Maya Station

Maya 2018 Update 2

Before the Christmas break Autodesk released Maya 2018 Update 2.  This release follows up to a big Update 1 that was released a few months earlier.  The release notes can be found here.  Downloads are available through the Autodesk Accounts Portal for current subscription users.

 

Cheers!

Nelson

 

 

 

Maya 2018 BonusTools

Its been awhile since we posted to this blog.  Going forward I will be trying to update this more frequently with Maya release updates and issues we have hit along the way in an effort to make your lives easier.  

As a first post I thought it would good to make sure everyone is aware that Maya 2018 BonusTools  were recently released for you to enjoy.

https://apps.autodesk.com/en/Detail/Index?id=8115150172702393827&appLang=en&os=Win64

For those that are not aware of Maya BonusTools, it is a collection of useful scripts/plug-ins to make some everyday tasks a bit easier.  Please follow the link above to the Exchange store to get your copy.

Cheers!

 

Mayatomr not available after uninstalling mental ray for Maya 2015 SP2 plug-in patch (windows-only)

If you uninstall the mental ray for Maya 2015 Service Pack 2 plug-in patch on Windows, and find that Mayatomr is no longer appearing in Maya, you can work around this issue by modifying the following file:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\Modules\Maya\2015\mentalray.mod

And changing these lines from:

+ LOCALE:en_US mayatomr 3.12.1.12 <MENTALRAY_DIR>
+ LOCALE:zh_CN mayatomr 3.12.1.12 <MENTALRAY_DIR>
+ LOCALE:ja_JP mayatomr 3.12.1.12 <MENTALRAY_DIR>

to:

+ LOCALE:en_US mayatomr 3.12.1.12 C:\Program Files\Autodesk\mentalrayForMaya2015\
+ LOCALE:zh_CN mayatomr 3.12.1.12 C:\Program Files\Autodesk\mentalrayForMaya2015\
+ LOCALE:ja_JP mayatomr 3.12.1.12 C:\Program Files\Autodesk\mentalrayForMaya2015\

And re-starting Maya.

Chinese and Japanese language users getting HUD strings in English

We have been made aware of a regression issue with Maya 2014 SP2 which was posted a few weeks ago on www.autodesk.com.

The issues occurs only in Chinese and Japanese UI.  Users will notice that the HUD strings are in English instead of the localized language.  I have been told that this is addressed for future releases including the up and coming Maya 2014 extension release.  

If you cannot wait for that release we have provided zip files for Windows and Mac users to correct the issue today.

Here are the intructions: 

1. Download one for zip file for your O/S.
2. Extract zip file.
3. Add appropriate Japanese or Simplified Chinese version of initHUD.res.mel in following local installed path.
    
   • Win64 Default Path:
     • Japanese: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2014\resources\l10n\ja_JP\scripts\
     • S Chinese: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2014\resources\l10n\zh_CN\scripts\
   • MacOS Default Path:
     • Japanese: /Applications/Autodesk/maya2014/Maya.app/Contents/Resources/ja_JP.lproj/scripts/
     • S Chinese: /Applications/Autodesk/maya2014/Maya.app/Contents/Resources/zh_CN.lproj/scripts/
4. Launch Maya 2014 SP2.

Cheers!
Nelson

Download Win64_Maya2014SP2_Japanese_Simplified_Chinese

Download MacOS_maya2014SP2_Japanese_Simplified_Chinese

Maya 2013 Service Pack 1 has been released

I am glad to say that we have released Maya 2013 Service Pack 1 to the world.  This release is packed with a load of fixes and well worth the install.

Please download Maya 2013 sp1 from the Autodesk site.

What’s Fixed

MAYA‐126 Set key on many components is slow
MAYA‐142 Crash when attaching a Checker texture to Frequency ratio of the Noise node
MAYA‐146 Stereo cam viewport breaks when tearing off and saving display state
MAYA‐155 Undo sometimes creates keyframe where timeline indicator is
MAYA‐890 DWG_DCE export from command line causes crash
MAYA‐1975 Marking menus slower with fast gestures
MAYA‐2172 Load default settings reference option doesn't work on load reference
MAYA‐3199 Preserve load states when importing a file with references
MAYA‐4502 Use object’s full DAG path when applying reference edits
MAYA‐5115 Extension consistency for JPEG images
MAYA‐6155 Playblast in Sequencer: imagePlane is off by 1 frame
MAYA‐6350 Quotes and backslashes in render or animation layers causing issues
MAYA‐7444 mental ray adds multiple scriptJobs for every render
MAYA‐7897 Context tool with custom cursor doesn't work
MAYA‐8247 Integrate python confirmDialog fails silently when invalid flag used
MAYA‐8615 Make Hue value floating point for the new Color Chooser
MAYA‐9381 Image plane attributes not always accessible
MAYA‐9689 Unnecessary attrCtx created on right‐click to marking menu
MAYA‐10338 Maya Fluids Auto Resize Bounding performance lag
MAYA‐10420 Unable to create constraints when hairs or CVs are deleted
MAYA‐10611 Assigning new hair system to nHair system with Paint Effects output causes crash
MAYA‐10675 nHair collision display may not draw if node is out of view
MAYA‐10679 Maya scene with corrupt UVs causes mental ray renderer crash
MAYA‐10689 Constraint creation fails when connecting input hair and an existing constraint
MAYA‐10719 Adding custom passes causes a ray explosion and performance issue
MAYA‐10736 Incorrect particle motion blur at emission with mental ray
MAYA‐10773 Some EXR files no longer load properly
MAYA‐10820 mental ray batch render produces incorrect results with animated node connections
MAYA‐10854 TobjImport::cleanupMesh() needs optimization
MAYA‐10916 Hotbox gestures with right mouse button causes crash
MAYA‐10932 Problems on non‐interactive nParticle creation
MAYA‐11154 Problem with mental ray shadow shader
MAYA‐11230 follicleShape simulation method turned to static after simulation causes crash
MAYA‐11245 Fields are no longer working with nHair
MAYA‐11267 Changing area light shape after duplicating causes an error  
MAYA‐11428 HIK: Offset on Hips effector offsets other body parts on manipulation
MAYA‐11430 Delete key resets values to zero when Show Buffer Curves is enabled
MAYA‐11452 Hair may move even when no forces (internal or external) are applied
MAYA‐11537 Manipulation rotation glitches on aligned rig
MAYA‐11603 Spacebar used to switch views while moving components causes conflicts with Undo
MAYA‐11607 Mac: problem with One Click Maya‐Mudbox
MAYA‐11750 Playback of hair after file load without rewinding causes crash
MAYA‐11787 Merge UV doesn't work on non‐default UV set
MAYA‐12093 Fluid emission direction incorrect when fluid is rotated
MAYA‐12128 Reposition using middle mouse button doesn't work with Rotate Tool
MAYA‐12151 Character set interferes with getAttr ‐t command
MAYA‐12176 Referenced object on animLayer cannot be removed from AnimLayer
MAYA‐12209 Field Width cannot be changed in the Channel Box
MAYA‐12384 Close (‘x’ button) and Save/Cancel scene causes crash
MAYA‐12409 Alpha value of float texture image is changed by HDR Image Preview Options
MAYA‐12513 Increase Camera Sequencer frame limits
MAYA‐12663 Animation on locators doesn't update when playing or scrubbing the Timeline
MAYA‐12802 Unloading DirectConnect causes crash
MAYA‐12812 itemFilter as read‐only node causes crash
MAYA‐12819 Numerical errors in Camera Sequencer and Trax Editor at ~ 100 000 frames or more
MAYA‐12833 Middle mouse button during Create Polygon Tool or Append Polygon Tool causes crash in Japanese and Simplified Chinese versions
MAYA‐12885 Tearing off a stereo panel a second time causes crash
MAYA‐12943 Add rig sync on set key in full body/body part modes
MAYA‐12951 HIK: In Selection mode, make “Align Control Rig” on by default
MAYA‐12958 Make it possible to detect render requests from Playblast renders or Viewport draw
MAYA‐13026 MCommandResult always returns resultType 0
MAYA‐13109 Using blastCmd with devkit plug‐ins causes crash
MAYA‐13141 Pressing '3' for polygon mesh causes custom viewport crash
MAYA‐13207 HLSL plug‐in does not support the standard set of annotations and semantics
MAYA‐13270 Attaching existing cache file attaches hair cache as a geometry cache
MAYA‐13271 Failure when deleting frames with nHair cache
MAYA‐13273 Add and blend new nHair and the cache connects subsequent nodes incorrectly
MAYA‐13274 Rewinding with appendCache for hair causes ‘off by one frame’ error
MAYA‐13309 HIK: Rotating FK shoulder effector in body part repositions the rig in full body
MAYA‐13518 HUD buttons broken Viewport 2.0

Enjoy!

Nelson

 

mental ray Satellite 2013 Windows not working on machines

We have had users report that mental ray satellite 2013 is not running on some Windows 7 machines.  Users have reported errors of failed connection to the satellite machine or even running the service will fail with errors.

This seems to be occurying on machines that have missing Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package which contains needed libraries to run some of our prodcts correctly. 

We provide the installer (vc redist_x64.exe) with our discs and our downloads. The downloaded package generally extracts to "C:\Autodesk" directory. After doing the extraction browse to the Maya directory in "C:\Autodesk" you will find the 3rd Party installer in "\3rdParty\x64\VCRedist\2010SP1\vc redist_x64.exe"

After the package gets installed everything should be working.

More information about Microsoft's Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package can be found here.

I just wanted to thank our users for making us aware of this issue.

Cheers!

Nelson

 

Some tips for users trying to get Maya 2012 and Fedora 16 running

While we have only officially qualified Maya 2012 on Redhat Enterprise 5.5 and Fedora 14 we do have users who enjoy the latest and greatest of what Fedora 16 with Gnome 3 can offer. 

I have recently gone through the installer myself and while I have run into some minor hiccups mainly around the new implementation of Gnome things are working out great with Maya. 

Below are simply some notes I have made along the way.

This is a good time to make sure folks are aware that we do not qualify Fedora 16 so there can be some un-foreseen issues that I did not come across.  With that said, I am simply a Linux guy who enjoys sharing information and hopefully this will help anyone who comes across these issues.

General Maya tips

The next few sections cover general Maya instalation issues you may come across when trying to get Maya up and running.  These focus specifically on Maya issues and are valuable even for folks not running Fedora.  Further down I have more specific issues around Fedora 16.

The missing packages for Maya 2012

The installer and licensing had no issues however when I went to launch Maya I hit a typically wall of missing packages.  During my default installation of Fedora I only needed to install the ones in the command below.

More packages can be missing so a full rpm list is in our installation documentation page 18.

     yum install tcsh libXp xorg-x11-fonts-ISO8859*

Installing Nvidia drivers

I am fan of using Nvidia drivers that are downloaded straight from the source. For us to install Nvidia drivers Nouveau must be disabled.  More details about what Noveau is can be found here.  Before disabling Nouveau we need to get OS kernels updated and make sure everything is matching. 

Command below will do the trick.  First install missing packages needed for Nvidia drivers for compiling/intall and then update everything.

     yum install kernel-devel kernel-headers
     yum update kernel*

Remove / disable nouveau drivers from kernel initramfs

     Backup old initramfs nouveau image
     mv /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r)-nouveau.img
 
     Create new initramfs image
     dracut /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img $(uname -r)

Reboot

Now, to install the actual Nvidia drivers you must have the X session closed.  Essentially, if you are reading this on the machine which will be running Maya, than the drivers will not install.

You can simply hit ctrl-alt f5 to launch a terminal session and type.
    
     init 3

This will kill any live X session. 

Login as root user again in the terminal.  At this point you are ready to install the drivers. cd into the driver directory and run.  Before running the installer we need to make sure binutils is installed.

     yum install binutils

Now install the Nvidia drivers
 
     sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-XXX.XX.run

If everything works out you will see prompts to install the drivers.  Follow the instructions on screen. Since noveau is still enabled Nvidia will request you to reboot once more after it finishes creating a modification in /etc/modprobe.d

After the reboot just follow the steps by going back into terminal and doing init 3 to install the drivers again.

 

To Overlay or Composite

There are a couple of options to operate Maya's UI or Linux Windows session in.  The first being Hardware Overlays while the second option is a Composite mode.

I will not cover which is better because some folks will have personal or business needs as to why one is used over the other.  However, I will show both examples below. The one thing to remember is that you should be on one or the other.  The two do not work together.

For the Hardware Overlay option, the following will need to be added into the device section of your xorg.conf file located in /etc/X11 folder.

  Option "Overlay" "On"

After you add this line you will need to restart the X session for the changes to take effect.  Launch Maya and the hotbox should be using hardware overlays.  Usually you will see a dithered and partially transparent hotbox.

For those using the above hardware overlay option make sure that the composite is disabled in the xorg.  Composite desktop will overwrite the overlays option.

If you wish to use composite desktop instead, simply set the overlay option above to off and make sure the following is at the bottom of the xorg.conf file.

  Section "Extensions"
  Option "Composite" "On"
  EndSection

Once again a restart of X is required.  When using this mode you will need to set another option in the windows session for composite to work correctly or you will get alot of flashing UI when the hotbox is activated.  Composite must be enabled be enabled in the Windows X session. There are several windows managers around but I will go with the my prefered which is using Gnome default Metacity window manager.

If you followed all the steps above than the gconf-editor will already be installed.  As a root user in a terminal launch.

     gconf-editor

Go to apps->metacity->general and enable the compositing_manager check box.  Generally a reboot is not required for this change.  Simply Launch Maya and the hotbox will be non-dithered.

General Linux tips with Fedora 16

While the above steps go Maya up and running nicely in Fedora 16 or even other distobutions under Gnome 3 there are some other things I have done to modify my Linux setup and general look and feel.  Once again I simply wrote down as I made some changes.

 

Missing title bar minimize button

Under Gnome 3 some things have changed with the general look of title bar of applications.  By default the minimize buttons are gone.  How do we get this back?

     yum install gconf-editor

You can now launch this in a terminal by typing

     gconf-editor

In the configuration editor drill down through desktop->gnome->shell->windows

Modify 'button_layout' and set the values as ':minimize,maximize,close'

For the settings to take affect you must log out and back in.

Getting Gnome Sesison Windows behavior to use super+ instead of alt+

Prior to fedora 16 there was a GUI option in Gnome to enable this.  With fedora 16 you can get this done in a terminal. This will change Gnomes default action of using alt as the main key to do things such as move windows and so on.   The command below will pass this control to the super key (windows key)

gconftool-2 --set --type string /apps/metacity/general/mouse_button_modifier '<Super>'

How do I change the runlevel?

systemd has the concept of targets which is a more flexible replacement for runlevels.

Run level 3 is emulated by multi-user.target. While Run level 5 is emulated by graphical.target. runlevel3.target is a symbolic link to multi-user.target and runlevel5.target is a symbolic link to graphical.target.

You can switch to 'runlevel 3' by running

    systemctl isolate multi-user.target (or) systemctl isolate runlevel3.target

You can switch to 'runlevel 5' by running

    systemctl isolate graphical.target (or) systemctl isolate runlevel5.target

How do I change the default runlevel?

systemd uses symlinks to point to the default runlevel. You have to delete the existing symlink before creating a new one

    rm /etc/systemd/system/default.target

Switch to runlevel 3 by default

    ln -sf /lib/systemd/system/multi-user.target /etc/systemd/system/default.target

Switch to runlevel 5 by default

    ln -sf /lib/systemd/system/graphical.target /etc/systemd/system/default.target

I dont like all the flashy Gnome 3 stuff

While we should imbrace the new looks I am finding a bit difficult to wrap around it and want some of my older options back.  The good news is that there is a fallback feature which removes all grahical fun stuff.  The Fallback mode can be enabled by going to System Settings > System Info. In this window, you'll be able to activate - force - Fallback Mode. The next time you login, you will have a more standard view with menus just like previous versions.

No desktop icons.... no problem!

Gnome 3 by default hides all the desktop items.  You can get them back by installing a tweak tool which enables them.  In a terminal as root install gnome-tweak-tool

     yum install gnome-tweak-tool

You can now run the tool as a regular user.  To run it in a terminal simply type.

     gnome-tweak-tool 

When the Advance settings window shows up click on Desktop category and enable "Have file manager handle desktop"

The Bootloader

Fedora 16 also introduces a new bootloader application.  Grub2 is now the default bootloader to control which OS will be used during system start up.  The introduction of Grub2 has made things a bit trickier to modify the settings done during the initial OS install.  Older version of grub simply involved modifying a cfg file to get things corrected as to startup timeouts and which OS to boot.  Below are the simple steps to help you switch the default from one OS to another using grub2.

Running this command will build the grub menu after any changes have been made.  This command will automatically find the kernels and initrds in the boot directory and add them to a cfg file using the parameters given in /etc/default/grub

    grub2-mkconfig > /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

To set the default OS simply modify /etc/default/grub file.  This can be edited in any text editor as root.
 
The line you need to add or change is:

   GRUB_DEFAULT=OS Name

You can either set OS Name or a numeric entry.

   GRUB_DEFAULT="Fedora (3.2.13.fc16.x86_64)"

To get a list of the menuentry simply use:

     grep menuentry /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

The list will print out in the terminal and the first one listed will be 0 or the OS name.

     GRUB_DEFAULT=0

That’s all I have on this post for now.  If I come across any other noteworthy issues I will update this post. I would also like to say that I cannot take full credit in these workarounds.  Most of these can easily be found roaming the internet and for that thank you.

Cheers!

Nelson

Maya 2012 SAP: The CPU is maxed out if Maya is idle for more than 15 minutes

With the release of Maya 2012 Subscription Advatage Pack and Service Pack 1, a new licensing feature was introduced that affects how the license server distributes license tokens. If a Maya session goes idle for 15 minutes this feature kicks in and returns that idle license back to the license server.  When the user activates the session again Maya will go back and get the license from the server. If no licenses are available, Maya will keep trying for up to 2 hours.  At that point if no license is avalable the application will save yourt work and shutdown. While this is a great feature for companies using server based licenses.  There is a small problem that was spotted and Autodesk is working to correct this.

The main issue you will notice is that when this idling feature kicks is on the artists box one of your cores will be pegged at 100% or very close to it.  This occurs on all operating systems.  Currently the only workaround we have in place is to disable this feature entirely until further notice.  The following variable can be used to do this.

MAYA_DISABLE_IDLE_LICENSE=1

We also noticed some other issues for users using the OS Native browser on Windows.  When the idling feature kicks in and you try to either load or save a file through the OS browser in Maya the browser itself will fail to refresh until the cursor is moved away from the window.  Using the above variable will address this as well.

Cheers!

Nelson

 

 

 

Licensing Matchmover and Composite from Autodesk Maya or Autodesk 3ds Max ?

If you have Autodeks maya and Autodesk 3ds Max, and perhaps Autodesk Softimage installed on the same workstaition, you can tell Composite and Matchmover which application serves them with a license by setting these environment variables:

• ADSK_MATCHMOVER_LICENSE
• ADSK_COMPOSITE_LICENSE

For more information, please refer to this post on this blog.

Thanks,

Owen

Maya hotfix deployment

How do you deploy a hotfix for Maya 2012?

This post on our sister blog tells you how to do just that.

Thanks to David and Avto for this post.

Owen

Download Maya hotfixes