Gradually, I’m still exploring the potential of Blender over Maya. One of the more important issues that could have prevented the cross-over was the lack of rigs to play with over at Blender. Yeah, they have a few listed as ‘free’ … after you pay for monthly access to where those rigs are. I mean, making money is important. I can’t hate on them. Blender is free, after all. You can’t fault them for trying to recoup some financial leverage.
But the rigs I ‘really‘ want to use are in Maya. So, this morning, before I run off to work, I wanted to see how easy was the transfer of a 3D model from Maya to Blender might be. Like, a fully rigged character and export it to Blender. Naturally, I don’t expect the bones and skinning process to follow. I just wanted the model.
In past experiences, taking a model (object or FBX) from, say 3DS Max to Maya, you always got flipped coordinates or some sort of smush.
First, I tried exporting as an FBX. The results were miserable:
I know the problem. I did it straight with default settings. So Maya sent over the bones and skinning with the FBX file. It’s interesting that it did export the bones, though. Could I possibly get a proper bone export if I did the settings right? Doubt it, but it’s still interesting.
Next as a common OBJ file:
This came out just fine. Perfect, actually. Again, in the past, it was always even a mess to try to bring an object (OBJ) over with the correct material structure. So much extra work. Let me tell you: these kids today have it easy.
So all I need to do now is follow the Blender rigging process (which, based on tutorials looks like a genuine breeze). Before you know it, I’ll have a lot of the major rigs I love in Maya ported over to Blender.
By the way, this character, ‘Chubby’, is for the next project. Likely done on Maya where it belongs. Still experimenting and learning on Blender right now.
Chubby rig for Maya
Modeled by Billy Butler.
Rigged with AdvancedSkeleton.
