The dark UI is okay. But the marking menu lags a lot, almost 3-4 seconds delay. Some times the “image plane attribute” can’t be accessed from the view menu. The dark UI reduces eye fatigue but the marking menu delay is giving me wrist pain. It’s kind of give and take from AD.
Softimage still rules, it’s so snappy. And one more complain from me. Maya 2011 crashes about 20-30 times everyday, that’s very frustrating. Softimage, barely crashes.

Yeah, I seem to have found the cause of the marking menu delay, at least on my end. It seems like it happens when I am in the smooth mesh preview. But, can’t really pin point what’s causing the crashes. Sometimes it even crashes when I apply a material from the Hypershade when in smooth mesh preview. Doesn’t make any sense to me....

I love Softimage, but just love won’t get me a job:)

Hello,

1. I have yet to see an answer about getting the channel box back into the modelling view after tearing it off (aside from erasing your prefs altogether). Actually, i can get it back in, but only on the left side, and cannot figure out anyway to get it back on the right.

2. I hate not being able to lock the attribute editor and tool windows into floating - i shift something around and it keeps try to dock itself back in (with the sad exception of the channel box).

3. Although, i’m finding it annoying the torn off windows are always in front of the main Maya window. I used to be able to toggle back and forth.

4. Is there anyway to lock in a lighter color for the interface (on the Mac)? My eyes were going buggy reading this forum until i saw i could change its color theme (it seems Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo mail, and Mac OSX are all fine with dark letters on light backgrounds). I was able to launch Maya in Mac colors using command line in Terminal (/Applications/Autodesk/maya2011/Maya.app/Contents/MacOS/maya -style macintosh), but that only lasts as long as that Terminal window - i want to make the change permanent.

5. It was interesting to find out, by using the command line, i could launch multiple instances of Maya on my Mac (which is normal on the PC).

GaryChapple 26 August 2010 02:02 PM

Hello,

1. I have yet to see an answer about getting the channel box back into the modelling view after tearing it off (aside from erasing your prefs altogether). Actually, i can get it back in, but only on the left side, and cannot figure out anyway to get it back on the right.

2. I hate not being able to lock the attribute editor and tool windows into floating - i shift something around and it keeps try to dock itself back in (with the sad exception of the channel box).

3. Although, i’m finding it annoying the torn off windows are always in front of the main Maya window. I used to be able to toggle back and forth.

4. Is there anyway to lock in a lighter color for the interface (on the Mac)? My eyes were going buggy reading this forum until i saw i could change its color theme (it seems Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo mail, and Mac OSX are all fine with dark letters on light backgrounds). I was able to launch Maya in Mac colors using command line in Terminal (/Applications/Autodesk/maya2011/Maya.app/Contents/MacOS/maya -style macintosh), but that only lasts as long as that Terminal window - i want to make the change permanent.

5. It was interesting to find out, by using the command line, i could launch multiple instances of Maya on my Mac (which is normal on the PC).

(1) If you mean you want to dock the channel box. Double click on the top bar in the channel box.

Is there any word yet on WHEN Maya 2011 will be certified for Mac OSX 10.6.3 or later? It’s been almost 6 months since release. How long does it usually take for Autodesk to certify a new OS? Can we assume now that new Mac Pros have hit the street that Autodesk will be working in earnest to certify the latest Mac OS?

There are a lot of ‘mac pros’ out here eagerly awaiting the latest Maya.

That’s why I asked about 10.6.3 or later. My question is really ‘when will the OS that the current Mac Pros ship with be Maya certified?’.

I’m looking forward to Maya 2011 but am in a holding pattern until the software can be run on a current OS. I’ve seen the problem reported extensively for the last 6 months or so by anyone who updated beyond 10.6.2.

Installed the demo of Maya 2011, and just a few of immediate issues, which of course, involve INTERFACE issues. Hate the font - I’m on Windows 7 64, and I use Lucida as my system font - is there any way to change Maya to what all my other applications use? The font they have chosen is tiny, and difficult to read, especially grey on dark grey.

Another niggling interface issue is the new Maya file dialog, great idea, since the Maya file dialog on Windows has sucked for time immemorial - but the “improvement” has REALLY bad execution, as it is now “competing” with my Windows 7 native dialog, and Windows 7’s system improvements address a lot of the problems it once had ie make Windows 7 much more like a Mac, and in some ways a little better maybe, and this new Maya file dialog once again falls WAY behind. In particular, it is simply amazing to me the Maya interface does not show volume names in the file browser - I have LOTS of hard drives, including storage which varies significantly depending on which project I am working on, and to be forced by Maya to remember their letter names is simply ridiculous. Am I missing something here? PLEASE SHOW DRIVE LABELS IN THE FILE BROWSER!

The other thing Windows 7 has added is a “recently used files and folders” in the file dialog that really works and is easy to use, and that appears to be missing in the new Maya file dialog. Massive FAIL if this is the case, maybe I am not looking in the right place. Even if I have missed this feature in the new dialog, the Maya file interface should be like the Adobe apps and just have the option of turning OFF the custom file dialog completely, and using the native OS one - WIndows 7 is quite nice now, finally got to Mac System 7 level of functionality, which is pretty good. When you bounce around multiple apps like some of us generalist graphics types, custom file dialogs are simply a pain it the butt, and smack of arrogant program designers.

Another really annoying interface change they made is now they seem to be using a custom cursor WITHIN MAYA ie the main windows 7 cursor, which works in all my other applications, no longer works in Maya. I use a dark cursor, like the old Mac cursor, and this suits darker interfaces too, as it is more subtle, not this great white blob floating around in the dark, as it seems to be now, and there appears to be no way to change this - all my window blinds functionality is gone in Maya in this regard.

I’m a designer, and the little dashed lines they’ve added to indicate tear-off menus looks SUPER TACKY, reminds me of those cardboard kits I made as a kid from the back of cereal packets (what ever happened to that idea, kids don’t have the attention span these days maybe), making Maya look like some cheap kit. Make them continuos and light, or better yet, simply get rid of them. Maya has had tear off menus forever, and if newbies don’t know that, they sure don’t know a lot of other stuff either.

While the Maya masters have added the option of a nice gradient on my viewport, they seem to have taken away my choice of highlight color on selected interface menus and other interface elements, although it now appears to be scheme related (ie it changes with the startup argument added to the alias), but even changing the startup option changes only the SHADE OF BLUE, ie any highlight color is fine as long as it is blue, from a very dark nasty old school windows blue for the dark interface, to a lighter more french blue for the platinum, clean and mac style interface options. I normally use a bright orange, and believe me, Maya looks different to this…

Since I often work in Maya day in day out, these interface changes are annoying to say the least. They strike me as easily addressed with hacks, given the fact they have put on all the work in changing the architecture to allow interface changes in the first place. They should post how users can access some of this power.

And in keeping with the darkness of the default interface, the splash screen is very dark, and they have changed the location of it in the code, so older style splash screen hacking to customize it with a resource editor no longer works. Where is the resource for the splash screen now. Anybody know?

Just a few thoughts about Maya 2011 that hit me right in the face. And they need to speed up the hypershade with some sort of better caching of its display now they have got rid of multilister.... Leaving it open and minimized helps a little, but not as much as it “should”. While I’m on Hypershade, they should add a button to the buttons in the hypershade which applies a selected shader to a selected object - a BIG button, instead of having this important functionality only buried in the hotbox.... I’d like buttons for “Select objects with selected shader” and “Select shaders used in selected objects” too. Those three commands a central to the functionality of Maya, and finally deserve their own buttons in Hypershade methinks.... these would be more important for newbies than dashed lines on tearoff menus, that is for sure.

DOES ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO OPEN A FILE WHICH IS IN SOME NETWORK WITHOUT MAPPING?
I COULD DO THIS ON MAYA 2009 BUT CAN´T DO IN MAYA 2011.
WHAT JUST HAPPEN?
PLEASE, NEED SOME HELP.

CHEERS
EDMX

Been looking for closely at SP3 Maya, and have observed one odd issue concerning rendering. Doing a render of a viewpoint should be quick and painless by simply selecting an object in the viewport you want to render, and hitting “render”, but viewports are not always fully selected doing this, and they often need to be explicitly clicked around the edge, sometimes more than once, in order to render the image. Very annoying, in fact annoying enough not to use the software....

This problem is intermittent, but common, which is kind of worrying about the basic stability of the interface. It looks like a display driver issue to me - I’m using the latest driver from Nvidia on a pretty late model mainstream Geforce GT 240. My impression is this new interface software is not quite ready for prime time....

Hi Cory

Hope all is well:) Here at Chrysler Maya 2011 hasn’t been rolled out fully. I’m testing some things, but in general it is a bit slower than 2010. We’re using it primarily for rendering, data preparation and modeling. You know my views on the modeling features in Maya (grin):)...any updates coming in the next release? Any more interactivity?

Happy beebee smile time