Category Archives: Maya

check list to save rendering time in maya

here’s a check list to go through in order to save rendering time:

render attributes: be sure you don’t have any unnecessary render attributes activated (shape node: render stats > cast shadows, receive shadows, motion blur, primary visibility, smooth shading, …

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creating blend shapes after binding your character

usually, the head’s blend shapes of a character are done before the binding process. there’s a way that allows you do this after binding, it’s quite straightforward: select all faces to be used for the blend shapes of your …

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mirroring blend shapes – impossible?

whenever you’re into creating a bunch of blend shapes for example for a face, you may wish to mirror certain face expressions instead of having to do the tedious and time-consuming work of moving around vertices again (and try …

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ascii just saved my life

some minutes ago i was in a desperate mood: i just couldn’t open a certain maya file anymore, it just crashed right at the time when i tried to open it – did i lose all my work of …

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creating a rim shader in maya

using the sampler info utility in maya (hypershade) allows you to receive information about the shading on a point of a surface; so if you want to create a rim shader in maya connect the facing ratio of a …

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spline ik setup for the spine

while going through all the different rig setups of my character, the spine needs specific attention, too. later on, i’ll dig into a full rig, but for now i just want to note down certain parts in order to …

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creating a reverse foot lock system

i’m at the stage if rigging the character (lt. lou) i created for my upcoming short and oh yes, this means high brain activity. but you know what? i like it as a working rig is the portal of …

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The Rollercoaster Problem

The roller-coaster problem – a nice name for a problem you may encounter using motion paths in Maya. Named and explained by my Maya instructor Greg Berridge lately, I hereby note down the solution offered.

First, the problem: Draw a …

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renderman’s micro-tesselation

since i’m allowed to use pixar’s renderman for my upcoming short to be released by the end of this summer here at vfs, learning this legendary rendering system is a must since i don’t expect that i’ll have much …

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rendering wireframes (again)

i was writing about rendering wireframes in 3ds max quite a while ago and the solution offered by using a special mental ray shader works in maya, too; because maya now also has a built-in mental ray rendering system. …

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