strange transparency toggling in maya 2013

# 1 19-11-2012 , 08:59 AM

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Hey guys,

I am transitioning to maya 2013 and I am having a strange issue with transparency toggling for no apparent reason when I apply a material with an image applied to the color channel.

Here is a video to show the problem. Does anyone know why this is happening and how to make it bloody stop because it's making me lose my mind!

I thought it was because of inherent alpha support in png files and the image I was using said it was 32bit. But I tried it with a 24bit jpeg and I get the exact same behavior. The image initially comes in with transparency and then if I go downstream of the color channel the transparency toggles!!!

https://youtu.be/65iYasAgqpE

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 2 19-11-2012 , 12:36 PM

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There is a new setting in panels\shading\poligon transparencey sorting could it be that..........dave

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# 3 19-11-2012 , 12:59 PM

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I will check dave but I do not think that is it. I did some more investigating and what is happening is every time I go to the file tab the color gain under color balance is magically toggling between 1 and .5.

I have no clue what is causing it and I know it cannot be the default behavior and I have of course wiped the maya folder to reset to all default settings.

I made another video to show the color gain going back and forth from 1 to .5 every time I toggle the place2d and file tabs.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 20-11-2012 at 07:49 PM.

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# 4 19-11-2012 , 05:57 PM

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It has to have something to do with certain scene files. I create a brand new scene and bring that same image in and I do not have the color gain going back and forth between 1.0 and .5 every time I go to the color channel.

But if I open any of the scenes that have that happening then not only does it toggle in that scene but every scene I open from that point on.

Whatever it is it appears to be embedded in the scene file itself because wiping the maya folder does not clear it.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 5 19-11-2012 , 06:16 PM

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Narrowing it down guys. It looks like it's a plugin. I opened a new file and looked at the default plugins that were getting loaded and there were a bunch I had never seen before so I just turned them ALL off and the problem went away.

I'll systematically go through when I have more time and find out which one was causing it and will post in this thread so if anyone else stumbles on it they won't have to pull their hair out for a day tracking it down.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 6 19-11-2012 , 06:41 PM

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SOLVED

It turns out this is being caused by my maxwell.mll plugin. The is version 2.7.20 x64 and maya 2013 x64 SP2.

I have notified both next limit and autodesk. Also, once enabled in a scene the maxwell.mll cannot be disabled. It embeds itself in the scene and what is worse if you create a new scene it will stay on and be forever embedded in the new scene!

And this is why I hate using plugins in Maya. This cost me an entire day and I don't get paid to debug 3rd party plugins!

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 19-11-2012 at 09:03 PM.

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# 7 20-11-2012 , 12:44 AM

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You should be able to turn it off by searching for its node types. Eg:

Code:

ls -type "typeName"

Where type name is the strings under "Dependency nodes" in the plugin information window. You can get some nice information about plugins with the pluginInfo command as well: https://download.autodesk.com/us/maya...luginInfo.html

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

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# 8 20-11-2012 , 01:06 AM

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Thanks ND unfortunately it's blank under the dependency nodes section. I tried searching with the node editor but not really knowing what to look for I just gave up.

I can export everything in the scene to obj and that clears the offending node then open a fresh scene and import the obj back in.

I just heard back from next limit support and I guess this is a known issue with maya 2013 and they are working on a fix in the next update.

Thank you for not saying Maya hates me! It's funny I was so mad last night I had to make a video showing the color gain toggling magically between 1.0 and 0.5 for no apparent reason and sent it to Dave. It was 4 minutes of me just screaming and cussing like a sailor!

I was like why the hell do I have no problems with any other software, only maya!!!! I sent him a skype message saying if ND says "maya hates me" I swear to god I am going to pop a gasket!!!

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 20-11-2012 at 07:51 PM.

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# 9 20-11-2012 , 02:14 AM

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If you were to pop a "gasket", I would advise you to rethink your priorities. Getting that taken a look at perhaps? user added image

Edit: Also, one thing you could do is save a clean scene as a .ma, then turn on the plugin, save it as a new ma, and diff the two files. That should show you what it's embedding.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Last edited by NextDesign; 20-11-2012 at 02:22 AM.

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