Maya Station

Crash when loading scenes with displayPoints or type in mayapy

We have seen issues from customers who are attempting to load their scenes which contain type in mayapy that end up crashing.  These particular crashes seem to focus around the newer displayPoints node that are used in Maya.

A displayPoint node in Maya is a Utility Draw Node that is mainly used to display the Type pivot points in the .  Ultimately this crash tends to occur when the type tool is used as there is a UI draw call.

head over to our learning page for more details and workarounds.

 

 

How to prevent Maya writing a "requires" command for a plug-in

Do you wonder why error messages about some plug-in or other that Maya cannot find continue to appear when you load a scene? Do you wish you could force Maya to unload a plug-in when saving your scene so you can avoid having it load again with the scene file ?

The objective of this tutorial is help you understand why Maya might include a reference to a plug-in in a scene file, and how to prevent Maya from doing so.

To complete this tutorial, you will need Maya 2015 SP6 or Maya 2015 Ext1 & SP6 because this Service Pack release includes two new MEL commands : unknownPlugin and unknownNode; this tutorial demonstrates how to use both of them.

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.

Maya 2014 SP4 and Maya 2014 Ext SP2

I wanted to apologize for website issues currently affecting our Maya users who are attempting to download the latest service pack.  To help ease some of the pains while we sort out our new support site I have provided direct links to each build.  

Windows:

http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/Maya_2014_SP4/Autodesk_Maya_2014sp4_dlm.sfx.exe

Mac Os X:

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/Autodesk_Maya_2014sp4_English_Japanese_SimplifiedChinese_MAC_OSX.dmg

Linux:

http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/Autodesk_Maya_2014sp4_English_Linux_64bit.gz

 

Folks with subscription access can get your extension service pack from the subscription site.

www.autodesk.com/subscription

 

Once again sorry for the troubles.

 

Cheers!

Nelson

 

 

 

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 2014 Sp2 released

We have released a new service pack for Maya 2014.  Please head over to the Autodesk site to download the application corresponding to your OS.

Many fixes have been made so please take a look at the release notes or the list below to see if any effect your workflow.

What's Fixed 

Bug Number	Description
Animation
MAYA-23241	Fixed crash undoing the merge of animLayers.
MAYA-25123	Fixed HIK regression causing spine joints to have unexpected transform values after characterization.
MAYA-25127	Fixed hang in Graph Editor when massive numbers of keys are selected.
MAYA-25620	Animation not updated when setting a key with animation layers.
MAYA-25717	Fixed skinCluster binding issue.
MAYA-26089	Fixed issue with smooth skin clusters and popping vertices when painting weights.
MAYA-26093	HIK : Baking auxiliary effector is corrupting referenced file.
MAYA-26221	Global scale in HumanIK not working on Mac and Linux.
Modeling
MAYA-21980	Pre-selection highlighting flickers when camera-based selection is enabled.
MAYA-22931	Detach edge breaks locked vertex normal.
MAYA-23694	Fixed mismatch of vertex normal method on shape node.
MAYA-22948	Selection Constraints do not work with Marquee.
MAYA-25787	Fixed crash when using Artisan on a mesh with no UVs.
MAYA-25797	Fixed a crash when changing display mode after lattice work.
MAYA-26348	Remove the In View Messaging for soft select radius for better performance of Soft Selection Tool.
MAYA-26500	polyEdgeToCurve crashes when evaluating inputComponents if inputMesh is invalid.
MAYA-24840	Fixed an undo crash when using the Multi-Cut tool.
MAYA-25524	Polygon Constraint window "Reset and close" button randomly crashes
MAYA-26697	Surface Precision set to “High” causes NURBS in shaded mode to be drawn offset
MAYA-23938	Quad draw: construction history is always created when using quad draw and a transform constraint
MAYA-23070	Crash when doing a polySeparate on some meshes
Platforms
MAYA-24829	Maya on Mac OS X hangs on exit in TCIPClient::shutdown
MAYA-26539	CERs on Mac OS X 10.9 cannot get assigned to buckets
Dynamics
MAYA-18962	Maya crashes when creating Lattice deformer for nParticle that has been converted to Polygon.
API
MAYA-20555	Panel tear off causes crash when a plug-in tool is active.
MAYA-24579	Fixed a problem in the .Net dagexplorer (wpfexample) sample plug-in.
MAYA-25019	Can't unload plug-ins that are derived from MPxDataType.
File Referencing - Reference Edits
MAYA-25752	File referencing: post-load callback massively increasing load times (complicated by nodeEditorPanel data).
MAYA-26262	Fixed a crash with export as reference.
MAYA-26477	Parent reference edits are not persistent.
mental ray
MAYA-20369	Fixed a problem where Mayatomr plug-in was causing the scene to prompt to save even when it was unchanged.
Rendering
MAYA-25074	Fix for UV Texture Editor with legacy style plug-in shaders.
MAYA-25246	Fixed crash after selecting Use Selected Lights for lighting on new scene.
MAYA-24958	Fixed a crash with batch playblasts on Mac OS X  if "-showOrnaments" is disabled.
MAYA-24396	Camera aim and up cannot be selected in Viewport 2.0.
MAYA-24395	Skinning: Mesh display is incorrect when zooming out of Viewport 2.0 while in the Paint Skin Weights Tool.
MAYA-26489	Batch render does not render ornaments (HUD) when using the Maya Hardware 2.0 renderer.
MAYA-24121	"Show ornaments" toggle does not work in Viewport 2.0 playblasts
MAYA-17875	Apparent interaction between viewport plug-ins and mental ray IBL “Hardware Exposure”
Scene Assembly
MAYA-24498	Fixed scene assembly issue where some edits would persist unexpectedly when switching representations.
MAYA-25047	MPxAssembly node compute method is now invoked when necessary.
UI General
MAYA-25920	Removed a previous windows optimization that is no longer needed, which caused a slowdown in the Graph Editor on  Mac OS X and Linux.

 

Maya's dirmap command

Unfortunately, there will be times in which moving OS will cause the directory structure of the file to break. It is always recommended to set project before a file is loaded in Maya's UI. When command line rendering using the "-proj" should be a requriement. If setting these and files are still missing and Maya is not locating files relative to the project the dirmap command can save time and help remap and textures.

What is dirmap? dirmap is a Maya command that will tell maya to scan and change directory structures as the scene is loaded.. This command works in two steps. First we need to enable it so Maya knows that path remapping must be done. The second part is to give the from and to arguemnts so maya can spot the bad path and replace it with the new one.

How to use this within the UI

1. Launch Maya and setup the dirmap commands so that Maya changes the paths when loading the scene. After loading re-save file. The commands would look something like.

dirmap -en true;
dirmap -m "C:/Users/cruzn/Desktop/trainingContent_troubleshooting//sourceimages/" "C:/Users/cruzn/Desktop/trainingContent_troubleshooting/missing/";

The above tells Maya that on load of a scene check for these parameters. If any hit the old path than the new path would be set. we can use multiple lines to remap texutres in different directories

Using dirmap without UI

If you wish to avoid having to load the scene in the UI and want to go straight in to rendering than the second option will be to make a *.mel procedure like.

global proc dirMap()
{
dirmap -en true;
dirmap -m "C:/Users/cruzn/Desktop/trainingContent_troubleshooting//sourceimages/" "C:/Users/cruzn/Desktop/trainingContent_troubleshooting/missing/";
}

Much like the first option you will need to change the paths to match the current folders.

Save this file as a dirMap.mel in C:/Users/username/maya/2013-x64\scripts. All the rendering machines will need this.

When rendering you will need to use the -preRender flag with the command to launch the script we created. It is case sensitive so please make sure you use the "dirMap" exactly as described in this example.

So with the paths set in the script and saved we can now render.

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2013\bin\Render.exe" -r mr -v 3 -preRender "dirMap" Z:\pathtest.mb

This will make the changes to the paths before render begins. I use verbosity 3 to capture warning such as missing textures.

Cheers!

Nelson

PhysX plug-in for Maya 2013 is available

Nvidia has made PhysX plug-in version 2.72 for Maya 2013 available.   You can download the installer through PhysX Registered Developer Program.

The kind folks at physxinfo.com have made a nice guide for those who run in problems registering for Nvidia's Developer program.

Fixed in Build 2.72.0511.0400:

• Support for 2013
• Support for Viewport 2.0
• APEX Clothing Latch To Nearest system now only support 30 instead of 32 channels. (one is used to represent unpainted and the other is reserved). A vertex may not only receive one L2N channel now in master mode, though backward compat is supported. Coloring is now also more consistent. Black=unpainted, Gray = used by another channel in current drive|latch mode, Light Magenta = used by this channel in opposite drive|latch mode, Dark Magenta = used by another channel in opposite drive|latch mode
• Add solver simulation scaling support to allow simulation to occur (and export) in current or scales units rather than forcing to centimeters (which Maya does naturally in C++ SDK to mesh and transform data not from mplug or mdatahandles ).
• Fix WinXP compatible
• Improve shape's mass/density update functions
• Fix PhysX3 Contact Layer support
• re-enable acceleration joints for new files (more stable than force joints)
• PhysX tab should not gain focus when added
• fix popup viewer crash for clothing
• fix PhysX 3x debug visualizer
• fix some OpenGL rendering errors
• Fix script backward compat issues using -orderedSelection
• Fix minor GUI error message cause by pop-up such as switching PhysX solver versions modes // Error: line 1: Object's window not found. //
• Fix ragdoll load .rag issues when the target bone has multiple children
• Fix ragdoll regeneration creating constraints without removing old ones.
• Fix APEX Clothing import of legacy CTW files flipping latch to nearest data

Cheers!

Nelson

Around the Corner: a new M&E developer blog

There is a new blog in town!  Around the Corner, is a blog dedicated to
plug-in developers working with Maya, MotionBuilder, FBX and any other
technology that strikes our fancy at the moment of blogging.

This blog is authored by Cyrille Fauvel and me (Kristine Middlemiss, I am
sad to say I am departing this blog :()

To tell you a little about our selves we are 2/6’s of the Media & Entertainment worldwide team of API gurus providing technical services through the Autodesk Developer Network.

When either of us comes across some information on programming for Autodesk
technologies that we think you’ll be interested in, then you can expect it to
be posted here. That will be technical (how-to) solutions derived from
answering questions from ADN partners and from Autodesk forum users, sample
projects, white papers screencasts, conference presentation material, and other
information derived from our work. This blog is a vehicle to put lots of up to
date information in one place so you can easily find what you need to solve
your programming problems.

Enjoy!

Kristine

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