Improve Construction History

[trevor.adams]

Other applications like 3ds Max and Softimage give you more complete and more reliable control over the construction history (modifier stack) of an object.  Plus, the user experience in editing that history is better than it is in Maya.  Currently, Maya's construction history isn't very useful beyond the last-created node.

Here is a list of things we should be able to do with construction history in Maya, directly in the UI (e.g. Channel Box)

• Reorder operations in the history chain
• Easily turn an operator on/off (mute)
• Delete history nodes
• Delete "up to here" history nodes (like "Collapse To" in 3ds Max)
• Copy/paste history nodes
• Instantiate history nodes

[Alexx31]

@johnkeates2865  well said !!

[Anonymous]

Softimage has a wonderful and clear construction history, with different levels of hierarchy like modeling, shape modeling, animation, etc., and it allows you to reorder operations in any order you wish and tweak the operations at will. Using Maya after SI is a headache because you can't tweak anything easily. 

[HasanDiab]

@Anonymous  Exactly, using Maya's history is a headache and it doesn't have any functionality!!!

[Anonymous]

Please make this a thing! I just switched to Maya from 3ds Max, and while there are some things that I appreciate more, modeling without a modifier stack is such a pain, maybe I'm just inexperienced but the modifier stack was really useful in Max.

For example, I beveled all the hard edges of my mesh to make a high poly, however after doing so I realized that I didn't bevel them enough, and now I basically cannot change that unless I go in and manually select every edge and move vertices around, whereas in Max I could with a couple clicks change the value in the chamfer modifier and solve the issue in few seconds rather than hours.

[johnkeates2865]

Hi ethanhiller,

Bear in mind that you actually may still have access to the bevel settings if you didn't delete history. You may find the bevel node in the channel editor or in the node editor and be able to edit its attributes there. If there are nodes after it though, that may cause problems. You can delete the node and re-apply it however.

I don't have experience with Max's modifier stack but I have heard that it is better, but there is a similar functionality in Maya via it's node based workflow.

Good luck!

[HasanDiab]

@johnkeates2865 

Well yes its a node based history but its useless, if u make changes to nodes chain or chart (delete, replace, reorder) u will end up with problems or errors.

In 3DsMax while its a stack and doesn't have the flexibility of nodes (like in houdini, not maya because its useless in case of history) u can reorder, delete, add, copy and paste whatever u want in the stack and between objects and its so useful and time saving(for example u can do modification like extrude or bevel for an object and apply it with copy paste to number of other objects).

one Da*n thing for example in maya, there is no way to change vertices or lines of faces selection after u applied a bevel or any other operation.

[HmshDev]

This is an extremely important PRODUCTIVITY feature, and so it should be given priority. this productivity feature serves all Maya users, not just modelers.

If this feature cannot be implemented before the release of Maya 2020, then at least add the option : "HasNoEffect" to the "Node State" list in the window:

"Inputs -> All Inputs"

currently it has only : Nomral, Blocking. 

just a small step towards the end goal

[HmshDev]

My last post about adding (Has no effect)  to  (All Inputs) has an incorrect information which is that the Node state under  (All Inputs) doesn't have (Has No Effect). I found later that some nodes do have (Has No Effect) and others don't have it. I didn't expect Maya to have this inconsistency. All Maya nodes should have this option.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely top of my list.

Softimage had this totally figured out, Blender comes in at a close second.

The most frustrating thing is that Maya can already do a lot of the things listed by OP, but doesn't give the artist access to it. Maya can remove deformers (i.e. by deleting them), Maya can bake history (but only ALL of it), and Maya can re-order deformers... so why not give us a proper modifier stack?

I want to remove the influence of a lattice without deleting it.
I want to insert model edits under the animation deformers.

[BurkhardRammner]

I'm quite confused, this topic is about construction history and nobody mentions the hypershade/nodeEditor problem...?!?!?

There is a problem with the accessibility of the respective nodes using the nodeEditor when its not possible to save a specific layout for them!

Its possible with the hypershade, but that is just a piece of dinosaur garbage which kills every production when the scene becomes to big.

The preferred way of interaction with the Maya history (DG system) should have to be via a functional nodeEditor.

I have been complaining about that since 2012...

...AND NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE SINCE!

How is any serious production with bigger scenes and lots of nodes be supposed to get their work done when there is no way for storing the node layout?

I am stunned that Maya2020 nodeEditor has still no container support.

[johnkeates2865]

Hey, BurkhardRammner - it looks like they are finally getting around to improving the node editor. Possibly making it based on the bifrost one. (I had a look for the thread but can't find it)

[Kranos_Orphydian]

cmon at least  we should see an earlier implementation of this. Why there is no roadmap like 3ds max at least ? One cannot make a decision between these 2 software if such essential things aren't cleared out.

[Kloworks]

any update @trevor.adams  @tj.galda 

[Anonymous]

Just want to mention:

Deleting a history node is *not* the same as removing a history node from the stack.

Maya should be able to do both.  If I have a lattice that's deforming 5 objects and I want to remove 1 of those objects, Maya does not have a good way of doing this.

I can remove the object from the deformer set, but the lattice is still present in the object's history.

[Intuos5]

The edit poly modifier in Max has it's flaws too. If the modelling stack approach is reimagined, then I would like to be able to edit the previous 'edit poly node' and add/ remove geometry without breaking the parent-child relation with the next node.

Perhaps it's worth-while investigating the use of a timeline the way it's used in Fusion 360 if the aim is to go fully procedural.

Alternatively, a node based approach with all commands, like Grasshopper in Rhino or the recent introduction of history into Alias, would work well for Nurbs modelling and perhaps also for polygonal stuff.

[leecaste]

any update @trevor.adams  @tj.galda ?

May I ask how many people are currently working in the development of Maya?

[HmshDev]

Is a better construction history really the solution to the problems mentioned here? If you think about it well, an easy to use node editor is the right solution. if we have an easy to use node editor, removing any node or any history will become a simple task. The node editor will become a powerful construction history editor + a powerful construction editor!! call it: (NodeEditor++)

[johnkeates2865]

Hi HmshDev,

I agree that a better node editor will help a lot. There could also be improvements in the way that deformers are assigned (like the ability to assign to an object rather than components) and just generally improve the interface.

I'm much more up for a peace-meal set of improvements to what is already there rather than the creation of a whole new system which is bound to have its own problems and be a disappointment to many. For instance, who makes an entire car procedurally really? At a certain level, it makes sense to just be pulling verts around and extruding etc rather than turning the process into a complex engineering problem.

[Anonymous]

I think, too, that some important topics feel like abandoned. It's in my eyes a onesided investment of development time, if all power goes over years only into creation of new stuff. And on the other hand to leave things for years unchanged, then coming out with a entire new system, which is for sure great, but still does not solve some of the basic problems. I think everything belongs together, also hypershade, node editor and outliner, and everything must be steadily improved.
p.s. And I personally wonder that there did not come even slightliest improvements on hypershade within years. People work everyday with it and it's the same like 2015 despite so many feature requests…   The outliner got recently a tiny small UI improvement: just that the slider can be used vertical, too, not only horizontal - okay, really, that's all? People write scripts for that within a weekend. This is so poor to sell this as a big improvement. And just look at 3dsMax outliner (scene explorerer) abilities, to get some ideas what wold be possible.

[HasanDiab]

maybe a bifrost graph style node editor and history and hypershade will make maya the best 3d software out there