Share your secret weapon...!

#541

didnt work for me in maya 2012…put the import maya.cmds part in also…

#542

CTRL + SHIFT + Right mouse button, then select axis.

#543

Or you can also use the manipulator’s hotkey + hold left click to bring up a context marking menu. E.g. ‘e’ + left click is the axis options for the rotation tool.

#544

I made a script recently for Maya which builds shader networks automatically- basically it connects all your file textures for an object into a new shader graph- instead of having to manually assign for eg- ‘apple_d.jpg’, to the diffuse slot, ‘apple_b’ to the bump slot, ‘apple_sg’ to the specular gloss slot, the script does it all with just a couple of clicks.

This can massively speed up material creation if you have lots of objects and existing file textures for them…

http://lesterbanks.com/2013/05/texture-robot-automates-file-texture-assignments-in-maya/

The script is working now with the mia_material_x shader, but I will develop it further to support Vray and Arnold shaders as well. There are also some other features in the works-

Hope this is useful to someone-
Cheers,

http://materialism-blog.blogspot.com/

#545

Custom shelf with built in tools and the following:

sort circle (makes a circle based off of edges or edgeloop)

Gamma Correct script

FGshooter (for final gather flicker reduction in animation)

pipemaker (makes pipes)

FroTools and FroTopo (better than the modeling kit/NEX imo)

Transfer Multiple UVS script (transfer one uv to multiple objects…works every time)

I mostly model environments/props and light,texture, render.

#546

Modeling with a Wacom Tablet+Marking menus

FOR EXAMPLE: I have a marking menu to switch scale modes between feet, inches, meters, and centimeters. Makes building objects to scale super quick.

#547

New Maya user from Softimage (so hopefully can bring another angle to this…)
In the spirit of thanks for the pointers …

This pops up the Attribute editor on the last op, so if I am bevelling and I want all the controls to pop up, I map this to shift+s (I just like using attribute editor and having access to all attributes.)

//=================================================================
global proc aed_LastOpInStack(){
//This fills the textScrolllist…
string $his[] = listHistory -leaf true; //show history of shape node.

if( size($his)>1  ){
    showEditorExact($his[1]);
    }
else{
    error "can't find last operator in stack.";
    }

//showEditorExact($node[0]);

}
//=================================================================

#548

This is super useful too, couldn’t figure out how to script realigning the pivot, but then found this…
Also modified it by sticking in a CenterPivot; for my own use…

Select a face and run it, so if the orientation of the pivot has gone wayward this will line it up using
a face for reference… This changes the object pivot - not custom axis orientation.

http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/align-pivot-to-selection-mel

#549

Simple script to combine common operations. Use this every 5 min.

//centre pivot, freeze modelling, move to zero and
//zero out transf.
//map to keyboard c+s+f is my shortcut…

global proc aed_SuperFreeze()
{
CenterPivot;
delete -ch;//freeze
move -rpr 0 0 0 ;
makeIdentity -apply true -t 1 -r 1 -s 1 -n 1 -pn 1;
delete -ch;//freeze again.
//Calls another script for screen feedback.
//aed_message “Super Freeze”; // feedback.

}

#550

Pulled my hair for soo long with the grow selection randomly stopped working.

Solution: press shift + alt to get the keyboard layout go from eng to you native language.
=)

#551

So when you’re uv unwrapping a model, its better to uv little bit of the model at a time then stitching them together than to uv an entire side… that way your texture is going to wrap nicely around your model with little to no stretching.

#552

There are no “right” or “wrong” ways to UV-unwrap something - different people have different methods. I myself start with a rough unwrap of the entire model, applies a checker shader and then goes loose cutting and sewing - doing multiple unwraps along the way.
After everything is unwrapped properly, I set the texel density of my shells, calculate the pixel and unit width needed between shells (which should be 4px to start with, but has to be doubled for each additional LOD-model. So original model +1 LOD step = 8px spacing). The spacing is important to prevent bleeding (which may become a problem on your mipmaps). After that I layout and render out the UV-layout.

#553

My secret weapon? A 3Dconnexion Space Pilot Pro with the programmable buttons assigned to shortcuts I use repetitively. With my Logitech mouse, I reset the back button to be “Enter”. I barely ever touch my keyboard when modeling now.

For my button layout when doing retopology:

1: Select tool
2: Multicut
3. Delete history
4. Increment and Save

I’m re-evaluating what I really use and how much so I can utilize 5-10. I may use 1-5 as modeling and 6-10 as rigging.

#554

Secret weapon - using Light cache in Vray. With Brute force primary and Light cache secondary, I get renders that are about the same speed as those with no GI at all. Using Irradiance cache primary with light cache secondary, everything renders faster than it would without GI… it frequently flickers of course, but in cases where it doesn’t, or if you can beat the flicker with baking or just the right settings, it just rips a hole in space-time. I’ve had final renders finish in 2 minutes with GI, glossy reflections, and motion blur. That’s not even Vray 3.0, I haven’t upgraded yet, apparently it’s even faster

#555

Self shadow on clouds :slight_smile: looks much better no matter what the rest of your shading settings are!

#556

My secret weapon is move key expression in a few buttons. Move all keys for selected objects by 1, by 2 , by 5 and by 10 and of course negative value. This helps me create a procedural animation very quickly. Reaveal bones for example, scale and move multiple objects, unhide an hide. Shure, could do this by simple scripts, by if i have to do something very quickly i use this manner.

#557

i like the drawSplit Tool… you can also set it to mulit splice and get multiple evenly spaced cvs.

maya tutorials

#558

Hi Guys this is a Trick to fasten the Rendering Speed in 3ds Max Vray. Defaultly Rendering is done by our computers Intel processor ( CPU ) and the computer Graphic card (GPU ) is not in use.
This video shows you how can we use Graphic card to fasten up the rendering speed.

THIS TRICK WORKS FOR ME HOPE IT WORKS FOR YOU GUYS.

Here is the video of the trick : https://youtu.be/FIrcEChHMcA

#559

I think everyone know this tool but the options in it so flexible and im using it a lot since I notice it

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slice_01
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slice_02
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slice_03

I hope its useful :slight_smile:

#560

Not sure anyone mentioned but the time editor is amazing. The fact you could bring in 2 animations and it will blend pretty close to seamless is such a timesaver.