Super Official Documentation - Maya Notes 2016

Welcome to the online documentation for Maya Notes - A script made for Maya 2016!

Video Demo:

What is Maya Notes? 

Maya Notes is a script for Maya 2016 which allows user to save information within their Maya Scene. Each note stores the current camera's position / rotation, the current selection and the animation range data. When the Note button is pressed, this data is loaded again, restoring the camera, selection and animation range settings from when the note was made -- assuming the checkboxes are active, that is! 

Beyond the ability to store camera and selection settings, each note can also store a URL hyperlink, allowing you to jump from Maya directly to a relevant video that you bookmarked in your desired web browser.

*** IMPORTANT ** 

This script is intended for Maya 2016, and will not work in prior version 

Installation: 

1.) Make sure that Maya 2016 is closed

2.) Place the BKmayaNotes.mel file inside of your Maya scripts folder

    This can typically be found in:

C:\Users\YOUR_COMPUTER\Documents\maya\scripts\

3.) Launch Maya 2016

4.) Run the following MEL command:

        BKmayaNotes();

The User Interface: 

Buttons along the top:

-Web Help: This button will bring you to this blog post for information!

-Tutorial Mode: Enable the tutorial / popup functionality for first time users

-Set Web Browser: For URL links, which web browser should be used?

The functionality of each note:

-Pressing the 'Note#1' button in the upper left will  load that note's 3D data - taking you to the camera position, selection and animation range settings from when the note was created.

-The check boxes at the bottom of each note controls the functionality of this button, whether or not the script will load each aspect of the note's data into the viewport

-The tab between the 'Note#1' button and the Note Name field is the note category, which also includes color coding for a quick view of what each note may contain inside at a glance.

-On the left side, the user may manually adjust the animation range data or add a URL link to the note.

-Pressing the red 'X' button will prompt the user about deleting the note.

Buttons along the bottom:

-The green 'Add New Note' button will generate a new note object, saving your currently active camera information as well as the animation and selection data.

-The red 'Clear All Notes' button will prompt the user to delete all notes inside of the scene file. 

Thank you for stopping by!

Right, that FIEA blog thing I should be updating every week. . . yes. . . that. . .

Oh yea, FIEA art blog. . . right. . . :3

Not a whole heck of a lot to show but I did make a facial rig of Barbossa from Disney Infinity - The finest 3D head mesh I could make in an afternoon, also responsible for the rig and the God awful Range of Motion testing:

Also a baby video on a few of the rig features for my capstone team's project, Sketch Artist! Joint-driven bendy arms, stretchy torso stuff going on, and a card swap system for different hand poses! Sick kung fu moves sold separately:

Also, so I hold myself to it I'm gonna make this guy over the next couple of weeks so I can tell myself I still know how to art ~ HAPPY NICK?! Sheesh. So maybe I'll update on his progress every week, maybe I won't and you'll just have to wait until the end to see it, or maybe I'll forget to even do it who knows!

UE 4 - Procedural Dungeon ( 2 )

Second update on the procedural dungeon!

Now supports user-defined rooms! The dungeon-making blueprint seeks out any room actors in the map file, which are all children of a master Room class, and adds them to a list of room definitions. They don't need to be added in by code or put in a specific location, the program automatically adds each one found in the map file (even duplicates) and converts them from a visual model to an X, Y grid format. 

For each of these room actors, grey = do not fill ever, blue = floor and yellow = doorway. These doorways act as a launch point for the recursive corridor generator.

I'll make a better video another time, I have other projects to work on for now!

UE 4 - Procedural Dungeon ( 1 )

Just started this yesterday, but currently able to generate the corridors for a procedural dungeon in UE4

Currently the grid has options for:
 -> grid Size ( X , Y)
 -> % chance to maintain current corridor direction
 -> % chance to connect corridors
 -> % chance to ignore the spacing between rows / columns (fill the gaps)


Goal for tomorrow is to implement pre-built rooms which will be randomly placed inside of the grid.

UE4 Platform Blueprint

Simple moving platform in UE4 ~ The user can set the start, end, and 3 midpoint positions that the platform will move along. Rotation tweens between the start / end boxes, and a motion path is generated using each object as an anchor point. Huzzah.

UE4 Advanced Materials: Rainbow Skull of Doooooom!

UE4 blueprint / advanced material practice. On contact the skull will fade from a normal color to a dynamic rainbow spectrum - it cycles through the rainbow! Also features glowing pink eyes, because reasons.

Pressing the 'G' key suspends the eye glow and pauses any movement / color changes.

Tech Art Script #2 - Random layout!

Working in Houdini on tech art assignments, script homework #2: Random distribution!

Querying the user for the grid size and object count, this script will generate that many objects on top of the surface. It also catches any serious intersections and ensures the objects aren't too large, while also evenly distributing the random colors and objects across the grid.

Here's 10,000 objects on a 25 x 25 grid: