Trouble exporting AC 3D view to MAYA for OSX

[rm]

Inspired by Ivan's spectacular photo realistic renderings, and disapointed with Art-lantis 4.5.6 lack of radiosity abilities, I downloaded Maya PLE for OSX and C4D to demos to try out their rendering abilities, and ease of use, or lack there of.

I installed both demo programs and they launch just fine in OSX 10.3.4.

So I exported a model that I have recentlly completed in AC 8.1 the latest build, and exported a 3D view using the default settings for both 3Dstudio ( which C4D just fine ) and Maya.

The .3ds file took about 3 minutes to process as this is a fairly complex model, same for saving as an Artlantis 4.5.6. file.

The Maya export simply hangs after creating about 3 different AC scratch files. I tried the same file on three different G4s same problem. It just seems to get stuck in processing hell. I get the little colored spinnig ball.....and nothing.

Is this a bug with the export plugin for MAYA in AC....or is there an obvious technique I am missing.

BTW, I saved from a 3d perspective view with the Open GL shaded mode.

Using OSX 10.3.4 on G4s...........any tips or help would be appreciated.

TIA,
Architects Design Forum, Ltd.


Robert Mariani

[Anonymous]

It depends on your definition of "high end" NO

* Maya Unlimited
* Softimage XSI
* Houdini
* Massive

IRIX UNIX compatible RENDERMAN Connection = HI-END

* Lightwave
* 3ds max and Autodesk VIZ
* Cinema4D XL or Studio

Pro tools its OK for.

[Anonymous]

(still renderings and aerial animations of architectonic subjects) vs. charactor animations and special effects.

3D VIZ + MentalRAY or Vray

i thing is best for you but that not work on MAC srry

get LW for mac will be OK for you but little slow

MAYA is for Animation Character Setup Free Polygon and Nurbs modeling and Exelent for GO to RenderMan PrMan for arch is little bit too complicated

but that is only my one things

[Anonymous]

I am also having trouble exporting to maya. Any luck?

[Anonymous]

I found the .3ds import plugin for maya. It's free on the Alias website. I would reallyy like to hear if any of you are using maya for post AC rendering or if you would suggest 3DS instead. I'm a little worried about converting through 3 file formats before getting to maya. Thanks

[stefan]

Export as OBJ from ArchiCAD.
Maya should handle it nicely, it's a format from Alias|Wavefront after all.

And IvanG,
I would consider Mental Ray support including support for custom shaders on an equal level as support for Renderman. And in that sense, VIZ 2005, max6, Maya etc... are high end enough.

I would even consider the now $495 Softimage|XSI Foundation 4.0 as high-end software!

[Andy Thomson]

I have found OBJ exports to work well (from AC to Maya), but there is always ONE pesky node in the hypergraph - which represents the OBJ as a 'polymesh' - that is the sum-total of all parts/objetcts from archicad. If I knew a way to bust apart that one node, I suspect I would be able to assign shaders to individual objects created in the original archicad model, rather than applying shaders to 'faces' of the polymesh, since all of the objects are seen as subsequent nodes under the level of the ploymesh.

Has anyone figured out how to do this???

A.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replys. I have not been able to get maya to import an .obj
file from AC. I have tried many times with no luck. What is your method?
I also cannot understand how to get the scale/units to work correctly. I am getting a little frusterated and would appreciate any help. Thanks

[Andy Thomson]

Sequence worked for me in the past...

goto AC 3D window, save as OBJ, when dialogue appears,pick element-material option, model rotated (as maya defauly z axis is actually y, but you can change this in maya), dwg unit 12inches...

On the maya side, set preferences (settings, pref, units) to 12" or 1', y=up - unless you export from AC model rotated...then...

Import, select options filetype: OBJ, resolve clashing nodes w. filename, create multi-objects = false (I wish could be 'true'!).

Then be sure to set all your camera clipping planes (att manager in Outliner is how I do it) to 0.00001 near, 10,0000 far, so you can see the model(;), right click in any view window and 'select all' then hit 'F' for fit, and you will see where your model is, sometimes it's a million feet off maya's origin, I suggest saving your AC model with a datum/origin at some useful corner.

You can then insert the model's pivot (insert button on kybd, then ctrl'c snap the tumble pivot somewhere on your ac model, and centre it on maya's 0,0,0).

That has always worked for me in the past (w. version 8.0 to Maya 4.0). Only for some reason I just tried to export from 8.1, to Maya 4.5 and got an error reading file warning...hmmmmm is this the problem you are having I wonder, or did you get this far??



A.

[Andy Thomson]

One more thing, to scale, just export a something in your model that is exactly 1'x1'x1' like a slab/cube, scale it to maya's grid that you set at 1' intervals, use scale tool, voila, then delete cube (face by face)

A.

[Anonymous]

The better format to export archi models is 3ds ... after many tests ... my conclusions is:

1- Archicad works with multi color per vertex (3ds have better format for this)
2- the units translators is better (archicad output default is inches maya is mm)
3- no need translate z or y axis
4- have a good option to export file textures unlike the OBJ format whos export only colors without files textures...
and finaly maya understans very well 3ds format
but keep in mind... archicad works with triangulate poligons and sometimes this format causes a VERY SLOW renderings in mental ray !!!