Maya tips & tricks - Page 8 - Simply Maya User Community

# 106 25-08-2005 , 05:39 AM

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Negative Lights

Maya lights are not like real lights. This is especially true for lights with a negative intensity value. Negative intensity values act like mini-black holes, actually removing light from a scene. This can be handy for enhancing mood or appearance by darkening areas that would otherwise be lighted. This example shows a -1 intensity point light in the corner of the room compared to the same scene shown with a single directional light. This is subtle difference since the negative value isn't the high and the decay is set to linear.

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# 107 25-08-2005 , 10:10 PM

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GOBOs

Gobos are images mapped to a lights color channel that creates a stencil or blocking effect. Gobos are a quick way of adding shadow effects without have to actually build model to cast the shadows. In this image the top gobo, the window, effect shows the render and the image that was used. When you assign and image to a light's color channel a new attribute tab will appear; the stencil, this is where you make most of the adjustments affecting that appearance of the gobo. The settings shown, particularly the mask settings prevents the light's cone from showing (square image over a circular light). You think of gobos without doing the bat signal or menacing shadow in a doorway so I've included these example also.

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# 108 26-08-2005 , 07:15 AM

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I need help

hey Guys !!

Plzz do me favor .. i need yr help .. i m making a fantasy Dragon ... anyone can tell me .. where i find tutorial ....Do yew know abt it .. plzzz tell me the link ...

Regards

Thanks

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# 109 26-08-2005 , 09:07 AM

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As far as I remember there is a T-Rex VIP training video on this site. It shouldn't take too much effort to change certain bit 's to make it into a dragon.

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# 110 26-08-2005 , 09:30 AM

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i have no Pints user added image

... i can't get it .... do yew another site ?

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# 111 29-08-2005 , 06:37 PM

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Rendering sub-d's using Mental Ray

Hi everyone, mhcannon asked me to post this here as it may prove useful to some of you, and I'm happy to oblige.

Right, I've noticed that some people are having problems rendering their sub-d meshes in Mental Ray. This is most probably because mental ray cannot support a sub-d mesh that has tri's in the base mesh. A neater way to render your sub-d's is to use Mental Rays approximation editor. This will attach a node to your mesh, and when you render it will look just like a sub-d. Here's how you do it.

1. Select your mesh and open up the approximation editor by going to window -> rendering editors -> mental ray -> approximation editor , and it will pop up.

2. In the approximation editor, under the bottom most set of options next to subdivision approx, click on create then edit . The attribute editor should open.

3. In the attribute editor you need to set a few options depending on how you want your sub-d to render. Set the approx method to length/distance/angle , then set the length. The lower the value you use for the length, the smoother your sub-d will be, but it will take longer to compute. Make sure that view dependant is checked on, and set the mesh conversion to none if your mesh is completely made up of quads, or to triangles to quads if you have tri's in your base mesh. It is important to set it to triangles to quads if you have tris, otherwise the sub-d won't render.

4. Thats it, and your polygon mesh should now render as a nice smooth sub-d (5)! :attn:

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# 112 29-08-2005 , 09:32 PM

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Yeah, that's a neat little tip. I haven't come accross that particular problem before, but I bet it's lurking just around the corner.

Thanks for that one!

Subdivide and conquer!

Free your mind, and your ass will follow!

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# 113 16-09-2005 , 06:35 AM

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i have a question relevant to this forum

i found a nice tip on this thread about show>isolate select>show selected. it helped me save a lot time for extruding my teeth out of the mouth cavity itself( though i am starting to wonder if that was such a good idea user added image

).
but, there is a problem with isolate select. when i try to use the paint selection tool or the split oplygon tool, the hidden geometry shows up as if it were a ghost. you cannot see the geometry, but the brush still recognizes it and moves as per the contours of the hidden geometry, rather than moving as per the faces that i am actually trying to select. is there any way of working around this?

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# 114 16-09-2005 , 09:16 AM

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split polygon tool

Ok, here’s a tip for using the split polygon tool.
Say you are modifying the polygon in the vertex or face mode, and decide that you need to split it by using the split polygon tool.
As soon as you click on the split polygon tool, your polygon quits the sub-object mode (vertex or face) and goes into the object mode.
But, right now, before you start splitting, if you hit the undo (z) key once or twice; your polygon goes back into the sub-object mode, and also, the vertex that was previously selected, is highlighted once again.
If you are going to split a complex mesh with a large number of vertices and an uneven shape; then this could be quite useful as you can use the selected vertex as a reference for splitting. Also, as you go back into the sub-object mode and start splitting, maya also highlights the next accessible edge that you could split in purple color, so that you can perform a series of splits easily. (see image)
A fairly basic tip, but thought that some of you out there might not know; as I too hadn’t discovered it for quite some time.

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# 115 16-09-2005 , 09:21 AM

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and since we are on the subject....

Also, you should make use of magnets in the ‘Edit Polygons>Split Polygons Tool>Options’ while splitting your polygonal faces. Magnets are actually the number of divisions per edge that you are splitting. Magnet Tolerance specifies how sticky your magnets are going to be. So that if you have kept the number of magnets to 1, then you split will happen either at the exact center of the edge you are splitting or, at the two extreme ends.

I hope I am making sense and don’t sound too confusing…
:p

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Last edited by utpal; 16-09-2005 at 09:26 AM.

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# 116 16-09-2005 , 02:00 PM

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Why did'nt I see this traead before??

Thanks for all the help, just read this thread form start to finish

If I come across anything cool, i'll give put a post on.

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# 117 02-10-2005 , 08:07 AM

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You have NO idea how useful that magnet-split poly option is... (Yea, I'm one of THOSE suckers who keeps subdividing faces to create extra snap-to verticies... guess I won't need it anymore :p)

As for personal tricks -- I'll start with the most basic modelling trick most people overlook (out of tedium):

When you're not sure how to reduce a mesh automatically... don't be afraid split polygons/delete faces or vertices/whatever and just using the create polygon tool with snap-to-polygons (V) to create workarounds.

My theory is -- if you're stuck on a problem, don't spend an hour trying to find out how to do it the textbook way... spend an extra 15 minutes doing it the manual way then combine and merge vertices. Maybe its just me but I seem to be quicker than my other newish buddies because they do the textbook ways when I just brute force everything I do to reach my ends.

Its all a matter of personal style though.

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# 118 05-10-2005 , 07:33 PM

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batch render/ playblast

i only just learnt this and it was v.useful.. i hope no else has mentioned it here alread - its for using the right frames per sec. see pics - now u want PAL 25 for english TV an Film 24 for film but u want the anmation settings to be in realtime (whatever u have set the frames per sec to)

pref for animat
click the box at bottom right to bring it upcheck ur settings to match above

[URL=[IMG]https://img27.imageshack.us/img27/5296/pref24bd.jpg[/IMG]]choices
chose ur settings PAL 25 for TV and 24 for Film

Now at SMU doing BSc 3D Computer Animation so its hard to get on here
My wire render tut https://forum.simplymaya.com/showthre...threadid=20973

Last edited by pbman; 05-10-2005 at 07:44 PM.

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# 119 25-10-2005 , 11:27 PM

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i can't believe

i can't believe nobody write this tip user added image

i see lots of screenshot with its windows services "Themes" turn on. well, if u want faster desktop & faster application, try change the "themes" services to "disabled", if u don't feel the fast, come and wack me up :attn:

well, u can set ur windows xp "restore" to disabled also, (only if u know the consequences), that would make ur windows more faster.

here is a website showing how to optimize windows xp
https://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html

Last edited by nowonder; 26-10-2005 at 09:10 PM.

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