Maya Station

Create a Tire Burnout using Maya Fluids

Awhile back I was met with a challenge from a customer to create a tire burnout effect using Maya fluids.  Below is the result I got after some trial and error.  While this may not work for every scenario it does allow a user who is stuck get going.  The video describe the process and attributes I used.  

I hope you enjoy it!

 

 

When I move a joint, its parent changes orientation

You are trying to position joints in your scene with the Move tool, and you notice that Maya is changing the orientation of the selected joint's parent joint.

Create a rolling fog effect using Maya

Here is a quick video showing Maya users how to create a simple rolling fog effcet using Maya Fluids.

 

Blendshapes in Maya 2012 : new features

There are new attributes for blendshapes in Maya 2012:

 

Base weight

A new set of component weights have been added. These weights multiply the various target weights, allowing the user to quickly paint out regions where no target has an effect.

The base weight is an overall multiplier for the targets.

Therefore a zero weight on the base would mean no targets (regardless of their weights) have any effect.

A base weight of 1.0 (the default) would act normally, a weight of 2.0 multiply them by two, -1..., etc.


Normalization group

The blendShapes targets can now be assigned a 'normalization group'. Targets in the same group have the sum of their weights normalized to 1.0 when editing via the Component Editor or the Paint Blend Shape Weights tool). Optionally each group may also use an extra set of weights to include in the normalization calculation. These weights are associated with the group itself, not any particular target.

The normalization weights appears in a new columns in the Component Editor and as new paintable targets in the Paint Blend Shape Weights tool once it is created via the Edit Deformer -> Blendshape -> Edit Normalization group .

Maya 2012 : HIK menus and MEL commands (part 1)

With Maya 2012 the HIK menus and windows have been revamp.  Here are some of the most needed MEL commands to use the tools without going through the UI

The basic thing to know is that you need to set the current character in order to affect it, this is done by:

To set the current character

//in this example I am setting Character 2

$gCurrentCharacter = "Character2";
refreshAllCharacterLists();

Once the character is set, we can use it with these commands

Locking the Character definition
characterizationLock();

Creating a new Characterization
characterizationCreate();

Creating a ControlRig
characterizationControlRigCreate();

Deleting a Control Rig
characterizationControlRigDelete();

Using the skeleton generator
skeletonGeneratorToolNewCharacter;

Setting the source for a HumanIK character
//to control rig
mayaHIKsetRigInput( "Character1" ); updateHIKCharacterToolEnableCheckBox();

//to stance pose
mayaHIKsetStanceInput( "Character2" ); updateHIKCharacterToolEnableCheckBox();

//to set to a character input
mayaHIKsetCharacterInput( "Character1","Character2" ); updateHIKCharacterToolEnableCheckBox();

Choosing a keying mode, i.e. full-body, partial, or selection
//full body
optionVar -intValue keyFullBody 1; setKeyingMode( );

// body parts
optionVar -intValue keyFullBody 2; setKeyingMode( );

//selection
optionVar -intValue keyFullBody 3; setKeyingMode( );

Turning on and off pinning for individual effectors
//Here I am Character1_Ctrl_RightWristEffector as the effector

//unpinned
setAttr "Character1_Ctrl_RightWristEffector.pinning" 0;

//pin Translate
setAttr "Character1_Ctrl_RightWristEffector.pinning" 1;

//pin Rotate
setAttr "Character1_Ctrl_RightWristEffector.pinning" 2;

//pin all
setAttr "Character1_Ctrl_RightWristEffector.pinning" 3;

Baking the retarget to the control rig or skeleton
//Bake to Skeleton without opening the options
hikBakeToSkeleton 0;

//Bake to Skeleton with opening the options
hikBakeToSkeleton 1;

//Bake to Control Rig without opening the options
hikBakeToControlRig 0;

//Bake to Skeleton without opening the options
hikBakeToControlRig 1;

How to sample a 3D texture

Sampling the colour values of a pixel on a 2D texture is easy enough in Maya; there is the MEL command 'colorAtPoint', and you can emit particles from a texture and query the RGB values per particle. Sampling a colour value of a 3D texture is not so straightforward, and the approach suggested in the documentation is to bake your 3D texture to an image file and use the aforementioned methods to query colour values on the resulting texture.

In this post, I'll demonstrate how to implement an API function that samples a 3D texture at any given XYZ point, and returns an RGB value.

Installing Craft Animation Tools in Linux and Mac OS X

We introduced a few new tools for Maya subscription customers with the release of Maya 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack. I wanted to take a moment and focus in on the software installation of one of these tools.  

Using Craft Animation Tools will give you access to four pre-rigged models of two cars and two planes, as well as four camera rigs Craft SoftMotionCam, Craft ObserverCam, Craft MultiStateCam, Craft HumanizerCam.   

When installing users of Windows will automatically get Craft Animation tools installed during the regular  Maya installation process but this is not the case for Linux and Mac users.  You will need to install it manually after the Maya install is completed.

Below are the steps needed to get Craft Animation Tools installed for Linux and Mac users.

Install the Craft Animations plug-in on Mac OS X

1. Double-click the Maya .dmg download package.
2. In the Finder window that opens, double-click the Support folder.
3. In the Finder window that opens, double-click the Craft Animation .dmg,then double-click Install. 

Install the Craft Animations plug-in on Linux

1. Extract the Maya packages from the compressed file.
2. Navigate to the Support folder and extract the craftdirectorstudio .tar.gzfile.
3. As a super user, navigate to the directory where you extracted the package.
4. Type ./install.bash.This starts the Craft Animation plug-in installation. Before using the Craft Animation plug-in for the first time, you need to loadthe plug-In using the Plug-in Manager.

To load Craft Animations Director Studio plug-in

1. Start Maya.
2. Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager. The Plug-inManager opens.
3. Locate Craft Animations and turn on Loaded.To load Craft automatically every time you start Maya, turn on Auto load.4 Click Close.

You can access the Craft Animations plug-in from the shelf by clickingthe DirectorStudio tab, then clicking the icon.

Artisan does not display deformer weights on selected surface.

You are using the Artisan paint tool to interactively modify deformer weights, such as cluster weights, on a NURBS surface. You expect Maya to display the deformer weights on your selected surface in greyscale or with color values, but apart from the outline of the brush you see no color feedback whatsoever.

The reason Maya skips the display of your deformer weights is because of a property that has been set on your surface object.

HIK : tip 1

When working in Maya HIK, it is important to know that currently the retargetting is only supported with skeletons with default rotate axis and rotate order.  

In order to change your rotate axis you can select all the joints and run this mel command

joint -e -oj xyz

HIK and MEL commands

It is possible to set the current Character in the Character Pipe tab of the HumanIK wit MEL.  In order to do this you need to use the global variables and refresh the window :

for example:

$gCurrentCharacter = "HIKCharacterNode3";

refreshAllCharacterLists();