Maya to Second Life: a new option for builders

where do you teach Maya at?

Thanks very much for the update, Adrian. It's very relieving to know you haven't disappeared or anything. I soooooo want this thing. You're my hero right now.

I'm not much of a programmer, so MEL's not exactly on my forte list, but if there's any way I can help support your efforts here, please let me know.






Again, you cannot "build" avatars outside of SL, not in Maya, not anywhere. There is one humanoid mesh, which you already have, which is what all avatars are made out of. It's morphable via the sliders on the appearance window. You cannot import any other meshes for use as an avatar. We all use the same pre-existing one. That's it.

As I said though, you can attach prim-based objects to the avatar's skeleton (also done completely inworld) to cover up the mesh if you want to look less human, and you can use BVH animations to change the way your avatar moves, but you can never replace the mesh.

I can't blame you for wanting to use Maya if you've already got experience with it. It's obviously a fantastic platform. By comparison, SL's tools will seem clumsy and even silly to you at first, but once you get used to them, you'll find that they are quite powerful for what they are, and trust me, mastering them will make you a better modeler in SL AND in Maya. Give it a few weeks of serious tinkering, and you'll see what I mean.

just wanted to give props to Adrian, here, and root him along, I would LOVE this code. I've been very reluctant to put in the time with the SL modeling tools since I've got so much time I need to dedicate to Maya.

Keep us posted, Adrian!

Let me guess.. the horn?

Er, end of the week? ^^;
I'm hoping this will still be released soon-ish. Any way to import objects into SL in an easier way is a good thing, but the Blender plugin is problematic because...well, Blender's a PITB to work with. ^^; Maya's one of the best packages out there, and obviously one of the few things made available for Linux as well. I for one would be very excited to take it for a spin.

Okay everybody, sorry for the delay.

I moved a few months ago, and lost the working version of the script, causing me to backtrack a bit. But I've rebuilt, and added more features. At present, the script supports 7 out of the 13 base prims:

cube
pyramid
cylinder
cone
half-cylinder
half-cone
ring

...with more to come soon. Note that the SL code generation button is temporarily disabled, but will be fixed soon. But I wanted to go ahead and post this so that people can take a look.

It works as similarly to SL as I could manage- selecting an object loads up the attributes of that object into the GUI, and changing any one of them alters the object. You can use Maya's built-in move/scale/rotate tools just as you normally would, and it will update the attributes as well.

To grab the script, head to:

http://www.purplestatic.com/SLmodel.zip

Note that the GUI includes the actual SL images- I've embedded the bitmap data directly into the MEL script itself.

Enjoy, and watch this space for updates in the near future (this time I really do mean it)

- Adrian
www.purplestatic.com

Adrian, have I told you you're my hero? Thanks soooooo much for doing this.

I still find it rather amusing that I come to SL and run into a guy I haven't seen in years. And what do you know, we're both writing tools for content creators to use.

Will this work for maya 4? I still (hopefully) have a copy of it in storage.
Nevertheless, You are a scholar and a gentleman. Thank you, you have saved me oodles of time. (When I find it.)
Now the question remains, does anyone know if you can move from 3d mesh of any type to a primative in Maya?
Or is this the equivalent of finding the Holy Grail?

There is no way to go from an arbitrary mesh to a prim. Y'see, prims aren't stored as polygons, it's all parametric. Like, SL stores what kind of shape it is and what transformations have been applied to it, and the client generates the polygons from that information.

I'm sure it's possible to write some sort of AI that could analyze the mesh data, and generate a similarly shaped model (efficiently) out of prims. However, I'm equally sure accomplishing the feat would be paramount to programming HAL9000 not to kill the crew. It could be done in theory, but you'd better keep that little red calculator handy since it's liable to go psycho at any time.

That having been said, if anyone wants me to love you as much as I love Adrian right now, start writing. After all, that's what programming's really about, right? Seeking Chosen's love and approval?

Hey Joe- good to see you.

So I have a minor update- the script now supports both the wedge and prism types. I've also added in support for the shearX and shearY attributes. At this point, what remains is as follows:

- sphere creation
- half-sphere creation
- torus creation
- tube creation
- addition of profile start/end to ring creation
- update to the SL replicator object

Known issues:

- hollow is represented as 0-100 rather than 0-1 (will fix shortly)
- the taper attributes are the inverse of SL- taper of 0 means to scale the top face down to 0 (also a simple thing to fix). For now, just enter 1-the amount you would use in SL.


I know that many of you are likely chomping at the bit to get the replicator object, so that you can actually bring things into SL. I'll be finishing that off soon, but lately I've been focusing on getting the Maya side fully finished. Once that's done, I'll add in full prim support (instead of just boxes and cylinders) to the replicator object and make it available. From there, I'll head back to Maya and start working on integrating texturing (I've started playing around a bit, made a few proof-of-concepts).

To get the new version of the script, head to:

http://www.purplestatic.com/SLmodel_0.0.9.zip

Cheers

- Adrian

Just thought I'd post an image of the current GUI to let prospective users see that it's just like the SL tools, but in nice, fast, multiple-view-supporting Maya.



Also, the script should work in Maya 4, but I can't vouch for it. For anyone who's curious, I've been developing it in Maya 6.5. I know it works from there up (7 and , but I can't say for certain about 4.

If you try it and it doesn't work, let me know- there might be a workaround.

- Adrian

Hello Adrian,
How is my hero going this day. Since the day I found this thread I am calling around constantly as I can hardly wait for the day I can use the Maya interface to constuct my models.
With that in mind can I be really cheeky and ask if there is any further progress on the plugin.
You are a wonderful person to be doing this and the GUI shows the promise of a geat plugin.
Just like to say thank you for your hard work so far.

Femina

will you be supporting prim torture?

Sadly Maya is way, way out of my budget.
I tried blender years ago I may try it again. How can I use the downloads above? What programs if I don't have Maya?
Is there way to take measurement of object and transfer that information manually in Second Life with Blender?
I have been messing with the measurements and often in Second Life the object goes poof and I have no clue where the fricking thing is.
It would be nice to have item I could make and have it stay put and some how transfer or upload it like a texture here though. Or even way to make mold for flexi that I could bring in the game that way.

Just so you know, Maya Personal Learning Edition is free. It's got most of the features of the full version. It just puts a watermark on renderings, so it's obvious that your output wasn't made with the commercial version, and it also uses a special file format, different from the standard Maya formats. Beyond that, it gives you nearly full functionality.

I haven't tried it, but I'd imagine Adrian's plugin would work just fine with PLE. At least, I see no glaring technical reason why it shouldn't.

You're not allowed to use PLE for commercial purposes, so you can debate the ethics of what that means for your SL content on your own. Either way, Maya's pretty easy to get started with (best documentation of any program I've ever seen), and it's a lot of fun to play with. Give it a try.


You won't be able to use the Maya plugin with anything but Maya, but there is a similar one for Blender already in existence. Seach for "offline builder" by Jeffrey Gomez, and you'll find it. I'm a little allergic to Blender myself, so I don't use it, but the people who do use it say it's great.


Not sure what you mean by that.


If you mistype a decimal into the location fields, it's easy to feel like the object disappeared. In reality, you likely just sent it somewhere other than where you intended to put it. It can be tuff to find stuff when that happens, so be sure to type carefully.

Other than that, and the occasional cache discrepency, I've never seen objects just poof out of existence all on their own.

I am no where tech savy just creative guy who has fascination with 3d world building and art.
If I was younger, healthier and had ablity to find funds I would go back to college to learn computer graphics, animation and game design.
I have been exploring different 3d object making tools when I can but often I find either they cost too much or example like Blender I often struggle with basic comprehension of how to use it even with tutorials.
The tutorials seem easy enough while reading them on good day but applying the tools I find something totally wrong within myself applying them.
At this point I am not planning on selling any items I create, just want to learn and if when I get enough confidence with the ablity to do so and if their is audience for purchasing the items maybe I will sell but that is long time in future.
At this point just trying to figure out what the best and affordable utilities that I comprehend to build and design.
One biggest issues I am facing is when building, aligning in game is not having clear picture of where item that I am crafting is and items I want to add to is as far as the x, y,z and it often is incredibly frusterating.
Any pointers in how to use this tool and Maya educational edition, building and creating right now would be greatly appreciated.
I haven't download it yet because I must confess I am bit intimidated.

Since I am gathering that the output of the maya script is text to put inot a notecard, you aren't violating the Maya Eula because it states that using thier special format for commercial work is forbidden.

I got my Maya 4 commercial (the actual $4000 one) as payment to saying someones bacon by ressurecting their computer without sacrificing their data which turned out to be as valible. A spare seat was available (they sell them in blocks of ten: at they did then.) as it was going unused. I had mentioned that I did a bit of graphic design, so he offed me this. Its a might better than gmax back then.
Sadly, I can't tell you if it works with 4. My copy along with the other stuff in storage at my sisters was tossed by her [email=%$#@!@^&%$]%$#@!@^&%$[/email] of a husband. So, I am back would I took with me. *sigh*

QUOTE=Chosen Few]Adrian, you just put the biggest smile on my face I've had in quite some time.[

This is the Best News i have seen for building sense I staring building my owen Stuff in SL and im a Noobe to all of this and InWorld building can suck and or when you are not able to work in world but have a lot of time on your hands an what use it !! Thanks so much!! now were can i get the Replacator!!!

Im new to Maya How to i run the slscript.mel file to get the interface your demos show ??

I finally found some time today to play around with this thing. Adrian, I stand by all the previous compliments I've thrown in your direction for creating the script, and I'll echo them once again. However, I'm having some trouble. The script doesn't seem to want to work with Maya 7.0.1.

When I try to run it, ether nothing happens, or I get the following two error messages:

// Warning: 	global int $tsjbs[] = {0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0};
 //
// Warning: Global variable is already initialized; this occurrence is ignored. //

I'm a good modeler, but I'm afraid my MEL skills are painfully inadequate, so I'm not sure what exactly the errors mean, let alone how to fix them. I suspect there's a setting or two that's just not quite right, but that's just a guess. Anyone know how I can get this up and running?

Thanks.

I'm confused on the idea. I have the 0.9 version script. I'm a maya 7.0 user, and I'm not understanding on how to install it at all. I'm a novice in both fields of graphical arts and SL. So referring to that wouldn't help me much, but don't mistake my ignorance for lack of intelligence.

Generally, the way to run a script in Maya is to open it from within the script editor, and then go Script -> Execute. The script editor can be launched either by clicking the little button in the lower right hand corner of the screen, next to the command line (it's the one that looks like a little black rectangle on top of two white rectangles), or by going Window -> General Editors -> Script Editor.

Unfortunately, as I said, the script doesn't seem to want to do anything in Maya 7.0.1. Adrian mentioned he's working in 6.5. Alias loves to break content from version to version by making little changes, so maybe it just won't work with 7. If no one has a solution for 7, and if I get around to it, I'll reinstall 6.5 alongside 7 just to see if the script works in it.

Aww... Oh well, it's all good. I already tried that a coulple diffrent times. Got an error around the like 900th line then I just kinda tried openning it in diffrent ways cause I thought I did it wrong. I'll just rewrite some variables and see if that works.