Z Offset and Maya

[Betty Doyle]

I've been playing with getting a pair of high heeled, rigged boots I made to work with the mesh deformer.  Obviously, you can't use a shoe base with the deformer to lift the avatar to the appropriate height because the foot section of the boot will deform to match.  Not pretty.  I've gotten z offset to work perfectly when exporting a test mesh from Blender, but I've tried everything, and I just can't get it to work with Maya 2011.  When I wear the mesh, my avatar disappears into never never land until I take off the boots and relog.  Has anyone gotten this to work?  Is there some extra step that has to be done in Maya that I'm missing.  Any help would be really appreciated!  Right now I've worked out a work around with linking the Maya rigged boots with the z offset test mesh from Blender within SL, but I'd prefer not to have to do that. :)

[Nalates Urriah]

I don't know how to fix it. But, I would make an export from Blender and Maya and then compare the to two DAE files to see what is different.

I know that Gaia Clary (Machinimatrix.org) modified the Collada exporter in Blender for SL. You could talk to her to see what's up.

[JackRipper666]

Not sure if you tried this Betty but I always adjust my z offset in the upload options of SL viewer when exporting my rigged characters out of maya. picture below but not sure if it will help what you're trying.

[Betty Doyle]

@Nalates - Thanks for the suggestion.  I did look and noticed that the Blender file only listed 23 bones, where as the Maya file listed 26, but I wouldn't think this would be it as the boots upload rigged just fine as long as Joint Positions isn't checked. Not that I'm an expert at readign the files, so there may be other differences that I'm missing.

@JackRipper666 - Yes.  That is where I am setting the Z Offset.  At least, now I know it does work with files from Maya, and there isn't some SL glitch!  Is there an extra step you have to take in Maya to make it work that is different from just regular rigging?  When I do the test from Blender, I just do everything exactly the same as I usually would and then set the z offset in the uploader.

[JackRipper666]

It's possible there is some type of extra step or workaround. I can't say since I haven't attempted what you're doing but Maya's export data doesn't work as well as blenders. Maya 2011 though with open collada plugin export data should work as good as blender being that as far as I know they are using open collada from the programmers who created that format. Autodesk has FBX converters for collada as well but I don't believe it's the same collada we all know and use most of the time because it says right on their site only up to Maya 2011 is supported by them. So when I use my exports with the collada plugin in Maya 2011 I usually get faster and better uploads and correct results. Maybe that will help if you haven't tried that I'm not sure what version of Maya you're using or what ways you export to eventually end up with a .dae file for SL. Either way again it's more complicated to get SL and Maya to work together then Blender and SL from what I have found.

[Betty Doyle]

I am using Maya 2011.  Neither Open Collada or dae_fbx have worked for me.  I haven't gotten a chance to work on it again since I first posted though.  Had to work on another project for a deadline coming up. I prefer rigging in Maya, but I guess if I have to I can always use my work around of linking a small mesh from Blender with the z offset to the boots rigged in Maya. It just bugs me that I can't figure it out!

[JackRipper666]

Yea keep at it, I usually stare at sometimes for hours and finally get an answer LOL! Sorry I couldn't help. =/