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

[Anonymous]

I used Max for the past 12 years than I switched to Maya since the release of Maya version 2018, I'm in love with the UVToolkit, Rigging and Animation Tools and the viewport 2.0, the current poly-modeling tools in Maya are also very good. There are only two areas I wish Maya had, a better Construction History that works similar to the modifier stack in Max, and better spline editing tools with procedural and "clean" spline to polygons transition.

I wish we get more robust and effective procedural modeling in Maya, my hand and toe fingers are crossed for Maya 2019.

[olcnsrc]

Honestly, this is what Maya actually needs. 

A modifier stack.. this would open doors to amazing new workflows. For example car modeling with shrinkwrap method which is impossible with Maya at the moment.

[HasanDiab]

Undestructive History is much needed, Thumbs Up

[Anonymous]

From both a design and production modeling standpoint, proceduralism in Maya's standard polygonal modeling tools would be a huge plus! The issue indeed is the inability to move and reorder certain operations. More parametric modeling abilities in Maya are always welcome.

[Anonymous]

I'm sold but I'm wondering how long they'll take to implement this software and the easiness of use. 

It would be amazing if they figured out a way to implement these modifiers to previously created models. 

I wonder if they could use ai or find a way to recognize for example cylinders and allow us to afterwards edit the "resolution"..... 

It would be beyond saying too that the delete history shouldn't affect these modifiers and you should delete each modifier individually

[johnkeates2865]

"It would be beyond saying too that the delete history shouldn't affect these modifiers and you should delete each modifier individually"

I'm not thinking of it like that at all, this would be just an improved construction history I think, so deleting history would delete it. We just need to be able to more reliably do the things that are currently supposed to work, but don't.

AI is currently just a buzz word. The chance of software back-engineering how a model was made is basically zero and I'm not sure how much use it would be. 

If you want that level of construction history then Houdini is probably the way to go, and then you will probably find that there are a load of problems that come with that way of working too.

[BenediZ]

I saw in animation the problem, that it wasn't possible to delete construction history without loosing existing blendshapes.

When we deleted nondeformer history, the blendshapes became corrupt.

I'm sure it has to do with such things like component IDs, that were messed up during that history process.

Some softwares let you delete nodes, but give you a choice to recompute everything correctly from scratch, so you work is saved.

This topic is related to beveling and boolean... Also boolean gives randomly component IDs during animation...

[johnkeates2865]

I was thinking today that it might be useful to be able to insert 'way marker' nodes in the chain so you can delete history either before or after them. 

[BenediZ]

I also want to add,

that also the "jumping UVs"-issue must be a result of wrong computed Component IDs and construction history...

So I think that a lot hidden other issues are result of the actual construction history and instead of fixing the ends, I would recommend to fix the source of the problems, which means the history system itself.

[ Here about the jumping UV-Bug:
Corrupt "jumping" UVs during animation, it happens as soon as you move UV-points of the UVlayout of UVset "map1"

For cached animations this is not solvable and for rigged it has to be skinned again.

Here is a link from 2003, but you can find many threads about this long-term issue:

https://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8872

[Alexx31]

I am working in a company with different applications, and modeling history in Maya is never really usable beyond the last few steps… I think, zBrush has sometimes more flexibility in modeling (if you think of the new boolean folder system there) and zBrush can handle Millions of Polygons and it has less bugs.

If you get in Maya just one non-manifold vertex, several tools do not work anymore, like sculpting, bevel or it crashes... In other applications I even wouldn't notice this. So starting with a better history system would be great.

[Anonymous]

Please make this happen! 😮 

[Kranos_Orphydian]

well then what would be the reason for Max to still be around ? lol

definitely this is Maya Achiles heel and makes it too archaic looking for new users.  But what makes Max so powerfull is not a better control of the history but the very one and only Edit poly modifier along with the ability to pass on to the stack of the crease sets for the Opensubdiv modifier and smoothing groups Without that even you will add more control of history in Maya is still unusable for hard surface complex modeling. 

[johnkeates2865]

Another thought on this: I have a lot of objects all sharing the same deformer and I want to change the order of that deformer for all of those objects. It is very slow to manually middle drag the deformer in that clunkly old interface for every object. It would be good if there was just a better interface which can act on multiple selections and have more buttons (like move down / up / bottom  / top) etc.

[BenediZ]

@johnkeates2865: great idea...

To me it seems , that all the aspects of "improve construction history" are also aiming in the direction, to enhance interoperability, usability and workflow speed between several tools overall.

(I can just imagine, that this is a major change and will not solved "quickly" as many people hope.)

[ballobello]

Another example with procedurals and modifiers. But here we are still waiting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwfSlPpBfbw

[Alexx31]

Nice Blender add-on!  I think, an improved construction history is the foundation for future features like this.

[HasanDiab]

why such an important feature is not set accepted idea, not even set for future consideration ?!

[johnkeates2865]

Hi Hdiab,

"why such an important feature is not set accepted idea, not even set for future consideration ?!"

It is set to 'Under review', and I assume it is a complex thing to consider so will take a while to review. As long as they are working on it in some way.

[Alexx31]

@HasanDiabI agree about the importance, but I assume, that this is going so deep into the structure (vertex count, tool compatibilities and interactions) that it is not "just one" feature. It means to look litterally in everything.

Maybe it means like the last animation update to rebuild the code of every tool new? I would be happy, to get once a statement from Autodesk, how they see this.

I also hope, that everything, which is developed new in the meantime, is already sustainable, that it hasn't to be rewritten once again, too.

I have voted for several topics here, but I would put this for me on first priority. Actually this is like a huge bug fix. And before I want new features, I want a software that works perfect in it's core. If I would sit on Autodesks side, I would be happy if people put a "bug fix feature" on first priority 😉  It makes also a developer life easier and will make the software more reliable and fit for future.

[johnkeates2865]

I agree that this can be seen as an important bug fix. The fact is that much of the behavior of history as it stands is unpredictable, inconsistent and flaky, but what the new direction looks like is something that needs a lot of consideration. For instance, how does this all fit in with the mooted Bifrost dynamics improvements and MASH? How does the interface work exactly?

On the other hand, there may be some shorter-term tweaks that could be done, like applying a node to the object rather than vertices so it can be re-ordered more easily.