Maya Playblast Fixes 2 (64bit)

So all the stuff below in the previous post is still valid, but it looks like the FFDS wrapper is causing memory issues and unstability when Playblasting. So, the answer after some hunting is to use the 64 bit Xvid installer below:

Xvid 64bit codec

This then gives you XVID back as a default compression option in Maya and runs much more stable than the FFDS every did.

Hotbox display issues

So, we've been haunted in every Maya release with different bodges for getting the graphics card to work correctly. Firstly there's all the environment settings that have been added and removed over the years.

MAYA_GEFORCE_SKIP_OVERLAY = 1 

MAYA_NO_VERTEX_ARRAY_SELECT = 1

MAYA_NO_TOPLEVEL_TBB=1
MAYA_NO_PARALLEL_DRAW=1

All of which have in the past been linked to fixing GeForce card draw issues. Now we're in QT as of 2011 most of these are defunct, so what now?

Well, now it seems that in Win7 it's actually more to do with people customizing their Windows settings. Below is a typical issue to do with the HotBox overlay and we've had 3 or 4 people round the studio moan at having this.

Fix is simple, go into Windows customize and set the theme back to Aero.... job done, all good and happy.

Now wouldn't it be nice if Autodesk would add at least the top level GeForce cards to the qualified hardware, lets face it, most games studios are running them.

Oh joys, more fixes to remember!

MasterClass Approved - Live Animation Binding

Just had the nod from Autodesk that the MasterClass I've been preparing for the last few months has been approved for the Autodesk MasterClass sessions for this years Siggraph! HAPPY DAYS! Should go live on the Area a few weeks before Siggraph late July. Just got to finish it now...

And as if by magic! - Hotfix2

Fix list:
* Goal issue when using a straight curve
* Load render pass doesn't work when project is on network share
* Shadow artifacts occurs with large differences in object size
* Connecting luminance node to bump channel of mental ray shader causes crash
* UNC path bookmarks are not saved in new filebrowser
* Final gather map visualization not working
* Painting blendshapes problems
* Wacom tablet not working correctly in mouse mode
* dagContainer collapses at every DAG operation
* Unpredictable results referencing HIK characters
* Creating Framebuffer with a Geometry shader causes a crash
* Joint orient channels not accepting setAttr correctly
* Graph editor: cannot view multiple f‐curves on a character set
* Polysplit crash
* Metacarpal fingers not created when creating HIK control rig
* Pinning an effector is causing the pivot display to jump
* Missing manipulator handles in perspective view
* Adaptivesampling gives lower shading quality in framebuffers
* mia_material_x preset 'Satined Metal' renders differently
* Scenes with dense final gather settings may have longer render time
* Render with mental ray errors with multi‐shape polygons
* HIK: Shift+LMBdoes not allow for selection of keys on timeline if HIK in scene
* New option in move tool broken
* Human IK: Parenting Auxiliary Effectors to an object doesn't work

Thanks for the characterSet fix Cory (although not had chance to test it)

Another day, another bug....

So I've been testing Maya2012 to see if it's ready to push out to the studio and found a couple of killer bugs.

#Bug:CharacterSets and GraphEditor
The first is a true show-stopper. If you have any node linked to characterSets, the graphEditor fails to show you your animation curves for the transform correctly. No stacked view, no curves unless you select each channel separately. No 'F' frame-all. Nothing. Kind of stops us in our tracks seeing as all our Rigs link via a characterSet. Hopefully this will be fixed in the next HotFix.

#Bug: HumanIK setAttr/channelBox/callback
So let's say you have a HumanIK Rig in 2012 and you move one of the IK effectors, now you'll see the callback where the rig only updates on mouse release, this is a limitation they put in for performance reasons apparently. But crutially if you try and do anything under the hood, or even changing data in the channelBox, this call back prevents any of the attributes from being modified. Seriously try it, grab an IK effector on the HIK Rig and just try changing a value in the channelBox....ooops!

So let's say you were trying to setAttr in code, the only way to do this is to wrap the call in context that Maya is internally calling... and this is selection sensitive too.

select the control....
hikManipStart(1,1); //(trans,rots)
do something.......
hikManipStop;

Not a good day for 2012.. coffee!

Maya Playblast Fixes

Playblast Management in Maya

Possible Issues:

• Missing codecs, or very limited selection
• Missing Compression setting button in Maya
• Skewed AVI's once generated
• Maya error message 'Unable to create video track. Check format.'

Playblast issues have shown up in Maya since 2011 and / or Maya under Windows7 and a lot of people on many forums, and indeed at our studio, have been moaning about this for a while, I thought it was about time to put a few answers out there....

Codecs:
The first problem is that most of the codecs that you're used to seeing in XP/Vista won't be there in Win7, so if you're used to playblasting Xvid/DivX then you need to do a little bit extra to get these back.The fix is to hook Maya up with the FFDShow encoder, usually distributed via codec packs like K-Lite or Cole2K. Once you've installed one of these you'll see a new compressor show up in Maya, 'FFDS', this is the ffdshow video encoder.

In Maya2011 they also missed out the button that lets you setup compression settings like you could in Maya2010, you can choose the codec, but not set any options! You can by-pass this issue though, if you enter the following in the script editor:

playblast -compression ""

Now the standard Windows compression UI will pop up, letting you set the compression options (for FFDS this'll actually pop up the ffdsVFW encoder UI. If you don't do this then you can set the encoder up by opening the FFDSVFW window which you'll find under your windows Start>K-Lite>ffdsVFW
Here you can once again get access to most of your standard codecs like Xvid,DivX etc. We tend to set ours up to something like the following:

Skewed Avi's or Unable to Generate errors: 
These 2 symptoms are both linked, and not actually Maya's fault. If you try and compress an Xvid then the compressor is expecting the AVI to be on height and width bounds that are of multiples of 4 (if memory serves me correctly!).

So if you try and blast 640*480 all is good, if you do 641*480 you'll get the 'unable to generate' error, if you do 642*480 you get a skewed movie...so movie sizes under xvid/divx and ffds can give either a skewed avi, or the dreaded 'Unable to create video track' message. This basically means that the codec couldn't make the avi at the given size. The best thing to do is to use a Custom window size (or render settings) and stick to it.

Anyway, enough, hope that helps a few folk.

Mark

Maya Bug: pointOnPolyConstraint

I was playing over the weekend and found a bug in the pointOnPolyConstraint code that ships with Maya2011, it doesn't support namespaces. Just to clarify, if you select a component, then a transform and use the 'constrain>point on poly' menuItem it'll fail on source objects with namespaces. The bug is in the Python code that assembles the command prior to passing it to the mel scope. Reading through this you have to query why the hell they build up the commands like this, built it in python, then pass a string back to mel to then run and eval on the string?? Why the hell not just run it from the python scope?

Anyway, the problem file is this one:

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya 2011 Subscription Advantage Pack\Python\lib\site-packages\maya\app\general\pointOnPolyConstraint.py

Around line 18 there's a .split() to get the node name back, unfortunately in the constraint node that gets generated it doesn't support the nodes namespace in the attributes that get generated and the command fails. Easy to fix, open the file up and replace the following:

name = strings[0].split( '.' )[0]
#replace with the following
name = strings[0].split( '.' )[0].split(':')[-1]

Fixes it. Another one to log with support. Not yet tried it on Maya 2012 but I suspect the same will be the case

Mark