Solved: LOCK ASPECT RATION button for place2Dtexture and place3Dtexture (repeat, coverage and scale attribut...

BenediZ · ‎02-15-2021

Hello, almost always tiling (= texture scaling) needs to be proportionally and only very seldom in special cases, you want to change the aspect ratio.

Mostly textures are pictures or come from squares (2k, 4k, 8k...!!!), which means PROPORTIONAL SCALE.

Currently we have an inconvenient time-consuming workflow of having to type always twice the same value for U and V, then hitting enter and watching you result. And repeat and repeat until it fits exactly from size. The same procedure happens again and again with every new texture.

It would be way better to have a simple "lock ratio" button – enabled by default – similar to the button in the render settings for changing the image size with a locked aspect ratio.

This is especially true for 3D placement, where you have 3 values to type in. (example screenshot with a brownian)

If there would be this button, you could just quickly drag the slider until it fits perfect.

coverage UV placement

3d texture brownian - 3 values to adjustrepeat UV placement

daunish · ‎02-15-2021

You should totally post this to "Maya Ideas", I think this would be great!

Until they implement it:

You can always connect the output of one attrib to the input of another attrib in the same node. So for the place2dTexture, you can connect the out "repeat U" to the input of the "repeat V". This would make the V value always match the U value. And to do ratios you would just need a multiply node in between the attributes.

Personally, I'd recommend scripting this, it would be the easiest thing. You could even modify the node's attributes, hide the default ones and add some of your own.

BenediZ · ‎02-15-2021

Thanks, yes I will post it in Maya ideas.

Scripting is no solution for a not-installed basic button. It means everyone has to learn the script, you need to do this for each node again, you can’t quickly toggle on/off, it just eats up again concentration.

The cancer of Maya is, that it always has a time-consuming workaround for another workaround, which is maybe the general excuse not to redo something.

I guess a programmer can solve this while we discuss about. But at first in „Autodesk land“ a 100 people must vote for it...

I had poosted this before at the vray forum: It took a day until a developer replied „I check it out now“. To find out, that they can‘t change the Autodesk presets.

They put such small stuff without long discussion on a „nightly update“ and that’s it.

and actually I had posted this to ideas, but the server was again down, and I don’t know why it’s here now.

daunish · ‎02-15-2021

At the end of the day, Maya is just really big and really old. There's lots of functionality that doesn't exist, some that are available in other newer programs. Even bugs that have been around for years that they still haven't gotten around to.

While I agree, this would be an easy solve for them, there are so so many higher-priority fixes and improvements that they need to make first. For example, I've literally never needed to script a toggle for aspect ratio but have needed a new boolean tool forever, now they have the latter (not a great example, it's still not amazing).

The fact they are as big as they are means they really don't need to rush to improve anyone's life. I agree with you, it can be an inconvenience when they take their time for ease of life fixes. But that's the price we pay, and we all end up creating new workflows to speed up silly tasks like this. I do the same thing in other programs like Houdini all the time as well, you get used to using workarounds. Thankfully the ability to do so exists!

I think as more programs come out that infringe on the market share of Maya, we'll see more basic updates like this happening faster.

mspeer · ‎02-15-2021

Hi!

Although I admit that such a link button would be helpful in certain cases, you can't provide options for everything that would be helpful in a certain case. For example in my case I "often" need to link only 2 of 3 attributes, so a link button for all attributes would not be helpful in this case, the same applies when I want to link Scale with Translate or Offset with Repeat.

With scripting you could create your own script that links whatever you want to be linked for every place2Dtexture or place3Dtexture, just by hitting a custom hotkey where the scrip is applied to.

But even without scripting this can be done with just a few clicks.

In your example, just use the texture icon at the right and assign an utility node, like Color Constant or Float Constant , which will control all values at once.

BenediZ · ‎02-16-2021

The general idea of an „aspect ratio“ button is to have less clicks, not more clicks 😉

The only chance to get less clicks is a button, everything else is more clicks.

And the idea with color constant can indeed be helpful in certain cases (thanks), but this generates also even more nodes... in a already badly layouted node editor 😉

And a button only needs to be a option for keeping everything symmetrical (most important it’s for the 2Dnode, so there anyway only 2 values)

This is not my invention, I could find it in Photoshop since 1995, right when I‘ve started working with it.

And of course you can’t fit everyones workflow, but you can give the 95% of typical user workflows (typically importing substance or other textures in squares) a button, that is so simple implemented, that it’s not worth the time we discuss it.

and I have seen thousands of times in tutorials how people always deal with these inputs. So it’s simply not true, that anyone starts scripting to save time (which is already a contradiction in itself). Especially not when importing 10 or more textures...

And lastly, I don’t expect that such tiny tasks can endanger the solving of more important things like boolean etc.

My philosophy as a company would be, to be grateful for users who help to improve the product.

( I remember the fight with pixology „zBrush“ until the reluctantly introduced a typical standard Gizmo for all the „less advanced users“. But those are important for the general success, too. 🙂)