MAYA: Insert Projection Before Deformers

Keep deformers in the history stack if the UV map projection would be better off projected flat. For example, a curved surface that uses a BEND deformer. The UV projection will be done before the bend deformer, giving a perfectly flat UV projection.

Essentially works as if you had the foresight to project the UV map before actually bending the surface. =)

MAYA: Wordpad Location Replace Layer Texture Issue

My usual workflow is to do the work on my workstation, then pass it off to the render cluster that looks for files on the designated "Z:\" drive. After I move the files over, I do a quick batch search-and-rename using wordpad. The issue I've noticed is that during the conversion, somehow it adds an extra black layer in front of my Layer Texture nodes.

Not sure why that is, but going in and simply just deleting that first added layer fixes the issue.

NUKE: Slipping Roto Tracks SOLVED!

CTRL + DRAG all fields, linking translate + rotate + scale + CENTER. Very important, link the center!

(UPDATE: 2011.JUNE.02)
Note: Background (sourceplate) should be composited via MERGE directly, before the tracker node. Seems to fix one of the double translation issues.

NUKE: Refresh Glitches Preventing Tracking

For some reason Nuke doesn't properly refresh on the DRONE: SC2A shot for the tracker. May be due to the array of reformats etc.

Problem seems to go away if shot is sized to 100% of source. More as things develop.

MAYA: Mental Ray Backburner

To tell Mental Ray to use all threads while batch rendering through backburner, use:
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-mr:art

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(mental ray, all render threads)

MAYA: Normal Map Direction

If Normal Maps look inverted, INVERT the Red Channel in Photoshop by going under the Channels panel, selecting the Red Channel, and going under Image>Adjust>Invert.

MAYA: Instanced Geometry

Did a few tests to test files sizes, and indeed duplicating files via "COPY" uses up more disk space, as compared to using "INSTANCE" under 'Duplicate Special'.

The tests using a cube were minimal when it came to file sizes, but you can imagine a heavier scene with objects that are half a million poly's plus. Only caveat is that if you modify one of the shapes, all of them get modified.