Maya

The Maya plug-in saves you the hassle of having to save and load files simply to transfer data between CySlice and Maya. With the click of a button you can transfer slices and network patches from CySlice into Maya. With the click of another button you can transfer surfaces modeled or modified in Maya back into CySlice.

Installation

The Maya plug-in is a MEL script, tool shelf and bitmap icon. To install, run CySlice and click on the blue CySlice button at the top of the main CySlice window. The "About CySlice" window will appear; towards the bottom should be an Install Maya Plug-in button (see Figure 361).

Figure 361. About CySlice Window

Click on this button and a directory selection window will appear. Your Maya home directory will already be selected, which is the best place to install the CySlice plugin, so complete the installation by clicking on the green Install Here button.

Trouble-shooting for SGI IRIX

If the Install Maya Plug-in button isn't visible, then CySlice couldn't find your Maya home directory. Its looking for this directory:

  
  $HOME/maya  

  
  setenv HEADUS_MAYA_LOCATION /somewhere-else/maya  

Trouble-shooting for Windows NT

If the Install Maya Plug-in button isn't visible, then CySlice couldn't find your Maya home directory. By default its looking in these locations:

  
  Environment: $USERPROFILE/maya  
  Environment: $USERPROFILE/My Documents/maya  
     Registry: HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Alias|Wavefront/Maya/1.0/Settings/HOME  

To set environment variables under Windows 2000, right click on the My Computer desktop icon, select Properties, click on the Advanced tab, click on the Environment Variables button, then click on New... in the user variables section. Enter HEADUS_MAYA_LOCATION into the Name field, and the pathname of Maya home directory into the Value field.

From CySlice to Maya

When you next run Maya, you should have a headus tool shelf that contains the CySlice icon. Click on the icon and you'll get the CySlice->Maya window (see Figure 362). To begin the whole process, select Run CySlice and CySlice will start up.

Figure 362. CySlice->Maya Plugin Window

Once CySlice is running, you can transfer slices and patches to Maya just by selecting the Transfer button in the main CySlice window (see the Transferring section of the Saving chapter for more details). Maya will automatically load the slices and patches when given a bit of a nudge; it only needs some keyboard input to wake it up. I use the <x> key, but anything else will work just as well.

The loaded slices and patches are grouped, or not, according to the Group option, and scaled up or down according to the Scale option. If you are running Maya in "Z-Up" mode ("Y-Up" is the default), select Z after the Up Axis option and the loaded objects will be rotated. If you are happy with the option settings, you can Close the CySlice->Maya window and the data transfer process will continue regardless.

From Maya to CySlice

Before attempting to export a NURBS surface from Maya into CySlice, make sure that the IGES export plugin is enabled. From within Maya, select 'Window|General Editors|Plug-in Manager...' and turn on either MayaToIgesDxf for NT, or MayaToAlias for SGI.

Once the IGES export plugin is loaded, you can use the Copy selected to CySlice button in the CySlice->Maya window to transfer surfaces from Maya back into CySlice. From there, the patches need to be moved from the Slicing module to the Networks module by clicking on the Import Patches button in the Other Tools panel of the Networks dialog. You can then use the Networks Mapping tool to calculate displacement maps for those patches.

Before transferring SUBD surfaces from Maya, you will need to enable the OBJ export plugin. A full description of the SUBD import process can be found in the Imported SUBDs chapter.