Humanize Maya project

[Darren Cullis]

A custom gui for Maya , made a few years ago by Keith Fallon.

I think autodesk should contact him and buy it :)

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Darren Cullis
Character Animator / 3d Artist

w: www.dc3d.co.uk
e: 3d.D...@gmail.co.uk
m: 07595584800

[Andres Stephens]

Link?

--- Original Message ---

[Darren Cullis]

Sorry guys , I don't post on here Much. So this is the first time I've tried to post attachments.

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Darren Cullis
Character Animator / 3d Artist

w: www.dc3d.co.uk
e: 3d.D...@gmail.co.uk
m: 07595584800

[Darren Cullis]

A custom gui for Maya , made a few years ago by Keith Fallon

See attached image :

[Steven Caron]

um, is that a functional gui? or just a mock up?

[Darren Cullis]

It was functional, although he says it needs updating .

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Darren Cullis
Character Animator / 3d Artist

w: www.dc3d.co.uk
e: 3d.D...@gmail.co.uk
m: 07595584800

[Mirko Jankovic]

now that is something worth checking out :)

[Darren Cullis]

I'd love for him to release it or sell it to Autodesk even . Maybe kick starter project :) he says he needs to update it and would require a few months work as he would be doing it in his spare time ( he's currently working back in softimage. At the time when he made it he was transitioning over to maya.) But I think someone from autodesk should at least take a look at it.  .

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Darren Cullis
Character Animator / 3d Artist

w: www.dc3d.co.uk
e: 3d.D...@gmail.co.uk
m: 07595584800

[Cristobal Infante]

Naaa what's the point... If you gonna jump, just jump...

[John Richard Sanchez]

WOW! That looks great. Though I dont think the center will work like we expect. :)

--

www.johnrichardsanchez.com

[Darren Cullis]

I know what you mean about jumping. But still it would be nice to have  some sort of built in "interaction mode" like soft had for Maya users at the very least.

I'm personally looking at the default Maya like everyone else. I just thought I'd share the pics :)

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Darren Cullis
Character Animator / 3d Artist

w: www.dc3d.co.uk
e: 3d.D...@gmail.co.uk
m: 07595584800

[Ed Manning]

does a UI like this have a performance hit?

[Darren Cullis]

Ive not used it or seen it in action I just know it works, Or used too.

It's just a gui that is linked up to the standard Maya functions and commands as far as I'm aware. Although i Could be wrong though. I'd love to try it out :) just to see.

[Eric Thivierge]

You're going to cripple yourself if you get used to using this sort of
thing. Once you go to a Maya workstation that doesn't have this you're
screwed. My opinion / suggestion is to stay away from this sort of
thing.

Eric T.

[Darren Cullis]

Yeah I'm learning Maya as it is out the box, but as I said above I just thought I'd share it , ad everyone has been asking for text based buttons etc.

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Darren Cullis
Character Animator / 3d Artist

w: www.dc3d.co.uk
e: 3d.D...@gmail.co.uk
m: 07595584800

[Doeke Wartena]

It's nice if your forced to use maya.

[John Richard Sanchez]

I agree Eric. However; it's been my experience that most people bring their preferences/ shells/ scripts with them. If this is the same then not bad at all.

--

www.johnrichardsanchez.com

[Eric Thivierge]

And if you are working at a studio, on a project that doesn't allow you access to USB drives, gmail, dropbox, and internet all together, then what? It's becoming more and more the case these days.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

[Eric Turman]

Then you become very good friends with the IT department and buy them a case of beers to set it up for you on your workstation ;P

Seriously though, the real point of this is to get the Maya team to open their minds to better workflows. This need not be modeled after Soft, but I do not believe that it is acceptable for Maya to stagnate in its crack-addled "organization" of an interface & procedures. 

This rework of the GUI demonstrates at the very least that the interface can be changed into something entirely different. There have been improvements as of late, but Maya desperately needs consistency and "cognitive-clustering" of like actions in order to smooth out its many, many rough edges.

On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 7:54 PM, Eric Thivierge <ethiv...@gmail.com> wrote:

And if you are working at a studio, on a project that doesn't allow you access to USB drives, gmail, dropbox, and internet all together, then what? It's becoming more and more the case these days.

--------------------------------------------
Eric Thivierge
http://www.ethivierge.com

--




-=T=-

[Eric Thivierge]

I don't disagree. However, you can see the knee jerk reaction by others here to make it look like Softimage immediately and continue on like its the same. It's not and you will have to adapt.

It's public knowledge that Maya can be run without its interface while having another interface riding on top. I'm pretty sure Pixar's Presto software is doing just that. It's entirely possible to customize it to your liking but how much maintenance will that take?

A custom UI that mimics Softimage by someone in the community isn't going to do anything to make anyone at AD redesign Maya. Instead keep being vocal and explaining on the list and forums about why work flows are better in Softimage.

[Eric Turman]

Bingo

--




-=T=-

[Steven Caron]

sorry for picking apart your post but... you think presto is sitting on top of maya? i find that very hard to believe and very easy to verify.

[Eric Thivierge]

Ill gladly accept being corrected. :)

[Steven Caron]

ok, i sent some emails ;)

in the mean time... i just don't think after all those demos at the GTC conference this year that it is really maya with a new gui. can you say you believe this? or know this?

and back on topic, i say do whatever customizations one wants. after you learn where things really are that is...

[Eric Thivierge]

Well I don't think it's only Maya underneath but I think it may be part of it. I'm only under this impression with things I've heard over the years. I have no contacts there so I can't verify. Would be great to know.

[Angus Davidson]

Imagine if they released it as a commercial product ;)

---

From: Eric Thivierge [ethiv...@gmail.com]
Sent: 10 April 2014 05:13 AM
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Humanize Maya project

Well I don't think it's only Maya underneath but I think it may be part of it. I'm only under this impression with things I've heard over the years. I have no contacts there so I can't verify. Would be great to know.

On Apr 9, 2014 11:02 PM, "Steven Caron" <car...@gmail.com> wrote:

ok, i sent some emails ;)

in the mean time... i just don't think after all those demos at the GTC conference this year that it is really maya with a new gui. can you say you believe this? or know this?

and back on topic, i say do whatever customizations one wants. after you learn where things really are that is...

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[David Saber]

Yes, that would be a good news. Steven, send more emails to ask about that ;)

On 2014-04-10 08:19, Angus Davidson wrote:

[Cristobal Infante]

It did make me think when I saw the PRESTO demo, why are they showing all this tech us now after all this years of secrecy?

Let's not forget they sell RenderMan, and I am sure the've lost a hell of a lot of business to Solid Angle's Arnold.

Could this be a strategy to get back in? We can only hope right ;)

 

[Eric Thivierge]

I was informed off list that in fact Presto is NOT using Maya at all. Sorry for the misinformation. I would like to hear from Luc Eric if this sort of thing is possible though.

[Cristobal Infante]

is it using softimage underneath then? ;p

[Steven Caron]

sorry, just one email :)

btw, the response was 'presto was built from scratch'

*written with my thumbs

[John Richard Sanchez]

Eric I agree 100% you need to know how Maya works. However; more often than not you can bring in your shelves, preferences, hotkeys etc. ( at least that has been my experience.) If not no biggie but the work flow will be slow. Same with having your own XSI workgroup. If you can't use it you just adapt. However; I still would love to see something like what was shown out of the box or as a script plugin.

--

www.johnrichardsanchez.com

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 7:11 AM, Eric Thivierge <ethiv...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I was informed off list that in fact Presto is NOT using Maya at all. Sorry
> for the misinformation. I would like to hear from Luc Eric if this sort of
> thing is possible though.

you can use maya in "library mode" as a 3d engine that you would build
your own UI front end with. Apparently, some studios have been doing
that, but I don't have info about who may still be doing this today.
An artist might not know that some tool is using Maya underneath. It
doesn't even take a license!

You can also change a few mel scripts and completely remove all the UI
elements of Maya, and perhaps replace them with something else... All
the menus, viewports. It's all in scripts/startup, ready to hack...
for example initMainWindow.mel creates the main layout. there is
nothing hard-coded in C++ in maya.

[Raffaele Fragapane]

They chose to show it now because it's, for the first time, somewhat worth showing.

Presto isn't that old, Marionette was its predecessor and it's been the main package only a few years ago. Presto is being shown in tandem with Pixar's GPU push and new "openness" trying to drive industry standards aligned with their intenral standards, and because nVIDIA is a partner.

I seriously doubt it'll go commercial any time soon, AFAIK the rigging and animation components are incredibly intertwined, and not many people will even conceive working like that. There would also be hardly any return to it most likely, it's a completely different scenario compared to PRMan.

But yeah, you can always hope, weirder things have happened, but I wouldn't stay up at night for this one ;)

--
Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!

[Enrique Caballero]

this gui looks cool, but i would stay away from it. Depending on what type of artist/td you are, you will spend a lot of time at other peoples desk, especially if you deal with animators. 

I believe that a TD should use the standard hotkeys and the standard gui as much as possible. Otherwise he will be useless when it comes to helping an animator out with a problem.  

When the animators get a bit too crazy with their hotkeys and UI  they actually affect how quickly they can get support, but that is their choice and they pay the price for it, me as a TD i think that I should be prepared to offer support as quickly as possible.

Also if a person is making the switch to maya. they should whole heartedly make the switch and let go of any preconceived ideas of what they want the package to be.  Instead they should face reality and learn it inside and out.

At least IMO

[Eugen Sares]

If I may add my 2 c:

I agree. It doesn't matter how things are called, arranged in the UI, or are otherwise just different.

But what does is that there ain't more difficulties, more buttons to click in the end, or more corners to think around.

 

For sure there will be some shards to swallow, though - no matter where you go.

Humanize M will hopefully break those further down.

Also if a person is making the switch to maya. they should whole heartedly make the switch and let go of any preconceived ideas of what they want the package to be.  Instead they should face reality and learn it inside and out.

At least IMO

 

---

Diese E-Mail ist frei von Viren und Malware, denn der avast! Antivirus Schutz ist aktiv.

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

Fun experiment though, I'd like to know how some of the commands are
implemented and if the result is satisfactory or makes Maya better. We
learned a lot about the difference between the apps when we made the
Maya Interaction Mode in Softimage.

[Leendert A. Hartog]

Too bad, though, that they/you never got around to make a corresponding
Softimage interaction mode for Maya.
The current PPG (for lack of a Mayan term) still seems a bit strange,
only offering one option.

Greetz
Leendert

--

Leendert A. Hartog AKA Hirazi Blue
Administrator NOT the owner of si-community.com

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 7:57 AM, Leendert A. Hartog <hiraz...@live.nl> wrote:
> Too bad, though, that they/you never got around to make a corresponding
> Softimage interaction mode for Maya.
> The current PPG (for lack of a Mayan term) still seems a bit strange, only
> offering one option.

Actually there is an on-going design project looking at the future of
the attribute editor in Maya.

In the mean time, what you have in Maya is the ability to tear off an
Attribute Editor tab in to a separate floating window. Is this done
by clicking the "Copy Tab" button way at the bottom of the Attribute
Editor.

[Mirko Jankovic]

And was there any reason why Softimage interaction mode was never made in Maya as well?

[Brent McPherson]

Maya interaction mode was developed under Avid and at the time it made sense to try and appeal to the (larger) Maya market.

You almost never see market leaders making these types of moves as the potential returns will be much smaller. Gimp interaction mode for Photoshop anyone? ;-)
--
Brent

From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Mirko Jankovic
Sent: 11 April 2014 13:27
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Humanize Maya project

[Leendert A. Hartog]

Brent McPherson schreef op 11-4-2014 17:18:

> You almost never see market leaders making these types of moves as the potential returns will be much smaller.

But once they started sharing suites together, the story changed ever so
slightly, one would image... ;)

[Luc-Eric Rousseau]

right..we did the Maya interaction (and UI cloning: connection editor,
channelbox, timeline ticks, groups, etc) in softimage 5.0
http://www.edharriss.com/xsi/version5.htm

[Brent McPherson]

Suites were about interop and using the best features of each product so the suite development focused on this.

To that end it wouldn't have made sense to try and make any package in the suite emulate all the others. Softimage already had Maya/Max key bindings but this was pre-existing functionality and had it not existed I do not think it would have been developed for the suites.
--
Brent

-----Original Message-----
From: softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimag...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Leendert A. Hartog
Sent: 11 April 2014 16:24
To: soft...@listproc.autodesk.com
Subject: Re: Humanize Maya project

[Graham Bell]

Plus with Suites, Maya/Max users were a target for Softimage usage and adoption, so made more sense for those interaction modes, rather than the other way round.

[Jason S]

On 04/11/14 11:18, Brent McPherson wrote:

[...] it made sense to try and appeal to the (larger) Maya market.

  

[...] 
Gimp interaction mode for Photoshop anyone?

Perhaps those references could apply in terms of market share (in the later years),
but those exact references could just as realistically be inversed in terms of actual interaction usability making sense.

Hence the title of this thread, and not to mention the quite blatant unrighteousness of this whole situation.

Gimp anyone?

[John Richard Sanchez]

Whether you use this GUI or not you HAVE to make maya more fast even if its making your own shelf because you will go crazy otherwise. If a TD is having a problem just delete prefernces and everything gets reset. Yes you do need to know where to dig out the tool 20000 leagues under the interface ( even if its just using the hotbox) but if you don't have to why do it.

--

www.johnrichardsanchez.com

[Leendert A. Hartog]

It indeed didn't make any sense for Autodesk to take Softimage users
serious enough to accommodate them, make them feel at home a little...
Insert smiley here...