Gun

I will remove this in a bit...

Unigine 2.0

Check out the real time rendering going on @ unigine.com. The video on this page is more a beauty pass demo. Check out the real time tessellation video here.

Pretty amazing if you ask me.

Been a long time...

So Its been a long minute since I updated this thing but since I'm the only person that actually reads this thing I will forgive myself this one time.

The Point of this post is to inform me (and you... whoever you are) about the awesomeness of a few little apps and sites that are true life savers...

ninite.com This little bad boy makes reinstalling your OS a piece of cake. Select the programs that you use the most and let Ninite do all of the hard work for you. Best of all it says no to shitware like Yahoo tool bar and other annoying additions that may be included in the installer!

MysticThumbs is an amazing program that gives Windows Explorer (XP/Vista/7) the ability to show previews (thumbnails) of .PSD, .PDF, .tga, .dds and many more image file types. Version 2 of MysticThumbs should be out soon.

Along the same lines as MysticThumbs Fast Picture Viewer will solve all RAW file previewing issues.

Instant Eyedropper automatically pastes the HTML color code of any pixel into your clipboard for fast color selection outside of Photoshop or any other image editor for that matter.


LR2 / TreeExporter will export an entire catalog of images from Lightroom but retain the original images folder structure. It is one of a bunch of amazing tools made by Timothy Armes @ Photographer's Toolbox.

Another Lightroom plugin genius is Jeffery Friedl. He has lots of good stuff on his site but his GPS plugin is the bees knees for photographers who don't have GPS built into their cameras.

Custom User Menus in Maya

I tend to be back and forth between Polygon, surface and animation tabs a ton when I'm working in Maya. I have no shortage of hotkeys and marking menus but I think this little trick can make navigation a much more happy task.

In Maya open the mode selection drop down box on the status line and pick customize.


Click the New Menus Set button and name your menu.


The middle pane is the Menus that are currently active in your Menu set. The right pane is all available menu. You can either right click or middle mouse drag the items you want to add to your new menus set. Once the item is in the middle pane "Menus in menu set" you can reorder your selections with middle mouse drag.


Now you have your own menu! But wait it gets better!



Hotbox to boot!

Remember to save your preferences (Window>Settings/Preferences>Preferences>Save) and Enjoy!

Add some randomness to your life

Update 7-2-2009 - added uniform scaling options per Mr. Villabon's request.
Here is a simple MEL script I wrote called Tater. Tater is a random transform (rotate, scale, translate) Tool. Just pick the Axis u want and the type of transform and Tater does the work for you.
Update 10-8-2011 - Script is broken in Maya 2011 and 2012 do to some changes in the way MEL handles UIs. I will be updating the script soon.

Tater.mel (right click and save as)

Mel Scripts, Plugins and Bears... Oh My.

Here is a list of scripts that make my day to day grind that much more bearable. Some scripts are free from such amazing sites like Creative Crash (formerly highend3d) and Autodesk Area. Others, (mostly plugins) like that amazing NEX plugin have a price tag.

• Bonus Tools and Layout/Level Tools
Stop reading and go get both of them! Bonus Tools and Level Tools are located under plugins category
• NEX plugin
#1 most bad ass Maya modeling plugin!(Not free but worth every penny!)
• Zen Tools
Great set of modeling tools! Needs Bonus tools to work.
• Comet Scripts
Even if you don't do much rigging/setup work these are must have tools.
• Array
This thing makes Mayas duplicate special option box look like a joke. A++ duplication tool.
• djRivet
This creates a "rivet" on the surface of your geo allowing you to constrain stuff to a moving or deforming object.
• yd_cracKut
Fast boolean tool that leaves you with all three possible boolean results.
• mh_selectFaces
This script selects the face on any given axis of your model. More awesome Mike Harris scripts Here
• oaRelaxVerts
This is a less destructive average vert tool. Oleg Alexander has many more amazing scripts Here
• Crucutski
This is fantastic shatter script by Seth Hall. Everything this guy does is amazing
• dp SaveScenePlus
gives you a incremental save button. Cant live with out it!
• X-Tools
A pretty awesome way of uncluttering / organizing all of the modeling tools you know and love.
• Tartarus
More modeling tools with tons of documentation.

Getting a Focus on the Command Line.

If you do a lot of command line work then this will make your day...
I was looking for a shortcut key to focus on the command line in Maya. I found some non-official documentation from and older version that said the ` key focus on command line... well that isn't true in newer versions of Maya. On top of that it doesn't have a shortcut key at all by default! Well i was digging around for a few min and I found this little gem.

setFocus $gCommandLine;

Alternatively you can use this code to toggle the command line and set focus in the event that your command line isn't already open.

if (`isUIComponentVisible("Command Line")` != 1) {
toggleUIComponentVisibility("Command Line");
}

global string $gCommandLine;
evalDeferred("setFocus "+$gCommandLine);

Set a hotkey with this command or add it to a marking menu and your set!

have fun...