and its (almost) imposible to work with textures or animation having 60 pieces in one small part.

We havent tried yet to convert from NURBS to mesh into Rhino ¿is that the solution? ¿it wont create to much crapy tessellation and triangles?

¿Or is that we have to join surfaces into Rhino (don’t know if that is even possible)?
¿Is there any plugin or converter? ¿Anything else I missed?

Or the realistic answer is “redo all in Maya”

Thanks a lot to everyone for your help

#2

Use the .OBJ format.

Rhino already converts everything to meshes upon export, including simple UVs and also Normals. You can check and fix the Normals in Rhino but its UV Editor isn’t very good. You may need to tweak some Normals in Maya regardless, and of course redo the UV-maps in Maya.

The trick is in the Export options for the .OBJ file format, when exporting from Rhino. What you will want to do to eliminate clutter in Maya is export the file with OBJ “groups” set to the Rhino Layers. So your Rhino guy needs to set each relevant piece on its own layer, inside Rhino, and then Rhino will give that particular object its own name and geometry in the .OBJ file, which Maya will then read as separate, appropriately-named objects.

These options above would export EACH separate petal as its own object. If you, for example, wanted each LAYER as its own object (merging every object on that Layer to one single object), you would pick “Do not export object names” under the “Export Rhino object names” section". Please don’t confuse this with the “Export Rhino layer/group names” section, as they seem similar at first.

I also use Rhino as my chief modeler for anything NURBS, and it’s been part of my workflow along with Maya for arch/viz for well over a decade. If you need any further help, please let me know.

#3

And here it is inside Maya. I chose this Orchid I’d modeled the other day to show the flexibility for you. In some cases, you might want each corresponding petal of each flower to be separate, or to be combined into one mesh in Maya for simple UV-mapping and texturing. Using the options I posted above, like I said, this particular model has EVERY petal and leaf and stem separate, and numbered as well. Not necessarily ideal for texturing/UV-mapping, but the “Do not export object names” option I described above would switch this. Helps to declutter complex models.

But as you can see, it works perfectly in Maya. FBX may also work perfectly, and in both cases Rhino automatically meshes the objects first upon Export, but I still just use the OBJ format since it works fine.

#4

[quote=InfernalDarkness][/quote]
Thanks a lot, I gonna try that workflow this evening a post the results.

#5

It works!

Thanks InfernalDarkness, you save me.

#6

You’re very welcome!

Rhino has the best NURBS around for stuff like this, short of SolidWorks or CATIA which are daunting and difficult to learn in comparison.

Good luck!

#7

It’s impressive to see Rhino still used for this type of modeling, especially when the model still ends up in a package like maya with ‘comprehensive’ tools for poly modeling :smiley:

#8

That’s because Rhino is a NURBS modeler, not a poly modeling tool. If you want to model with polygons Maya is pretty sweet (with some plugins or scripts here and there to help out, obviously), but Maya’s NURBS were only meant for VFX, never for accuracy or “heavy lifting”. They’re not even playing the same sport. And Rhino is blazing fast on modern CPUs as well, though I never use it for rendering. It basically replaced AutoCAD in my workflow, some ten years ago now. I even use Rhino for all my permit plans, site plans, and construction plans. Sometimes logos and stuff like that too, outside of arch/viz.

Some things you can do just fine with polygons, and some things you can do much faster or better with NURBS.

Another fun example, yesterday I was modeling some curtains for a scene in Rhino and it just never looked proper. So for the first time in ages I used Maya’s NURBS to make curtains and nCloth to animate them into position, then froze 'em. It worked out great, just one of those things where there’s more than one way to skin a cat, but there’s always a cleanest, best way too!