Maya 4 question. If someone could help, I would appreciate it.

**hotnwormy** · November 27th, 2002, 04:39 PM

I have been working with Maya for a couple of months now, and I'm starting to like it quite a bit. I've been a Max user for 2 years now, and so it has been a bit of a challenge for me to learn the UI all over again.

My question is actually in regards to something I use quite a bit in Max. In Max, it is possible to create a box, then apply a Mesh Smooth, so that there are no sharp edges on the box or on the box corners. I haven't found anything like this in Maya, so I'm forced to create a square with rounded corners in line form, then extrude it along a line. This can be a real pain, and is quite time consuming. If someone could tell me if there is an easier way to get smooth corners, I would appreciate it very much! Thank you.

**MessFX** · November 27th, 2002, 08:53 PM

If I understand you correctly, I believe simply applying a bevel to the polygon edges will solve your problem. You can easily adjust the radius and division of the bevel arc to your liking.

-Steve

**hotnwormy** · November 28th, 2002, 02:14 AM

Steve,

Thanks a bunch for your help. That was what I was looking for, but now I'm getting a strange thing happening... when I apply certain textures now, the polygon becomes see through with small lines all over it. I've even tried creating a simple cube. If I apply a flat texture to it, no problem. However, if I apply a texture with any kind of noise on it, I get the see-through problem I mentioned. Any idea what might be causing this?

Thanks again.

**Stonepilot** · November 30th, 2002, 03:51 AM

Dude that's weird. Sounds like your Maya is broken. Might be missing the plug in for Poly texturing. Might want to look around the web for it......

Just kidding. You just have to unwrap your cube. Usually if you're texturing basic shapes it will work but once you start changing those shapes things get weird. Here's how you do it.

1- Select object.
2- Edit polygon>Texture>Automatic Mappingt. This will be your quickest way to get paint on it. You can mess with the options. Man if you're trying to teach maya to yourself good luck man. Its a huge package.

**benzo** · December 1st, 2002, 07:28 PM

You might also want to try out under Polygons menu, Smooth. In the channel box, you can control the smoothness of the object, going from 0 (no smooth) to 2 for example (which is very smooth). As long as this is the last thing you do to the model in its history, you can go back and forth in the smooth range at your convenience.

**MessFX** · December 5th, 2002, 03:59 AM

If the polygons are indeed transparent or appear shaded improperly, some of your normals might be inverted. You will have to check each polygon to see where the normals are facing and correct them. The procedure is described somewhere on the reference cd.

If the texture just appears distorted then you will need to pull out the UV mapping editor and edit your UV points. You can also do automatic mapping (as was suggested above) but you should really learn how to properly set up UV points. Maya has some of the best tools to edit UVs. I strongly suggest that you learn them as it will save a lot of headache.

You may also want to check to make sure that there are no hidden polygons obscuring the image.

There are several great tutorials that teach UV mapping and polygon modeling in Maya. I would recommend picking up a few if you are serious about learning the software.

-Steve

Originally posted by hotnwormy

when I apply certain textures now, the polygon becomes see through with small lines all over it. I've even tried creating a simple cube. If I apply a flat texture to it, no problem. However, if I apply a texture with any kind of noise on it, I get the see-through problem I mentioned. Any idea what might be causing this?

Thanks again.

**OmniDose** · December 7th, 2002, 02:03 AM

The transparent polygons is a bug in Maya that comes along with the bevel tool...all in all I would stay away from the bevel tool entirely. If you have to use it, delete the history before and after you use it, but even then it can sometimes permanently screw up complex models (sometimes you can't undo back past the bevel) so save before trying

Smooth works well though, and you can get rid of it as long as its still anywhere in your history

anyways laters

**MessFX** · December 7th, 2002, 04:18 AM

Originally posted by OmniDose
The transparent polygons is a bug in Maya that comes along with the bevel tool...all in all I would stay away from the bevel tool entirely. If you have to use it, delete the history before and after you use it, but even then it can sometimes permanently screw up complex models (sometimes you can't undo back past the bevel) so save before trying

Hmm... I have never had a problem with the bevel tool and I use it frequently. The only bevel bug I see listed by Alias concerns isoprams in 4.5 for OSX. It mentions nothing about polygon groups or transparency issues.

Where did you see this bug report?

-Steve

**OmniDose** · December 9th, 2002, 04:09 AM

I havn't taken a look through the alias bug listings (if you have a link it would be appreciated) but this is a bug that I have seen quite a few times in personnal experience. Specifically: In maya 4.0/4.02 if you use polygonal bevel, it will erase any UV information that you currently have, thus if you try to assign a non-3d texture without re-uving it will give you barred lines on your polygons. I'm currently going to school for Character animation, and have had this happen to me on about 8 different computer configurations there, as well as 2 home computers, and a 2 friends computers.

As for my other beefs with maya's polygonal beveling (in 4/4.02) I can't give you any specific details on why it happens or when, but I have had many models messed up quite severly (surest way is to use subtract boolean, and then bevel the edges)

I'd be really happy if this is fixed in 4.5 though