Thread: Anyone Got Experience In Maya?

Sounds like a job for MSG! Where is that crazy cat.

That avatar is always creepy.

I'm not sure if you've already seen this site but take a look at it. Sorry I don't really know anything about Maya. But I thought this Tutorial would help.

Yeah I miss the Old Banana Head.

Hey Aphius you think you can create an Avatar for me, You know something like an Aphius Orignal?

Originally Posted by Ne

I'm not sure if you've already seen this site but take a look at it. Sorry I don't really know anything about Maya. But I thought this Tutorial would help.[/b]

Thanks for the link, I can't really use it yet though because it relies on the 'Modeling' menu option.
Like in this image from it:

Instead of that Modeling menu set in the drop down box, mine says "Polygons".
I mean, who knows maybe I'm just too much of a newbie and can't find it somewhere else.

Originally Posted by Ne

Hey Aphius you think you can create an Avatar for me, You know something like an Aphius Orignal?[/b]

Ooh. Well, it depends on what you want as to whether I can do that or not.

Originally Posted by Aphius

Ooh. Well, it depends on what you want as to whether I can do that or not.
[/b]

Hmmmm. good question. I'm not sure what I want. I just know your Avatars are always cool to me I like your style. I'll ponder on it and let you know in a PM. Thanks!

I see what you did there

You clicked on the shelf dropdown instead of the other one, probably because it was gone... no worries, just go to Display > UI Elements > and make sure that "Status line" is checked (hell, make sure they're all checked, from 'toolbox' up). From there you should see the other dropdown which contains the different menu sets. Each UI element thing has a little dotted button on the left of it that makes it very easy to close, you probably hit that by accident.

Ironically, I had the very same problem in Maya when I first got it

Originally Posted by MSG

I see what you did there

You clicked on the shelf dropdown instead of the other one, probably because it was gone... no worries, just go to Display > UI Elements > and make sure that "Status line" is checked (hell, make sure they're all checked, from 'toolbox' up). From there you should see the other dropdown which contains the different menu sets. Each UI element thing has a little dotted button on the left of it that makes it very easy to close, you probably hit that by accident.

Ironically, I had the very same problem in Maya when I first got it
[/b]

Thanks for the advice MSG, but I already had everything ticked there.
Here's what my options look like:

I still can't figure out what the heck is going on.

Whaaa?

That's very weird, I've never seen that

Though I noticed that it's Maya 8, which is the first version after Autodesk bought out Alias. I didn't think they changed much, but Maya practically revolves around those different menu sets. I'd say click Customize... and see where it goes, but you've probably already done that

Perhaps they split NURBS and Polygons into two menu sets, and hid NURBS elsewhere. In that case, whichever modeling tutorial you're using, simply use "Mesh" and "Edit Mesh" like it says to use "Polygons" and "Edit Polygons", etc

Originally Posted by MSG

Whaaa?

That's very weird, I've never seen that

Though I noticed that it's Maya 8, which is the first version after Autodesk bought out Alias. I didn't think they changed much, but Maya practically revolves around those different menu sets. I'd say click Customize... and see where it goes, but you've probably already done that

Perhaps they split NURBS and Polygons into two menu sets, and hid NURBS elsewhere. In that case, whichever modeling tutorial you're using, simply use "Mesh" and "Edit Mesh" like it says to use "Polygons" and "Edit Polygons", etc
[/b]

Oh, Ok. I see now.

Confirming that, I used the find menu option to search for something and it said:

No matches found.

Use wildcard characters (*) to expand your search.
Type a full name to find removed or renamed items.[/b]

So I typed in 'Merge Vertices' and it came up with:

This menu item has been renamed in Maya 8 to
[Polygons] Edit Mesh->Merge

No more matches found.[/b]

Thanks for the help on that!

Although it's no wonder I didn't find it by playing around, it doesn't really work on the thing I needed it for.

So I have another question.

I've got a model that was imported from a .obj file and no matter what I do I can't get the damn thing to smooth out.

Since it was originally from an OpenGL dumper I figured that it might have just been imported as separate faces that weren't joined, so I try the merge vertices tool on a couple, it doesn't work, so I try it on the whole shape, it doesn't work. Got any ideas? I've tried rendering it to make sure that it wasn't just the view but it doesn't change. Here's a screenshot of the view(It is on the smooth view ):

I can't get the skull or any of the other faces to smooth out like a standard polygon object created in Maya.

I'm used to 3D GameStudio which has a simple 'Merge' button that just makes it happen.

Hrm... Looks different, normally the vertices have lines connecting them when in vertices mode. Try normal-selecting it (right click -> select) and then trying Mesh->Smooth

(I'm not much into modeling though, most of my scenes consist of cubes and spheres )

If that doesn't work then lemme see your outline view with any +'s expanded (it's the icon with the white half on the toolset to the left)

Originally Posted by MSG

Hrm... Looks different, normally the vertices have lines connecting them when in vertices mode. Try normal-selecting it (right click -> select) and then trying Mesh->Smooth

(I'm not much into modeling though, most of my scenes consist of cubes and spheres )

If that doesn't work then lemme see your outline view with any +'s expanded (it's the icon with the white half on the toolset to the left)
[/b]

I tried using smooth on it before, it sub-divides the faces a lot but they don't get any smoother.
Here's my outline view:

It's selected in this pic, they have lines connnecting them when I do that.

Eek

Yeah, having seperate meshes is good for texturing and whatnot, and it's perfectly fine with IK most of the time, but if that's from an OpenGL dump like you said, then yeah it's not gonna exactly be in prime modeling/optimizing condition. Mesh -> Boolean -> Union just might work, and from there you can smooth and doodle and model and whatnot. (Looks like it's already textured, how convenient).

Well Mesh->Smooth works after using Edit Mesh->Merge but it increases the vertex count by at least 3x.
So I suppose it's a start.

I don't suppose there's any other way to smooth it without increasing the vertex count?

Originally Posted by MSG

(Looks like it's already textured, how convenient).[/b]

Well, sort of. It already had the UV mapping, I had to assign the textures manually.

Originally Posted by Aphius

I don't suppose there's any other way to smooth it without increasing the vertex count?
[/b]

I'm not exactly sure what you want here, do you mean smooth shading? If it's that then go to the attribute editor (ctrl+a), then the Shape object of the mesh.. thing (probably called MeshShape(6-15) in your case) and then RenderStats, make sure that "Smooth Shading" is ticked. This'll only affect the render, and in most cases you should have this ticked. I noticed that a lot of things get messed up when you import models, so changing attributes like this may become ritual >.>

Thanks for the tips, although smooth shading is ticked already.

This is totally frustrating.