‘Dunia Digital’ Promo

This is a freelance project I did for Astro Dunia Digital promo.
Music is temporary and no 2D graphic elements added yet. I will update as soon as I get the final version.

Done with Maya, Photoshop, After Effects.

Maya (Linux & Windows) Render Time Comparison

This morning I was curious to benchmark the render time between Maya in my Linux and Windows box.
I used a simple scene to test render ambient occlusion. Here’s the result :

Hardware Specs:
HP 6910p Laptop
Intel Core2 Duo 2.0Ghz
2 GB RAM

Software Specs:
Ubuntu Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron) /w kernel 2.24.17
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2

Rendered image (simple helix on a plane, 2K square res):

Render Results :

Conclusion :

The render time in Linux is 20 seconds faster than in Windows. Both of the OS platform use the same scene. But the results in your machine may vary from various OS settings (for Linux especially the distro and kernel version used). Maybe in your case, it renders faster in Windows. But for me, the Linux version gives a better render time.

Install Maya for Linux (Ubuntu)

Today I have successfully installed Maya 2008 for Linux in my Ubuntu system.
I followed zardostechmage’s guide to install in my Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. Should work in previous Ubuntu versions as well (Gutsy, Feisty, etc).
Eveything went well with some minor tweaks for the installation to work well. I have taken some notes of what to be done after installation.

1. Mental Ray temporary folder
   You need to create /usr/tmp folder for mental ray’s frame buffer.
   
   

   sudo mkdir /usr/tmp
   sudo chmod 777 /usr/tmp

   Now mental ray’s frame buffer should work.

2. Strange “X” Mouse
   Sometimes the cursor would turn to black “X” cursor, but it really is just the display. Use this to fix it. (in my case, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t)

   
   export MAYA_MMSET_DEFAULT_XCURSOR=1

3. Garbaged Display
   This is due to the incompatibilty of maya with GLX/AIGLX composite. Edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and disable composition effect

   gksudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

   add the following entry :

   Section "Extensions"
     Option "Composite" "Disable"
   EndSection

Then start and enjoy using Maya

Learning Maya again

Because of work, I have been learning Maya again for the past 2 weeks. The last time I used Maya was like 2-3 years ago. Learning a new software is always fun for me. To tell you the truth there wasn’t any huge difference in the package from when I last used it before. The last version I worked with was 5.0. Now I’m learning with 2008. The tools for modeling are definitely better, and the nCloth is simply amazing.

But after a while, I kinda missed the modeling tools in XSI/Max. Because to tell you the truth, the tool set for modeling in Maya although improved, I think is still way behind from XSI/Max. The aid of plugin such as Nex didn’t really help that much. I still feel I can do more with less time outside of Maya.

The thing that I like the most in Maya is it’s clean interface and easy switching between layouts, which I think will definitely speed up my workflow. And the hotbox is very very cool.

So anyway, its been fun all along and I hope I can work better with Maya as I go

Cheers to Autodesk…