Vue - Maya workflow

#1

Hi!

This may be a pretty stupid question to ask, but it’s pretty hard to get any information on this by googling.

I have never worked with vue so far, but am highly interested in using it in the future.
I’m currently using Maya and was going to buy Renderman for, well… rendering ^^
So how does the workflow between maya and vue work? Let’s say you want to model and animate in maya and create a background for lets say a flying plane in vue. Are you forced to finish your animation in maya, then import everything into vue and do the rest there?
As far as i know you can also import the goemetry from vue into other 3D programms, is it still possible to use vue’s atmospheric effects and dynamics?
How does one usually solve those things? I’d really like to combine the modeling and animation tools from maya, the rendering possibilities from renderman and the environment creation and atmospheric effects from vue. Is that even possible?

Thank you very much in advance. This is giving me a total headache right now :wink:

Alex

#2

Hi Alex,

I am hardly an expert on Vue, but since I am in a same position like you and also trying to incorporate it into maya workflow,here’s what I found so far…

  1. I am not sure you can even use rMan with vue, as I know MR is the only one supported currently. For example, when I’ve imported my scene and tried Vray, Vue objects were ignored, simple as that. I guess that would happen with rMan as well, but check that out with e-on before buying it…

  2. As for the workflow, you can use vue for some simple anims, but I prefer main app for that, and only using it for environment. It’s ok in a way, with a maya plugin, you get a menu for vue objects so you can easily import them and edit directly in maya. I think that going back and forth is also possible, but with vue synch software.

  3. Ideally, you model what you need in maya, let’s say architectural complex, then send it to vue to add foliage, trees, etc… then bring it back for rendering or so…

that’s where I came so far, I haven’t really tested it on larger scale projects yet, but I intend to… I also saw there are some libraries of people and similar, dunno if anyone used that… ?

hope it helps,
regards
Dejan

#3

thanks for sharing that!

I read somewhere that you cannot export eco systems from vue into other 3D software. now what defines an eco system? is that all kinds of foliage or only those that grow and change during the animation? is there a way to pre animate them unsing vue and get them into maya with the keyframes already applied?

I also found another plugin from e-on called “ozone”, that can create the athmospheric effects featured in the vue standalone. would be interesting to know, if that can be combined with any rendermodule or if it also brings its own renderengine.

my idea of how a workflow may work looks like this so far:

  1. model and animate in maya, creating only a reference for the parts you want to have from vue

  2. get a low poly version of your maya scene in vue and create the environment

  3. get your fully animated environment into maya and finalize animation, textures and lighting

  4. use ozone to create the lighting effects you want

  5. breakdown everything into renderlayers or renderpasses in maya

  6. render with renderman, vray or whatever

now this may only work, if you can get the vue geometry and lighting effects to work with vray, renderman etc., which I’m starting to doubt.

more important would be if there is a way to get the fully animated foliage to work end render in maya. creating those nice influences you can get from vue in maya would be a real pain in the a**.

I’d be thankful for any further information on this topic.

Greetz,
Alex

#4

Sorry for the double-posting, but this may be interesting for others, too.

I did some more reading on the eon homepage and as it appears the best solution for the maya-workflow-problem would be to use Vue xStream, which is able to be used as a fully integrated plugin to maya. It will render all Vue elements in an own process, but still fully integrate it to the rendered image in maya. Unfortunately it is only compatible with maya software and Mental Ray, not with VRay or RenderMan.

It provides all features of vue, including the foliage positioning tools, the lighting and rendering functions and the environment generator. The only chance to combine it with other renderengines would be to render different layers and compose them. Unfortuanately the most interesting features of vue such as the atmospheric effects and the environmental lighting will not interact with the layers coming from other renderers.

The features of RenderMan, that I am most interested in are the displacement tools it provides and the very good depth of field. As it seems it is nearly impossible to get to use them with the vue features… There’s got to be a way!

If anyone’s got an idea, please share it with us. :slight_smile:

#5

There is no way, plain and simple. You use Mental Ray for Xstream. What exactly woudl you be using displacements on for a landscape?

One way to possibly achieve what you are after is to use render layers. Use renderman on a render layer to render objects, use MR for the Vue stuff. As for DOF, you’ll be screwed as Xstream will do that w/MR. You’d have to do the math to match up your render layer renderman DOF.

Don’t be afraid of MR. It does work.

#6

Well, I don’t exactly want to use the displacement ON the the environment, but in the same shot. Lets say I have an airplane flying over the jungle. Now I want to have some screws on the airplane made with displacement and some nice DoF. Thats my point! I’ll never get the airplane fit exactly into the background when using different renderers.

But I got what you say. It just won’t work. Alright then, I’ll have to find workarounds depending on the project. It’s gona work somehow though…

I just downloaded the PLE of Vue xStream. It renders forever on my machine :frowning: But everything does ^^I’ll get a new one soon, and hope that’s gonna work better.

Still, thanks!

Alex

#7

Hey all,

I’m a noob to Vue 7. Just starting out. Need help regarding matting objects for comp. If I wanted to place a building in a forest, would I mask out the building with a black shader? Or would I apply the mask to all the Vue geo? Thanks in advance.

#8

…I hate to be a naysayer, and I’ve been in your shoes exactly, wanting to integrate Vue and Maya together. I’ll just tell you that xStream for Maya is garbage, and buggy, and generally useless. You’ll be better off doing your environment in Vue standalone (Infinite, don’t waste the extra money on xStream) and your plane animation in Maya, then compositing them in After Effects or whatever you use.

I have never been able to get Vue xStream and Maya to work together, and nobody else I’ve talked to has either. It almost appears as if Eon never even tested their Maya plug-in.

If anyone has ever made xStream for Maya work, I’ll gladly bite my tongue and learn how.

#9

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