Maya Station

Backburner 2012.1.1

I have some great news for our Backburner users who are running into issues submitting jobs from Maya.  We have just posted a public release of Backburner 2012.1.1.  There are some key fixes and I highly recommend you upgrade if you are running into any of the issue listed below.

The download can be found in the Autodesk.com site here.

I highly recommend you uninstall the current version and remove all Backburner preferences before installing the newest cut.

After you install and get backburner up and running attempt to submit a job.  If you still seem to be getting a connection refused error when submitting a job, try entering 7347 as the port value and submit again.

Setting this value will pass the default setting where cmdjob uses multicast to connect to the manager and fails.

Bug Number	Description
MAYA-7652	No connection could be made, target machine refused error while submitting a job or if a port was manually entered in the Submission window
MAYA-8238	Manager fails to launch with machines with multiple network adapters
MAYA-8117	Problem closing Manager on Windows 7 64-bit operating system
MAXX-4177	Manager creates duplicate job handles when multiple jobs are sent within one second of each other

Best of luck!

Nelson

 

 

BackBurner 2012.1.0 update

With the releases of Maya 2012 SP1 & SAP there is a newer version of BackBurner 2012 that addresses a few areas of concerns for Maya users.  These are:

1. Submitting Backburner jobs would sometimes hang Maya.

2. Backburner 2012 discards all network adapters on some laptops if wireless is present.

3. Launching Backburner service on Mac with start command would fail.

4. Backburner on Mac OS X always rebooting after each render job is completed.

The 2012.1 update for Backburner is available in the Maya SP/SAp installers.  If you wish to install it on its own. A download has been made available on the Autodesk website: you can download it here.

Cheers!

Nelson

Maya 2012 Hotfix 4

We have released another hotfix for Maya 2012.  Once again the Windows Hotfix is a incremental installer. So, no need to uninstall Maya before aplpying this update.  As for the other installers. They are full installs so please remove your current package before installing the hotfix.

Maya 2012 Hotfix 4 contains these fixes:

• Wacom mouse not working
• Unexpected flipping when pairBlend rotation interpolation is set to Quaternion
• Plug-in load failure because of Dependency Graph changes
• Crash with extruding a deleted face
• Keys in Graph Editor change value when moved along Timeline while zoomed out
• nCloth collision failures
• Relax intial state resets some nCloth damp values
• attrFieldSliderGrp - cc option does not work
• Graph Editor: can’t view multiple f-curves on a character set
• Nucleus no longer stops immediately when simulation is aborted
• Local wind problem
• Crash upon reading EXR file from Mudbox
• Cannot open Render View when opening Maya scene by double-clicking
• Preferences option “Hide extensions in filter” cause File Type Options on export to disappear

Composite 2012 Hotfix 4 contains:

• Preference: Can't change the padding in the version Preference tab
• Viewport : Hotkeys don't work in full frame mode
• Crash when converting a Cineon10bit to a Cineon16bit
• DPX rendering options should not be available for Cineon format
• Composition drops textures when rendered on multiple machines
• Render fails with error "Terminate handler called from thread"
• Performance issues related to graphics cards
• Performance degradation issues
• Vector paint performance issue

If you are running Maya 2012 on OS X 10.7, be aware of these limitations:

• Some PICT, SGI, and PSD image files fail to display
• Installer freezes at end of successful installation; is okay to force quit the installer
• Crash when using the High Quality viewport
• No refresh after performing some operations; force refresh by tumbling to resolve
• Library in home directory is hidden in 10.7; user must navigate to it using Terminal or Go to Folder functionality in the Finder

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=17478798&linkID=9242259

 

Cheers!

Nelson

API wishlist surveys for Autodesk products

Our annual API wishlist surveys are now live:

Autodesk® 3ds Studio Max® - http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22CAV8THY63/

Autodesk® Maya® - http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22CAV7HHXCE/

Please do take the time to provide us with your input: it’s one of the most direct ways to influence the direction of the Autodesk products you customize or for which you develop applications. Our various Engineering teams take this feedback very seriously when prioritizing the APIs to expose over the coming releases of our software. And if you (optionally) provide your email address in the survey, I’ll send you a copy of the results once they’ve been compiled.

The surveys will remain open until July 3rd, 2011. Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Posted on behalf of Cyrille Fauvel.

Owen

 

The Maya 2012 network license and sub-feature components: mental ray and fluid simulation

Please note that this issue is resolved. If you requested a Maya 2012 network license after 25th April and you have a valid Subscription contract, your license will include all the necessary activation codes to run Maya 2012, 2011 and 2010.You will not have to resort to copy/pasting parts of your Maya 2011 license to activate the fluid simulation and mental ray render nodes in Maya 2011.

Your Maya 2012 no longer requires the fluid simulation and mental ray features (including render nodes) to be activated in separate codes. All features of Maya 2012 can be activated from a single activation code. However, a correct license file - issued after the 25th April - will also include PACKAGE and INCREMENT lines explicitely for those features in Maya 2011 and Maya 2010 that require separate activation codes. 

If, after you start using your Maya 2012 network license you find that you can no longer render using mental ray or use fluid simulations in previous versions of the application, plesae read the rest of this blog post..

The Maya 2011 file browser has disappeared !

On Windows, some information about the Maya 2011 File Browser and the Maya 2011 Color Picker is stored in the registry, not the userPrefs.mel file as you may expect.

For example, the position and size of the Maya File Browser are stored in the registry location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Autodesk\Maya\2011.5-x64\FileDialog (depending on the version it could also be in 2011, 2011.5, 2011-x64).

The syntax of 'pos' is @Point(xxx yyy), as illustrated:

If the situation arises where you can't see the Maya 2011 File Browser, you would check the value of the FileDialog key 'pos'. Try resetting this value to @Point(0 0) and then restart Maya.

Thanks to Nicolas Holst for the tip.

Owen

Maya 2011 Fails to Start - d3dx9_42.dll was not found...

You've succesfully installed Maya 2011 on your Windows operating system, but launching Maya fails with the following error:

"This application has failed to start because d3dx9_42.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem."