Great analysis, thanks for putting the time to do it and share it with the community.
Jordi Bares [email protected] On 8 Jan 2014, at 19:45, David Gallagher <[email protected]> wrote: > > I rigged on quite a few characters in Maya at Blue Sky Studios and now > (Softimage) AnimSchool. We offer the well-known "Malcolm" rig for free. > > There is no comparison to rigging in Softimage and Maya--not the kind of > rigging I do. I often assume by now they have better workflows in Maya, but > I'm often surprised to find how convoluted and limiting the workflows are to > this day. Most Maya people must not know there are better ways of working or > aren't doing the kinds of things I am, because the difference is profound. > > -At any point in the rigging process, you can make edits in the model stack > to change the shape and topology of the model. After experimenting, you can > freeze that part of the stack and continue on with that new shape, retaining > almost every bit of work you've done. > YOU CAN CHANGE THE TOPOLOGY. YOU CAN CHANGE THE SHAPE FREELY. > This difference is huge. You can work toward completion without fear of > losing work. You can experiment freely--knowing it's fine if you want to make > a major change. I'm never afraid of losing blendshape work. > And if the changes are really significant, you can always Gator you're way > out of a jam. > > -You can do blendshape edits directly on the geometry, modelessly, instead of > on a separate blendshape object. > > -There is no comparison with corrective blendshapes. In Softimage, you go to > Secondary Shape mode and drag a few points. > In Maya, I wish you luck. You can install one of several plug-ins and scripts > and HOPE that it works. If the scenario is simple enough, it might. > Several people here tried to help a student make a single corrective > blendshape on an elbow -- and we're all experienced Maya riggers. After hours > of attempting, we threw up our hands. There was something in that object's > history that was making the blendshape plug-in fail. The answer is what it > often is: just start over. > -EDITING corrective blendshapes. In Maya, heaven help you if you want to edit > that blendshape later. Start the process again and make a new one. In > Softimage, drag a few points and you're done in seconds. > > -For facial work, being able to make face shapes in conjunction with the > mixer, working directly on the main geo. To see other shapes muted, soloed as > you're working. This allows you to craft shapes that work for different > scenarios, with just the right falloff. You can make correctives for shape > combinations quickly. In face work, it's all about how the functions combine > to make the range of expressive results. > > -The envelope weighting is far superior. The smoothing is just better, and > more reliable. Negative weight painting actually works. > Being able to make sophisticated weighting allows you to make lighter rigs, > because fewer nodes and calculations are needed. > I can't believe someone actually compared Maya's Component Editor to > Softimage's Weight Editor. I'm stunned. > Sometimes, demoing Maya's envelope weighting, it just stops working for no > reason -- I have no idea why. (Mind you, I've been rigging in Maya since > 1999.) > > -You can envelope/skin null objects, not just joints. (Yes, Maya will let you > add other objects as deformers but it is limiting and causes problems.) > > -The tweak tool. You can grab anywhere and it will just get the nearest > point/edge/poly and transform it precisely. Add the proportional editing and > it's very sculptural without giving up precise transform control. I far > prefer this workflow to the Zbrush approach geared toward paintstrokes. > > -In Softimage, you can change the wireframe on shaded opacity. You can change > the point sizes. These mean I can visualize and work with the shape, not get > visually stuck on the tech clutter like in Maya. > > -LinkWithOrientation. Does Maya have anything built-in yet? I know there are > pose readers out there, but they are slow and 3rd party. > > -The "smooth preview" Geometry Approximation is better, faster, and more > stable in Softimage. > > -Even with the army of tools and plug-ins we had at Blue Sky Studios, I would > still much rather use off-the-shelf Softimage. > > -You can select controls without selecting (and highlighting) all its > children. This makes it easier to animate the rig -- just drag selecting will > get you the selectable controls. In Maya, drag-selecting gets a mixture of > heirarchy parts. > > All this means that I can focus on the ART, the shaping of the rig, not jump > through hoops all day. > As a result, our characters are more flexible and expressive. > > > > On 1/8/2014 2:30 AM, Stefan Kubicek wrote: >> To be fair, I weighted a fair amount of characters in Maya over the years >> but I never experienced anything like that. >> When exactly is this happening? The only hickup I ran into occasionally was >> when painting weights, and then undoing that operation, which in rare cases >> does what you describe, but I think they fixed that in version 2013 or 2014. >> I never locked the skin weights, workflow wise I always found that highly >> disruptive. >> >> >> I was quite shocked to learn from riggers in my last job, that in maya you >> have to "lock all bones but the ones you want to weight to via small tick >> boxes" failure to do so aparently causing maya to through random influences >> around... >> >> >> On 8 January 2014 02:22, Alan Fregtman <[email protected]> wrote: >> Last time I had to use Maya I would use Crosswalk to transfer the skinned >> mesh from Maya to Soft, do my weighting in home sweet home, then I wrote an >> exporter that saved out my weights in the "cometSaveWeights" format. Life >> saver! >> >> >> >> On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 6:15 PM, Steven Caron <[email protected]> wrote: >> arg, figured it out. >> >> import pymel.core as pm >> pm.select(pm.skinCluster(pm.selected()[0], query=True, influence=True)) >> >> best UI ever! >> >> >> On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 2:58 PM, Steven Caron <[email protected]> wrote: >> this thread is some what well timed... i am in maya right now. i need to get >> a mesh and its skin/envelope into softimage. i did not rig this object and i >> don't know enough about maya to try and understand it through inspection. in >> softimage i would select the mesh, then select the deformers from envelope, >> then key frame those objects and remove the constraints on them in mass with >> 'remove all constraints' >> >> is NONE of that doable in maya? cause i am having a hell of a time figuring >> it out. >> >> s >> >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> ------------------------------------------- >> Stefan Kubicek >> ------------------------------------------- >> keyvis digital imagery >> Alfred Feierfeilstraße 3 >> A-2380 Perchtoldsdorf bei Wien >> Phone: +43/699/12614231 >> www.keyvis.at [email protected] >> -- This email and its attachments are -- >> --confidential and for the recipient only-- >
