1. When, where and how is the Humanize Maya effort going (if at all?). 2. Has anyone made a dedicated effort to manually configure Maya's hotkeys and or UI?
I took a several months long, extremely dedicated effort to make a full jump back over to Maya, after years of being with Soft and having left Maya behind for dead, and today I've finally had it, enough is enough, it's just not going to happen without further and very serious developments. I am convinced, that a dedicated TD could fully work out the process of mimicking Soft's sticky key system with-in Maya. The interface for recognizing keypress down and keypress release is already existing, however each command and tool would need to be assigned a well thought out place on the keyboard as well as a memory function script addended to each hotkey so that when it is pressed and held, the previous tool being used is recorded, so that after the mouse commands were entered (for splitting an edge loop at a selected place on the model for example) that the key can be released, and the last used tool or method was recalled (for example immediately go back to working in multi-component move mode). Aka, by default in soft, I can be in multi-component tweak move mode, pushing and pulling around points, edges and faces as if my geo were a sculpture, and then at any moment, hold down the "]" key, click the mouse where I want to split in an edge loop - immediately giving me a loop where I want it, clicking again where and if needed to add further loops, and upon finally releasing the "]" key, I am automagically and immediately brought back to multi-component move mode where I can continue refining OR whatever previous function I was using in some other case. This entire sticky key system is possible, I believe, to mimic in Maya, but it is a lot of work, and it is work unrelated to the direct process of being an artist and making 3D worlds and inhabitants and bringing them to life. In other words, it's a major distraction for an artist to approach and would be better handled as a sold separate tool that one could buy to accompany their Maya installation. I cannot seriously entertain a further continuation of using Maya as a primary dedicated package without such a previously described implementation developed -either internally via the Humanize Maya project (which may be an effectively dead effort for all that I know or can see) or externally via a sold separate plug-in installer from a dedicated 3rd party. There are other severe issues with Maya that I have but cannot even begin to whole-heartedly address without the above considerations first being fully solved. (aka The Unfold tool is far inferior in function and usage, the new nodal base editor for Maya is far inferior in it's presentation and use-ability, the ICE clone is in a very early state of presentation and not a system worth considering taking the time to learn vs ICE or Houdini, the Hypergraph is far inferior extremely dated and totally cumbersome by comparison, as well both the Attribute editor and Outline are far far far inferior in usage after a very thorough examination and comparison etc., etc., etc.) Aka. Just installing Maya, and assigning loop split, point weld, extrude and all of my other basic modelling functions to memorable hotkeys, isn't cutting it and is slowly driving me mad since I am really trying to take this full jump seriously. Even the familiar F8 command to exit component mode and return to object mode still, after 15+ years, sometimes inexplicably requires to be pressed twice because it doesn't work properly the first time, and other such oddities and confounding workflow complications (component selection memory for example).... Please someone advise me!!! For the time being I am going back to Softimage full time for modeling, uv, rigging and animation and relying on exporting (cleaning/completing the results as needed in another package (like Maya) and then sending to game or external render). This isn't a long term solution as it will continue to decay and depreciate over the years moving forward, especially as new tools and functions are released for other packages and accessories (in particular brand new functions/tools that would be best used in your primary package, aka. Softimage), however, I don't have a choice unless I continue to allow Maya or it's present day alternatives to drive me completely bonkers. A serious solution is required, please advise.
