Pixar detailed demonstration of Presto

Pixar shows their tools built in Presto system and some of their pipeline on this nVidia demonstration. Very interesting for those interested in pipelines and generally in 3D animation tools and workflows.
http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2016/video/S6454.html

 

Maya on Windows 10

I also questioned this - does Maya 2016 run on Windows 10? Especially because Windows 10 message about Upgrading keeps popping up almost every day on my desktop. But I always cancel.

And here is confirmation from the Autodesk forum below - Autodesk will support Maya from its version 2017. And in case you still think you will work on projects based on older Maya version, then you should wait even longer with the udpate in my opinion.

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-general/windows-10-upgrade-issues/td-p/5748566

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Eclipse installation

For users of Eclipse or those who are thinking about using Eclipse. I just tested new Eclipse installer and it just works great. No Error Code 13 and such things with Java. Saying that I had JVM (Java Virtual Machine) already installed. But this is the most simple installation. Tested on Windows 7 64 bit. Just follow this link:
https://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse/Installation

For those programming with Python choose C/C++ build and then once running Eclipse, go to Help / Install New Software to add PyDev extension. More about that here:
http://www.pydev.org/download.html
 

Kate text editor - remove new lines

Here is one tip in case you work with Kate text editor - commonly found on linux distribution of Kubuntu.

In case you want to remove all new lines "\n" - merge lines into one, just select the lines you want to merge and press Ctrl + j.

This is operation which can save you a lot of time. For example if you copy paste printed python list from Maya and want to put this result to a list defintion in your python script in Kate.

Maya menu show / hide

This is always handy to know, how to hide or show main Maya menus. Especially if you accidentally hide one.

Ctrl + m ....................... show/hide main Maya menus
Shift + Shift + m ....................... show/hide OpenGL modeling Maya menus
Shift + m ....................... show/hide OpenGL +  Outliner Maya menus

Maya viewport troubleshooting

This seems to be quite useful link from Autodesk Maya documentation to new Viewport 2.0 openGL renderer. If you are having problems with it, solution might be right here:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-96B324B5-E9EF-4817-9CCD-1E324DB54FE3-htm.html

 

Maya.env tips

Since I had to fix something with my Maya.env file I thought it would be good to also share some example for Maya users who want to make their own Maya library in a specific place on disk or network.

Below is example of Maya.env file with custom path to MEL scripts, python scripts and plugins.
Note that plugins contain both path to python scripted plugins as well as C++ compiled plugins. Also plugins unlike scripts are stored under Maya version specific folder. Should be done for scripts too, but usually it`s not needed.

TIP: you can also use USER_SCRIPT_PATH in your Maya MEL script sourcing function. If you recursively source every subfolder from here, you have all MEL scripts available after Maya starts. This is done from a userSetup.mel which is special Maya file you can define. And as long as it is found in MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH it will be executed first after Maya starts.

TIP: By defining USER_SCRIPT_PATH you get this relative root folder and if you move your library to different place or computer, you just change this one and your library can be found by Maya again.

More about userSetup.mel here:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/Maya/files/PC-Run-MEL-commands-whenever-Maya-starts-up-htm.html

Autodesk documentation about defining Maya.env variables:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-DB30AAB7-4639-4C3B-A479-7F26D953E0F2-htm.html

Example Maya.env file content on Windows OS:

USER_SCRIPT_PATH = C:\Users\syntetik\Documents\maya_tools

MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH = %USER_SCRIPT_PATH%\mel\mystuff;%USER_SCRIPT_PATH%\mel\thirdparty;%USER_SCRIPT_PATH%\mel\startup
PYTHONPATH = %USER_SCRIPT_PATH%\python\
USER_PLUGIN_PATH = %USER_SCRIPT_PATH%\plugin\maya2016
MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH = %USER_PLUGIN_PATH%\mystuff;%USER_PLUGIN_PATH%\my_scripted;%USER_PLUGIN_PATH%\thirdparty_scripted;%USER_PLUGIN_PATH%\thirdparty