Share your secret weapon...!

nottoshabi · 2003-09-11 12:55:07 UTC

I got the bonus tools for 5. But I dont know what moust of them do or how they work. Does anyone know of a read me file or anything that describes what they are and how they work?

Ocean_Size · 2003-09-12 08:23:26 UTC

Okay, this one is simple, but a lot of people seem to forget about it, I just love the Recent Commands menu under the Hotbox, I think it’s pretty handy if you don’t wanna switch menu sets or shelves constantly, I’m all about the least amount of mouse travelling possible, so this one helps to limit how often I have to drag my mouse ALL THE WAY up to the shelves tab or what have you.

Bob27 · 2003-09-18 01:46:32 UTC

I have the same question as above. Is there a guide or short tutorials for Maya 5 bonus tools ?
Also, I have downloaded from somewhere -I don’t remember-
the ByronPolytools video but where can I get the script or
plugin, a hint please…
thanks

Bpanting · 2003-09-18 07:11:29 UTC

I have downloaded from somewhere -I don’t remember-

They are not out yet. I think they just started Beta testing them and hopefuly they will be out soon…=

Levitateme · 2003-09-18 09:57:55 UTC

I am beta testin the byronpoly tools now, i think sebastian said in 1 month he is going to put them out. btw, the tools are amazing. just fyi.

Bob27 · 2003-09-18 13:59:15 UTC

thanks Levi, let us know when they are out.
What about the any Bonus Tools 5 guide ? is there any?
many of the items neeed short helps to work with.

john_homer · 2003-09-24 16:13:48 UTC

I just midified an existing copy/paste script that copied skin weights from 1 vert/cv/whatever to another, so that it averages the weights…
I’m sorry, but I cant remember who wrote the original script ;(

I use this script to smooth out weights on a per vert basis… ie. you have 1 vert that is weighted badly, but the verts either side are correct… select the 2 (or more) correct verts, run the copy script… select the bad vert, run the paste script… it will average the “copied” weights and paste them onto the bad vert(s).

another example.
you have “solid” geo built into a garment. ie buttons.
so you weight the entire surface, so it deforms right… and those pesky buttons are bending/deforming… select all the verts that make 1 button, run the copy, run the paste. now they are all weighted the same (no bending) but should move with the rest of the surface

if you are copying from 1 surface to another. they MUST be bound to the same joints. exactly

just drop them on a shelf or a hot key…
NOTE: these are 2 separate scripts…

// COPY WEIGHTS ON SELECTED COMPONENTS

float $weights[];
float $v2Weights[];
float $v2Weights[];
string $cmd;
string $vsel;
string $joints[];
float $tmpVal;
int $nJoints;
float $tmpArray0[];
float $tmpWeights;

string $expandedSel[0] = `ls -sl -flatten`;	// gets the selected object components
	// get the name of the skinCluster
string $history[] = `listHistory $expandedSel[0]`;
string $clusterNames[] = `ls -type skinCluster $history`;
string $skincl = $clusterNames[0];

int $nVerts = `size $expandedSel`;

for ($i=0; $i<$nVerts; $i++)
{
$cmd1 = "skinPercent -q -v “+$skincl+” "+$expandedSel[$i];
$weights = eval($cmd1);

$arrayCmd = ("$tmpArray" +$i + " = " + "`" + $cmd1 + "`;" );
eval $arrayCmd;

}

$nJoints = `size($tmpArray0)`;

$weights[0] = 0;

for ($i=0; $i&lt;$nJoints; $i++)
{
	for ($a=0; $a&lt;$nVerts; $a++)
	{
		$tmpStr = (("$tmpArray" + $a) + "[" + $i + "]"); // ie. "$tmpArray0[0]"
		string $tmpCmd = ("$tmpVal = " + $tmpStr);
		eval $tmpCmd;
		$tmpWeights += $tmpVal;			
	}
	$weights[$i] = ($tmpWeights / $nVerts);
	$tmpWeights = 0;
	
}

$cmd = "skinPercent -q -t "+$skincl+" "+$expandedSel[0]; 
$joints = eval($cmd);

global string $output="";
for ($n=0; $n &lt; $nJoints; $n++) {
   
        $output += ("-tv "+$joints[$n]+" "+$weights[$n]+" ");

    }

// UPDATE COMPONENT EDITOR
compEdMenuCmd CEMIAutoUpdate componentEditorPanel1WindowComponEditor;
print $output;

//-----------------------------------------------------------------

// paste WEIGHTS ONTO SELECTED COMPONENTS

string $skincl = "tunic_skinCluster";
string $vsel;
string $sel[0] = `ls -sl`;
string $history[] = `listHistory $sel[0]`;
string $clusterNames[] = `ls -type skinCluster $history`;
string $skincl = $clusterNames[0];
global string $output;
string $expandedSel[0] = `filterExpand -ex 1 -sm 28 -sm 31 -sm 46 -sm 36 $sel`;

for ($vsel in $expandedSel) {

	
	string $cmd = ("skinPercent "+$output+" "+$skincl+" "+$vsel);
	eval ($cmd);

}

// UPDATE COMPONENT EDITOR
compEdMenuCmd CEMIAutoUpdate componentEditorPanel1WindowComponEditor;

nottoshabi · 2003-09-25 14:32:22 UTC

Ohhh Wow :eek:

Thanks John I will have to play with that one just I’m a little busy now but I will definetly play with that.

Thanks a million :bowdown: …

john_homer · 2003-09-25 15:04:30 UTC

here is a simple one I use about a million times a day…

toggles xRay on/off for the current pannel (ie. the one the mouse is currently over)
you will get an error if the mouse is not over a pannel (of course

$p[0] = getPanel -wf;
modelEditor -e -xray (!modelEditor -q -xray ($p[0])) ($p[0]);

I map it to <alt X>
that way I can be panning around my model (with the alt key) and just tap X to toggle ON/OFF

john_homer · 2003-09-25 17:18:30 UTC

I also use a similar script to toggle isolate selected ON/OFF
(isloate selected rules)

string $cp = getPanel -wf;
enableIsolateSelect $cp (!isolateSelect -q -state $cp) ;

and to add an object …

string $cp = getPanel -wf;
isolateSelect -addSelected $cp;

and to remove an object …

string $cp = getPanel -wf;
isolateSelect -removeSelected $cp;

pearson · 2003-09-25 18:25:28 UTC

John, thank you!! How did I miss Isolate Selected all this time?! :surprised That is a very handy tool! Please tell me it was new in 4.0…otherwise…

macaroniKazoo · 2003-09-25 21:53:36 UTC

if anyone uses quick selection sets for their characters (real cool, and super fast way of selecting a bunch of objects) check out this script: zzSetMenu

also, for those that do heaps of animation, if you ever need to copy animation to/from another character, this script is pretty useful too: zooXferAnim

john_homer · 2003-09-25 22:59:39 UTC

Originally posted by pearson
John, thank you!! How did I miss Isolate Selected all this time?! :surprised That is a very handy tool! Please tell me it was new in 4.0…otherwise…

I think its been around for a while… but then again so has maya 4 hehe

here’s another handy one for anyone working with polys (or anything)… the undo list can use up a ton of RAM on those little buggers… so if you know you are at a safe place to do so… you can flush the undo cache with the command…
flushUndo

I’ve seen this little trick hand back hundreds of MB in seconds, after an hour or so of poly moddeling with unlimited undos…

.j

macaroniKazoo · 2003-09-25 23:03:12 UTC

I always set my undo queue to something like 250. Its still comfortably large enough to hold all undos I may need to do, but its not big enough to devour all my ram. I hate using flush undo because i know that as soon as i use it, I’m gonna want to undo back one too many times. I’ve never worn out 200 undo levels though…

paradisio · 2003-09-29 22:34:23 UTC

Honestly I have none… I just spent 7 hours trying to position images for reference in the picture… and there were only two…

And now I have all these freaking “folds” now that I have started modelling…

I’m gonna go…

CoolDuck_HRO · 2003-10-02 11:50:26 UTC

I can’t live without the merge faces tool. A MEL script at highend3d, it’s called Rage Merge Faces, great for correcting meshes.
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/mel/?group=melscripts&section=polygon&sort=

Also can’t live with target weld. Also a MEL script. With target weld you get to pick one vertex and a second one to merge to. Very quick and handy.
http://www.users.on.net/neilandbron/

One more thing that’s really handy. You get to toggle between subD and Poly like the TAB in Lightwave.
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/mel/?group=melscripts&section=polygon&sort=
(toggle subdivision surfaces v2.1)

alesmav · 2003-10-03 06:27:10 UTC

Ho!

2 tips…

Sometimes you have to dig for a node in the hypershade. If you see the node name in the channel box, simply copy/paste that name into the field entry (upper right part of your status line) and you have the node selected without digging

If you find the texture in your render too blurry (often happens with textures containing sharp lines like text) set the texture from default Quadratic to Mipmap)

ALES

nanoma · 2003-10-03 10:25:09 UTC

One of my favorite is the Polygon Sculpt Tools>Import Attribute Map. Instead of sculpting polygon directly in maya, paint any color or B/W image and use them to reshape the model accordingly. It can be used to create coarse folds on clothings, landscape, etc.

john_homer · 2003-10-14 20:30:13 UTC

here is a quickie I wrote in an add break last night for a workmate that was sick of maya’s crappy proportional modification tool…

select some components and run it.
just makes a cluster and smooths it $i times ($i is a number derrived from the number of components selected)
so it fades off nicely to the edge of the selection

// script follows…

ConvertSelectionToVertices;
string $sel[] = ls -sl -flatten;
int $numSel = size($sel);
string $buffer[];

int $smoothNum = $numSel/2;
$numTok = tokenize $sel[0] "." $buffer;
string $objName = $buffer[0];
string $cC[] = newCluster " -relative -envelope 1";
select -r $objName;
artSetToolAndSelectAttr( “artAttrCtx”, (“cluster.” + $cC[0] + “.weights”));
artAttrInitPaintableAttr;
artAttrPaintOperation artAttrCtx Smooth;
for ($i=1; $i<$smoothNum; $i++)
{
artAttrCtx -e -clear currentCtx;
}
select -r ($cC[0] + “Handle”);
setToolTo $gMove;

Pumuckle · 2003-10-16 22:42:22 UTC

i looove the extrude polygons tool, it is priceless