The Wassily Chair, also known as the Model B3 chair, was designed by Marcel Breuer in 1925-26 while he was the head of the cabinet-making workshop at the Bauhaus, in Dessau, Germany. Revolutionary in it’s use of tubular steel, which was inspired by the same used in the manufacture of bicycles.
Named after seminal abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky, who admired Breuer’s designs.
3D render, Mental Ray.
3D render, Mental Ray.
If you are using a Macintosh, you can launch Maya by opening a terminal window, typing Maya and hitting the enter key. This will launch one instance of the Maya application, which will close if you quit the terminal window, by the way. This is also useful if you want to open multiple instances of Maya. Just open another terminal window, and repeat the procedure above.
The scripts, below, allow you to sync directories or drives easily. Great for backups.
Save the scripts to text files with the .sh extension. Make them executable (chmod +x).
syncDir.sh
#!/bin/sh if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then echo 1>&2 "USAGE: syncDir.sh /source/dir /backup/dir/" exit 127 fi rsync --delete -av "$1" "$2"
Usage, in terminal window: path/to/syncDir.sh /source/dir/ /backup/dir/. It is recommended to set up mySync.sh, second script below, to execute syncDir.sh and supply the arguments for source directory and target backup directory.
mySync.sh
Customize the paths to the syncDir.sh script, your source directory and the target backup directory.
~/scripts/syncDir.sh /Volumes/sourceDir/ /Volumes/backupDir
Execute the script in a terminal window (drag and drop and hit enter, or enter the path to the script and hit enter), or set up a cron job to execute this script on a schedule.
Important note! Seems that sometimes we need to run rsync as superuser, to allow the “–delete” flag to do it’s work deleting or moving files that you have deleted or moved on your source directory. So you can run syncDir.sh as superuser by typing:
sudo ~/scripts/syncDir.sh /Volumes/sourceDir/ /Volumes/backupDir
I recommend testing these scripts thoroughly, with temporary directories and files, before using them on valuable data!
Maya and Mental Ray.
Model based on several models found on the 3D warehouse. Download an obj of the Red and Blue Chair.
This MEL script will create a simple soft cornered backdrop from a poly plane and bend deformer.
Studio Light HDR images, photographed from real studio lights. Download the images below – and PyMEL scripts to automatically attach them to a lighting rig.
These HDRIs can be used as image based lights and reflection cards.
Soft Box
Get the soft box HDR. 1 MB
Umbrella Light
Get the umbrella light HDR. 8 MB
Newly revised PyMEL Scripts
Recently updated the light rig scripts here with PyMEL. These should work better for people using later versions of Maya. Please comment or contact me if you have any problems with these scripts. You can locate the old MEL scripts here.
Get a PyMEL(Python) script that will rig the Soft Box HDR to a reflection card with spotlight, shadows, and other controls. Note: for this script to work properly, you will need to download the soft box HDR folder and place it in your Maya project’s sourceimages directory. XPM icon for shelf item.
Get a PyMEL(Python) script that will rig the Umbrella HDR to a reflection card with spotlight, shadows, and other controls. Note: for this script to work properly, you will need to download the umbrella HDR folder and place it in your Maya project’s sourceimages directory. XPM icon for shelf item.
Installation tip: Make sure that the HDR images are placed in the currently set Maya project. These images should also be within their respective folder just as they are when you download them. The folder containing the HDR images should therefore be named either “softBox” or “umbrellaLight”, depending on which one you downloaded.
Usage tip: Select the locator on the rig, called “softBoxLightControl”, to find attributes to control Color, Shadows, and light Intensity.
note: The easiest way to position the light, without affecting the “roll” orientation of the reflector card, is to position (translate) the locator in one plane (ex: the X Y plane) to set the distance from the subject and light angle, then rotate the top node (pick-walk up once) in the Y axis to set the “horizontal” orientation.
If you are using another 3D animation package, download an OBJ, with UVs set up to use with the Umbrella HDR.
Also see my procedural softbox MEL script here. My most useful script, IMO.
Many thanks to Daniel Vasquez of heylight.com for translating the MEL script into PyMEL.
This PyMEL (Python) script creates a rigged light and procedurally textured reflector card, simulating a studio style soft box light. The rig is intended to be used for reflection or IBL when rendering using Mental Ray in Maya.
Usage tip: Select the locator on the rig, called “softBoxLightControl”, to find attributes to control Color, Shadows, and light Intensity.
note: The easiest way to position the light, without affecting the “roll” orientation of the reflector card, is to position (translate) the locator in one plane (ex: the X Y plane) to set the distance from the subject and light angle, then rotate the top node (pick-walk up once) in the Y axis to set the “horizontal” orientation.
XPM icon for shelf item.
If you prefer, you can download the older MEL version of this script here.
