Maya camera problem

ok so what i was trying to do was supposed to be easy. set up a scene with a foot grid (each square is a square ft) and try to make a room that is 100 by 150ft. for the most part it worked fine until i started to not see my tool.

But when i selected another part i could see it

So i almost pulled my hair out trying to figure it out. i played with the clip planes like crazy and nothing worked. until i found the solution

My camera happened to be within my geometry. it was soo simple and yet i stressed over it soo much. so what i did was do to Display > Show > Cameras and saw this.

After that all you really have to do is select the camera (which is the green square, that looks like a light) move it far enough away to where it is out of the way.

after that you just select every camera and turn the visibility to off

particles radius and colour

just in case i do not have this in my blog.

Radius

when you want to play with particles and you want to have different particle radius, you know small to big or the other way around

• you are going to go into the particleShape and scroll down to the bottom. Find the menu for Add Dynamic Attributes.

• Click on the General Button that is on there. then go to the Particle tab and find radiusPP.

• click ok. You might of noticed that a radiusPP box was created above.
• Right click in the radiusPP box and create a ramp. Then right click on it again and edit the ramp.
• When you edit the ramp you need to remember that black is nothing and white is large.

Colour

• When you get your emitter set up you are going to want to create a new particle cloud shader. that is in Maya nodes > Volumetric
• Once you have created the new particle cloud rename it and apply it to the emitted particles. They should turn green
• Now go back to your new shader and find life color, Click on the checker box and create a new ramp. and rename it to something that relates to the particles
• From there just edit the ramp and render and edit again until satisfied

bringing in audio to motion builder

bring in audio to motion builder is really easy but there are a few thing so that it works properly in the program.

2 ways of bringing in the audio

1.

• go > File > Import Audio
• Find your file and open it up

2.

• Right click on the time line and go
• Audio > Open Audio Clip
• Find your file and open it up

After you import your audio there is something that you should do so that you can scrub the time line and hear the audio and so that your audio bars don’t disappear.

• In the navigator find the audio and click the + sign
• Double click on the audio clip that you just imported
• make sure that the destination is set to your audio output
• and change the media access from disk to memory

that’s it have fun animating

blend shape tip

ok so lets say that you want to have an open mouth and you got your face feature the way you want it. but your teeth are not blended with it. well what i could suggest it to make another blend shape for the teeth. this is how i would do it.

• just like you would with any other blend shape you will need do duplicate the teeth and move it to the side. (suggest top and bottom just so you can know how it will look)
• now you would thing that you can just rotate and translate the bottom teeth. well that is wrong.
• in order to make a blend shape work you have to move vertices.
• so right click on your object and go to vertex mode
• select all of your vertices for your teeth and translate and rotate them that way.
• go back to object mode and select the open bottom jaw then the one that you want to be animated
• then in your animation menus go the create deformers and blend shape

to see if it worked go to Window > animation editors > Blend shapes and check out your open jaw blend shape

Maya align to tool

ok so i have a good tip that you can use in maya. i got this from my buddy Jamie Hamel-Smith (check him out over HERE).

• So lets say that you have multiple objects that you need to line up.
• At first you would have to go to different views and try to line them up by your eye and hope that they look like they are lined up right.
• well there is a simple way of doing this in maya and it works pretty well it is up in the modify menu, modify > align tool

If you want to more in-depth about this tool and how to use it go to his blog post HERE and check it out. (screen capture video)

create a story in motion builder

• drag a character into the viewer or have your already rigged up character make sure that it has no animation
• go to your story tab in the navigator panel
• drag a motion from your clip-art folder onto the below the shot track one
• drag your motion that was created and drag it to frame Zero
• and when you press play you will see your character move to the motion that you put in there
• now add another character and do the same thing but make them interact with each other by making one punch and the other one get knocked down

Blend

• you can blend multiple motions for one character by dragging the motions on the same track. line them up with each other and the taking the arrows and blending them over each other

Cut

• ok so you only want a part of a motion that you import. no problem.
• just scrub the time line to the place where you want to stop that clip (for either blending or just stopping there)
• and right next to the button which looks like a magnet there will be a scissors cutting something. that is called the razor. (don’t know why they just didn’t make it look like a razor or just call it cut.)
• now that clip will be in two pieces you can either delete it or move it over for later use.

motion builder clip art

ok so if you do not have the clip art for motion builder there is still a way that you can get it.

if you go to 3dbuzz

http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php

• then you go down and click on motion builder .
• click on Issue 2 (MB ver. 4)
• if you then look to the side you will see The Clip Art CD
• then you can just click on the link that they give you

motion builder clip art

ok so if you do not have the clip art for motion builder there is still a way that you can get it.

if you go to 3dbuzz

http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php

• then you go down and click on motion builder .
• click on Issue 2 (MB ver. 4)
• if you then look to the side you will see The Clip Art CD
• then you can just click on the link that they give you

constraining an object in motion builder

ok lets say that you are in motion builder and you would like to animate your character chopping someone in half with a sword. well it is pretty easy but a little different than maya.

• bring in a skeleton and position it where in is in a chopping motion
• in your asset browser find the elements folder click the + sign and click on primitives
• drag and drop the cylinder on to the scene and position it and scale it to characters hands
• now in your asset browser and find the constraints folder
• for this example i will just show you how to use one constraint
• drag and drop the parent/child constraint onto the scene. it might of looked like nothing happened but it did
• in your navigator find your constraints menu click the + and then double click on the Parent/Child constraint
• to the right you will see the properties for that constraint

Now what i am going to show you next can get pretty tricky.

• with your constraint properties open i want you to select the cylinder
• the next thing we are going to go is going to be called an X drag
• since the cylinder is selected hold X and click and drag FROM YOUR SCENE to the Constrained object box in the (never drag directly from the object for you could drag something that you don’t want)
• Now we are going to want to constrain the sword (cylinder) to the hand.
• click the wrist joint and X drag it onto the parent

motion builder copy/freeze animation

ok so lets say that you want to make your character freeze in action. well there is an easy way of doing that

• make sure that full body is selected in keying mode
• hover over the key frame that you want to copy
• hold c
• then click and drag the key frame to where you want