Export to Maya

ponysmasher · Post by **ponysmasher** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 12:08 am

I don't actually have Maya but I recently bought Hitfilm and wanted to be able to import the camera from Anime Studio.

Since HitFilm supports Maya files I reverse engineered a Maya-file and created this script: http://animestudioscripts.com/temp/ds_file_to_maya.zip

So far it seems to work in HitFilm:

But since I don't have Maya I can't test it there. If anyone here has Maya or some other 3D software that supports it you're welcome to try.

The script will export points in 3D for all the top layers in the Anime Studio file so you can locate where they are supposed to be in 3D space (on frame 0 at least). These points will be named after the layers but if you have a space in the layer name only the part before the space will show up (atleast in HitFilm)

Like with my Export to After Effects script you'll get problems if you use pan and tilt on the camera at the same time. This is because AS uses local coordinates and other software uses world coordinates (or maybe it was the opposite?). Until I figure out how to compensate for that you can't use both at the same time.

You can choose the scale to export to. The default value is 540 because it seems to work good in HitFilm.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 2:04 am

Softimage user here, but it does not support Maya files directly, only through FXB and the sort!

I fail to see the usefulness of this, you want to import data from Maya to asp or the other way around?

ponysmasher · Post by **ponysmasher** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 9:38 am

from ASP to Maya (or HitFilm in my case).

It's so I can add effects and stuff in compositing. Lets say I want a building on fire. I draw the building in AS and in HitFilm I add fire ands smoke.
As long as the camera doesn't move, no problem, I just add the fire and smoke on top of the rendered video.
But if there is a camera move I need the same camera move in Hitfilm so that the fire isn't stuck in one place.

And with a 3D program you could add for example a full 3D background. Animate the character walking around with a camera move and then use the same camera move in 3D software where you have the background.
Then when you composite the two animations together everything will match up (if I did everything right

)

So for me, this is very useful, but that's just my workflow.

ponysmasher · Post by **ponysmasher** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 10:44 am

Visual example ahoy!

Here's a shot exported from AS:

Here I've added electricity and flares in HitFilm:

Yes, I could have animated the position of the electric arc by hand but that could take time, especially if it's a long shot with lot's of movement.
Now I just exported the camera from AS and the arc is perfectly positioned right away.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Mon Jul 11, 2011 12:06 pm

I see, nice scene btw!

chucky · Post by **chucky** » Sat Oct 01, 2011 7:14 am

Very cool PS,
Pity Autofleece .. I mean Autodesk had my $700.00 Maya licence expire unexpectedly. I'll never buy their 'produce' again, what a bunch of corporate pirates.
I wish I'd seen this thread when you made it, would have been very useful for this current project, never hear of Hitfilm, thanks for the heads up.

johnymac001 · Post by **johnymac001** » Mon Oct 10, 2011 8:08 am

Unity currently imports from Maya:

1. All nodes with position, rotation and scale. Pivot points and Names are also imported.
2. Meshes with vertex colors, normals and up to 2 UV sets.
3. Materials with Texture and diffuse color. Multiple materials per mesh.
4. Animations FK & IK
5. Bone-based animations

Dodgy · Post by **Dodgy** » Wed Oct 19, 2011 1:09 pm

Chucky, if AD have annoyed you try NT

I wrote a AS importer for Lightwave a few years back which loads the shape info and animation so I could have 3d rendered objects interact with 2d animation. Works fairly well if I do say so myself...

crsP · Post by **crsP** » Fri Oct 21, 2011 4:31 pm

chucky, I read elsewhere that if you don't upgrade your AutoDesk software that you lose the right to purchase at the upgrade price, but your licence is still valid, so you might want to check up on that.

Also,if you think AD is bad, Newtek is worse. At least their high priced software functions as advertised in at least a reasonable way, whereas Lightwave is a broken mess. A broken mess which NT changed the colour of the interface and repackaged as a new version. Apparently fbx import\export is a new feature of version 10, except that they are in version 9. But don't work. The hair and fur crashes to the point of being unusable. They had version 9 users bug testing under the premise of fixing a final version of 9x. But they just repackaged it as version 10, and finally, AFTER the release of 10, they released version 9.6.1 [after many complaints from users], but that version obviously hadn't been worked on for a long time, and so is even more useless than the previous version. Which is broken.

Money grabbing whores.

Patmals · Post by **Patmals** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 12:25 pm

Hey pony,

I have an old version of Maya (5.01 complete).
If you want me to try something I will, but.. this version is almost 8 years old already

RockingRock · Post by **RockingRock** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:05 am

this is fantastic illustration.....really superb one

GiuseppeA · Post by **GiuseppeA** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 4:07 pm

nice, i use blender and modo luxology, blender have an export from after_effects
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Exten ... er_Effects