Xgen wont preview

[luis_alcala]

Currently using Maya 2018 with vray 3.6. I am having an issue where the viewport wont preview my xgen primitives. When I hit the preview current description I get the calculation window but nothings happens. Only thing I do see are pink "x's" on the faces of my geo. Any suggestions would be great. 

[jordan.giboney]

Hi @luis_alcala

Thanks for posting! In order to help you most efficiently, can you answer a few questions for me?

1. Have you tried Reseting your Maya Preferences?
2. Are you on Windows or a Mac? 
3. What is your GPU? Is it on our list of Certified Hardware?
4. Are all of your drivers up to date?
5. Are you using a Wacom Tablet, Cintiq 3D or Magic Mouse?
6. Is your Maya software up to date? We have Update 5 for Maya 2017, as well as update 2018.2 for our most current version, Maya 2018. You can download these updates by signing in to your Autodesk Account > Management Products and Downloads > Maya > Downloads > Updates and Add-Ons

Thanks again! Looking forward to getting a resolution for this as quickly as possible 🙂

[luis_alcala]

Hey Jordan, 

Thank you for replying. This was driving me nuts. Did the following:

1. I reset my Maya Preferences.

2. I am working on Windows 10. 

3. I am running the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 with the updated drivers. 

4. All drivers up to date ;).

5. Regular mouse setup with Wacom Intous4 for painting. 

6. Maya 2018 with .2 update. 

Trying it out now and I will let you know if all of this worked. 

[jordan.giboney]

Thanks for the reply @luis_alcala 🙂 Let me know how it goes! I'd be happy to keep troubleshooting if the problem persists.

[luis_alcala]

Jordan, 

SO looks like resetting the preferences worked but I had another question. Does xgen support diffuse maps that have udims in it? I am following this tutorial for grooming felt and I wan to make the fur from xgen be driven by my diffuse map. Is there a way to have the diffuse map of my geometry color the fur from xgen? if so, what steps need to be taken. Heres the link to the video that I am using. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ijzPEtIyY&t=324s

[Anonymous]

Hi Luis!

>Currently using Maya 2018 with vray 3.6. I am having an issue where the viewport wont preview my xgen primitives.

> When I hit the preview current >description I get the calculation window but nothings happens.

> Only thing I do see are pink "x's" on the faces of my geo. Any suggestions would be >great. 

Lost xgen!  Lol...  I get this everyday on new models I am adding hair too....  I use guides for my grooms...

IT may not be the hardware - Xgen is picky when it generates things...

Things to check... (things might be a little different I am using 2016...)

On the hair description > Modifiers > turn them all off! (uncheck them) - try to view...

Preview/Output > Output Settings > Renderer > Select your renderer - try to view...

Primitives > Mask?  Do you have an image?  this is the most important - the ptex is not there or corrupt you GET NOTHING...

I would re-set this to a value of 1 - make sure this is not ZERO...  you get nothing...  turn off your map... set to 1...  generate preview.

You should see straight hair!

C

[luis_alcala]

C, 

Thanks for the reply. I got xgen to display with Jodis suggestion. Trying to figure out why I keep getting an error when I try to paint my own pt map on geo so I can use the connections it creates and pipe my own texture map to it. I think its because I am using Udims. Doing a quick test to find out. 

[jordan.giboney]

Hi @luis_alcala

Xgen is unaffected by UDIM's as it only reads ptex maps. You can use texture maps that in UDIMS to drive shader parameters, but you cannot paint maps in UDIMS due to limitations in Artisan 🙂

[Michael_Todd]

The 3D paint tool in Maya doesn't support UDIMs unfortunately..

Cheers

[luis_alcala]

Found a weird bug that is happening with the current setup I have. If I try to create an xgen expression on a piece of geometry that has a Vray shader, I cant create a ptex map under the Custom Shader parameters. The 3D paint tool wont come up and it wont establish a connection to any map for me to paint on. But, if my original geo has a blinn or lambert it will work. Erwan Leroy explains it well in this link:

http://erwanleroy.com/rendering-textured-xgen-fur-with-vray-in-maya-2016/

He is using Maya 2016 + Vray 3.4. Has this been addressed? 

[jordan.giboney]

Hi @luis_alcala

Is the behavior the same with a standard Maya shader? If the issue is limited to VRAY shaders, that would have to be reported to Chaos Group as they are the creators of the plugin 🙂 

Let me know how that goes! I'd be happy to continue assisting you.

[Michael_Todd]

The 3D Paint tool can't be used on geometry with 3rd party materials bound to them.  You can have standard Maya material attached for the VP and hook up the VRay material to the shading group as the surface shader so the VRAY material will be used for the renders and the paint tool will work in the VP..

Cheers

[luis_alcala]

Maya shaders work fine its just Vray shaders that are the problem. Going to try out Michaels suggestion and go from there. If not then I will try to change my scene to work with Arnold since it is more native to Maya now. I will let you guys know how things work out. Going to start testing tomorrow. 

[jordan.giboney]

Hi @luis_alcala

Hope you are doing well 🙂 Just wanted to check in and see how your tests were going! Any success?

Let me know if there is anything else we can do to help!

[luis_alcala]

Hey Jordan, 

You are awesome by the way. Thank you for staying up to date. Did some testing and it seems like you guys were right. Xgen doesn't really like third party plugins. It works better when you stick with Maya native shaders and or Arnold. Thank you for the help and assistance. I think I found a good process to work from and going to close this project. Im pretty sure I will be back on the forums soon since I work with clients that always want custom things created.

One quick question, can you create scene annotations for Maya? Meaning when I open a version of the scene I am working on I can create a note somewhere so I know what I previously worked on or what a fellow artist has updated?

[jordan.giboney]

Hey @luis_alcala! 

No worries whatsoever! 😄 Glad to hear that you are able to handle the workaround. 

Annotations are possible! I made a quick screencast video here to show you how to make them 🙂 the annotations are connected to the center pivot of an object, but as you'll see in the video, you can manipulate where the annotations are located.

Let me know if you have any other questions with the video, or anything else! Happy to help.

[luis_alcala]

Jordan, 

Awesome. Thanks for the quick video and assistance. It was wonderful having your assistance on this process. 

[jordan.giboney]

@luis_alcala Happy to help! 

If you could mark your accepted solution (can accept multiple), that would be great! This will help other Maya users find the solution faster 🙂

If anything else comes up feel free to post and I'll jump right in! 🙂 

[Michael_Todd]

Just to be clear, it's not XGen that has issues with 3rd party materials, it's Artisan and the 3D paint tool, which is not part of XGen at all.

[luis_alcala]

Michael, 

Thanks for the clarification buddy. Duly noted.