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maya 2 AE – intermediate to advanced level question
Hey folks,
I have a shot composed in AE, with about 10 different layers. Each layer is staggered along the z axis. Now one of the layers had to be mucked with in maya, as well as a pretty intense camera move animated.
So we’ve gone about using the mocon script from 3dmation.com, to get the layer positions out into maya. no sweat. we’re using a generic 35mm preset on the AE camera, and paid particular attention to make sure the maya camera that Mocon script spit out, was using the same presets (also being careful about using millimeters and not the gawd awful AE pixel units).
Should state now that the above may be irrelevant to the problem, but thought would give a primer to the shot setup.
So what was now needed, was an object from maya, animated and rendered out with an alpha to be placed in the 3d AE scene. Here’s where the problem begins. Upon rendering the layer, and then exporting out maya camera data (baked et al), AE wigs out. The camera animation data seems to be entirely scaled to a different unit of measurement it seemed.
I’ve gone through tutorials ad nauseum, also through many posts. The closest thing I could come up with was to multiply/divide all maya units by 2.8346. This seems to work relatively well for transfers, but not rotations.
This seems like a rediculous problem, I’m assuming AE should be converting millimeters to pixelunits properly, and failing that, that converting them to 72dpi by way of a factor of 2.8346 should fix this.
I’m not mathematically inclined, so I may be missing something very simple here. Any suggestions?
I would be forever in debt for any help, this has been hanging over our heads for weeks now.
thanks in advance
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3 Replies
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This may seem odd, but have you tried changing the Maya units? Maybe there is a Maya unit other than the default that is numerically compatible with AE’s scale.
When I do a .ma into AE, the scale is always way off like a factor of 100. So I imagine that coming from AE to Maya and back there has to be weirdness.
If you can find a unit in Maya that doesn’t need conversion into AE, it may things go smoother. Just a random thought.
Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com -
I’ve never gone back and forth between the two, but I would consider starting with a fresh AE comp when you go back to AE. If everything looks good in Maya, the problem is getting back in AE. Just leave some nulls in Maya (properly named) where the objects are to be. Then replace them with your AE layers.
Also, make sure your render globals are set to the size comp you are using in AE. This is very important. There are a lot of steps in this process, so try to make sure you handle it one step at a time. When I do this, I usually refer to the tutorial here on the cow.
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Hey again,
Thanks for the feedback both of you, you actually turned my attention to my maya units. I was using millimeters in my master file, but in my exported file it had converted to centimeters for some reason. now it works! thank you both!
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