Maya 8.5 // Indigo 9 Test 6

bkircher · Post by **bkircher** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 3:51 am

I have updated the converter to , well, work,
at last for my purposes:

The exporter is working with the Maya-Obj Exporter Plugin´, and nicely.
Make sure its turned on in the Plugin-Manager.

There are many areas to improve, as always.
For Installation, Copy it into a fitting directory or edit your Maya.env to something like, or...

MyPath = %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\maya\8.5
MyScriptPath = %MyPath%\My_Scripts

MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH = %MyScriptPath%\Single_Scripts;%MyScriptPath%\MayaToIndigo

XBMLANGPATH = %MyScriptPath%\MayaToIndigo\mtiIcons

Some Hints:
In General: Avoid Grouped Objects, Combine Objects per Shader to speed up translation / instancing of many objects using the Obj-Exporter. (Very slow w. Thousands of objects).
Avoid using the default shading with any polygon object, delete the construction History.

Exit Portals: Name of Object == ExitPorta*, Normals should point into the room

Instancing w. Locators:
Generate mti_InstanceLocator from within the mti-GUI,
change custom attribute of thus generated locator to "name to be instanced -1 char"
(e.g. "ToInstanc" for objects called "ToInstance*")

Instancing by fixed amounts:
Enter Name of Objects (Transform, not Shape) + Number of Instances +
Translation.

Incandescent Shader:
first incandescence-Component -> Temp
second Incandescence-Component -> Gain

Lambert:
Diffuse = Colour (Spectrum)

Phong:
Diffuse = Colour (Spectrum)
Refractive Index = IOR
Spec Rolloff = Exponent/10

Specular:
Refraction Limit = precedence
Surface Thickness = cauchy_b_coeff
Transparency = absorption_coefficient_spectrum
Light Absorbance = scattering_coefficient_spectrum

PhongE: Currently not Supported
Surface Shader: Currently not Supported

Finally: Make sure to have the folder \objs so obj-export can work.
Even more finally, have fun.

bkircher · Post by **bkircher** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 7:19 am

what are the next steps concerning the exporter ?

I could clean up the whole script and post it so that we would be starting from scratch, with a nice preference node to store all indigo-related attributes.

I like Indigo a lot,
I like Maya a lot.
I think its a nice platform to be working with indigo,
especially if we can harness the flexibility of nodes and
presets to some extend.

On the other hand, maya to indigo is eating up those that have been working on it. Which is a petty, since, imho, we are pretty close to a very nicely working utility.

What do you think?

arneoog · Post by **arneoog** » Wed Sep 12, 2007 7:59 am

All that sounds great!

Go for it^^

I hope my brain and I want to work on this abit again, soon

I'm glad someone is still working on it!
Thanks, bkircher!

yourdaftpunk · Post by **yourdaftpunk** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:12 am

Thanks bk! I haven't tested yet, but I will soon.

I take it nobody has tried in Maya2008?

-shawn

vux · Post by **vux** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:57 am

is there anybody who try this scripts under Linux???
I think I need edit pathes to directories in it. Or no?

dougal2 · Post by **dougal2** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 3:30 am

Can anyone supply a concise step-by-step guide on what to do to get a Maya scene exported to Indigo?
I'd like to think that I'm fairly clued up about how software systems work, but I can't see how this is supposed to fit together.

I'm fairly new to Maya (using v8.5), but can find my way around, and have been using Indigo since v0.5.

Any help would be appreciated.

CTZn · Post by **CTZn** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 3:43 am

Hi Benedikt, hi Arne, Dougal and Shawn !

Glad you are all there, I've been webless for a month, quite a peacefull situation if you ask me.

I came with some updates for mtiMain and mtiGen as well, but they are minor due to my beginner level. First I have to test that release and see if they are still relevant. If so I'll probably release code chunks here, if that's ok to you Benedikt.

Dougal: I'll give some hints as soon as I've checked the release, if no one does it meanwhile; you can eventually tell us how far you can go for now, as there are (where?) some limitations and such.

Cheers

dougal2 · Post by **dougal2** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 3:48 am

I think I've put everything in the right place. I managed to start an interface by executing the mtiMain function - no idea if that's what I'm supposed to do.
managed to add an indigo sunlight and camera to the scene. Managed to convert a NURB to mesh.
The exporter barfed when I tried to save the XML - could not save mesh or somesuch message.
(also, before I figured out the mesh thing, it appeared to generate a valid XML scene (without any meshes), but the command window that opened had an error message in it, and indigo didn't start).

dougal2 · Post by **dougal2** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:18 am

oh, and erm...
http://elqx.com/mayatoindigo/

edit: getting there. works with background light, although i had to manually add the <gamma> tag.
meshlighting didn't work.
auto-run render didn't work, i had to manually load the scene.
mtiMaterialEditor not found.

CTZn · Post by **CTZn** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:07 am

Ok, some mandatory point to highlight:

* All history must be deleted before exporting, either by Edit > Delete All by Type > History, or selecting the specific meshes that will be exported and Edit > Delete by Type > History. First option concerns all objects in Maya, may they be geometries or not, while the second deals with selected objects only. I think the icon in mtiMain uses the first action (that is similar I guess to "applying transformations" in blender).

* Then make sure you have the plugin available and loaded for *.obj IO. Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-In Manager. The name of the plugin is objExport.mll, tick the auto-load checkbox if that's not the case already.

* Be sure there exixts a directory called "objs" in the same folder than where the scene is saved or the exporter will not be able to save external meshes. I guess that is your point.

*Camera: I never use MtI to create a valid camera, I found these are very easy to mess up but that will show up only at render time. Instead I create a simple camera, then Panels > Look Through Selected to position it. Once this is done I go back to the working cam (persp), open the attribute editor for the future Indigo cam and set its Controls to Camera, Aim and Up. Then I don't touch it again, and if needed I make it a simple camera again before using it for navigation. I found that navigating with the 3 nodes cam would screw up camera vectors in Indigo.

For now you'd better use indigo.exe rather than console, it's way more handy to debug the jazz.

Hope that helps ! I have necessarily but not voluntarily omitted infos, so feel free to come and ask again.

------------------

Aha, not bad

mtiMaterialEditor is not developed yet, no wonder. I suppose the meshlights not working are an History issue... and auto-render is ever complaining about inifile.txt (dunno concerning current MtI state), Ono told a while back he fixed that but I never noticed he did...

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 6:16 am

How many camera models does Maya have? xD

arneoog · Post by **arneoog** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 6:53 am

Hm.. Seems I'm drifting further and further away from this thingy ^^
I'm busy with other stuff anyways, so it's okay

..Sh*t..!
Okay, I just fixed up the minisite a bit..

http://elqx.com/mayatoindigo/

dougal2 · Post by **dougal2** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:02 am

Kram1032 wrote: How many camera models does Maya have? xD

i think 3 or 4 off the top of my head, I can check later.
- Camera (just like blender)
- Camera + Aim (as above, but with a "target" that you can position)
- Camera + Aim + Up (as above, but with also an up vector)

Kram1032 · Post by **Kram1032** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:07 am

Oh, so, Blendercam, Blendercam with tracked empty and Blender with one tracked empty as view direction and one for up-vector^^

CTZn · Post by **CTZn** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 2:39 pm

I have merged my scripting into this last release, the readme will tell you. Hope you like it !

//INSTALLATION
backup the original files and put these in.

//WHAT'S NEW !?

Main Window:
------------

#Sun (through icon) is now a directional light, that will give you an accurate preview of the lighting's direction if you use lights in Maya's viewpane (7), direction wise. When first created, the directionalLight stands 10 units above the scene IIRCXD and has the move tool activated, so if it is not right into your frustrum just press a snap key to bring the light nearby. You will notice also that it is constrained to a templated locator (Heliocenter) at the origin, this one must not be moved. Resizing this light at will has no consequences, rotating it freely (breaking the constraint or moving Heliocenter) will lead to incorrect results.
Two suns can't coexist, in case you call for a second sun first one is selected instead.

#Halt Samples added.
#Removed strata width and other obsolete stuff Indigo does'nt use anymore.

- Tools Menu|Make Instances:

#Before doing this action, you want to select the mesh to be instanced first, followed by the locators to instance the mesh. Locators have not to be already of mtiInstanceLocator type; they will be renamed using a predetermined prefix (mtiInstanceLocator) and the relevant attribute will be added to them and feeded with the mesh name, allowing Indigo to reconize them as instances of that mesh.

/!\ #Any shape in selection wich is not mesh or locator will be ignored by the procedure, the only mandatory thing is to select the mesh first; in case you selected some locators first, they will be renamed correctly and new attribute will be added but it's field will be blank so you will have to fill it yourself ("ObjToInstance" attribute in locator transform -NOT shape- extra attributes). Selecting more than one mesh will result in ignoring all but first selected mesh.
#Another limitation is that unlike locator's scale and position attributes, rotate attributes are not used for now; instances can be at different spots with different sizes, but they will all have the same orientation. This, hopefully, will be fixed soon.

(!) While setting up a scene for Indigo in Maya, use instances (locators) as much as possible instead of copies of actual meshes, that will save RAM both in Maya and Indigo.

//FIXED/UPDATED:

/!\tested with multiple obj export only/!\
#Fixed undeclared initialShadingGroup error
#Gain is back to the second term instead of third previously in order to match readme documentation
#Added Halt Samples (per pixel)
#switched comment slashes between lines 967 and 968 in mtiGen.mel, possibly edit your own path here.

As it was said before, enjoy ! Oh and please report bugs !

MtI_CTZn_16oct07.zip

Following are the individual files of the archive:

MayatoIndigo8.5.txt
mti_procGetUIValues.mel
mtiGen.mel
mtiMain.mel

Maya 8.5 // Indigo 9 Test 6

Maya 8.5 // Indigo 9 Test 6

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