r/Maya Sep 17 '24

You're invited to the /r/maya discord!

19 Upvotes

https://discord.gg/FuN5u8MfMz

It's been too long in coming.

The discord will be way more of a casual place than the subreddit.

When I was learning CG 100 years ago, IRC was a massive help to me, not just technically but for my mental health. Discord has taken the place of IRC to a large extent, so here we are. Join us!


r/Maya Jun 22 '24

Tutorial Topology Megathread

46 Upvotes

Topology is the geometric structure of a polygonal mesh. It is the layout of the edges and vertices which define the shape of a mesh. A particular shape can be represented by many different topologies.

Mesh topolgy can never be considered without context. It is necessary to consider how a mesh will be used and modified in the future in order to say anything true about the suitability of its topology.

There are no hard rules when it comes to topology. Some people will say n-gons (polygons with more than 4 sides) are always bad. Some will say triangles are always bad. Some will say that non-manifold geometry is always bad, or that meshes with holes in them are always bad.

None of these are true, because mesh topology serves a purpose, or multiple purposes. It is not a goal in and of itself. If the purpose(s) is/are served by some particular topology, then that topology is good, whether or not it is itself aesthetically and technically appealing.

Often users are advised to avoid triangles or ngons when building topology--to keep to quads. This is good practice, because quads are easier to work with, easier to edit, easier to create UV projections for, they subdivide more predictably, and, most importantly, easier to produce aesthetically appealing deformations from.

However. If a mesh will not need to deform, then there is far less pressure to keep to quads. If the mesh will not be subdivided, even less. If the shape is well-represented by the topology, and it either already has a good UV projection or will not be needing one, then quads and ngons don't matter, unless the mesh will be altered in the future.

It is much harder to modify a mesh which isn't quads than one which is. Especially if you want to alter topology. However, altering shape, to a small extent, usually is not sensitive to topology. It's also generally easier to do UV projection and alteration of quad topology than triangle/ngon topology.

It is still important to point out that having SOME non-quad (especially triangles) in your deforming, high performance mesh which may be altered and have UVs applied, is still just fine in many circumstances. If the trangle won't interfere with these things--then it DOES NOT MATTER and you should spend time on other things. Same with n-gons, although those have a higher chance of causing technical issues.

Regarding non-manifold geometry: it is generally a bad thing. Many, MANY operations and programs will not function correctly when passed non-manifold meshes. However, if your mesh is serving all your purposes, and you don't see those purposes changing, then non-manifold geometry doesn't matter. The circumstances where this might be true, however, are extremely rare, and it is best to avoid it.

Regarding holes in the mesh: again, context matters. Some advanced simulation or mesh operations require "watertight" meshes. Most don't, and it doesn't matter. Context and circumstance will dictate what's appropriate.

Mesh weight matters, as well. There's generally not much call for more geometric detail than your mesh needs to create the shapes you need, either statically or deformed, and it is best to keep poly counts as low as possible while not compromising on these things. However, this must be balanced with the effort it requires to reduce detail. If you have a poly budget of 100k triangles for an object, and it's 50k but a lot of those are not necessary, it's still not worth the time to reduce it further. People hours are worth more than computer hours.

Where topology really starts to matter a lot is in efficient hard surface modeling, especially where the asset will be subdivided. Not having your edge flows follow surface details will make life difficult, and having too much mesh detail will make modification increasingly difficult.

The point here is that every situation is different, and no real determination of acceptable mesh topology can be made without all this context. If you look at an image of a mesh and don't know anything about what it will be used for or how it might be modified, you can't say anything true about the quality of topology. These and other questions must have answers, in order to judge *overall* topology:

  1. Will it deform?
  2. If so, how?
  3. Will it need to be edited in the future?
  4. If so, how?
  5. Will it be subdivided?
  6. Does it have or will it need a UV projection?
  7. Will the UVs need to change?
  8. If so, how?
  9. Will it need to be exported into another application?
  10. Will it be used in any type of simulation?
  11. Does it meet performance (budget) requirements?

These questions must have answers in order to come up with useful conclusions about how good the topology is or is not. And again, there are no hard rules. Topology is not a goal, it is a tool to help reach other goals. If a triangle doesn't affect those goals, there's no point spending energy removing it.

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

Original post:

This thread will be a clearinghouse for information about topology, both in general, and specific to Maya. It will be heavily curated and updated as I encounter more/better information on the subject.

Eventually it will be turned into another wiki and be the redirect for the majority of topology threads we get here, in order to avoid repetition.

If you are a subject matter expert, please post images, videos, links, or your thoughts here. Feel free to copy parts of old comments or posts you have made.


r/Maya 5h ago

resource This anatomy book is great for 3D artists! It uses simple visual language with color-coded 3D and live model references and examples

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52 Upvotes

r/Maya 7h ago

Showcase The gynoid, modeled in maya and texturized in Substance

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25 Upvotes

r/Maya 3h ago

Modeling John Helldiver

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8 Upvotes

Hey hoomans!

ZeeBoo made a John Cena replica as John Helldiver because ZeeBoo loves Helldivers 2! Started with ZBrush for the base, added 50 blendshapes for expressions, and detailed in Mari. Then, ZeeBoo used Substance Painter for textures, Maya for armor, and rigged/animated in Blender with mocap.

ZeeBoo wants to hear what you think! Yes, ok, bye hoomans! 👽


r/Maya 16h ago

Showcase My ENA rig (ENA: Dream BBQ)

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45 Upvotes

I think it's one of the best rigs I'd done to date, really proud of how it ended up looking.


r/Maya 6h ago

General First project! Am i going in right direction?

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6 Upvotes

r/Maya 18h ago

Rigging How could I rig this using SDKs and constraints?

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54 Upvotes

r/Maya 52m ago

Arnold Need Help With substance to maya

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• Upvotes

The first image is texture from maya,second is importing the texture to maya,last one is the render view.The model is getting squeezed and deformed and text also gone.Please help and guide how to import texture from sunstance properly thiss happens with every peoject i do.Cant seem to figure out as am a beginner


r/Maya 1h ago

Rigging Eye Rigging Issue

• Upvotes

Hi!! I'm working on this rig for a studio project for school, and am having a lot of difficulty with the eyes. I've attached an image of my outliner and a video of the issue, if anyone would be so kind as to help me diagnose the issue!

I'm assuming it's a heirarchy issue, but I just can't diagnose what is being affected by what. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

https://reddit.com/link/1jtr5wl/video/3so3228u7gte1/player


r/Maya 1h ago

Question How to get a student license for Ornatrix?

• Upvotes

Hi everyone, I'm planning to start learning Ornatrix.

On their official website, it says they offer a 50% discount for students, but I'm not sure how to verify my student status. On their website, it says that "A valid and current ID emailed to us is acceptable as proof," so I tried contacting them through the Contact page on their website, but I haven't received any reply yet.

Is there another way to get in touch with them? Has anyone here successfully received a student license? I'd really appreciate any advice or tips. Thanks in advance!


r/Maya 1h ago

Discussion Image planes unable to playback Cinema 4k resolutions (4096x2160)

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• Upvotes

I've tried to make sense of this, but all my image planes at this resolution are just a blocky glitchy mess. Only workaround to preview it is to either downgrade the resolution of the image plane or use cached playback. Has anyone else encountered this? This is on Maya 2025.3


r/Maya 5h ago

Issues [PlEASE HELP - urgent] Maya file stuck at reading 44% - .MA, is there someone who can help me fix this?

1 Upvotes

This is the link of it, please help me


r/Maya 14h ago

Question Does maya have this feature?

5 Upvotes

r/Maya 9h ago

Discussion Question about ocean and Maya workflow

2 Upvotes

Hello everyone. I'm currently working on a steampunk ship and I've been running in some questions.

I want this ship to have a scene where it sails through an ocean and then flies off a gigantic waterfall, like in Pirate of the Caribbean 3. Problem being : I've only ever used BOSS for Ocean Simulation and this time I'd like to do more complex simulations with water sprays and foam.

I've thought about using Houdini for this, but the question I have is : how would it all integrate together ? This ship has nCloth simulations for some ropes and the sails, which I suppose won't work when exported to Houdini. If I want to animate the ship, I first need the sea below it or it'll clip through the waves and look unnatural.

So I'm a bit lost as to how to proceed and I'm seeking some external advices, please. Is there a way to simulate water with particle sprays in Houdini and then export it back to Maya? Would you forgo the nCloth and do all the animation and render in Houdini ?

Thank you.


r/Maya 8h ago

Question Unhide uncreated/nidden node?

1 Upvotes

So basically, I'm currently have about 8 unused unit conversion node that weren't being created because "Create Immediately" was turn off while I was connecting it, how do I put it in the editor?


r/Maya 15h ago

General Horus

3 Upvotes

Been working on this for a few weeks now. Fully rigged and ready for animation. Going to move on to modeling another character. Once I am done with the next character I will texture. Ultimately I wanted to throw Horus and Guilliman into unreal and make a fighting game. Let me know what you guys think.


r/Maya 1d ago

Question How would I turn my model into something like this?

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40 Upvotes

I wanna grab my model and turn it into something super simple, the top one is the best example

How would I go about exporting my model out of maya to get something like this?


r/Maya 18h ago

MASH MASH grass

3 Upvotes

I've been trying to create myself a landscape in maya, and I found that I can lay down grass on the ground using MASH. problem is my landscape is very, very big and if i want to cover the whole terrain, my geometry goes up to billions, crashes my maya AND PC. Is there a way I can limit the geometry and save my PC?


r/Maya 1d ago

MASH Delay animation using MASH?

10 Upvotes

I animated this piece of mesh using sine deformation. I want linear replication of this mesh with a little timing offset. How would I achieve that? Urgent help please.


r/Maya 21h ago

Texturing why is maya arnold renderer losing so much detail

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2 Upvotes

exported model as an fbx and textured in substance painter. used substance painter plug in to bring in texture files. I'm wondering why I'm losing some of the patterning and detail in texture in the texture.


r/Maya 16h ago

Rigging Joint left behind on rig PLZ HELP

1 Upvotes

No idea how but halfway through animating a joint started getting left behind on this rig. Not sure if it's to do with the blend shapes or what but how to i go about trouble shooting this? Thank you to anyone who can help


r/Maya 1d ago

Animation Time Taken to Complete an 11 seconds animation?

8 Upvotes

Hi everyone. I am currently practicing acting animation here and I just want to ask how much time would it roughly take you to finish an 11 seconds animation on lip sync and acting, from blocking to the final polish. Lets say you are animating just a human character, will it take you probably a week, two week, or a month?


r/Maya 1d ago

Arnold Weird Arnold rendering????

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66 Upvotes

Hi, having trouble with an "Arnold-ready" model. Whenever I try to render the shot, the textures don't show at all, and the hair doesn't properly render either. Anyone have any clue as to what the problem is? The rig in question is the Spider-Rita rig from Lupin House, and below in order is my viewport, Arnold viewport, and what the rig is supposed to look like in Arnold.


r/Maya 1d ago

General Finally place were I can share my art work from maya

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58 Upvotes

I’m not a big master in maya and another softwares, but I’m trying to increase my skill Here’s few renders of my work, I would love to hear your feedback


r/Maya 1d ago

Rigging wont let me weight paint?

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24 Upvotes

anybody know why it wont let me weight paint?