Total Newb Maya questions

[Springheel]

Ok, I've got myself a copy of Maya 7.0, and I'll be slowly learning my way through it...apparently it has a steep learning curve. I'll ask all my stupid questions here.

 

 

Stupid question #1...how do I load character models into Maya? It doesn't seem to recognize .lwos. A quick scan of the Maya forum at D3 world found lots of threads about exporting to various formats but virtually none about importing. Do I have to convert the .lwos to another format with another program first?

[Crispy]

A quick Google turns up importing plugins and conversion programs. I'm pretty sure there's no native import, but you should be able to do it via one of those means.

[ascottk]

Maya has a severe lack of importers so Deep Exploration works well for this. Why lwo files for character models? model_src on svn is still up & those have all of the mb files for characters.

[Springheel]

Why lwo files for character models? model_src on svn is still up & those have all of the mb files for characters.

 

The characters I've been making are .lwos, and the ones Odd made that still need to be rigged are as well, I believe.

 

I guess I have to track down another program? Bleh.

[squill]

If you have lightwave installed you could load up the lwo's and export them to OBJ. Most 3D apps can open these files like Maya, Max, Deep etc.

 

Why lwo files for character models? model_src on svn is still up & those have all of the mb files for characters.

 

Most of them were exported from LW to maya i believe. It doesn't matter though in what program your modelling as long as you can export them to a readable format like obj to do rigging etc.

 

Also we have been using Motion builder to animate but has anyone though about charater sets in Maya? It's the same with animated clips in MB and easy to share existing animations without having to import the same animation again from MB.

[oDDity]

You can't export lwo as obj from lightwave. The ligtwave obj exporter is archaic and doesn't export UVs (lightwave is the oldest 3d app by a long way, it started back in '89). Use deep exploraiton to convert the lwo to obj (or just direct to mb) and import them in maya. You may have to go to window-preferences-plugins and load the object import plugin (it's either that or the obj export plugin that isn't loaded by default)

[Springheel]

Ok, I think I saw the .obj plugin, but it needs to be set to load by default. I'll start looking for Deep Exploration then. Thanks. Lots I can learn about in the meantime.

[Springheel]

Hmm. I'm finding skin weighting very difficult. When I use the skin painting tool it doesn't look like the tutorials...it seems to shade only one polygon at a time, and sometimes won't shade some at all. It doesn't paint smoothly like the examples I've looked at. Am I doing something wrong?

 

[oDDity]

It's only the vertices, the corner points, that are affected, not the area of the polygon. You can increase the size of the brush to cover more area. Hold down b and drag.

Another method is to use the component editor. Just select vertices that you want to be weighted to the head bone, go to windows/general editors/component editor - smooth skins tab, and you can set there want bone you want them weighted to by clicking on the first value in a bone column, holding and dragging down to the bottom and typing in a value and hitting the enter key.

[Springheel]

Hmm, ok, thanks I'll take a look at that. The tutorials I'm looking at look quite different than my experience. They seem to have a 'fade', as if you're painting with a soft-edged brush.

 

 

Mine seems to affect the entire tris at once, though I wasn't specifically trying to target verts, so I'll see how that works.

 

edit: Ah, thanks, that helps. It was a combination of me not targeting the vertices and the brush being too large.

[Crispy]

You probably figured this out already: That "fade" is simply a result of some of the verts forming a polygon being weighted to the joint, and other verts forming the polygon not being weighted to it. It's just shading the polygons between the vertices, so you can see the "colour" of the vertices more easily.

[Springheel]

What is the value of the "origin bone"? All the D3 models I look at seem to have them, but in the Maya skeleton tutorial I followed, it said nothing about it. Do I need to add a joint at that spot to keep the model from clipping into the floor?

[ascottk]

What is the value of the "origin bone"? All the D3 models I look at seem to have them, but in the Maya skeleton tutorial I followed, it said nothing about it. Do I need to add a joint at that spot to keep the model from clipping into the floor?

It does need the origin joint for moving or AI would walk in place, but it doesn't need to be weighted to anything since D3 automatically includes the origin when exporting.

[rebb]

Hmm. I'm finding skin weighting very difficult. When I use the skin painting tool it doesn't look like the tutorials...it seems to shade only one polygon at a time, and sometimes won't shade some at all. It doesn't paint smoothly like the examples I've looked at. Am I doing something wrong?

 

 

It seems as if your Vertices aren't merged on this model, possibly from some kind of botched import/export.

 

You could try selecting all Vertices you want to merge, and then use "Merge Vertices" with a really low threshold like 0.0001 to see if it helps.

[Springheel]

It was actually just me using an insanely large brush.

[Springheel]

I'm not convinced I'm going to be able to use the Lightwave Md5Mesh exporter for everything I'd like to do...it just isn't widely used, so support or technical questions generally don't get answered. Additionally, it is incompatible with the Maya method, so any changes I make to things become difficult for anyone else to edit.

 

So, I'm basically going to need to learn how to rig in Maya, and hope that I can do most of the actual modeling in Lightwave. I'm not excited about trying to figure out a totally new modeling program...I feel like I've only just gotten comfortable with Lightwave.

 

I'm going through tutorials and videos, but I'm bound to have a lot of newb questions that they assume people already know.

 

1. In Lightwave, you can make a weightmap for a mesh even if there is no skeleton present--the weightmap will automatically work with any skeleton you import as long as the names of the joints match the names of the weightmap. Is this also possible with Maya? If so, how do you see what a vert is weighted to when no skeleton is present?

 

2. Is "model_src/ai_parts_mb svn folder called "tdm_rig_base.mb". (taken from the wiki)" still the default skeleton we are using for TDM AI?

 

3. And a really newb question...how do you view layers in Maya?

 

4. Is there a good md5mesh importer for Maya 7.0?

[squill]

1. In Lightwave, you can make a weightmap for a mesh even if there is no skeleton present--the weightmap will automatically work with any skeleton you import as long as the names of the joints match the names of the weightmap. Is this also possible with Maya? If so, how do you see what a vert is weighted to when no skeleton is present?

 

i don't believe that's possible in Maya although you can save your weight maps. But i haven't used that before.

 

2. Is "model_src/ai_parts_mb svn folder called "tdm_rig_base.mb". (taken from the wiki)" still the default skeleton we are using for TDM AI?

 

from what i'm seeing in model_src it seems to be the case.

 

 

3. And a really newb question...how do you view layers in Maya?

 

Like the display layers in Lightwave? If you go to the toolbox (right-side menu) in Maya there is a section below in which you can create display layers for your objects. Another useful menu is the outliner which displays all(most) your objects.

 

4. Is there a good md5mesh importer for Maya 7.0?

 

On the Doom3world forum i once found a working md5mesh converter. It converts to obj which is easy to import into Maya. I'll upload the file.

[Springheel]

On the Doom3world forum i once found a working md5mesh converter. It converts to obj which is easy to import into Maya.

 

I'll tell you why I'm asking. When I was making those adjustments to the citywatch to allow for those alternate skins, I found it relatively easy. With the Lightwave import/exporter, I was able to load the md5mesh directly, convert them to LW objects (the skelton is stripped away), and make any modelling changes I want to the meshes. The weightmaps were preserved, so I then only had to load up the bones from the original, save, and presto, new and improved md5mesh.

 

But if I wanted to use Deep Exploration to convert the new and improved mesh to MB, I've been told that the weightmap will NOT be saved (and how could it, if Maya doesn't allow a weightmap with no skeleton?). Which means, making any changes to the mesh (even something minor like removing the shadow head from the builder guard) would force me to entirely repaint the weightmap. That's not worth it for all but the most major changes.

 

The other option, of course, is to learn how to model in Maya, so I could make the changes to the mesh there. I'm not sure this is likely to happen fast enough to be useful, as it took me a year or so to get to the stage I am with Lightwave, which is just barely enough to do what needs to be done to the AI models.

[rebb]

I only quickly checked over the Skins Menu in Maya and saw the "Substitute Geometry" Item there.

Maybe this is what you are looking for ?

 

Here's a Tutorial how to use it :

http://downloads.alias.com/mkt/gmk_maya7_skin_weights.swf

 

edit :

 

And a thread about an import script :

 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic...p;sk=t&sd=a

[Springheel]

I've downloaded the md5toMaya_019b.mel script, but I'm not sure exactly what to do with it. There is no readme file with it, so I'm not sure where it is supposed to go, or whether you have to 'install' it into Maya like you do with Lightwave Plugins. Can someone help me out?

[Flanders]

this is how I do it:

Save the md5toMaya_019b.mel in your maya/scripts folder.

for me that's

 

C:/Documents and Settings/Flanders/Mijn documenten/maya/scripts/Md5toMaya_019b.mel

 

In Maya next to the horizontal line of grey buttons there's a black triangle, hold it down and open the shelf editor.

Under shelves, create new shelf and name it something like custom_buttons.

 

In the shelves tab I can't see something like create new button so I do this:

Open up the script editor (window->general editors->script editor or ScriptEditor in the command line).

Type something in the script editor, just 'blah'. Select the text and do file->save selected to shelf, name it md5import.

Reopen the shelf editor and your new button should be under shelf contents, select it and then select the tab edit commands and paste this into it:

 

source "C:/Documents and Settings/Flanders/Mijn documenten/maya/scripts/Md5toMaya_019b.mel";

md5import;

 

keypad enter to save the command and then save all shelves. No when you press the new button you should see a window with something like import mesh and import animation. It's not so straight forward, dunno if there's an easier way.

 

Try it a doom 3 creature (you need to extract the models from pak002.pk4 in the base folder first). It's really cool to see those animations!

[Flanders]

I got a newb question about Maya too.

If I want to help making some animations, what kind of tools do I need to learn if a fully rigged/weighted model is available? For the small tasks I've done so far I've only used key snapping. Is that enough for simple animations? Or do I need to learn how to use the graph editor or anything else?

[Springheel]

No when you press the new button you should see a window with something like import mesh and import animation. It's not so straight forward, dunno if there's an easier way.

 

Thanks I'll give that a try.

[Flanders]

It's been a while since I posted this question for the animators, let's try again.

 

I got a newb question about Maya too.

If I want to help making some animations, what kind of tools do I need to learn if a fully rigged/weighted model is available? For the small tasks I've done so far I've only used key snapping. Is that enough for simple animations? Or do I need to learn how to use the graph editor or anything else?

[Crispy]

I'm not an animator, but I've dabbled (on TDM-stuff) in the past: As long as you get good results, I don't think it matters too much what methods you use.

 

Having said that, without the graph editor it would seem difficult to get good results. In my experience the graph editor is extremely valuable. It helps debug a lot of animation weirdness, and it's not difficult to use. It's helps a lot with making "clean" animations (as few keyframes as practical, but no fewer), which are easier for you and other people to modify and also tend to look nicely smooth. There are also some features you can't access anywhere else, like the different curve smoothing options (which are almost essential for some tasks).

 

Good animation is a tricky art. Have you studied classical (2D pen-and-paper) animation at all? Not as in actually doing it, but the techniques they used. Curves, weight, secondary animation, etc. (I don't even remember the full list any more, there's a bunch of them.) It was an eye-opener for me when I did a proper animation class and they showed us that stuff.