A shell modifier plugin for Maya is being developed by Janos Hunyadi from Creative Case. The plugin keeps the existing UVs intact, creates beveled edges, allows to control the level of subdivisions, etc. The author is asking those interested in testing the plugin in a production environment to contact him. Watch a sample video on Vimeo.
Shell modifier plugin for Maya
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Has Maya really never had a shell tool? That explains why so many meshes I get from Maya artists are one sided. While I know Maya a fait bit, I don’t model in it. Strange such a simple tool has been gone for so long?
i find it funny how on many basic levels going from max to maya, it feels like a huge step down. “Basic” features and tools are still missing and a lot harder to do in maya. Yet from an industry stand point, depending on what you want to do, maya is seen a necessary “step up” if you like, from arch viz to vfx. Everyone also talks about how max is dead and maya gets all the good stuff… Like an unofficial shell modifier. I don’t know, it’s just weird, because often on paper it feels like everyone should be changing to max and not maya :p (I know maya is a better pipeline tool but…)
As someone who has been using Maya since Version 1 (though I don’t much anymore), Maya has been in a strange place for many years, because it was originally a NURBS and Pixar Hierarchical SubD based program. It has taken a long time for Maya to adapt to the fact that the market largely abandoned NURBS and true SubDs in favor of polys and NURMS. As a result, their poly toolset has always been weak compared to programs like Max and Modo, that have always been primarily focused on polys and meshsmooth workflows.
I agree with you Thomas, it is totally weird that “new” stuff for Maya are regarded as “something special” while the same tools and options were available in 3ds max for quite some time (or also in some other 3d apps, like modo or cinema4d). But that is just the treatment Maya gets these days, she is the “queen of the 3d highway”. I am learning Maya modeling and it feels just fine but somehow some things are just missing and you have to use some workarounds like the “shell” effect.
Maya’s extrude outputs back faces, so it also acts as a rudimentary shell tool.
The same behavior of the Shell tool does already exist in Maya. All you have to do is perform a polygon extrude and adjust the thickness parameter. You can do this to a certain level of complexity with a non destructive workflow if you retain construction history. In essence this provides the same experience all be it in a less automatic way in Maya. It has been around since Maya 7 I think. But ill admit that it’s not as user friendly as the Max shell modifier.
Both the Max shell modifier and Mayas extrude attributes will still provide a messy result when dealing with complex meshes such as tessellated CAD data that may only have A surfaces such as car head lamps.
The real test from my point of view is whether it can maintain a clean offset on something other than a simple quad model. A good example would be scan data, triangulated model, Cad data or just a really complex design modeled from polygons.
I’m really not wanting to start a MAX/Maya debate but I’ve used both extensively working in Automotive CGI and Design and really don’t see why people complain about Mayas modeling tools. I personally prefer modeling in Maya and don’t notice any loss in functionality when you consider how good snapping is as well as it’s NURBS functionality.
There’s a lot of really great work done in Max and Maya so I’m not saying any workflow is better generally they’re just tools, but In regards to “Max is dead” etc I don’t think that will be the case because it is still very popular and as long as people are buying it in large volumes Autodesk will keep making it.
One thing that does not work in Max’s favor though is that it is heavily .NET reliant and therefore will not make its way to MAC OS or LINUX anytime soon which is a huge draw back when considering certain pipelines and user base exposure. I think that may have been one of the nails in the coffin for SOFTIMAGE they just chose to kill that off first because it’s user base was considerably smaller than Max’s not because it was a weak product.
I believe Maya also has better python support for developing plugins like Shell also check out HARDMESH for Maya. It look amazing 🙂
http://soup-dev.websitetoolbox.com/post/meshfillet-new-modelling-node-6585636
Also support for third party production renders like Arnold and Renderman is a huge advantage..
Mayas extrude node (polyExtrudeFace) needs a component list. So you might keep the history but if you edit the source mesh the face ID’s will get all messed up. So you cannot use it as a non destructive modeling workflow.
Yes you are correct Janos. Its not a true non destructive workflow which is why I’m excited about this new tool.
What I meant was you can perform a polygon extrude and visualise the thickness on your current mesh state. Then go back and adjust your thickness after you’ve dropped the tool. This is not the case in something like Modo for instance which does not have construction history.
Obviously it’s no shell modifier but it will allow a Maya user to output a mesh with a thickness offset with the same results as the 3ds Max shell modifier. You just have to do it at the end of your modeling process before outputting your final mesh. I guess you could call it semi non destructive. 3ds Max’s modifier stack can still break if you layer too many edit Poly’s etc but it is better than mayas construction history for non destructive modelling.
Maya seems to be getting quite a few of 3ds max type modifiers/tools in the last few years…soon maya may have parity with 3ds max…and then…what will happen to 3ds max!
Hopefully Autodesk will sell Max to someone who is interested in having it reach its potential.
I agree that snaps are a bit buggy in Max, that’s for sure, so not saying Max is perfect. Was just surprised that Maya didn’t have a shell tool (although I guess it sort of does based on the replies). Snaps are more reliable in Maya from what I’ve tested. AD hasn’t seemed to worked on it in forever. I don’t know if there are any alternative snap scripts/plugins, but this is something that bugs me quite frequently.
The shell modifier is out of the Beta. Its now available on Gumroad!
Check out the promo video:
https://vimeo.com/126158173
https://gumroad.com/l/shellMod
Is there a way for Maya 2014 ?
hey Janos
thank you for update 🙂