Find three mel scripts on highend3d (or other websites) that have to do with Lighting, Rendering, or Texturing and install it on your computer and run it. Write a one page (400 word) report on how well it worked for you.
REQUIREMENTS
Answer these questions:
- Did it crash?
- Did it do what it said it would?
- Was the documentation good?
- Do you find it useful?
- Will you use this script in the future?
- Will you recommend it to your friends and this class?
- BENEFITS & FEATURES Give an overview of it’s greatest benefits and features.
- USEFULNESS: Describe a situation where this script would be useful.
- HTML Link: Provide an html link to the scripts source code.
To create a link type in this code < a href="http://www.thewebsiteaddress_where_you_found_the_script"> Script Name < /a >. - 400 WORDS There must be at least 400 words in your write-up. To find out how many words are in your write-up, cut and past your post into MS Word and run "File->Properties" and then goto the statistics tab. You should see a "Words" row that tells you how many words you have.
- UNIQUENESS Your write-up must be unique. No other student can review your script. Use the search feature of this website to see who has written up which script already. The search feature is on the top of each page on this website, or click here.
- NO LIGHT GIRL & GI_JOE You can not review these scripts:Light Girl, GI Joe.
Submission
Submit your write-up as a reply to this forum topic. In order to do this you will need to
- Login.
- Once you have logged in then return to this assignment description page
- At the bottom of this description page click on the add new comment link.
- Put the script name and your name in the Subject separated with a dash. For example: FileTextureManager - Dan Shumaker see the example below.
- Paste in (or write) your review in the "Comment"section of the webpage.
- Click the "Preview comment" button.
- To finish, click the "Post comment" button at the bottom of your comment. This is an essential step
FileTextureManager - Dan Shumaker
FileTextureManager.mel by Crow Yeh
FileTextureManager
Example Mel Script Evaluation from student.
Problem:
One of the biggest problems recently in my classes is texture management. It is a common occurrence for me to UV layout and texture my entire scene with dozens of carefully laid out textures on my computer at home and in the morning take them to school to show to my teacher and have none of the textures displayed because I the file path has changed.
A possible solution for this is to create a file with all of your textures in the root scene directory and go through all of your textures when you get to school and change each individual texture path to the new copied folder.
Solution:
A program called FileTextureManager solves all of these problems by allowing you to automatically change all of the file paths in your project to a new one with a few clicks of a button. Not only can you change the file paths, you can duplicate all of your textures to a new directory and even change the suffix or root names of the textures for easy organization.
Test:
I created a simple scene and assigned textures from a single directory. After that I copied all of the textures to another directory and deleted the directory where Maya had been using them. Running the program you instantly get a UI which tells you how many texture files are missing and clicking on them brings you to the attribute editor for the file. The one problem is that it only brings you to the last file’s attribute editor and doesn’t allow you to scroll through all of them. Under the basic settings is a wealth of options for copy and changing file names. All of the renaming and file duplication options worked extremely well without any problems.
Clicking on the extra functions you notice a pop up telling you that it only supports Maya “file” nodes only, which is fine for my uses. One of the very useful features is that it can convert your texture files into different formats. The first try I did I tried to convert them in the same directory which ended up deleting the files. Strangely enough they showed up later when I created a folder to copy them in.
The other very useful tool that I tried was the substitute path tool. Since Maya could not find my textures because I had moved them to another directory, I clicked the old path browse button and copied in the old address and then copied in the address of the new directory in the new root path. Instantly all of my textures came back. The last two options I do not know how to use, but would probably come in handy. One is to change the filter type and one is to change the bot threshold.
Overall, I feel like this program did not crash, said what it was going to do and had decent documentation. I found it extremely useful and will use it again. I feel like in future releases they should allow you to select each individual texture after scanning for unassigned textures.
GeoSun 1.0.0 The script
GeoSun 1.0.0
The script that i chose is called GeoSun. It is available on High End 3d, http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/rendering/mental_ray/GeoSun-4698.html
When i first loaded the script in maya, i got a lot of errors trying to use the physical sun and light shader that comes with Mental Ray 3.5 in maya. The author advertised a function that I missed from my studio max days, which is to be able to input the hours of the day and have a sunlight's direction, colors and intensity match that physically accurate lighting. I found it very useful in the past in doing lighting for matchmoving. When maya 8 came out, a group of people from MyMentalRay (www.mymentalray.com) created a sun and light shader that worked that exact same way, but as of 8.5, the daytime feature and geographical elements got taken away.
As i've said, this script could be really useful when trying to match lighting on a plate that was done outside, if you know the exactly time that it was shot at and where it was shot at. This will make you able to match perfectly the lighting and shadows that you would need hours to tweak in the viewport and render windows to get right. Also, because this is done through the sun and light shader in Mental Ray, the render itself is extremely quick, and looks wonderful, and even better if final gather is implement in the scene.
At first, when I loaded the physical sun and light shader into mental ray, nothing crashed, so i was pretty sure everything would work perfectly. However, delight turned into frustration as soon as i looked into the attribute editor for the node and saw errors in the script window and it would not render a simple scene in mental ray. I went back on highend3d.com to check up the comments to the script and read one that specified looking into the source and changing one argument. I did that and the script then worked perfectly.
For this reason, I will use this script in the future (its on my lighting shelf now) but i will not recommend it to the class until a future version of this script that will be free of problems. How ever, i'll probably tell my friends about it, while giving them the fixed script that i now have on my shelf.
lightstick.mel - Sharon
lightstick.mel - Sharon Perdue
Link: http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/lighting/LightStick-4755.html
The first Maya .mel script I evaluated was lightstick.mel. It was created by Warrick Bayman and I downloaded it off www.highend3d.com. The description of the script on the download site described the script as, "It simply allows you to group lights together by their type by providing a list of those lights together. You can then modify attributes for those lights or for one light at a time. This is very useful if you like to keep the interface hidden. Adding this script to a marking menu can be useful. This way you will never loose lights in the outliner. You can now also create and delete lights from within the UI."
I unzipped the script and copied it to my scripts folder on my computer. At first, I tried just loading the script from the script editor, but I had trouble getting the script work. Then I re-read some of the documentation and typed out a couple recommended script lines from the readme.txt and got it to work. I saved the script to my shelf, opened it and the GUI box for the script popped up. The script basically allowed me to select any of the lights I had created in my scene and I had the ability to modify anything in the Transform Node or Shape Node for all the the lights. In the transform node, I could change the name of the light, and I could also Translate, Rotate and Scale the light on the x,y, and z axis. In the shape node, I could adjust the color and intensity of the light. I could also turn either ray trace shadows or depth map shadows on or off and adjust their respective settings. One last option in lightstick is that you could also create lights directly from the lightscript tool.
The .mel script created a fairly simple tool, but I don't know if it is something I would use in the future. It seems like there are other, more powerful scripts out there for selecting and modifying lights. I doubt I would use the transform nodes in the lightstick tool to move my lights around, instead I would probably just look through the selected light itself to move it around the scene. It's a nice tool to select the lights in my scene and do a few basic things, but I'm sure I can find some nicer scripts out there.
Pelting Tools – Sharon
Pelting Tools – Sharon Perdue
Link: http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/texturing/3869.html
The second .mel script I evaluated was Pelting Tools by Sunit Parekh. I downloaded the script off www.highend3d.com. Even though this one had a lot more components to it, it was a lot easier to install. It had several folders, one for icons, scripts, plugins as well as an example and help folder. I followed the install directions and put the icons and scripts into my maya/ folders and placed the plugins into my programfiles/autodesk/…plugins folder. Everything installed fine in maya and an icon was created for the script. I got one error about a couple plugins that needed to be installed. I checked the documentation on highend3d and it looks like the author is aware that some updates need to be made for v.8.5.
I opened the example .mb that was provided and it was the modeled body of a lizard creature. I then tried to play around with the peltingTools and the create but didn't seem to get anywhere. I've never done any "pelting" or texture mapping with characters yet, so this is all new to me. I did, however, find the author's website and found a video with a demo of the pelting tools. The website is www.sunitparekh.com annd the video is located at http://sunitparekh.com/pelting/movies/demo_0_2_sor3_mid37.mov. The video was an awesome demonstration of just how useful pelting tools really are. The video was of the author pelting a modeled head of a lizard creature. He was able to quickly select edge loops and cut them to cut the pelt. He cut a line down the creatures spine and then from each ear to the middle of the spine. Then he cut the creatures face straight down the middle. Next it looked like he added continuous edges to the cuts he made and created a set from it. Then he created a pelting frame, selected a starting cv and then pelted the mesh to the frame. He was able to pick which axis he wanted to spread the mesh out on and then starting pulling the mesh out. He was able to select the lizard head again and with a simple click he put a checker grid on it.
This looked like a really cool script and I'm excited to use in it the future. It was one of the editor's picks on highend3d.com and the script has been downloaded over 52,000 times. I'm sure this will come in handy down the road when I start doing texturing. I would definitely recommend this to the rest of the class.
quickGI – Sharon
quickGI – Sharon Perdue
Link: http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/rendering/misc/quickGI-mel-2764.html
The third .mel script I evaluated was quickGI.mel 1.0. I also found this on highend3d.com and it was created by Felix Raab. The description of the script caught my attention because the author described it as a "'quick and dirty' dome light rig that simulates Global illumination." The script was easy to install and works well.
The script creates, "33 spot lights and 1 direction light (main sun light), groups them and creates a selection set." I tested it out and created a couple basic shapes over a ground plane. When I executed the script, the spot lights made a large half dome over the grid. I tested out a couple different renders and added some quick shaders to the objects. I also grabbed the directional light (which is supposed to be sunlight) and pointed it on the object and turned up the intensity. The author set the spotlights to be a light blue color to compliment the light orange color of the sun/directional light.
I actually wasn't too impressed with this script at first until I started playing around with the spotlights and changing the intensity and scaling them up and down. The fun part was getting to use another mel script to help change the intensity. I was able to bring up lightstick and it helped me grab all 33 spotlights at the same time and change their intensities simultaneously. By doing that, however, I saw a few flaws with lightstick, in that the intensity in the GUI always showed at zero. The changes I made would still take effect in Maya, but the visible intensity wouldn't change. At that point, I had to check the attribute editor to see what the intensity was. I also wish that lightstick had a Select All button, since Ctrl-A didn't work when I tried to grab all the spot lights at the same time.
I also used your lightsolo mel script to quickly turn off the directional light and rendered a few different frames with just the spot lights. All these different scripts are nice to have and I can see how spending the time to go out and find them can save me a lot of extra time in the long run.
Overall, I like this script because I know it will come in handy if I ever need a quick lighting setup. I would recommend this to the rest of the class.
ttColorCurves 1.0.0- Frank
ttColorCurves 1.0.0- Frank Aceves
The first mel script that I tried was ttColorCurves 1.0.0, by a person named Tylney. It was downloaded from http://highend3d.com/users/47139.html and apparently the author used this mel script as an example in his Maya Trainer examination. So I downloaded the zip file and extracted it to my computer. When I opened the extracted folder I found the mel script file and a folder with icon files. There were no real instructions as to how to install and run the script so I was left a bit confused. I had never really installed a script before so I just googled it and quickly found a site that explained the basics of it.
After figuring out what to do, I installed the script and began to go over the author’s instructions to properly use it. Basically the script was meant to connect a shading node with an out color attribute to a color correction curve node. When I first read this I was a bit surprised because I never thought about doing color correction in MAYA. Color correction is something I associated with Photoshop so I was curious to see how it worked in comparison.
I started by making a plane and applying a 2D texture file of a day scene in a park. I followed the instructions and selected the file node then typed the execution command. Just as the instructions said I now had a new ramp node attached to the shader node. I then redrew the shading network and noticed that I could now see three color curve nodes connecting the file and ramp nodes. The instructions then said that to correct the colors in the image, select the ramp node, open the graph editor and press "f" to focus on the new color curves. When I did this I was again surprised to see that the color curve graph was very similar to the color curve graph in Photoshop. I started playing around with the curves and noticed that you could see the results of the curve manipulation instantly, it was great.
After playing around with the curves on different types of textures I came to the conclusion that I could do some decent color correction with this script. It can do some simple stuff that can save you from having to go back and forth to Photoshop. This script is pretty useful so I recommend it to anyone who would like to have this tool in MAYA.
Ooo, I've gotta try this
Ooo, I've gotta try this one!
dp SaveScenePlus 1.2.2-
dp SaveScenePlus 1.2.2- Frank Aceves
Scenario: So say you’ve been working on an important project for hours and you’re tired and getting forgetful. You make a change that can’t be undone and because you’re so tired you forget to go to file>save as> and add a different version number. You realize what you did and you freak out. DAMN! Now you have to go back and redo what you did before you saved the mistake.
Has this ever happened to you??? It has to me and not only is it frustrating, but very time consuming as well. Here comes dp SaveScenePlus 1.2.2 to the rescue! I downloaded this script at: http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/utility_external/backup/dp-SaveScenePlus-3970.html. The script by Diego Prilusky does something so simple yet useful. It adds an icon to the status line that will save the current scene as a new version. Why MAYA doesn’t come with such a script already I don’t know, but I am happy that there is a script that can do this. I can’t count the number of times that I forgot to save before a mistake that made me go back. Now I’ll never have that problem again thanks to this simple script.
As far as the script itself, it was a breeze to install. I downloaded the rar file, extracted, and followed the instructions on the website. Boy was I surprised that this specific script came with….. da, da, daaa. An installer! All I had to do was run the installer, tell it which version of MAYA I have (8.0), and then run the command in the mel script line. Instantly I noticed the new icon. Oddly enough after a minute it felt like the icon had always been there and I had just had it hidden.
Anyways I wanted to test the script to make sure it could do what it said. First I made a simple scene and saved it with a version number 9. I then made a small change and clicked the script icon. Instantly I noticed that the version of the file had changed to 10. Still skeptical I tried it with a version 99. I clicked the icon and low and behold I had a version 100. I was going to try it in the thousands but I figured that if you need that many versions you must be doing something wrong. Anyways, I highly recommend this script because it does exactly what it says it does and is probably the easiest script you’ll ever install. No longer will you loose those textures or that light rig because you forgot to save before making a change.
Let me know if someone get's
Let me know if someone get's it working for version 8.5. Great script!!
cubicMap - Jesse
cubicMap - Jesse Rignall
The first Mel script I will review is cubicMap (aka Keegan_cubicMap) written by David Keegan. It is available at the following two sites:
http://www.keegan3d.com
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/texturing/Keegan-cubicMap-3552.html
Laying out UVs is a real process, so I was looking for any tools that might help. This script generates UVs for an object based on 6 projections that take into account the surface normals of an object. In many ways it is similar to Maya's own "Automatic" UV layout, but it actually lays out the shells in a much more logical and consistent manner. Unfortunately, it also distorts those shells terribly.
For testing purposes I created UVs for a polygonal car-body model I downloaded from Turbosquid. First I used Maya's automatic UV mapping, with 6 planes activated. As usual, it generated distortion-free UVs, but they were split into many small pieces, and a massive amount of moving, rotating, and sewing would be necessary in order to produce a good UV layout. Next I generated UVs with cubicMap. It laid out the UVs in a very consistent manner, using less shells than Maya's own method. The individual shells were laid out in a more logical way, although they did not use the UV 0-1 space in the most efficient manner. But, the shells were distorted... squashed or stretched in one direction so that I had to fiddle with them a lot to try to even things out. It appeared to mainly be the projections through the X axis that were getting stretched, and the Z planes were squashed, so I could not simply grab all the UVs and scale them as one unit to bring things back into shape. I had to grab each shell individually and tug on it until the test texture looked right. I found after playing with it for a couple hours it was just as much work to try to resize those shells and sew them together than it would have been to manually project UVs based on face selection.
The script did not crash on me, and it did do exactly what it said it would do, but unfortunately that was not quite enough. Documentation was limited to a simple install guide, as there are no complicated settings with this script. Ultimately while it seems like it might actually be quite useful, unless I can figure out a way to remove the squashing and stretching of the UV layout, I don't think I would use it again or recommend it to anyone else.
-Jesse
Scene Info 1.0.0-
Scene Info 1.0.0- Frank Aceves
Have you ever wanted to know how many MAYA or shader nodes you have in your scene in the click of a button? If so then this is the mel script for you. A mel script by William Pe,
I downloaded this mel script from: http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/utility_external/misc/Scene-Info-4209.html
Essentially, what this mel script does is give you information about the amount of nodes that are present in the current scene. After downloading the mel script file I noticed there was no documentation on how to install the file. I tried what normally works (put the file in the scripts folder, rehash, then type the script name), but I got an error. It said that it could not find the procedure so I checked that I had put the mel script in the right folder and I had. I thought that maybe if I restarted MAYA it would work but I kept getting the same error. This happened about five times before it worked. When I finally got it to work I decided to test it out on the room file that I had turned in for homework. I was impressed by the amount of nodes I could check. The nodes are split into 2 main categories (Maya Nodes and Shading Nodes) and each of these is split into other sub-categories. You can check nodes ranging from lights, cameras, surfaces, textures (2D, 3D, Environment, etc), utilities, and much more. Overall there are the two main categories, eighteen sub-categories, and a whole bunch of sub-sub-categories. You can pretty much check how many of any node you have in your MAYA scene. This is very useful if you forget something like did I delete that light? Or did I put some bump on any of my textures?
Although not the most amazing mel script available, Scene Info 1.0.0 is a useful tool that can save you some time. I put this script on my scripts shelf and it helps me because I only have to click one button to get the information I am looking for. If anyone else downloads this mel script and tries it out please let me know if it works for you right away. I want to know if I did something wrong or if it was just a fluke. Anyways, enjoy this simple yet helpful script. P.S. One of the categories is DAG nodes. Does anyone know what those are for?
makeFresnel - Jesse
makeFresnel - Jesse Rignall
The second Mel script I am reviewing is a neat little tool called makeFresnel by Henning Birkeland. It is available at Highend3D.com at the following address:
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/texturing/makeFresnel-3992.html
I downloaded this script because for my first project in this class I need to create shaders for a car, and things like reflectivity really benefit from a fresnel effect. That is to say, that the amount of reflectivity on objects tends to increase as the viewing angle increases. To see this effect, look across a body of water like a lake and note the reflection of the sky above. Next look straight down at the water from above and you will see quite a difference!
So, what this script does is, at the push of a button, creates two linked nodes in the work area of the hypershade. First, a sampler-info node is created, and it outputs a facing ratio (based on viewing angle to surface normal) to a ramp node which has a simple black to white linear ramp applied to it.
It is then up to the user to connect the output of the ramp node to the color / reflectivity / specular / whatever-you-like node to apply the fresnel effect. The ramp may also be adjusted in any way to control the effect. In a nutshell, faces with normals facing the camera get one value, faces with normals facing away from the camera get another value, and a smooth blend between the two is created via the ramp node. (Which can be changed via ramp settings)
For testing purposes I linked the output to the color channel of a blinn shader which I applied to a polygonal character model. I then changed the colors on the ramp to red and green and made several renders from different angles in order to see how it was working. It worked great! I added more colors to the ramp, and played with the various ramp settings to explore the possibilities. I then deleted that connection, and tried it in reflection with similar results.
I tested this script on Maya 8.5, and experienced no problems, or crashes. It worked as advertised, and is actually pretty simple. The documentation was minimal, and was contained within the text of the Mel script. (I have learned to always open my scripts up in Notepad, or a similar text editor before installing, as there is often information written in there that may be useful) No instructions were given in terms of connecting input and output nodes, so I had to look that up as I am a total newbie at shader networks. I think for anyone mildly familiar this is basic stuff.
I think that this script is QUITE useful, as the fresnel effect is extremely common, and this puts it "one click away". When creating shaders for future projects, I absolutely see myself placing this script in my shelf and firing it off quite often. I would absolutely reccomend this to others. It is a pretty simple script, but it saves a bit of work on a very common task.
-Jesse
depthOfFieldCamera - Jesse
depthOfFieldCamera - Jesse Rignall
The last Mel script I am reviewing is depthOfFieldCamera by Sung joo, Kang. It is available here:
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/rendering/misc/depthOfFieldCamera-888.html
This script is used as a time saver when setting up depth of field in your scenes. What it does is to create two locators in your scene which aid in setting up focus distance. To use the script you select your camera and run the script. One locator is created, moved, and parented to the camera while another is placed at the origin. A distance dimension node is also created which takes world space connections from the two locators and outputs to the focus distance of the selected camera.
So, what you get is a locator node you can drag around in your perspective / orthographic windows with a distance dimension node that is visible in your viewport that interactively updates you on the exact focus distance of your camera, and where that focal point is in relation to your scene. The numerical value visible in the distance dimension node is useful in setting the F-stop of the camera to set the areas to be in and out of focus. Of course the location of the focal-point locator is keyframeable for animation
I created a basic scene with several cubes in Maya 8.5 to test this script, and made several renders with the focal point set to different positions, as well as a short animation with the locator moving between two objects to shift focus. All worked flawlessly with no crashes. It worked as advertised, but I think for organizational purposes it would have been nice if the locators had been given unique names rather than the default "locator1 / locator2" that Maya provides.
Documentation was minimal but it got the job done, and was contained within the script text itself. The description on Highend3D is slightly misleading in that is claims the script "adjusts DOF automatically", when what it really does is allows you to adjust the FOCAL DISTANCE manually, but interactively in the viewport. The actual "depth" of field is set by the F-stop, which is NOT affected by this script. Still, this is another handy time-saver which I will probably use again. Why go through the hassle of creating / parenting / linking these 3 nodes to the camera when I can do it with one button click? I would absolutely reccomend this script to anyone who uses DOF on a frequent basis, as it is a time saver, and when you are rendering, time is always in short supply.
-Jesse
I'll have to use this when I
I'll have to use this when I demo (teach) depth of field next semester!
abDropSpotCam v 1.1 -
abDropSpotCam v 1.1 - Jihong kim
Link - <ref=http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/lighting/download-4259.html?loc=abDropSpotCam.mel>
The abDropSpotCam v 1.1 works fine. I have found this script highn3d. It is a simple script which drops a light or camera at your current perspective view camera location with the click of a button. So, user can create and look through the selected at the same time. Also, it is easier when you are staging. I think this script will be useful especially when you are doing three point lighting. As I am a animator, the first thing I do is the staging for my shot. When I staging I often forgot to create new camera for my shot. I temp to work on staging with perspective view camera. I think it is a common mistake for the first time Maya user. Also, I like to create several staging and compare each other to find out batter staging. When you create several camera and select ‘look through’ option. It can make you slow down the process of your working. But with this script you can reduce the time for the staging. The documentation of this script is simple and clear. So, you will not be hard to use this script. You just need to type the command line in the script editor. Or, you can create hot key or buttons. There are five command you can use for a camera, spot light, point light, directional light and ambient light. I think it would been batter if this script comes with the pop up window with the five options for a camera, spot light, point light, directional light and ambient light. However it is not that hard to create the hotkeys or five buttons on the self.
For the animator this is not that useful. I do not think I will use this script that much in the future. Because, after first staging, I do not usually changing the staging again. Also, my focus is not the lighting. But, for this class I think it is worth to try since this script is simple to install and did not crash on my system. What I like about this script is that for the spot light command that you can create that spot light with same view of perspective view camera. Except that option, other options are not interesting to me. Those options are good to have but I do not bothered not to have.
LightPackBox - Jihong Kim
LightPackBox - Jihong Kim
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/lighting/LightPackBox-4559.htm This script is simple to install. There is no explanation in the script. There is only code in the script. However, I think this is pretty simple script to use. I don’t think there will be any problems to use this script even though this script does not include the documentation which explains how to use this script, because this script is simple to install and use. After you install in the script folder, it pops up the windows when you run it. On the window, there are nine buttons which are ‘show intensity’, ‘show color’, ‘show shadow’, ‘show shadow depth’, ‘show shadow depth’, ‘show edge drop off’, ‘show cone angle’, ‘add custom attribute’, ‘help to use’, and ‘about me.’ When you click the ‘help to use ‘button, it pops up another windows that gives explanation about this script. But, still this does not give us the enough explanation about this script. So, you have to spend some time to find out how this script is working. When I use this script first time, I was little disappointed because it was so simple. It gives the intensity of the light when I click show intensity button, and it gives the color of the light when I click show color button, and so on. However, I could realize the strength of this script after I created the second light. Whenever you create the new light, click the option button that you need. It will pop up the new window with new updated light information. On the pop up windows, you can see every single light in your shot. If you have more that one light in your shot, this script can be really useful for your shot. This script makes easier to compare the lights. Also, it gives you the global options that you can control every light at the same time. I think I will use this script in the future to manage the lights in my shot. I recommend this script to my class and friend to try. I think this script can be useful you guys are doing the projects. It did not crash on my system. So, do not afraid to use it.
seNodeList - Utility Node
seNodeList - Utility Node List 1.2.0
This script, much like many other scripts I've tried to use from the internet, is a complete waste of time. I had very few expectations from a script that is little more than a scaled-down version of an already simple function inside Maya - but, this script certainly didn't meet any of those expectations.
Did it crash?
Nope. It didn't do anything but start, then take up screen space.
Did it do what it said it would?
Nope. It didn't do anything but start, then take up screen space. The GUI loaded for it, but there was no functionality outside of two buttons. One of them opened the Connection Editor, and the other one I couldn't use do to the way I have Maya's GUI setup.
Was the documentation good?
What documentation? There was a text file that had a bunch of notes on what the script would allegedly do, but the only instruction it offered was "To use, simply source this script in the script editor and type 'seNodeList;' in either the script editor or command line." - which I find rather amusing, since I was under the impression that the computer would do everything for me if I pressed a magic button.
Will you use this script in the future?
Nope. I wrote something very similar to this (but mine works). I feel that I would get more use out of that one than this new one.
Will you recommend ... no!
This script would have been useful to keep track of multiples of similar nodes for not only texturing/lighting/render, but also for rigging as well. The one I wrote has very similar intentions, but isn't ready for public consumption. Nothing is more troublesome than opening the bulky hypershade to navigate to the image and tiny name on the node you would more readily pick out of a list of text names. This script would have solved those problems, but it fails to function.
There is also a "text" list
There is also a "text" list inside the hypershade.
jhCollectFiles 1.0.0
jhCollectFiles 1.0.0
There is nothing more frustrating than a complicated and cluttered scene....except for maybe one thing : when that scene needs to travel. Rather than force myself to do renders on one single or set of computers, it is sometimes more convenient to take a scene to an altogether different render farm. The school offers one, but there is a catch to the convenience of that utility. You MUST be sure to have everything with your scene when you take it with you. You can hurt yourself and lose a lot of time if you leave a texture or two behind on your computer at home.
That's where this script comes in.
This script is designed to grab all the external textures in a scene, and duplicate them into a directory of the user's choice. However, due to the magic of unreliable internet-distributed scripts, this one does exactly the opposite of its intended function. When I clicked on the one button it displays (one button does all, apparently) it gave me a window asking where I wanted to store all my textures. Upon choosing a location, the scene was restarted and all my textures connecting to external files no longer had a file attached to them. All the file textures had been removed from the scene. I navigated to the directory where they should have gone, but nothing was there. Where did they go?
Alas, I am zero for two on scripts for this class.
Did it crash?
Well, it didn't keep my scene intact - so, I can consider that a crash.
Did it do what it said it would?
If it came from the internet, and it lets me down, then it succeeds in its purpose. Doesn't help me much on the scene, however.
Do you find it useful?
The idea is sound. I would love to have a fully-functioning version of this. But, in regard to the current version, c'mon.... don't make me laugh.
Will you ... no, again.
AKS Lightray by Andreas
AKS Lightray by Andreas Klingert
http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/lighting/aks-lightRay-4517.html
Problem:
Mental Ray image based lighting can take a long time in rendering.
Solution:
A program called AKS Lightray fakes an HDRI with shaders and basic lights.
Test:
Big problems. I have no idea if the script does even work, because the UI that is given with the script is not large enough to see the buttons that the help file says that I have to press. But clicking on both buttons that I can’t see yields another dialog. I have no idea what button it is that I pressed, as the text on the buttons is clipped. The next box is more of the same, but this time I do have most of the text visible, so I can (possibly) work with the help file with it. But it gets worse, instead of two buttons that I am not sure about, at the bottom of this one, there is four. Pointless clicking in that direction gives me a result of another sphere, with another same dialog. I guess that one means create a new one. Apparently the second one hits it to close. I have no idea what the other two buttons do, or what the button that I pressed did, because it has just closed the window, so I’m left with a question of did it do something? Did it just have a close button, or cancel? So I check the script editor, hoping that there’s a chance that I can see if it did anything, only to find that it doesn’t show the actins that it did, if any. So I check the render. Although I created my directional light in the beginning, only a sliver of light (where there is no geometry) shows. I am frustrated with this script, and pointless clicking in the area of buttons, is not going to yield results that I would find SAVE me any time over a HDRI mental ray render. My conclusion: Busted. I would not recommend this script to anyone (that I want to help).
-JHanley
PLDOF.mel by Jorge P. Bouza
PLDOF.mel by Jorge P. Bouza
http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/rendering/mental_ray/PLDOFCamera-3184.html
Problem:
Creating a mental ray depth of field camera works a little counterintuitive, and can be a little cumbersome.
Solution:
A program called PLDOF creates a mental ray physical lens depth of field camera, nodes, locators, and outputs. Makes it really easy to use, and quick to learn the depth of field uses.
Test:
Lightning quick install. Really easy to execute, it creates locators on a new camera to create depth of field nodes, and it makes creating depth of field really, really quick. It also creates a measurement between the camera locators, and works with mental ray physical lens. It can only be created on an empty scene, unfortunately, but I don’t see why this couldn’t be imported into another. I’d say that this script works better when you are just learning to use depth of field.
Then it was time to play with it a little bit. I loaded a simple scene, imported the camera from a clean one, and since I have used locators and all this before, it’s extremely easy to adjust the DOF by selecting the locator and snapping it to the vertices that you want the focus on. You can then remap any other setting you had on a camera that you have had before, and you’re done. It doesn’t necessarily save a whole lot of time, but the time it does save moves to another area of difficulty.
It’s not a complicated script, but it’s one that works well, and gives the image a realistic DOF without necessarily needing to adjust the variables. It’s not difficult to do this manually, but the time saved in this execution can be spent somewhere else.
All in all, after the other script I knew that since this wasn’t too difficult of a script, at least one of my three will work. I would recommend this script, after they learn how to do it manually, and to use it for learning how to use the depth of field, quick rendering of test images, and to see how to use the locators and measurements to use as outputs.
I probably will not use this script, because I’d prefer to use software depth of field instead of the physical lens, or I’d rather render the Z-Depth and process the Depth of Field in Post.
John Hanley
bc_lightListerWin 2.1.1 by
bc_lightListerWin 2.1.1 by Barish Chandran
http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/interface_display/download-4419.html?loc=bc_lightListerWin.mel
Problem:
I’m an old 3DSMax guy, and there are some features that I missed. Max’s Light Lister was one of them.
Solution:
A program called bc_lightListerWin 2.1.1 creates the lister interface.
Test:
Anticipation. If this script works like max’s then the other light attribute scripts will be useless. I really wish there was an rar file for this. Makes things more difficult using firefox download. I notice that there is no help file, but rather he put it on the description on the site. Must read that in order for evertything to work.
I created a simple scene, added lights, and loaded the script. Pretty easy to use. I toyed around with the settings of the lights, and was able to select any light that I wanted, and changed some of the key variables. Jumped straight to adding ten point lights in my scene. Selected all of my lights, and adjusted the color howerever I felt like for any one of them I felt like. Pretty happy with the selection and the variables. Also happy to see a familiar panel back again.
The command lightListerWin(0) lists all lights, regardless of selection, and the panel is the same as it was in 3DSMax. This tool can turn on, off lights, change and view the intensity, color, and other attributes for the lights in the scene. It is definitely one of the more powerful windows that a mel script has made. This takes the place of light solo easily, along with many other scripts for dealing with viewing, turning on or off lights, etc.
This script is very easy to use, and very user-friendly. Does not require much, but you get to adjust the main causes for bad quality renders, faulty lighting, blown out scenes, or even the age old question, “What &*%& &$ light is not on?”.
You can turn on or off shadows, adjust the depth map shadow size, filter size, ray limit, and see how every light is working, and see if there’s an anomaly in any of your numbers. This is by far opne of the best light attribute editor/ lister windows, and I would recommend it to everyone, if even they only use it for simple debugging light sources.
I will definitely be using this script for a long time. Now I just have to wait unti someone makes a stack selection script, and I’ll be set.
John Hanley
Physical Sun Shadow Fix
Physical Sun Shadow Fix 0.1.0 by Ashraf Aiad:
My second script I'm reviewing is called Physical Sun Shadow Fix.
It is available on highend3d at http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/rendering/mental_ray/Physical-Sun-Shadow-Fix-4580.html
The author advertises this script as a fix for probably the major problem with the physical sun shader available in Mental Ray in maya. When you work with the physical sun shader to light your scene with accurate daylight and geographical input (thanks to the first script i used), you will obtain beautiful daylight scene, that renders extremely fast. However, it does not serve much purpose if you cannot pull just a shadow plate out of your image, because it kills most of the post production work that you would do on the final image (or image sequence.) Physical sun does not render a shadow map on a use background shader, only on regular materials, and prior to that, i used to pull a matte from it directly in photoshop. Long and arduous process, that was truly unneeded as I was sure that a fix probably existed online. Looking around forums, i found out that a couple people used another light rig to match the shadows that the sunlight would give to the scene inside maya's final render and actually use those two lights to pull off a matte from a use background shader. I thought it would be okay to do, faster than pulling the matte by myself in photoshop, but still, i'm sure there was something better out there. I came across a link to highend3d.com scripts' library to this one, P hysical Sun Shadow Fix.
This script installed perfectly fine, and when ran into a selected physical sun node, it will create two more directional lights on your scene, one that will match the shadow of the physical sun, while taking out the mental ray only attributes that physical sun has, and another one with the negative intensity of the first created directional light, in order to cancel the lighting done with the first one, since physical sun is already in place. It was a very quick process to create those two lights by the scripts, and it rendered perfectly on a use background material put on the ground plane of the scene itself. I did not try to render out the final image with the two directional lights in it, i actually deleted them once i had my shadow plate pulled out, so im not too sure if it actually would slow the whole scene down if rendered in the final image.
This is definitely a script that I would recommend to my friends and this class, at least if they make use of the great physical sun shader available in Mental Ray.
UV Nudge-It! 2.0.0 UV
UV Nudge-It! 2.0.0
UV Nudge-It! Is a script that I found on highend3d.com written by Ken Proudfoot and is available for download at
http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/texturing/UV-Nudge-It--2085.html
Simply enough, the author advertised the script in the texturing section of highend3d.com with with object of just being able to nudge uv's directly from the viewport or the texture editor window without having to use the W key. It used to have an option of being able to set four keys nto the positions of up/down/right and left nudging, but the author disabled them and released a pop up window to do all the nudging from. However, the option is still available by editing the script (documentation is included inside the script itself.)
The script installed wonderfully, the author giving two directories (one for scripts, one for icons) that can just be dropped in the Maya directory (in the scripts and icons folders). I just did a simple rehash, and typed in the script's name and the pop up window and i could start nudging the uvs. The default distance is .05 units in Maya, but that is easily changeable by running another little melscript to define a new default nudging value. To be quite honest, i did not really see a great interest on this script, as everything that can be done with this script, you could do manually and faster manually. I think it would be more useful if Maya would actually keep the uv's of the entire object visible if you're just editing the uv's of a part of the object. I read a comment on highend3d.com mentioning that this script is wonderful for extremely large scenes or game models, and I have to admit that I fail to see why it would be useful to anyone, unless someone is really meticulous about layout down their uv's and want a certain space to be consistent between each shell in the layout.
I don't think i would actually recommend this script to anyone that I know, except for novelty purposes, maybe someone could actually find a use for it. For me, it's useless. It's fun to use for a couple seconds, but since it does not really save me anytime, and time being precious for production, i dropped it and probably will never use a nudging script again.
DannyUvTools - Gerisa
DannyUvTools - Gerisa Macale
(I always find it funny when people name their tools after themselves
)
I got this script from an artist webpage: http://www.dannyngan.com/tools.htm
Problem: I find myself using planar projections while I UV mapped my project. It’s time consuming having to continually check which axis to project from. It was also a hassle to keep track of the faces that were projected already besides just keeping note of it.
Solution: A popup window tool called DannyUvTools automatically assigns a color material to the faces you select. Once all the faces in the object are selected, the tool will layout the selections for you and fit the shells nicely into the 0:1 space in the UV Texture Editor.
Test: First I installed the mel script by dropping it into the scripts folder and had the option of adding an icon into the icons folder. I opened Maya and created a polygon cube like the “house” example we have done in class. I typed in ‘DannyUvTools’ into the MEL line and a popup window showed up. I followed the documentation, which provided a step-by-step process, and first selected the object in object mode. From the window popup tool I initialized the mesh which deletes all the history from the object (be sure to save before doing that!). After that, I started selecting faces with the Paint Selection Tool and when I selected the first bunch, I clicked on ‘Assign Material’ to give that selection a color. After I repeated that process, I clicked on ‘Check Mesh’ which makes sure you’ve selected and assigned a material to all the faces on the geometry. If not, it will highlight the faces to show you. Once that’s done, select the object in object mode and click ‘Map Faces’ to map them and ‘Layout UVs’ which will layout the UVs inside the UV Texture Grid. Then select the object again and ‘Cleanup Mesh’ which deletes the temporary material nodes that was put on your geometry.
It’s very simple to use but the only thing that it doesn’t do is guarantee that some are reversed. So you still have to flip the reversed ones using Maya’s layout tool in the UV Texture Editor but you’ll need to rotate the shells to your preference. You’ll also still need to sew the UVs. Basically, it just helps with making shells.
It didn’t crash on me and did what he said it would. The documentation was very specific and simple. I do plan on using this script in the future and recommend it.
killImagePlanes - Gerisa
killImagePlanes - Gerisa Macale
I got this script from http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/rendering/misc/4807.html
Problem: When I'm working in reference to something, I like using image planes in Maya so that I'd just have to switch views to see it. It is more convenient instead of clicking to view the image outside of Maya. When it gets time to do a test render, it gets annoying when I render and realize the image plane is still there. The many extra clicks to turn it off and on can get tedious when I need to do it fast.
Solution: Henry Foster was having the same problem with his renders and he made a simple script for it. The script is helpful especially if you used image planes on different views and do not want to go through the trouble of going to each view and having to select each one to turn them off.
Test: I installed the script into my scripts folder and opened Maya. I made a simple scene and imported an image plane into the perspective view. I executed the script into the MEL script execution line and it got rid of the image plane. Maya even tells me the number of image planes ‘killed.' The script also provides an executable command that will bring the image planes back. I did another test with more image planes. I went to each view and imported image planes and executed the script again and it got rid of all four, the ‘kill count tally' verified it as well. Another problem I usually encounter and get annoyed with is when I have to upload my scene onto another computer and besides the other files needing to be reloaded, the image plane does too. Most of the time, a bad habit I know, I have the image plane file on my desktop at home and forget to put it in image folder for my project. I hate that big X that shows up where the image plane should be. To counter that, just run the killImagePlanes and it won't show up.
The script didn't crash Maya and the documentation was short but helpful in the installation and use for the script. It does exactly what it said it would. It's a really simple script that doesn't seem to do much but if you deal with image planes a lot, this is a good script to use. I know I will be using this script a lot in the future so I plan on keeping it. As for recommending this script, I would recommend it only to those who would need it.
nprs - Gerisa Macale I
nprs - Gerisa Macale
I got this script from http://www.simplymaya.com/download_pages/category.mhtml?typeid=4&catid=9
Okay, so I didn't have any problems I needed to solve, but after searching for so long for another script to do an evaluation on, I wanted to do something fun. I came across this toon shader and thought it'd be cool to use for 2D looking scenes. It didn't crash and it is simple to use. The name nprs stands for ‘non-photo realistc shader.' There was not much documentation but then again, there didn't need to be. I was looking for better toon shaders and I found one but I think I had to purchase it.
Anyway, it takes a bit longer to render but if it's an effect that you want, it's worth it. After I saved the script into my scripts folder, I made a simple Maya scene. To execute the script, I just typed ‘nprs' and the create nprs window came up. You can choose two colors; one for the main color and the other a darker value. You can also tell it how many color steps you would like in between the two. Then there is an option of whether you would like it to create a paint shader or a cell shader. Basically, it means if you want the color steps to be smoother or like a harsh gradient. Then hit create and it creates a color node for you to apply to your object. Aside from the color node, other nodes such as surface luminance, light clamp, facing ratio and condition 2 are created. I am not quite sure what they do besides helping to calculate the shader's appearance. When you select the shader node, you could even tweak the color steps since it's pretty much a ramp color node. It's a really cool script! I have ideas in mind.
It renders fast even if it is in Production quality and updates quickly during IPR renders. I know that this class focuses a lot on photo realistic qualities but I think that this script can be useful with a different style in mind. It isn't hard to use and even easier to render. It could even be used as a stand in while you research and build better textures. If this is the style that you want to do work in, I would gladly suggest using this script. I know I will be using it for fun personal projects but for this class, I don't think I would be using it.
LightSolo.mel V1.0 - Ji-Hong
LightSolo.mel V1.0 - Ji-Hong Kim
I just tried Light Solo tool in my system. It worked fine, and this is simple but really useful Mel script. Also, the documentation is well written. When I read the documentation, I realized that this Mel script is scripted by our instructor, Dan Shumaker. Since anyone have not reviewed this script yet and this is such a useful script, I like to write a review about the Lightsolo script. You can download the LightSolo script from http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/lighting/LightSolo-mel-4445.html . When you open the LightSolo script with word pad, there are description and installation about the script. In the installation part, it is mentioned that you have to take out the extra characters between the "LightSolo" and ". Mel" If you download it from www.highend3d.com where I have downloaded from. In the document, It is mentioned that usually these extra characters include the version number. But, when I downloaded from highend3d, the file name was just LightSolo. So, you do not have to change any name. You just need to copy and pate the file to script folder and rehash it just like other Mel scripts. Other than that, everything is clear in the documentation. After you installed the file in the script folder, type the LightSolo in the command line. The window will pop up. On the window, there are all the lists of you lights that you created in your shot. What this script do is helping you to turn on and off your lights easily in your shot. There are check boxes on the left side of each list of your light. So, you can choose only lights that you want to be rendered. Before you use this script, you just need to press the "TOGGLE ALL" button to turn all the lights off. When you light you shot, you can create several lights. When you fixed your lights in your shot, sometimes you want to see a only certain light. This script can be really useful at that time. It makes really much easier to control your lights. I will use this script in the future when I light my shot. Also, I recommend this script to my friends and this class. It is simple to install you computer, and it did not crashed in my system. Also, it is a simple script. So, you do not have to spend too much time to figure out how it work.