Today marks the opening of the American Film Market (AFM) in Santa Monica. I’ll be shopping my screenplay around in the next week! Below is the Teaser Trailer I directed for it! It’s time for a green light!

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I’ve been playing around with Chaos Software’s Vray in Autodesk Maya lately and I really like it. We used it on Tron:Legacy at Digital Domain and it was amazing. I wanted to be an architect when I was younger and used 3D Studio Max in the late 90′s. I did a lot of cad work with Autocad and Intergraph, but 3D Studio Max was the first software I lit with. Boy did it blow my mind. I had designed a chair in a product design class out of a single sheet of 4′x8′ plywood, but I wanted to see it before I built it. Enter the world of lighting and texturing…

Fast forward many years…

I prefer Maya for many reasons, but mostly it’s because I learned it while working at Industrial Light and Magic on Lawrence Kasdan’s Dreamcatcher. We created a sprite system for the snow with some Mel scripting, a 3d snowflake, and compositing plugin that would read a particle file.

I’ve been finding myself doing pre-visualization for some film and commercial projects I’m developing. I want to be able to purchase models that already have shaders and textures so I could get on to the fun stuff! ACTION! It’s amazing to me how many archvis models are available for Vray for 3DS Max, but practically none for Vray for Maya.

So, with a little bit of googling, a little bit of trial and error, plenty of caffeine, and a little kitten trying to eat my rats nest of computer cables, I present my solution:

##############################################################
# Author: Zachary Cole
# Website: http://www.nzaneproductions.com
##############################################################
#
# Copyright: Creative Commons
#            Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
#
# This work is licensed under the
# Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
# To view a copy of this license,
# visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
# or send a letter to
# Creative Commons
# 444 Castro Street, Suite 900,
# Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.
#
# what does the above copyright mean?
# give me credit, and share any modifications you make! thanks!
#
##############################################################
#
# what does this code snippet do?
#
# it relinks materials imported from a .vrscene to
# geometry imported from a .fbx file when you wish
# to use a scene created for vray for 3dsmax in
# a scene in vray for maya
#
##############################################################
# caveats?	please save backup copies of your work.
#               I'm not responsible if it finds the
#                   higgs boson or anything unexpected.
#               the steps below assume you know how to do basic
#                   actions in both 3ds max and maya
# support?	are you paying for this? no.
#               if you want to pay for it,
#                   then I'll try and support it.
# testing?	minimal testing in 3dsmax 2012 w/ vray 2
#                   and maya 2011 w/ vray 1.5
# feedback?	post comments on my blog!! 
#
# assumptions?	I'm assuming that the named order is the
#                   same in both formats.
#                   i.e. the first brdf corresponds
#                   to the first phong. (seems to work)

##############################################################
# IMPORTANT steps:
# in 3ds max:
#	select all the geometry you want to transfer
#	save selected as new scene
# 	open scene you just saved
#	export fbx
#	export .vrscene
# in maya:
# 	change renderer to vray
#	import fbx
#	import .vrscene
#	fix texture paths in hypershade
# 	run this script in the python window of the script editor
#
# wow i think these header comments are longer than my code. geeze.
##############################################################

import maya.cmds as cmds

def relinkVrayMaterials():

    # get em while they're hot
    mats = cmds.ls(materials=True)

    phongs = []
    materials = []
    submaterials = []

    print "#### searching through materials..."
    # cycle through all materials
    for mat in mats:

        # look for shaders that match the naming
        # when you bring them in from .fbx
        if cmds.nodeType(mat) == "phong":
            phongs.append(mat)

        # look for shaders that match the naming
        #  when you bring them in from .vrscene
        elif mat.find("brdf") == 0 or mat.find("material") == 0:
            if mat not in submaterials:
                materials.append(mat)

            # layered shaders are special cases
            # the connected shaders will not match up to the
            # phong shaders from the fbx
            if cmds.nodeType(mat) == "layeredShader":
                # get the connected attrs
                arr = cmds.listAttr(mat + ".inputs", m=True)
                for a in arr:
                    # we only care about the color inputs
                    if a[-6:] == ".color":
                        # get the connected nodes
                        conn = cmds.listConnections(mat + "." + a)
                        # add them to the ignored submaterials list
                        for c in conn:
                            submaterials.append(c)

    print "#### replacing material assigments..."
    # cycle through all phong materials
    for i in range(0, len(phongs)):
        pho = phongs[i]
        mat = materials[i]
        # these vray materials don't have shader groups when
        # they are imported from .vrscenes, so let's make one for each
        matSG = cmds.sets( renderable=True,
                           noSurfaceShader=True,
                           empty=True,
                           name=mat+'SG' );
        cmds.connectAttr( mat+".outColor",
                          mat+"SG.surfaceShader",
                          force=True)
        # get the objects assigned to the phong
        objs = cmds.hyperShade(objects=pho)
        # assign new material to selected objects
        cmds.hyperShade(assign=mat)
        print "#### assigned %s to %s assigned objects" % (mat, pho)

    print "#### done"

relinkVrayMaterials()

relinkVrayMaterials by Zachary Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nzaneproductions.com/contact/.

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Tron: Legacy Trailer

Then I had a dash of “Fast Five” and heap of “X-Men: First Class”

Fast Five Trailer

X-Men: First Class Trailer

After all that? Now what? Well, I’ll be directing a feature titled “Saint Ruby” this fall, and am developing a feature called “The Ranch”… more on those projects to come!

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I’m very proud to announce that a film that I edited and co-produced is now available for sale! From the Burning Man email newsletter:

Burning Man is proud and honored to share the story of the origin of Burners Without Borders – what is now a social phenomenon for Burners around the globe has its roots in 2005, when a group of Burner volunteers headed for the Gulf Coast to lend a hand after Hurricane
Katrina.

While many wonderful documentaries have tried to tell the story of Burning Man the event, this film is a rare look at Burning Man the cultural philosophy, and how the experience of Black Rock City inspired participants to give passionately of themselves in the wake of a devastating natural disaster.

“Burn on the Bayou” is a story that’s meant to be shared: if you’ve been before and had trouble explaining to family or friends that Burning Man is more than just an event, this film provides a fine example…or if you’re coming for the first time, it’ll lend depth to your understanding of the culture you’re about to experience. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Available now on the Burning Man Marketplace at:

http://marketplace.burningman.com/

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