Meter Or Centimeter

[malacay]

Hi all

Before anyone rails against me - I know there already is a post about this issue, but it's very old.

Some of my collegues just want to use meters but in my opinion this doesn't have real advantages. There are even heavy disadvantages. E.g. the nearestPoinOnMesh plugin always causes very strange results while using meters. When i then switch to centimeters everything is right.

May someone of you had also good or bad experiences with meters\centimeters and want so share this to all of us?!? ..

Would be very nice.

greets malacay

[joojaa]

Well over the fact that default maya is set to faux meters. That is to say default maya unit is cm but its configured as 1m. Virtually all places where this matters its the same.

This is more of a psychological issue than anything else. Theres very little clue to any user that maya uses cm as the base unit except form the mel transcriptions of move tool pivots. My suggestion is to use cm as fau meters as set it really really makes your life easier. The motivation for this si also that it does not really matter wether the prefs call the unit cm or l33t its still what the users are instructed it to be.

But for some very weird psychological reason some 75% of people out there seem to not e able to calibrate their head into a unitless world (ultimately the computer only knows numbers and since you dont really ever type units in with their unit extensions theres not even any useful conversion done to favor this method), maybe the same people were bashed to their heads in schoola bout it. So 1 m and 1000 cm or 1 cm is all the same to the computer no matter what anybody says.

(true if a computer is taought the units of the real world it does matter however you can scale the nature constants also something you cant do in real world, but for example both cloth and dynamics are set to use 1cm = 1 meter as is mentalray)

[roomie]

Agree with Jooja. Tell them to suck it up and deal with it in their heads. I worked on a project where some people had the bright idea of using feet instead of cm (In the states here). You will run into so many problems that you will wonder what the pros of changing it is. So someone can say "yes maya is set in feet..." That's all changing the unit type will do...let you say ok maya is set to feet.....that it...no advantage at all. Just say 1 unit is 1 meter, there all done!! Didnt have to change anything at all!!!! It's all relative anyhow.

[malacay]

I agree with both of you. I don't think it makes sense to use meters or has any great advantages.
Thanks for your feedback.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(roomie @ 03/05/07, 08:02 PM) [snapback]261527[/snapback]
You will run into so many problems that you will wonder what the pros of changing it is.

Its the same comfy warm feeling on chilly day when you pee your pants. IT sure as hell make you feel warm, for a while.

Hmm how about we edit the prefs so that they can set the unit as feet but it does not change the unit at all

[ewerybody]

Hi Joojaa. You know our whole company is working in Meters :]

We don't got real big problems. But I'm still waving hands to say we gotta stop this!! Nothing happens. The thinking in Nebula is still 1 Unit = 1 Meter so lets switch Maya to Meters. As you said: Its all bullsht.

Ok. So much for the user. The problem is mostly in front of the computer rather than IN the computer. But say: Why is it a problem at all? Because Maya commands and procedures are partially not aware of the unit switching feature of Maya!! Of course there occuring problems if one function recalculates the units and another not!

I think its actually a basic problem of maya.
Why is there a reacalculating at all? Why is it a problem to say "ok the unit is just a label, lets just do it this way":

CODE
text -q -label mayaUnitLabel;
// Result: centimeter //
text -edit -label "meter" mayaUnitLabel;

[joojaa]

Maybe we should just ask autodek to fix this once for all, ists one of those things in the world that causes problems just because people dot stop to think. But its starting to get epic proportions

QUOTE
The thinking in Nebula is still 1 Unit = 1 Meter so lets switch Maya to Meters

Yes but thing is how exactly are the two statements related if someone says 1 unit is meter, why does it need to be related to maya prefs must be meters? Secondly do you actually use the unit convertors in nebula so again is there and need ofr having units at all.

i can understand that the hop form one thinking to the next is short but ist still unrelated

But i do understand this because its something people have been bashed in at with early age so they take it granted its somehow fundamental. It isn't off course. BUt hey even a physics professor of mine had problems grasping the idea so....