MainFrame Bool

   Mainframe, the creators of "MASH" for maya have released a very clever front end for working with, and debugging, maya Booleans.  While Maya's booleans have come a long way and get better and better, there are still a few things that will trip you up, and Mainframes new plug-in Bool  strives to reduce the headaches. 

Available on the Mainframe website https://www.mainframe.co.uk/products/bool .  Bool costs £20  and is currently only available for Maya 2018. 

I particularly like the visual ui with drag and drop order operations, and quick access to display and operations per mesh. 


Also "bug" button, for finding and alerting issues with the boolean operations is quite handy. 

---

Bool from Mainframe (North) on Vimeo.

Comprehensive of UV improvements in Maya 2018

Maya modeling director, Trevor Andrews, does a comprehensive look into all of the UV updates in Maya 2018
 ( sorry, no Audio ) 






In case you missed it, here is the link for Trevor's overview of the modeling updates

http://nymayausersgroup.blogspot.com/2017/08/deep-dive-into-maya-2018-modeling.html

Andrew Hodgson : concept vs production ready models

This is a great example of production ready vs concept models .  

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/mYVE1

Move Weights Demo from Rigging Dojo

     Brad Clark from rigging dojo demos a little known tool from the Maya Paint Wts toolset  "Move Wts".. 

 Normally for something like this I lock the wts on every single bound joint ( with a quick toggle script) and then unlock the wts where I want the wt to go, and then paint to add. 
  FYI while in the paint wts tool, you can rt click in in the marking menu, lock / unlock the joint's weights. 

Rigging Dojo 101 #Rigtip Move Weights tool from Rigging Dojo on Vimeo.


also check out Brad's tips for displaying joints in Maya. 

 I use the same technique and wrote some quick macros for the shelf for toggling, and turning all to "visible" or "invisible"  , it's rare I use "box". 
( based on selection) 

mel:
global proc jointDrawStyle(int $style)
{
string $sel[] = `ls -type "joint" -sl`;
for ($jnt in $sel)
   {
    setAttr ($jnt + ".drawStyle") $style;
   }
}


//"default joint" 
jointDrawStyle 0; 
// "box"
jointDrawStyle 1; 

//"none"

jointDrawStyle 2; 

Rigging Dojo face joint display #rigtip from Rigging Dojo on Vimeo.

Deep Dive into Maya 2018 Modeling improvements

Maya Modeling Director Trevor Andrews takes a deep dive into the new updates to Maya's modeling suite. 
( unfortunately there is no audio... ) 

Mash in 2018 BASH

    To celebrate the release of the MASH dynamics node in Maya 2018, the team at mainframe put together this nice demo short. 
 Directed by Chris Hardcastle the short served as way for the mainframe team to create using their own tools and help to define and develop a better user experience along the way. 
    Creating effects such as "hedgehog" , "bad piano" , and "Gherkin Elevator" the mainframe team demos a lot of the new functionalities of Mash Dynamics, 
 and put together a slew of tutorial videos about how each "effect" was created.

They've also made all the 2018 scene files available.

BASH from Mainframe (North) on Vimeo.

Be sure to check out the Bash Page with tutorials and links to file:
https://www.mainframe.co.uk/bash



Team:
Director/Producer - Chris Hardcastle.
3D Artists - Ben Black, Jack Brown, Matt Oxley, Alex Dorman.
Developers - Ian Waters, Martin Vejdarski.

Bleeps and Beats - Matt Oxley


direct link for scene files: http://bit.ly/mfnbash
direct link for Mash 2018 tutorial videos:  http://bit.ly/Maya2018MASHTuts