First off I just want to touch on the fact that I did get my previous problem worked out with transferring UV attributes from my textured model over to my identical model that is rigged and weighted. Worth mentioning is the fact that my fix ended up being a work around because I just realized that it is a bug in Maya’s transfer attributes tool. Although it says when using the “Component” method that as long as the topology is identical, it doesn’t have to be in the exact same position based on world space. It may work in some cases, but based on my study, it definitely doesn’t work if the object is skinned/weighted and in a different position. It causes the same artifacting that I pointed out in renders before. So what I was able to do, was luckily find an older version of my skinned/weighted model that was no longer in the bind position, but in the same position as my uv/textured model and got the UV’s attribute transfer to work fine with World Space, Local Space, or Component space as long as the models were identically positioned in every way. I was then able to use the bind pose model as reference to reposition my final spider back to bind pose, which come to find out, most of my rig controllers just needed their transforms set back to zero and it was in bind pose. I have submitted a problem report to Autodesk about this transfer attribute issue, hopefully it will be addressed.
OK! So I’m not sure how familiar you are with fur, but if you’re not then you will be after this little tutorial. As I mentioned before, Maya has an issue with generating mapped attribute files automatically based on the scene file name. This can cause quite an issue with file management after a while if you are trying to contain your project folder size for something like the renderfarm perhaps and everytime you resave a new file version, it kicks out 20 files at 10mb a piece. So I’m going to guide you through the fix of this problem.
So in this guide I will provide you with many screenshots (fig. 1, fig. 2, etc.) from Maya2009 in order to help you understand what I am pointing out exactly. Starting out in Fig.01 you can see that I have selected the right legs and the Fur description associated with it. As you can see in the image, I have already mapped all of the color attributes from file manually. Something to know about these attributes is that although they appear to file in maps just as you would in a regular shader attribute and it’s there. Not in the case of fur. If you have mapped in all of your color attributes, press render and you should most likely not see any results. The reason why is because Fur requires these maps to be baked out to new files for referencing. So now we will proceed to bake out these attribute maps so the fur description can reference them properly. As you can see in Fig.02 I have demonstrated how to select your attribute and bake it out. In Fig.03, if you expand the “Details” arrow and then the “Base Color” sub menu after that you can see visually now where this file has been mapped to which is most likely a file named “sceneFileName_polySurfaceFurIsAssignedTo_furDescriptionName_AttributeName” or in my case with the actual names in place “spiderSecondRound67_polySurfaceShape59_rightLegFurMediumHairs_BaseColor” and is located in the default fur directory under “fur/furAttrMap/filename.iff”. This is where all of the problems begin. The fact that it has referenced a scene file name will now force it to continue this naming convention, we need to create a detour but it needs to be one that the fur description can still understand. Worth mentioning is that this method only works for the attributes that have a clickable map (checkered square) button next to the attribute, which just happens to be all of the “color” related maps in the fur description as seen in Fig.04. So once you have baked all of the attributes to file, go to the furAttrMap directory to edit the filenames of these baked maps. Oddly enough, like all things in Maya, you would think that we could just delete all object reference names blah blah, and just name the damn file what it is, “rightLegFurMediumHairs_BaseColor” but for some reason Maya wants these color maps to maintain the object reference name which would make it “polySurfaceShape59_rightLegFurMediumHairs_BaseColor”. So rename all of your files with this convention, deleting the scene name reference and move them all to a new folder insode of this directory that is called “finalMaps” or whatever you want to name it. Now go back to the same expanded menu from Fig.03 and click on the referenced file name in the table just as I have and make it blue so you know it is selected, then click on the mapItem button and navigate to your newly renamed file and click import. Now as a test save your file, now save as and rename to a new version. Voila! If you navigate to your default fur directory “furAttrMap” and there are no new files, you’ve done it, if their are new files with the original naming format of “sceneFileName_polySurfaceFurIsAssignedTo_furDescriptionName_AttributeName” than you need to go back and check your mapped file directory path and see if it has changed back to default automatically, these things are very finicky. So that covers the “color” related maps.
Baldness, Length, Inclination, Roll, Polar, Direction, and all of these are another story. None of these can be mapped in by the typical (checkered square) clickable map button. To map these you have to select the fur description and object just as we demonstrated in Fig.01 from the beginning. Now you go to the rendering dropdown menu so you can select fur options from the top menu bar and scroll down to the Paint Fur Attributes Tool and click the box to the right so it will bring up your tool options as demonstrated in Fig.05 and Fig.06. Assuming that you have already custom painted these maps and they are ready for import you need to click on the “Fur Attribute” dropdown menu and select your attribute, “Baldness” for example. Identify your map resolution and then click import on the right side as demonstrated in Fig.07. Ok, now you have this file mapped in, so lets go customize it’s filename so it won’t auto-generate. So as you may think, this file can actually be named what it is which is “rightLegFurMediumHairs_Baldness” so If you want to name all of your maps that aren’t color related without reference to object or scene name that is file. So rename all of these maps, and then go back to your fur description, details tab demonstrated in Fig.03, and map item to your new baldness map that you have generated and placed in your “finalMaps” directory. Just as before, save, and save as a new file to see if any new maps are generated in the default “furAttrMap” directory. If there isn’t, you’ve done great, if there is then you need to check the path in the mapped item table.
So this is a LOT of confusing blah blah to take in, I understand, if you have any problems following, just shoot me an email. If you continue to have problems with the maps re-generating. One thing I would suggest is in all of those tables under the “Details” tab that displays the mapped files, instead of clicking the file path and clicking “map item” I would manually type in the file path and name into that table. This worked for a few that were still giving me problems. HAPPY FURRING and I hope someone got something beneficial out of this post!!
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Fig.01
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Fig.02
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Fig.03
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Fig.04
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Fig.05
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Fig.06
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Fig.07
until next time. –Travis
