Unity supports Modo!?

Well, if correct, I think this is worth shouting from the rooftops! - unless I have completely missed something, Unity does appear to read .ma files, including the uv info. Modo can export to .ma and hence Modo can be used quite easily with Unity. In fact, in Modo if you export your Modo file as .ma, Modo sontinues to save the file as .ma (ie cmd-S writes to the .ma file rather than the .lwo file).

As far as I can tell it seems only one uv map per object is supported?

Modo's .ma support is not as extensive as the .lwo support eg I don't think spline curves are exported - but then splines aren't used by Unity, but the polygon and uv mapping (one map only) seem to go flawlessly from Modo to Unity.

Richard.

 

Really? Hmm... thought I tied to that and it did not work. Are you running the beta version of unity? (will have to give it another try!)

 

It definitely works (with Unity1.1.0b1 and Modo 102 - build 11215) - been using it for several hours. There are some restrictions though. Here is the list of notes I am been making for myself as I go along:

Modo-> Unity
---------------

1. Only use ONE uv map per object - delete all the other maps

2. May need to save the file as .lwo first - Modo might complain the if the first save was a .ma export

3. .ma file form may loose some file info - such as texture paths???

4. Once the object is in Unity's Scene Hierarchy view drag the texture file on to the object


Not sure if 3 was a spurious thing. For point 4 this may be because of the way I have structured my image directories. To overcome 1 I have been cutting my objects up into several pieces (each piece a different object) an applying maps to each one.


Hope this helps,
Cheers,
Richard.

Edit:

5. You may need to hand triple any concave polygons - it appears Unity is not tripling the polygons - not 100% sure

 

:?

When I try to import the exported .ma file i get the following error in Unity:

Maya could not be launched. Make sure that maya is installed correctly and the maya file has maya as its 'Open with' application.

(dont have maya - just MODO and Lightwave)

 

Very strange. I have Maya, but is isn't running when I export from Modo and switch to Unity and Unity doesn't seem to launch any apps in the background when its doing the importing. Mmmm...

Richard.

 

You seems to be right - I just tried it on my Powerbook (no Maya) and Unity was complaining that it could not launch Maya :-( I guess we will have to wait till OTEE wakes up for an explaination of how the importing works.

Apologies if I got anyone excited.
Richard.

 

Just tried it on my powerbook... same error.

 

In short, Unity launches Maya in the background to import Maya files.

What happens is that we launch maya in batch rendering mode, tell it to open the current scene, export as fbx then import the FBX.

This is also the reason why Unity is a bit slower importing Maya files the first time - we keep the Maya app around so we can import quickly the subsequent times.

 

Clever - then you only ever have to support one format (FBX)!

thanks,
Richard.

 

So... if I download the maya demo will it work?