MayaMan Help Contents

# MayaMan Quick Start

The documentation for MayaMan has not been done as yet, so here is a few quick notes on how to get it up and running, and about the major features, etc.

### Installation

Installation should be done as administrator so that MayaMan is available for all users. Installation by a user account will only make it available to that user.

First ensure that the RMANTREE environment variable is set correctly to your PRMan location (this is done by the PRMan installer, so should be ok). Or if using BMRT ensure BMRTHOME env var is set.

Unzip and run the MayaMan installer package. Follow the prompts, and you should end up with a directory containing the MayaMan.mlll plugin and other files (default directory is C:\AnimalLogic\MayaMan).

The installer will configure the MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH and MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH environment variables so that MayaMan will be available from within Maya. The installer does not currently do anything about setting up a liicense server. MayaMan requires a license to run, so ensure the machine has a MayaMan license included in either its ANIMAL_LICENSE or RLM_LICENSE environment variables. A separate Animal Logic Reprise Server installer package is available if you don't already have a license server available.

To load the plugin in Maya, go to the Plug-in Manager (from Window menu and Settings/Preferences) and load the MayaMan plugin. You can select auto-load to have it always available on subsequent Maya sessions. A 'MayaMan' menu should now appear when in the 'Rendering' mode of Maya.

### Rendering

To render a single frame of your scene through MayaMan, simply select the 'MayaMan Preview' option from the MayaMan menu. A render window should pop-up (MayaMan currently uses the SoftMan display driver) with the RenderMan render progressing. Any output information should go into

### Materials Support

MayaMan currently supports many of Maya's material types, including bitmap, granite, checker and a few others. Of course the intention is to support as many of the materials as we can, but they are not all done as yet. We would appreciate yuor feedback on problems with the supported materials and which of the unsupported ones are most important to you, so we can prioritise their implementation. Hierarchies of the supported materials should give very similar results to the Maya renderer, so discrepancies should be noted.

### Geometry Support

MayaMan currently supports NURBs and polygon geometry. Particles support is fairly comprehensive. Maya's subdivision surfaces are supported and an extension is provided to render regular polygonal models as subdivision surfaces.

### Custom Shaders

MayaMan supports the use of custom RenderMan surface shaders (displacement, light and volume shaders aren't yet supported). To use a custom shader, first create a MayaManCustomShader shading node. Then, select a shader (e.g. paintedplastic.slo) and click the 'Init' button. In the 'Extra Attributes' section of the shading node parameters you should now see the shader arguments. You can edit and animate these in the attribute editor. Then apply this shader to any objects in your scene as you would with a normal Maya shading node. Of course, you won't see the results in the Maya viewports or a Maya render, but only in a RenderMan rendering.

### Options and Attributes

The first option in the MayaMan menu is 'MayaMan Options' under which you will find all the global options such as motion blur and RIB creation controls. Many of these options are not fully connected up and working yet, but all the basics should work. Be sure to let us know if you need any particular options working and we'll make them a priority.

You can also select objects in your scene and use the 'Model Attributes' option to attach MayaMan per-model attributes. When you open this dialog, you will see all the attributes in their default state. You should set these as needed, and remember to press the 'Put to Selected' button at the bottom of the dialog to actually apply the changes to any selected models. To have the dialog show the per-model attributes of any model selected, press the 'Get From Selected' button.

### Feedback

MayaMan is fairly early in its development at this stage, so there is a lot of functionality missing. We're keen to get it into use as quickly as possible, so we would appreciate any feedback on problems which prevent you from using it, and also to help us with prioritising features to work on next.

Please email Chris Bone (bone@al.com.au) and Andrew Chapman (chapman@al.com.au) with any feedback you can offer.

MayaMan Help Contents