Maya Wish List

[ame]

@@ Not to make this thread any longer and especially beleager the
@@ point of Axis Controll.

Hello,

I agree with you totally, maya need more axis controlls and easy way to manipulate them without the need of using insert or something like that. Sorry my originall post was more about the Local, Global and view.

I really think that maya should have better transformations tool this are some idea:

                         Edge-Normal: Perp uses a direction for the axis which is
                         perpendicular to the normal of the selected edge 

                         3-point Perp selects an orientation for the axis which is
                         perpendicular to a plane defined by three selected points. 

                         Select Normal: based on the right mouse button selection
                         mask (could be a components or an objec) 

                         Select a segment: This uses the segment (egde or 2 points)
                         as an axis 

                         Select element pair: you select 2 components or abject to
                         use as an axis (vector) 

                         X : lets you pick an object and use its X-axis 

                         Y : lets you pick an object and use its Y-axis 

                         Z : lets you pick an object and use its Z-axis 

                         XYZ: lets you pick an object and use its object 
                         axis as  reference

Just some toughts, would be nice to have better tools always.

Thanks,

-a

[joojaa]

First about arbitrary scaling in some wierd direction. It is a bit of a cheat make a cluster turn it and then link the vertces to that cluster and scale the cluster.

This approach makes even for wery wonderful and fast smooth transformation. Altough setting this up is sometimes a bit of pain.

By the way im analysing this thread to the full but theres just so much info... Also i got some unexpected things going on ha causes me to have a very little of spare time (read allmost none at all)

[ame]

Hello,

yes cluseter are a "workarround" they work but they take times to be set up properly.

also in the API there is no way to create a tools that works for components, no components access as far as I know you need to actually create a deformer if you have to do something in components. Would be nice if A|W could give some "class" to be able to work on them (components) and create tools in the API to modify and move them.

Thanks,

-a

[joojaa]

Well i tought of this and you could actualy set up a context to do arbitrary scaling! Witha bit of mel code.

Besides setting up the clusters thing is just a matter of using a mel script so it is a button push.

And before you start saying no not mel, think again since aw is probably going this route anyway... atleast if we do it then well know how to fix problems ourselves!

Altough to be honest a facility with manipulators could be nice!

[laselouz]

heightfield to poly with construction history

[jtk77]

how about a little info button on atribute editors that takes you RIGHT directly to a quick read on the tool or at lest the utility. Especialy usage/explanation of Hypershde utilites...
Would that help people tracking through HELP files ?

[ame]

@@ Altough to be honest a facility with manipulators
@@ could be nice!

Cluster do it but it's kind of time consuming, A|W have the source code and full access so if they implement something like soft selection/magnet fall-off would be nice to have it integrated well with the package and apply not only to trasofrmations but as well to deformers and so on.

Cluster are a work arround, a decent one, but still work arround ... A|W in my hopinion should not add implementationtion as workarround but as core features users can implements work arround when the besic tools are there and work fine as well.

My .02c

-a

[twedzel]

As a modeller, Soft fall-off/ Magnet is definantly desirable. Simple implementation, easy to use without jumping through hoops, if it were applicable to UV's and deformers both even better.

I'd also like to be able to use a deformable nurbs plane as a form of projection for UV's on a poly surface.

Seen some cool character animation tools here and there lately. Definantly an area that can be looked at.

[joojaa]

Yes, but im a bit confused about how to do this since it needs to be incorporated in the history in some way and the way to do it would be to use clusters, so maye the selection performace could be accelereated by some node thet quicly sets this ups and uses clusters as the primary transformer! Call it soft selector node and pluck it to a cluster, maybe facilitate some ui. This goes in the category i like to call wolume selectors ive been whining about.

Thisway this node could be used for all other kinds of development stuff too (like perial smoothing thats animatable etc!)! No need to do a specific solution whan you only need an additional module. Also would better fit in aw philosophy better!

[4now]

features from Autocad...
Measure_area: click on the corner points of an area(built with curves/lines) and maya provides the data.
Measure from endpoint to endpoint or perpendicular to an other line.
Snap to endpoints,
Curve from endpoint to endpoint or perpendicular to an other line/curve.
Fillet with radius 0 ,the current fillet version doesnot
extend both selected curves till they build a corner with radius 0.
This features would provide a all in one solution for architects. No need for Autocad/3dStudio.
At the moment it is necessary to
construct roomplans with given squarefeets in Autocad before .dxf export to maya

[gmask]

Measure from endpoint to endpoint or perpendicular to an other line.

What about the Create > Measure> Distance Tool?

Snap to endpoints,

What about snap to CV, Vertex and edit points?

[-undertow-]

*My first wish would be to have Maya 4.5's Smooth Proxy to have all the functionallity of CPS tools (particually mirror and stitch) and most importantly, have the ability to crease (both Full and Partial) in Smooth Proxy.

*I would also love an Attach feature like max's where you don't have to Combine and then delete the history. Instead you can just have an Attach Tool where you select a poly object, hold down Shift and select another poly object, press enter or Y, then it'll take all the polys from the latter selected object and create them in the object first selected. You could also have tool options saying whether the attached object is deleted, hidden or shown.

*Skeleton primitives would be great, something that you can quickly create and edit, and not worry about whether you made a mistake. You should be able to choose from a selection of different skeleton types, and have skeleton segment options like Max's Biped. It should also have other options like to have it set up with IK handels, etc

[kiwi]

man, what a list!

mmmm - i dunno........

-the option to render all/any particles in realtime OGL (with extisinsibly defineable display attribs to keep frame rates up) -and the option to write the screen raster (?) images to any target file format.

-I'd like to know if CPU-intensive math for solving (for example) paintFX and dynamics could ever be symmetrically multithreaded so that the code could be distributed (in near-realtime) across multiple (clusters?) of CPU (PC) nodes over Ethernet (or somesuch connectiviy).
I believe there are several linux kernels that would support this, but don't have clue how difficult or useful it might be to impliment in Maya.

I can't add much more to what you guys are all wishing for here.......

KIW(I)

[joojaa]

Dynamics cant realy effectively be multithreaded to many computers since its basicaly a iterator that depends on the results of the previous caculation, so this could only be done effectively if some of the calculations are independent and or you could use the same memory space, but even then some of the calcs would be wastefull... but i could help some.

as for pfx didnt they put some efforts on making it multitheaded.

[gmask]

How about a function sort of like global stitch except it is for polygons and it automatically merges edges.

[-undertow-]

Are you responding to my attach tool idea? Cause a Global Stitch-like function for polys wouldn't combine the two objects together and you wouldn't want to always merge vertices although that'd be a handy option, something like merge verticies a certain distance away in the operation, but i think an acctual Attach Poly Tool would be better than a function and something which doens't leave any objects behind for the history like combine does

[gmask]

Well in a perfect world when all your edges are touching another then they should merge and I suppose this could be an option of the combine tool. In other instances when they are not touching then a stitch like function that makes edges find their nearest matching edge is a seperate tool and then you'd run the combine/merge tool.

[-undertow-]

Having touching edges (or verticies would be more accurate in poly modelling) be merged when the combine/attach tool is initiated would be good (CPS tools do it with the stitch option), but i don't think i'd use an option that moves the edges to the closest open edge and merges much, because it'll alter the mesh which i probably wouldn't want it doing. With the attach tool idea, i wouldn't always use it for creating one whole mesh, i would use it to just bring all the peices of the model into one object (i'm into game modelling and you need to do that often)
*with that said i'd also like the Extract faces funtion altered so if you tick Seperate faces it doesn't seperate every single non-connecting group of polys just like the Seperate funtion.

[gmask]

but i don't think i'd use an option that moves the edges to the closest open edge and merges much,

Well I do.. guess it has to do with converting nurbs to a low res poly cage to create wrap deformers. YOu alter surfaces frequently when working with nurbs patch models. Even when I am not reducing the poly model to less than the number of isoparms in each nurbs patch it is extremely tedious to go in an merge all the edges or vertices even when they are so closely aligned.. it doesn't make any sense that you'd have to do this manually under those circumstances.

The reason that I need a whole mesh for say a character is that it reduces the complexity of the wrap that way.. having a seperate wrap for every piece of geometry is unneccessary and a burden.

I could see that that in low poly count models like for games that even a small shift could be dramatic.. I suppose an option to not merge edges or vertices when they are within a certain range or threshold .. this is a common feature in similair commands and would be appropriate here.

Basically it seem like the tools are there but what works for nurbs does not work on polys and vica versa

[gmask]

I found more or less the solution .. it's not tottlaly automated but it works well enough to save alot of time..

polySelectConstraint -t 0x8000 -pp 4;
polySewEdge -t 10 -tx 1 -ws 1 -ch 1;

You select and edge on the two meshes that need to be attached and the above commands selects the entire edge of the two combined meshes and then sews them together.

In my testing so far it can handle large numbers of patches as long as the are well aligned..which they should be anyhow..

Another little tidbit I wished for was to beable to select faces by selecting the normals.