Maya 2018 legacy viewport?

[moonpotato]

Hi, 

Ive installed the new maya 2018 and noticed there is no legacy viewport, 

i always use legacy viewport to animate in, as viewport 2.0 is on average 10-15 fps slower than legacy, 

in legacy you can animate in realtime, in viewport 2.0 you have to playblast in order to see what your doing, 

this isn't just a single rig or character, this is across every project I've worked on since viewport 2.0 was released, 

the current proj im working on, 2018 viewport 2.0 is 12fps, maya 2017 legacy viewport is 22.5fps (almost realtime) 

the difference in workflow is night and day. is there a way to enable legacy viewport in 2018 ? if not, then i guess that 

means 2017 is the end of the line for us animators on tight deadlines ???... BUMMER!!!! 

animating at half the frame rate on a tight deadline is like doing look dev at a quarter res- you just can't see what your doing... 

[mspeer · Accepted solution]

Hi!

Read the docs:

"Maya now fully transitioned to Viewport 2.0
Viewport 2.0 is now the primary viewport and hardware renderer in Maya. The legacy default and high quality viewports are no longer available in the Maya user interface."

But i wonder why you have a lower framerate in Viewport 2.0. The most reason to use legacy Viewport was because of missing/unsupported features in Viewport 2.0. Could you upload a demo-scene, i really want to check this.

[Christoph_Schaedl · Accepted solution]

you should not need the old viewport anymore...

ther is an environment variable to bring it back...

but you should redo your performance test in 2018... it shoudl be much faster...

MAYA_ENABLE_LEGACY_VIEWPORT

http://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-4928A912-DA6C-4734-863B-AB5959DA73C9

[moonpotato]

yeh, this is literally with any rig in any scene in the last year or two.. viewport 2.0 is significantly slower!?

this is across multiple machines and projects.. 

i tested the scene im currently animating in maya 2018, and its 12-16fps, in 2017 in legacy viewport it is 22.5

we've done testing with the rig evaluation modes etc.. but, legacy viewport is always faster for animation playback. 

i would like to upload a scene, but Its a project that's currently being worked on, with a full rig. so thats problematic, but 

I've had this issue for years (its now just habit to switch to legacy to animate) 

its great to know that we can bring it back with an env variable though, problem solved.

do you know how to implement it ? 

i will try to find another project that i can upload over the next day or so, but I'm a bit shocked that no one else has noticed this ?

its just kind of self evident on every project I've worked on for years, vp2.0 is slow and laggy, legacy is fast and zippy, but obviously

doesn't look very nice. 

[moonpotato]

oops, sorry- didn't see the env var in your post thanks! 

[moonpotato]

Ive just opened up several scenes from past projects in 2018 and your right, it is faster somehow- 

it is now only 1-3 fps slower than legacy viewport, though the current project the difference is still quite large- 12-16 fps vs 22-25 fps

on several scenes i was reminded of another major reason that we don't tend to use vp2.0 to animate though, constraints etc don't update properly.. (things jump about stutter or redraw in odd locations as you are moving controls or playing back animation) 

i will try to find a scene that demonstrates both issues if i get a chance, 

thanks for the replies

[Christoph_Schaedl]

if possible send those files to autodesk... they should know about that...

and you shoudl also concider old files are old...

this means if they arnt compatible with the parallel evaluation they dont use the resources the could if you rebuild your rigs...

http://download.autodesk.com/us/company/files/2017/UsingParallelMaya.pdf

[BaardArnesen6185]

I have a mac with latest firmware.

My case:

• I have 2 new clean installations with default settings.
• Maya 2018 and 2017.
• I have opened the old file from Maya 2015.
• Both 2018 and 2017 runs with viewport 2.0. 
• I can choose to run with Legacy viewport on the Maya 2017.

Numbers in Frame rate:

1. Maya 2017 on Legacy Viewport: 21 Frames pr second.
2. Maya 2017 on Viewport 2.0 : 40 Frames pr second.
3. Maya 2018 on Viewport 2.0: 22 Frames pr second.

Also:

1. Both Maya 2017 and 2018 uses OpenGL Legacy as render engine.
2. Still the difference is 100%.

Anyway:

This is not very surprising. I have experienced this back in older updates. That new software is a lot slower in OpenGL render.

My biggest problem with viewport 2.0, is that (it used to) take a long time to go from wire-frame to shaded mode. Where Legacy was much quicker. I have not tested this right now. 

I hope this helps.

Regards MelkDesign

[sean.heasley]

Hi @moonpotato

If you want to, you can send me the scene file in a private message. All files are kept on a strict confidential basis :).

[tyros_uk]

Hi,

What about plugins for destruction like pulldownit and FX-fracture. Both works better with "Legacy Default Viewport"

What about particles legacy. Hope they do not remove from maya. Because nparticles are much slower then the old and traditional particles.

Plus, nparticles with sprites, do not work properly as the legacy particles.

When Autodesk will implement a destruction tool straight in maya?

[Anonymous]

> When Autodesk will implement a destruction tool straight in maya?

They have. It's called Shatter. LOL!!!! Sorry couldn't resist.

[BaardArnesen6185]

The file is not relevant. 

If I just have basic spheres duplicated, lambert shader.

Then the 2017 is 50 % faster than 2018.

I can measure this more exact, but the difference is significant.

I have a benchmark file i can test..

I will guess that textured elements will mean bigger difference..

In this test with many elements, Legacy is actually slower than Viewport 2.0

So:

-2018 is slower than 2017 on my hardware.

-Viewport 2.0 can be faster than Legacy, but it takes longer to load a lot of geometry. This is a BIG problem sometimes..

[sean.heasley]

Hi @moonpotato just checking in, are you still having this issue?

[moonpotato]

yes, still having the issue, but I am just using 2017 to animate, and will probably continue to do for some time..

its good to know the option is there to switch back in 2018 (i suspect I, and a lot of other people will rely on this

for years to come, it would be nice if it was just a simple toggle..) 

thanks

[Anonymous]

I can't use viewport 2.0 because it doesn't seem to like my display card.  I've updated it with no change.  For me all viewports are black and there doesn't appear to be any way of getting it solved.

Is there a way to get the legacy viewports back?

JLV

[Christoph_Schaedl]

yes read the third post...

[Anonymous]

Thanks.  I did that and saw the documentation.  MAYA_ENABLE_LEGACY_VIEWPORT a mel script?  The documentation shows what the options for the legacy viewport settings but not how to access them if all you find is Viewport 2.0  in the Renderer pull down.

[Christoph_Schaedl]

there is an maya.env file in your prefs root...

your need to insert those line in the .env file...

maya will load that on startup...

[TheSimulationCrew]

I know this is a little off topic, but I really want to stress getting the ViewCube back in 2.0. Can't live without it.

[Anonymous]

Changing the Center of Mass for Legacy Rigid Bodies will be extra challenging now.