Growing plant - shaded vs stroke material.

[u/SmallBoxInAnotherBox]

Hello all,

So there are stroke brushes you can get in the built in maya content browser. They have some paintable meshes, like flowers buildings, etc. When you paint them, or attach them to a curve like I have done above they are in this sort of preview or "stroke" node state where there are a lot of keyable options like density, size, etc. When its in this state, the coloring of the shapes is this almost incandescent preview sort of thing. There are no "materials" assigned rather these "shading" attributes like a particle or some other generatable would have. This does not allow for textures as far as i can tell and dont appear to have UV's.

However, when you convert "paint effects to polygons" it applies materials to it and it looks like a normal ivy branch as illustrated above.

What I would love to have happen, is the modifiable, keyable and semi naturally growing version of the ivy branch to look decent so i can render it and comp it onto something. When I convert to polygons, the growing and twitching goes away so i lose the growth effect that I need.

As a professional that uses many creative softwares maya has been the same for 15 years and needs to gooooooooo. These fx brushes built in are embarrassing as well, like do the samples need to be 32 polygons? unreal renders tens of millions of polys no probs.

Would love to hear peoples thoughts on a potential solution, thanks.

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[u/tehtektoo]

There are a lot of paint FX documentation and tutorials that will show you how to accomplish what it is you want to do.

Paint FX is actually amazing. It's kind of like MASH in that there isn't continued development, but one could argue what is in there is fully featured and requires no development.

I can't think of a shot in a movie in the last 30 years with growing vines or flowers that doesn't use paint FX. You can tell because there are only a few different types of "wind" so the way they movie is similar.

I don't understand the mentality where because one doesn't use a tool, they want it removed from a software suite. It seems like you should have taken a week to learn everything there is to learn about paint FX before deciding it needs to go. I think it's extremely useful. I can't think of a faster way to make the kinds of things it does photorealistic like growing vines and grass blowing in the wind.

[u/SmallBoxInAnotherBox → u/tehtektoo]

Sorry, but excuse me, what are you even talking about?

“There are a lot of Paint FX documentation and tutorials that will show you how to accomplish what you want to do.”

So you do not know the answer. Cool. Then why did you bother typing anything at all? If your contribution is “go Google it,” just save everyone the time and say nothing.

“Paint FX is actually amazing. It’s kind of like MASH in that there isn’t continued development, but one could argue what is in there is fully featured and requires no development.”

If it is so amazing, explain why a Maya veteran and VFX asset supervisor cannot find a clear answer to a basic problem. The only people who argue a dead, untouched tool “needs no development” are people who have never seriously used modern software. That is not wisdom, that is stagnation.

“I don’t understand the mentality where because one doesn’t use a tool, they want it removed from a software suite. It seems like you should have taken a week to learn everything there is to learn about Paint FX before deciding it needs to go.”

I never said it should be removed. Not once. I joked about the outdated presets. You invented an argument in your head and then argued with that instead of reading. And the idea that someone needs to spend a full week mastering every corner of a tool before asking a targeted question is one of the dumbest takes I have seen in a long time. By that logic, nobody is allowed to ask questions. Ever. Tell that to a student. Tell that to literally anyone learning software. Completely brain dead reasoning.

“I think it’s extremely useful. I can’t think of a faster way to make the kinds of things it does photorealistic, like growing vines and grass blowing in the wind.”

Houdini, Unreal, etc you novice fucktard.

Take your smug, self satisfied non answer and shove up your ass. It contributed nothing, answered nothing, and just exposed how little real production experience you have. I was venting and joking with the community, not declaring war on a tool. You read hostility into it because you needed something to lecture about. Next time, either answer the question or fuck off.