Diamant Modeling Tool - Documentation

Thank you for your interest in Diamant Modeling Tool, the first truly integrated Automatic Uv editor for Maya and more! If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact Rich Diamant. Enjoy!

Whats New:

v1.54

*Maya 2017 and 2018 support.

*New Modeling Tools in the modeling companion. These include UnBevel, Set edge length, and a new tool for smoothing out edges along a curve.

v1.5

*New Interface. DTools 1.5 interface has been re-written from scratch in python to support more features.

*The new Interface now supports brush specific UI as well as settings. For example, if you change the brush intensity for the modeling tool, it will be unique to the modeling tool and the grab brushes intensity will not change with it.

*In addition, the entire interface's settings get saved and restored. This means that if you prefer a specific layout, or settings, it will be remembered.

*Tons of stability improvements which should result in less crashing.

*Wacom driver crash should no longer crash DTools

*New Context sensitive model menu's.

If you have components selected, and hold down ALT + SHIFT + RIGHT CLICK, you will get a menu that will be specific to the component selected. This will allow you to change the modeling function that will occur when you use CTRL + SHIFT + MIDDLE MOUSE. Most of the functions have drag capabilities so try them out! It makes modeling much faster.

*New Licensing and activation. You can now deactivate and activate whenever you need to switch to a new computer or fix any problems based off of a unique activation code that is supplied during purchase.

v1.1

*DTools 1.1 introduces DTools Modeling Companion to help in the aid of day to day modeling. DTools Modeling Companion is a separate window which opens and docks to the top of Maya to try and be as minimal as possible while achieving the most accessibility. The goal is to have useful tools that can work on their own with Maya’s default toolset or be enhanced by DTools powerful Advanced Modeling Brush.

Jump to the DTools Modeling Companion section of help to see all the new features supported.

*CTRL + Shift + Middle Mouse Button in the Advanced Modeling Tool has been changed to Bevel. I have found this to be much more useful in the day to day modeling tasks than extruding edges. You have full control over the bevel size and divisions by simply dragging left and right in addition to up and down with your mouse.

*Pen Pressure has been taken out. There was a bug if your wacom driver crashed which would cause a crash while using any of the brushes. This could not be resolved immediately and I felt it was best to remove this functionality temporarily until a fix can be implemented.

*Support for Floating Licenses. Please contact Rich for more information.

Hotkeys:

Below is a list of Mel commands to set hotkeys to:

Advanced Modeling Tool Context: "setToolTo modelingContext1;"

Poly Build Context: "setToolTo quadDrawContext1;"

Super Selection Context: "setToolTo uvSelectContext1;"

Sculpt Brush Context: "setToolTo standardSculptBrushContext1;"

Grab Brush Context: "setToolTo baseBrushContext1;"

Tweak UV Brush Context: "setToolTo tweakUvBrushContext1;"

Move UV Shell Brush Context: "setToolTo moveRotateScaleUVBrushContext1;"

Features:

Diamant Modeling Tool is a complete production tool that has been used in some of the top video game companies in the world. Diamant Modeling was built for production and ease of use. Because of this, it features a multitude of tools to help get around most of the tedious workflow's that users are accustomed to.

•Automatic UV Unwraping

•Custom UV Editor

•Maya UV Tools

•Custom Modeling Brushes

•Retopologizing Tools

•Helper Tools

Activate:

When you launch Diamant Tools for the first time you will be prompted for license activation.

If you purchased a legal copy of Diamant Tools, you should have recieved a license key in your email. If not, please contact rich@rd3d.com.

You will need to paste the license key from the email in the License Key line.

Once pasted in, click the "Activate License!" button. You will see whether or not it is successful in the window. If it is a success, you will be able to start using DTools.

If your license code is incorrect, and you have trials left, you will be able to use DTools until your trials are over. Each time you restart maya, you will be prompted to activate DTools.

If you run into any problems, please email Rich at rich@rd3d.com.

If you would like to Try out Diamant Tools, just click the Try button. You will get 20 tries before you are no longer able to launch the tool and must purchase a license.

At any point you can check the status of your license, activate it, or deActivate it.

Basics of Unwraping:

Uv editing in Diamant Modeling is a non destructive workflow. What this means is that your progress is saved while uving. Any Marked edge information gets stored on the Maya object itself allowing you to open another scene in the middle of working without loosing your progress. Just save your work, and everything will be there when you reopen the scene. Until you delete the marked edge information from the object, it will remain in the scene.

Below are the basic steps one would use to unwrap an object using Diamant Modeling Tool:

1: Use Maya's selection or Super Selection Context to select Edges and or vertex ancor points.
(Hover over the Super Selection Context for hotkeys or refer to the section in the help doc.)

2: With Edges Selected, click the Mark Edges button. This is done with the middle mouse button using the Super Selection Context automatically.

3.With an object selected or highlighted, click Unwrap.You can also select a single face or multiple faces to unwrap its contained faces.

4.Click Hide Marked Edges to hide the edges in the viewport.

Thats it!! you can see the results using either Maya's uv editor or the custom built in editor RD UV Editor. One thing to note. In order to speed up the unwraping process, a specific value was chosen which does not always lead to the best unwraps. This tool is really meant to give you a starting point for unwraping. Therefore, you should use the power of RD UV Editor to quickly modify and get the exact result you are looking for. Examples of workflow will be shown in the specific sections in the help doc as well as in suplimentary video tutorials.

Show/Hide Marked Edges:

Since Marked edges get stored on the object, it will be beneficial for you to show and hide them at various points in your workflow. In order to view marked edges on an object, or the green selected edges, Diamant Modeling Tools requires a custom node to be attached to the object.

If you have never marked any edges on a specific object before, clicking show marked edges will NOT connect this node for you. That is because it does not need to do this if no edge information is provided. This is meant to keep the scene as clean as possible.

If you have marked edges before however, clicking show marked edges will connect this node and display the marked edges in white. NOTE: edge information is still saved on the object regardless of whether they are shown with the custom node.

After you are done marking and unwraping, clicking Hide Marked edges with an object selected will simply delete the connecting node. This keeps the scene clean. Again, doing this will NOT delete the marked information on the object. In order to do this, you must select delete from the File menu.

Selecting Marked Edges:

Marked Edges get store on the object regardless of whether the node is connected and you see them. At times it might be beneficial for you to select the edges you have marked. Click on the object that you want to select, and click the Sel Edges button. This will highlite the edges that have been marked on the object. NOTE: you will need to go to "edge" component mode to actually do something with them. This button will just highlight the edges, not switch modes for you.

If you do have marked edges shown in white, Clicking this button will still select the edges. However, since Maya is doing the selecting, the custom node is being drawn on top of Maya's selection. This means you will not be able to see the selected edges while the white lines are being displayed! Clicking Hide Marked Edges first will allow you to see them!

Mark / UnMark Edges:

MARK EDGES

In order to UV an object using Diamant Modeling Tool, it is required to mark the edges that will be the uv seams. In order to make this as simple as possible, Diamant Modeling Tool has provided a couple of different ways to do the marking. The first way is by using Maya's selection tools or any other selection tools that you might have and then click the Mark or Unmark Edges button. The second method is by using the custom Super Selection Context Tool. This tool was written specifically for making the marking and unmarking of edges extremely fast.

NOTE: The first time you mark an edge with either the super selection tool or the button, Diamant Modeling Tool will need to set up the custom node described in the Show Marked Edges section. Because of this, Diamant Modeling will take you out of component mode in order to do the setup. This subtle inconvenience is neccessary for setup purposes. Once the node is attached, it will not take you out again.

UNMARK EDGES

UnMarking edges is done in the same manner as marking edges. You can use any of Maya's selection tools or the custom Super Selection Context Tool. Just select the edges you want to be unMarked and click the button.

NOTE: If you select all marked edges, and click the UnMark Button, the custom node described in the Show Marked Edges section will still be attached. You will need to click Hide Marked Edges or Remove Marked Information from the File menu to get rid of the node.

Set / Remove Ancor Points:

SET ANCOR POINTS

Ancor Points are used to achieve symmetry in the unwrapping step. Example will be shown in the Unwraping section. Similar to Marking Edges, Diamant Modeling Tool has provided a couple of different ways to do the marking. The first way is by using Maya's selection tools or any other selection tools that you might have and then click the Set Ancor or Remove Ancor button. The second method is by using the custom Super Selection Context Tool. This tool was written specifically for making the setting of Ancor points extremely fast. Ancor are vertices on the object. Select a vertex and click Set Ancor Points.

NOTE: The first time you set an Ancor point with either the super selection tool or the button, Diamant Modeling Tool will need to set up the custom node described in the Show Marked Edges section. Because of this, Diamant Modeling will take you out of component mode in order to do the setup. This subtle inconvenience is neccessary for setup purposes. Once the node is attached, it will not take you out again.

REMOVE ANCOR POINTS

Remove Ancor points are done in the same manner as setting them. You can use any of Maya's selection tools or the custom Super Selection Context Tool. Just select the vertices you want to be Removed and click the button.

NOTE: If you select all marked Ancor Points, and click the Remove Button, the custom node described in the Show Marked Edges section will still be attached. You will need to click Hide Marked Edges or Remove Marked Information from the File menu to get rid of the node.

Unwraping Objects:

In order to Unwrap an object in Diamant Modeling Tool, you first need to mark edges and any Ancor points you might want. Once you have edges marked, simply clicking the Unwrap Button will do the unwraping for you. This can be done by either having an object selected, highlited, or faces selected.

Lets look at an example for unwraping using the Normal Unwrap method

In this example, we will want to have a couple different cut point or Marked Edges. The most logical points of marking are the neck area, back of the head to allow the face to do a proper unwrap, the bottom of the base of the torso, and a cut on the back to allow the chest to unwrap properly.

Here are the finished edge Markings

This first example I will not use any Ancor Points to show the difference between the results you will get with the unwrap. Once you have the edges marked, click the Unwrap Button on either the object level, or highlight component level. You can also select a face to unwrap only the contained faces as well. An example will be provided afterwards.

NOTE: multiple objects can be unwraped at the same time by selecting multiple objects at once and clicking the unwrap button. Note, an object can be unwrapped with no edges marked. It will use the natural border edges as the seams. If there are no natural borders, you will get an unwrap that folds in on itself.

This is the result of the automatic UV generation. As you can tell, the face is not symmetrical. However, it did a pretty good job at keeping other parts of the shells symmetrical. In order to achieve a more symmetrical unwrap, you can set Ancor points on the mesh.

Ancor points were set on the center symmetrical vertices on the marked edges. Setting these will cause the results shown above. A much more symmetrical uv layout is achieved by placing ancor points at correct spots on the mesh. A single face was selected on the face which caused both the face and mid torso to get re unwraped while keeping the bottom section the same. The only reason the mid torso got re uved is because an ancor point touched both shells. This is planned on getting fixed in the future.

The above 2 pictures illustrate what happens when you select a single face and click the Unwrap button. Diamant Modeling Tool will select all the faces that lie within the cut shell and unwrap those.. This is a quick way to re-uv a shell without having to select all the faces in the shell first. Select a single face and let the tool do the work!

Straight Unwrap:

The above mesh is not an ideal candidate for the straight unwrap method. This would be the results of using straight unwrap

not very pretty. Straight unwrap will map each face to a 0-1 value and then connect them back for a uniform unwrap. This is extremely helpful when wanting to unwrap objects such as hair strands, or straight box like pieces. Lets show an example.

This is a common hair piece that one might use in real time games. As you can see, the hair strand bend in multiple directions in 3d space. Typically, you would want the uv's to run straight up and down to achieve a convincing hair look. This can be achieved by uving the piece prior to moving it around in 3d. However, sometimes that is not the easiest thing to do. This is where straight unwrap comes in.

the image on the left is using Normal Unwrap. As you can see, it tries to find the best shape for you. This is not ideal for texturing a hair strand. The image on the right is using Straight unwrap. As you can see, you get an even distribution accross the uvs. Notice that no edges needed to be marked in order to unwrap this object since there are natural border edges to the object. I just selected the object, and clicked the Unwrap button with Straight Unwrap selected as the option. Simple!!

Remove Marked Information:

Whenever you mark any edges or set Ancor points on a mesh, Diamant Modeling Tool saves the information for you on the mesh for a non destructive workflow. If for any reason you need to clear the information on the mesh, or just want to get rid of any data that is not needed, select the mesh, go to the File menu, and click Remove Marked Information. This will delete all the custom attributes that save the marked information on the object.

Super Selection:

The Super selection Context was created to make the marking of edges and verts extremely fast and fun! The actual context tool is the grey button with the picture of the sphere. Click on the icon and you will enter the Super Selection Context. You will see your cursor change to a sideways arrow and any mesh that was selected will automatically highlight into edge mode. You still might need to switch to edge mode if the highlighting does not show the correct component.

CONTEXTS:

A lot of the times I mention contexts to people who use Maya, they tend to not understand what they mean or how they are used within Maya. Let me explain so you have a better understanding of what these custom contexts do and do not do and why.

Above is a picture of the left side toolbar in default Maya. If you do not click any of these icons, I am sure you enter them at some point mostly by hotkeys. Each icon above is a context that Maya has created. The default Maya hotkey for the move tool is "W"... when you hit "W" on your keyboard, you are entering the "Move" context which is highlighted above.. Clicking "Q" enters the default selection Context or the top icon, the arrow.. The "Move" context allows the user to select as well as move both objects or components. The default select tool only allows the user to do selecting. If you want to actually move something, you must exit the context and enter the "Move" context. Maya also has special contexts for splitting edges or extruding faces.

Why am I telling you all of this? Users tend to not understand the principal of switching contexts and the limitations that contexts have. For example, if you are in the splitting edge context, you cannot move an object until you exit the splitting edge context and enter the "Move" context. Hopefully this makes sense.

SUPER SELECTION CONTEXT:

The Super Selection Context is not an object selection tool. As described above in the context section, one must program the context specific to do specific functions. Therefore, if you click on the Super Selection Context Icon and try to drag and select objects, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN! This is very important. Please be aware of what context you are in when trying to perform actions in Maya. If you want to select an object, click "Q" to exit the Super Selection Context and enter Maya's default selection Context.

Super Selection is meant for selection mesh components. In order for anything to happen you must be in a component mode. If you have an object selected before selecting Super Selection, the tool will enter a component mode for you automatically. If not, you must right click over an object, and select "edge", "vert", or "face" to enter a component mode.

HOW TO USE:

If you are not in edge component mode, switch to it first by right clicking over the model and selecting edge. By default, click and drag will perform one of two tasks based off of the radio button. Default is "Drag closest".

DRAG CLOSEST: Left click and drag

By clicking the left mouse button and dragging accross your model, you will perform the drag closest function. This will find the closest edge path from the first selected edge to where you drag. Release the mouse button for the selection to finalize.

If the radio button "Drag Loop" is selected instead of "Drag closest", Super selection will select the closest edge within the edge loop of the first selected edge.

DRAG LOOP: Left click and drag

Notice how the mouse does not need to be on the actual edge to have it select. It will find the closest edge within the loop in screen space to the mouse. This can make it very fast to select parts of edge loops.

SHIFT:

Holding shift down after the first selection will add to your current selection. Otherwise every time you left click the tool will deselect what is currently there and make a new selection.

CTRL:

Holding Ctrl down after the first selection will remove the new selection from the old selection.

FAST CLICK:

By left clicking on an edge fast without moving your mouse, you will select an edge loop. Any drag of the mouse will cause the context to enter the Drag closest or drag loop function.

Notice in the above gif that the selection of the edge loop will stop at any marked edges. This makes it extremely easy to select seam cuts. The best example for this would be when marking an arm on a character. You will mark the top shoulder, the wrist, and then click a single time to get the loop that will end at the shoulder and end at the wrist instead of continuing the loop all around the mesh. Very fast!

SHIFT:

Again, holding shift down after the first selection will add to your current selection. Otherwise every time you left click the tool will deselect what is currently there and make a new selection.

CTRL:

Holding Ctrl down after the first selection will remove the new selection from the old selection.

CLEAR SELECTION OR DESELECTING:

In order to clear the selection, just click outside of the mesh in an open space of the viewport. Do not hold shift or ctrl down. This will deselect any selected components.

MARK EDGES OR SET ANCOR POINTS:

Marking edges or setting ancor points can all be done within the super selection. You do not need to click the buttons on the UI. Marking is done by Middle Clicking once components are selected. However, clicking Middle mouse button will do different things dependent on the component type you are in.

Middle Click:

Edges selected: Super Selection will mark the edges and turn them white by just clicking the Middle mouse button.

In the above example, I have Fast Left clicked to select the edge loop around the neck. After that I clicked the Middle Mouse button once to "Mark" the edges and turn them white.

Verts selected: Super Selection will set the current selected vert to be an acor point

Changing the component mode by right clicking on the mesh and selecting "Vertex", and then selecting a vert by dragging the left Mouse will highlight the vertex. I then clicked the Middle Mouse button once to set that vertex to be an ancor point.

Faces selected: Super Selection will do something special in this instance. Since there might be times it is easier to select faces rather than the border edges around the faces, Super selection will turn the current selected faces into the border edges that surround those faces. This makes it extremely fast to select and mark border edges.

The above example show a couple different things. By first changing the component mode to faces by right clicking over the mesh and selecting "Face", you turn Super Selection into a paint face selection mode. By default it follows similar functionality.

LEFT CLICK AND DRAG: selects faces based off of where the mouse is on the mesh.

SHIFT: holding shift always adds to the selection

CTRL: holding ctrl always removes from the selection.

After the faces are selected in the above example, I clicked the Middle Mouse Button once. What happens is Super Selection will select the border edges of those faces. At this point, Super Selection puts the model into a temporary state of edge component mode. What that means is that you can now select or deselect edges by holding "shift" or "ctrl" to modify the edge selection before doing your marking. After the edges are marked however, it returns you back to face component mode. This is meant to help the user.

After the initial Middle Mouse Button press, you will see the edges turn green. Click the Middle Mouse Button one more time for a total of two times to do the marking of the edges. This is shown in the above gif. Notice that you are back in face mode. If you are sure that the faces and borders are what you want off the bat, clicking Middle Mouse Button twice fast will do the marking and get you back to the next selection extremely fast.

UNMARK EDGES AND ANCOR POINTS:

First Select any edges or verts using Super Selection Context. Then hold down CTRL and MIDDLE MOUSE CLICK to unmark any edges or ancor points that have been set.

In the above examples, edges and ancor points were already marked. First I selected them, and then held down Ctrl and clicked the middle mouse button to unmark the edges.

BORDER SHELL SELECT:

There might be times when you want to select the faces that lie inside the marked edges. Whether its to test if the shell area is enclosed or just for any other random selection purpose, Super Selection makes it easy.

With "Face" component selected, fast Left click a face and Super Selection will select all the faces that lie within the shell.

Mirroring:

Mirroring is built in to all custom contexts within Diamant Modeling Tool. The tool will attemp to find the closest component on the mirror axis that is set. This is not an exact mirror. Its a closest to the point on the negative axis. If you want to enable mirroring, just make sure it is checked with the correct Axis clicked.

There are two different ways you can mirror within this tool. One is Object Space which is default while the other is World Space.

Object Space allows you to move, scale, or rotate your mesh while still having the freedom of mirroring. As long as you dont freeze transforms you will get this benefit.

World Space will select the closest component in world space based off of the grid. If your object is moved or rotated off of the axis aligned grid, you will probably get unexpected selection results.

Super Selection Quick Hotkeys:

DRAG CLOSEST: Left click and drag

DRAG LOOP: Left click and drag

SHIFT:

Holding shift down after the first selection will add to your current selection. Otherwise every time you left click the tool will deselect what is currently there and make a new selection.

CTRL:

Holding Ctrl down after the first selection will remove the new selection from the old selection.

FAST LEFT CLICK EDGE LOOP:

SHIFT:

Again, holding shift down after the first selection will add to your current selection. Otherwise every time you left click the tool will deselect what is currently there and make a new selection.

CTRL:

Holding Ctrl down after the first selection will remove the new selection from the old selection.

Middle Click:

Edges selected: Super Selection will mark the edges and turn them white by just clicking the Middle mouse button.

Verts selected: Super Selection will set the current selected vert to be an acor point

LEFT CLICK AND DRAG: selects faces based off of where the mouse is on the mesh.

SHIFT: holding shift always adds to the selection

CTRL: holding ctrl always removes from the selection.

UNMARK EDGES AND ANCOR POINTS:

First Select any edges or verts using Super Selection Context. Then hold down CTRL and MIDDLE MOUSE CLICK to unmark any edges or ancor points that have been set.

BORDER SHELL SELECT:

With "Face" component selected, fast Left click a face and Super Selection will select all the faces that lie within the shell.

Assign Checker:

Clicking Assign Checker will assign a checker board pattern to the model. This creates a new material in the Hypershade with a provided attached texture. Clicking Re-Assign Shaders will put whatever shaders were previously on the object.. example:

The above example has multiple shaders assigned. Selecting the object and clicking Assign Checker gives the following result:

Select the object again, and click re-assign will put the object back to normal with the following results:

If you would like to use your own custom checker board pattern, you can replace the file in the following location

(install directory) /data/modelingToolAlphas/uvTile1.bmp

RD UV Editor:

RD UV Editor is a feature rich UV Editor that works hand in hand with Maya's built in UV Editor. RD UV Editor compliments Maya's UV Editor in many ways to provide the fastest and most efficient workflow possible within Maya. Because RD UV Editor is built into Maya, you have the ability to use most if not all of Maya's tools inside of the editor. RD UV Editor shows a color representation of the distortion of the uv's in relation to the object. Red and Blue colors are used to represent distortion. RD UV Editor uses a compression based algorithm. White represents zero distortion.

HOW RD UV EDITOR WORKS:

UV's essentially are points in space which correspond to an objects texture placement on a per polygon basis. For this reason, uv's can be represented by a polygon object since they have the same basic structure as the UV data of an object. This is exactly what is happening with RD UV Editor. An objects UV data is being represented by an arbitrary object that is created that corresponds to the objects UV data. This arbitrary object is "linked" to the objects uv data so whenever the points are modified, the objects uvs will automatically modify to match.

This methodology is different from other programs which require you to transfer the UV data to the object after you have modified it within their tool. With RD UV Editor, any changes that you make will automatically change on the object.

Because a separate object is created which represents the objects uv's, you do not have to have the object selected in order to modify the uv's. This can actually become very handy as you do not have to see the wireframe on top of the object while modifying the uv's of the object. In addition, when you unselect the object, the uv's do not disappear from the editor like they would in Maya's editor.

WHY HAVE A SEPARATE UV EDITOR WHEN YOU CAN JUST USE MAYA'S?

The simple answer to that question is functionality. Maya does not give access to a lot of the features within their UV Editor. You cannot represent polygon colors, you cannot modify or create custom contexts that work within the editor, and you cannot tailor the editor to work any other way then the way Maya intended it to. Because of these limitations, a separate editor had to be created to make editing uv's much easier and faster.

Some Limitations:

Because technically the uv's shown in RD UV Editor are not the actual uv's of the object, there are some limitations as to what can be done within the editor. For one, you cannot split, delete or merge anything in either RD UV Editor or Maya's editor and have the changes seen in the other. If you'd like to merge, sew, etc, please close RD UV Editor, do the merging and sewing within Maya's UV Editor, and then re-open RD UV Editor to see the changes. Although this is a limitation, it was done by design. RD UV Editor is meant to work hand in hand with Maya's UV Editor. For this reason, and for the most compatibility and features, some limitations had to occur.

The uv's seen in RD UV Editor are actually a polygon object created inside of Maya. That means the object now exists in the scene along with the grid. This causes some limitations and or oddness while working. For example, hitting "F" to frame everything in the perspective window will cause the camera to zoom so far out that you will not be able to see anything. Since the newly created uv's are created in the scene, they have been moved far down in the scene to avoid being shown while working. Hitting "F" will try to focus all geometry in the scene. If you accidentally do this, just close down RD UV Editor and click "F" again in the perspective window to frame your objects back, then reopen RD UV Editor again.

NOTE: all polygon objects created will be in the scene if RD UV Editor is left open when saved. Once you close RD UV EDitor, all objects get deleted from the scene.

the above is a screen shot of the outliner when the RD UV Editor is open. You will see a group that is created that holds all the geometry, camera, and additional information needed to run the editor. Closing the editor should clean this group up.

HOW TO USE RD UV EDITOR:

Now that you have an understanding of how RD UV Editor functions, I will now explain how to use RD UV Editor to quickly modify and edit uv's.

To edit uvs in RD UV Editor, first open the editor. Next, select an object in the perspective view, then click the Add Selected Objects button shown below.

Once you click Add Selected Objects a new object will be built based off of the uvs of the selected object.

As you can see, a new polygon object has been built in the editor. Polygons are colored to show the uv compression on a per shell basis. There is an option in the Options menu called Full Shell Compression Colors. If this is checked you will get compression colors based off of all of the shells of the object. This means if a shell is extremely small, the whole shell could turn blue since it is compressed relative to the other shells.

Above is a hypergraph view of what gets connected when you click Add Selected Object and a uv object is built. The selected node above is the new uv object which gets piped into a uvEditNode. This uvEditNode is connected to the object in the scene. If you delete history on the object in the scene you will kill the connection and the uv object will not effect the objects uvs anymore.

If you want to get rid of the uvs in the window, select the uv object and hit the "DELETE" key on the keyboard. This will delete the node that is selected above while leaving the uvEditNode. Your uvs will be preserved. If you want to edit uvs again on the object, click Add Selected Objects again and a new polygon object and a new uvEditNode will be connected to the node chain.

The UV Editor supports multiple objects. Select as many objects as you want and add them to the window. Again, if you want to get rid of any of them from the window, you can just select the uvs as an object with any of Maya's selection tools and hit the "DELETE" key on the keyboard. Closing RD UV Editor will delete the objects automatically.

Because the "UVS" are technically a polygon object, you can do anything to it that you can do with a polygon object. That means if you want to edit the "UVS" you need to edit the polygon object like you normally would in any viewport. In the above image, I selected vertices with Maya's "Move" tool and moved them. This will update the uvs on the mesh. If you have a checkerboard on the object you will see the uvs update in realtime.

NOTE: Because the uvs are a polygon object, you CANNOT delete polygons, cut polygon, merge polygons, etc.. if you do, it will break the uv update and an error will be displayed. Please keep this in mind. If you need to move and sew uvs, close down RD UV Editor and do the operation in Maya's uv editor. then reopen RD UV Editor.

RD UV Editor was created to be as full featured as possible eliminating the need to go into Maya's uv editor all together. This currently is not 100% finished or all there which requires the use of Maya's uv editor for certain functionality. However, what is there is pretty powerful. Below I will go over the current feature set within the tool.

NOTE: Most uv edit tools work on the polygon "VERTEX" level.

RD UV Editor UV Tools:

RD UV Editor was created to be as full featured as possible eliminating the need to go into Maya's uv editor all together. This currently is not 100% finished or all there which requires the use of Maya's uv editor for certain functionality. However, what is there is extremely powerful. Below I will go over the current feature set within the tool.

NOTE: Most uv edit tools work on the polygon "VERTEX" level. Make sure to right click on the uv object and go to vertex component mode.

Above is a movie showing all the tools in action. Notice again how everything is done on a vertex level.

Most of the tools are copies of what is in Maya's uv tools created specifically to work on the polygon uv object. There are however new tools that were created which Maya currently does not offer.

For Example,

Flip based off of .5 in the uv window. This button is demonstrated in the video. This is the 3rd icon from the left with the white line down the center.

The green arrows will shift the verts by whatever value is specified in the float field next to it.

The buttons on the right are scale values. This is the first thing shown in the video.

Snap verts to average. This is the 6th button from the left. Maya only has snapping to either the furthest right or left uv. This will snap to an average. Below is an example of all of these

PINNING / UNPINNING

RD UV Editor allows the user to pin vertices so they do not get affected by the uv brushes. Maya's move tools will still affect the pinned verts. This functionality will be shown in the UV Brush Section.

(NOTE: Cut Polygon Uvs has been dissabled for the time being)

CUT POLYGON UVS:

Currently you are able to separate uv by selecting faces on the uv polygon object and clicking "cut polygon uvs" within the "polygon" menu in the editor.

This only works on polygons currently. There is not splitting or separating edges as of now.

Custom UV Brushes:

Some of the most powerful features of RD UV Editor lie in the custom brush contexts created specifically to edit UVs. Currently there are 2 different brushes available. The first is a custom tweak brush that gives the user the feeling of painting UV's. The second is a Move Shell context. This is very useful for organizing your UV shells. The following pages will illustrate the different brushes and thier uses.

RUV Files:

COMING SOON!!!

An .ruv file is a custom file format that stores UV information for an object. It does not store multiple UV sets. Only a single UV set.

To save a UV set for an object, simply select the whole object and click "Save UV's". You will then be prompted with a location to store your file. Name the file or overwrite an existing file and it will save all the UV information into the file.

You can preview the contents of an .ruv file by browsing to a .ruv file, so the file is printed in the "path to file" section, and then clicking "Preview RUV's". A piece of geometry will be created that mimics the uv's in the file. The object will be deleted when the window is closed. NOTE: you do not need to have any object selected or any object in the scene in order to preview the file. This sometimes can be easier then constantly applying the uv's to find the correct uv set you want.

Applying UV's:

To apply an .ruv file to an object, you simply browse to find the .ruv file you want so the path is in the "path to file" section, and click "Apply UV's" while an object is selected. Now uv's will only be applied if the .ruv file is associated with the correct object. That is, the number of polygons in the .ruv file directly correspond with the number of polygons found in the .ruv file. You will receive an error if the file cannot be applied to the object. For this reason, it is best to name the .ruv files in a manner that best describes the object.

You can also only apply uv's from a .ruv file to selected faces instead of the full object. To do this, just select the faces you wish to have the uv's applied to and click "Apply Uv's". This way you can, for example, just apply the uv's for the hand in a file instead of the whole body.

UV's are applied to the current active UV set. If you'd like to apply a .ruv file to a uv set other then the default, create a blank uv set, or switch to the current uv set you wish to apply the uv's to and then click apply uv's.

Maya UV Editor Tools:

The Maya Uv Editor Tools are a small set of tools designed only for Maya's UV Editor. This simple set of tools adds useful functionality for everyday uv tasks.

UV Mirroring:

Not available in this version! Sorry!

UV Ratio:

UV Ratio works on a polygon Object level on Maya's UV's. It does not work with the custom polygon UV's created with RD UV Editor. If you have RD UV Editor up, please close it before clicking Set UVs.

UV Ratio was built to automatically scale uv shells based off of a world coordinate. This can work on multiple objects at once giving the same consistant uv ratio. UV ratio was built with production in mind. Because of this, it works on a specific ratio value that the user inputs. This allows the artist to maintain a specific pixel density with thier objects. The ratio number is based off of meters. So for example, if you want to have a full 0-1 texture be reflected on an environment every meter in your game engine, set this value to 1, select the object, and click Set Uv's. This will scale the objects uvs so that each meter is world space fills a 0-1 distance as best as it can.

Example:

Below is a simple plane that is built exactly 1 meter in both the width and length as shown by the grid.

If you click on Set UV's with a value of 1, the UV's will be scaled to fit the full 0-1 range in the UV editor.

In the above image, I scaled the plane to a lenght and width of 2 meters as shown by the grid. By still keeping the UV Ratio value set to 1, you will get the following result:

As you can see, the UV's are scaled so that a single meter distance in world space fits a 0-1 range. Since the object is 2 meters, the UV's were doubled.

If you set the UV Ratio value to 2 now, you will get back the original result:

This happens because you are saying that every 2 meters in world space should cover a 0-1 value.

Example 2:

As you can see by the checker boards, all the cubes have different scale ratios of thier UV's.

Now after using UV Ratio with a value of 10, you get the following Results:

As you can see, you now have consistant UV ratio's between the objects.

GLOBAL SCALE UVS:

If you have global scale uvs on, the uvs will be scalled based off of a global averaged pivot point on a per object basis. If this is off, each shell will scale based off of its own averaged pivot point.

Modeling Brushes:

The Modeling tab has a full set of modeling tools at your disposal. All are based off of a set of Modeling Brush Contexts shown on the left side of the panel. The brushes available currently are an all in one modeling tool, a Poly Build tool, a sculpt brush, and move brush. All of which have the ability to work with a high poly loaded mesh that can be used as a sliding object for retopologizing or moving vertices. These powerful brushes will be explained in the individual brush sections.

Isolate Selection:

The Isolate Selection button is a quick shortcut to Maya's isolate selection.

Brush Properties:

Most of what you see on the Modeling tab are all Brush Properties that affect most of the custom Brushes on the Brush pallet. They range from the ability to slide on the Surface of a mesh, or mirroring, or even pinning vertices to not be affected by the brushes. All will be described in the following sections.

Slide On Surface Of Mesh:

The Slide on Surface Of Mesh section was built exclusively for retopologizing or shifting vertices around a mesh for better edge flow. All the custom Brushes are built to work with the sliding features. This means if you have an object enabled as a slide object, you can move, smooth, or use Poly Build on top of it. You can also Model on top of this using the Advanced Modeling Tool. However, any modeling functions do not automatically snap to the loaded Mesh. You must move or smooth the vertices in order for them to snap.

HOW TO USE:

There are two main ways to use this feature. You can either load an object to use as a mesh to slide on, or slide on the current mesh you are editing. By default, you will see text that says "Load Object, or slide on itself". This will tell you what state the tool is in. If you see this text, and you click the checkbox called "Enable Brush Sliding", you will slide on the current mesh you are editing.

SELF SLIDING:

Self sliding will allow you to slide on the current mesh you are editing. It works by using the current vertex volume as the mesh to slide upon. This means that after you do a tweak to the mesh, the next time you slide, the mesh will use the updated points to slide upon.

Example:

Notice how "Enable Brush Sliding" is checked and the text reads "Load Object, or slide on itself". By using the Grab Brush and Moving and Smoothing, you will see the points stay on the surface volume. After each time you relase the mouse, the mesh will update the volume it uses for the next time you tweak.

When you are done, just uncheck "Enable Brush Sliding" and you will go back to the normal use of the brushes.

SLIDING ON ANOTHER OBJECT:

The main use of this functionality is the ability to use another higher polygon object to retopologize on or slide on. The tool was optimized to handle a fairly large amount of polygons as the loaded object. However, I would recommend using the least amount of polygons as possible for the most amount of interactivity. For the most part, you should only require an amount of polygons that holds the shapes you are trying to hit. There is no need to bring in a multi million polygon object with pore details in order to retopologize.

LOADING A SLIDE OBJECT:

There are two different ways to load an object as the slide object. The first is to select the mesh and click the "load button". This will most likely bring up a prompt asking you if you want to delete any history on the object. This is recommended. If you click yes, you will see the mesh turn a transparent color with a spec value on it. There are two sliders in the Slide section that allow you to control how transparent the object is and how specular the object is. This is a personal preffernce which may help you to see this object better when sliding.

The above gif shows the first way to load an object. After you click "Load Selected", the "Enable Brush Sliding" checkbox will automatically become enabled. You can switch between sliding on the mesh and not sliding on the mesh by clicking the checkbox on or off without having to unload the object.

The second way to load an object is to click on the "List" button. This will bring up a list of all the polygon objects in the Maya scene to allow you to choose by name which mesh you want to use as the slide object.

UNLOAD SLIDE OBJECT:

When you are done sliding on the object, you will want to unload the object so it returns back to normal with the ability to select it again. This is done by clicking on the "Unload Object" button. Notice how you dont need anything selected. The "Enable Brush Sliding" checkbox will also become unchecked automatically.

SLIDING ANOTHER MESH ON THE SLIDE MESH:

Once you have a mesh loaded, you will see the name of the mesh shown where "Load Object, or slide on itself" was. You can now use any other object in the scene to slide on the Mesh.

In the above example, I used the lower polygon mesh to slide on top of the higher polygon mesh. I am using the Grab Brush and moving and smoothing the mesh on top of the slide mesh. Its that simple!

There are two different ways the vertices can react when moved. By default, the vertices will use the Vertex Normal. This is checked already. You also have the option to use the Camera Normal. If you check this radio button, instead of the vertices projecting along thier own normal, the tool will use the camera's view to do the projection. This can give precision where the other mode might fail.

BREAKING THE SLIDING:

Because the sliding works on the vertex normals, you can get vertices that fly out of control dependent on how the vertex normals lie and how big the radius is. This is a common problem which happens by constantly updating vertex normals while projecting. Here is an example of what can happen.

In this example, the radius is affecting too many verts that all point in different directions. At times you might be alright moving such large amounts at a time while updating all the vertex normals, but typically this does not work so well. In order to not get this effect, lower the radius of the brush and try to move or tweak vertices whose vertex normals are not radically different. You can see that the nostrals cause the biggest problem because of how much the vertex normals change with the surrounding vertices. This is also where switching to "Camera Normal" can help.

Transfer:

The "Transfer" button is a tool that will allow you to transfer the point position of one object that is topologically the same as another object whose point order is different. If you have ever run into a case where bringing a mesh in and out of a program accidentally changed the point order, no longer allowing you to use the mesh, this tool will get you back to what you need!

NOTE: This tool does not change the point order of a mesh. Instead, it moves the point positions to match the other mesh.

Example:

The following example show two different shaped heads that use the exact same topology. However, the point order of these two meshes is not the same. This can happen in several different ways, from inporting from another 3d package, to extracting or combining meshes, ect. Its not important how it happened, what is important is that you have the ability to fix this. (This solution comes up way more than you might think in an actual production environment)

A blend shape has been added to the left object to show how the point order is not the same. If the point order was the same, when activating the blend shape, you would see the left head turn into the right head.

In order to fix this problem, we will duplicate the left head mesh. We want to do this because as stated above, this tool does not change the point order of a mesh. It simply transfers the point position to another mesh that is topologically the same.

Now that the mesh is duplicated, we need to tell the tool where to start to try and figure out which points are the same. The tool needs to loop through all of the vertices and edges to find the corresponding components on the other mesh.

NOTE: Because the tool loops through the mesh, this will only transfer points that are contained meshes. This means that if you combine a sphere and a cube, and try to transfer that, only the components that the tool can loop through will transfer. So if you selected a vertex and an edge on the sphere, the sphere will transfer, but not the cube.

In order to do the transfering, you are required to select a vertex and its sharing edge on the mesh that you want to transfer the points from, and then the same exact vertex and sharing edge on the mesh that you want to transfer the positions to. The order is very important! You must also always choose an edge that is attached to the vertex!

As you can see the exact same vertex and edge is selected on the mesh that we want to transfer the points too.

After clicking the Transfer button, the tool will modify the points of the second selected mesh. As you can see it now matches the position exactly based off of the Local Position. If you want it to match the world position, you must select that Radio Button. Be aware, if your mesh is moved off center, and you use World Space, if you try to apply a blend shape, the mesh will shift in space. For the most part, you will probably always use Local Position.

Now that the positions are transfered, we can apply a blendshape to the duplicated model to show that everything worked correctly.

Now you have a mesh with the correct point order and the correct positioning!

NOTES:

Stray vertices will cause the tool to error out.

If the topology is not the same between the two objects, the tool will error out and select the vertex where the topology is not the same. This can make it easy to find where the problem is if you think the meshes are the same.

Replace Selected Objects With Last Selected:

The "Replace Selected Objects With Last Selected" Button will do just as it says. This allows you to position objects and then replace them later with a new object. This does not take into account skewed scale values.

Example:

This shows multiple cubes positioned with different rotations. In this example we want to replace the cubes with the cone.

In order to do this, select all the cubes first and then the cone last. Then click the "Replace Selected Objects With Last Selected" button.

The cones take on the new positions, scale, and rotations of the cubes.

Match Normals From First Selected:

The "Match Normals From First Selected" Button will do just as it says. This is useful when you need to match normals to an object that you do not have the ability to change. For example, if you need to match a bunch of different heads to a single body, your body normals will not be able to change. However, you will want to match the face normals to the body so there will not be any seams in an engine.

Example:

This example shows a sphere which has been detached into two separate pieces.

The result is a seam which occurs between the two objects.

By selecting the two objects, the second selected object will grab the normals from the first and alter them to match. They will in tern lock the normals and show a smoothed result even though there are two objects.

This image shows the modified and locked normals.

Project Mesh on Mesh:

The "Project Mesh on Mesh" Button will project any mesh or mesh vertices onto another mesh while keeping the projected meshes volume. There are a couple different ways in which you can project a mesh onto another mesh. You can do it either by its local Y rotation, or on any axis plane.

The projection happens by using the lowest found selected vertex or objects vertex based on the axis selected to control the volume maintenance. This means that you will probably get the best results by having the bottom plane be as flat at possible.

Select the Mesh or vertices on the Mesh that you want to project, and shift select the object you want to project onto. Then click the Project Mesh on Mesh button to do the projection. This function is extremely fast and can handle hundreds of thousands of polygons.. so have fun with it! Some examples below

NOTE: You can also project meshes that do not have volumes such as a simple plane.

Examples:

Here is a box that is getting projected onto a face. Notice how the box maintains the volume of the box after it has been projected.

Some other angles

This is the object moved off of the face. You will notice how it creates an impression from one side and an extrusion on the other.

Here is another example of projecting a box onto a sphere based off of its local Y rotation. The box was oriented in the direction of wanted projection.

Notice how the box maintains its volume while projecting onto the surface of the sphere.

Here is another example using the same box and sphere. In this example, I selected vertices that I want to project onto the sphere instead of the whole box.

This is the result. Only the vertices selected will project and maintain its volume.

Another example of projecting a big box on a torus to create an impression.

The resulting projection and impression created.

This shows the other side of the box. Because it projected onto the torus and maintained the volume, one side looks extruded while the other imprinted.

Another example of a bit more complex pieces.

Notice how some of these get a bit warped because of the rotation axis relative to the sphere.

ESmooth:

ESmooth is a different take on the traditional Maya Smooth. The "E" in ESmooth stands for Edge. This is because ESmooth takes your hard and soft edges into account. Basically ESmooth will try and keep the shape of any edges which are hard while doing a traditional smooth on the edges which are soft. This gives a "bevel" look to your model without the need of doing an actual bevel. This will allow you to work on a much lower cage to get your shape while utilizing ESmooth when needed for the final result. This allows for a fast and iterative workflow for hard surface modeling.

There are two buttons to take a look at with ESmooth. The first will apply the ESmooth to a model while the second will remove the ESmooth on the model.

There is also a Tightness value. Default is set to Medium. Differences will be shown below.

NOTE: ESmooth is non destructive. What this means is a separate model will be created with zero history on it. This is intentional. This allows recovery of models on accidental history deletes where all you would be left with is the high poly model and no way to get back to your original mesh. This is done by make a connection to the original object behind the scenes. This means at any point you can click remove ESmooth and your original mesh will be there. Be careful not to go randomly deleting nodes that you are un aware of in the hypergraph. The connection is made through the message property of the newly created mesh. This workflow also means that all history will be kept on the original mesh if all history is not deleted.

Limitations: If you move your high res mesh after you ESmoothed the mesh and then remove the ESmooth, the transforms will not be applied to the low res mesh. This means it will be in a separate location. You also cannot skin either the high res mesh or low res mesh and expect the skinning to maintain once ESmooth is added or removed.

WorkFlow: You do not need to be in object mode to apply the ESmooth. You can be working in component mode and still work. However, any tool you are in will be reset to Maya's standard tool. This is unavoidable at the current time. Use hard edges to define where you want to maintain shape and soft edges where you want a round feel to the mesh. The closer supporting edges are to the hard edges the tigher your "Bevel" look will be.

Example:

Mesh before any smooth applied

Mesh after ESmooth

Tightness Controls:

Maya Smooth:

Maya Smooth is a quick way to apply and remove a standard Maya Smooth to a model. There is a Divisions field which you can change to quickly apply the division needed. Removing a Maya Smooth will only remove the top most smooth node applied.

Example:

Mesh before any smooth applied

Mesh after Maya Smooth

Straighten Components:

Straighten Components will work on both Edges and Vertices. This tool will take the furthest most verts as anchor points and straighten out any verts that are selected to create a line. The verts will be projected to maintain their natural offset to each other as much as possible.

Straighten Components comes with the Lock Axis option which is defaulted OFF. By clicking on an axis to lock, you will keep the components position on that axis. This allows finer control over the result you are trying to achieve.

Straighten Components will take DTools Mirroring into account. If Mirror is checked in the Modeling tab, Straighten Components will separate the vertices based off of the Axis that is selected. If mirroring is off, Straighten will take the whole object into account. This becomes powerful in conjunction with the Advanced Modeling Tool.

Example:

Duplicate Faces Within:

Duplicate Faces Within will duplicate any faces selected based off of the axis that is chosen while keeping the faces part of the current mesh.

Example:

Instance Mirror:

The Instance Mirror button is a quick way to create an instanced object based off of a mirrored axis. It will use whichever axis is selected above.

Combine and Merge Vertices:

The Combine and Merge Vertices button will do just that. It will combine multiple objects together and merge the verts with a tolerance of .01. This is a quick way to merge two objects together in which one is an instance mirror of the other to create a single seamless mesh.

Circle Verts:

The Circle Verts button will take any component that is selected and use the border verts to create a perfect circle based off of a calculated normal. If faces are selected, it will use an average normal. Vertices or Edges will use a found normal which possibly could result in undesired behavior. It will use the Mirror functionality within the Modeling tab of DTools to become more powerful. It will also use the object space or world space functionality.

NOTE: Circle Verts will not affect any of the interior vertices. Using planar first before circle verts can result in more desired result. There is also no guarantee of vertex maintenance. In the example below you can see how vertices shift around to create the circle. This can mean you might get desired results by using an n-sides polygon with no interior faces or edges.

Example:

Make Planar:

The Make Planar Button will take any faces that are selected and flatten them on an average normal. It will use the Mirror functionality within the Modeling tab of DTools to become more powerful. It will also use the object space or world space functionality.

Example:

UnBevel:

The UnBevel Button will take any edges that are selected and "UnBevel" them. This will effectively collapse the edge at a the intersection point of its attached verts. Doing the opposite work of what Bevel does. This will allow you to get your shape back.

Example:

A Bevel was created on a cube

A typical collapse of these edges will result in the following image.. This does not get you back to your original cube since a collapse finds the average points

UnBevel will result in the cube looking identical before the bevel

RDBrowser:

RDBrowser has been created to replace the standard file dialog window when dealing especially with Objs. This tool will allow you to save favorites, create images for objs, and import and export multiple files at once using the maya object names. More information will be coming in terms of the full functionality.

Quick Use Guide:

Click the Browse button to go to a specific starting directory.

The folders section is there to be a quick way to navigate through the structure. Double clicking a folder will enter the folder while double clicking the up directory will take you one level up.

Right clicking on the folders section will review your favorites.

Click on the Favorites menu to add, remove, or edit the order of the stored favorites.

Selecting multiple objects in maya and clicking export in the obj tab will export "X" amount of separate objects based off of the Maya Name.

Selecting multiple objects in the OBJ tab and clicking import will import multiple objects at once while trying to name them the same as the obj name. (naming conflicts apply)

Right clicking on the objs in the OBJ tab will review further menu items such as copy and paste.

Right click to copy and obj. Browse to a different directory either using the browse button or navigating the folder structure and click paste on the OBJ tab to paste that obj in that location.

Clicking File on the menu will give options to open an explorer window.

NOTE: objExport plugin will need to be checked in the plugin manager. Othewise you will not be able to export objs. If you create images, a folder will be created in the same directory as the objs to store them.