Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Tutorial 5.2: Exporting from Maya
Optimizing in Maya
“What?!” you cry, “I thought we were about to get into Unity…finally!” Agreed, it's
time to walk around the space we've made. However, as is the case with much
of 3D, effective preparation of assets in earlier stages yield superior results later.
Cleaning up the file in Maya will ensure a smoother transition into Unity, and
exporting manually from Maya will ensure only the needed assets get transferred.
Step 1:
Open the scene in Maya. In this case, it will be the EntryWay.mb
file that we have been building in earlier tutorials.
Step 2:
Delete All History. Choose Edit>Delete All by Type>History.
Why?
Hopefully you've been cleaning your history as you were working in Maya,
but here's the chance to make sure there are no lingering unwanted data
nodes floating around your file.
Step 3:
Remove unused Materials. Open the Hypershade (Window>Rendering
Editors>Hypershade). Within the Hypershade choose Edit>Delete Unused
Nodes.
Why?
If it's not used, why include it in the data being passed around?
Step 4:
Check for orphaned nodes. Open the Outliner (Window>Outliner)
and make sure that all the elements listed there are accounted for in the
scene. Occasionally, even after cleaning history, there can be some leftover
remnants of modeling process in the past (groups without anything in
them, or other null objects). If any of these are present, delete them.
Step 5:
Double-check all the naming. In the Outliner and the Hypershade
make sure there are no pCube25 objects or lambert26 materials. Every
object should have a descriptive name that makes sense not only to you,
but would make sense to someone else inheriting the file.
Warnings and Pitfalls
Remember that there are
some default materials
here that can't be
deleted (lambert1 and
particlecloud1). Don't
worry about those, they
can be left as is. It's part
of the beauty of manually
exporting the Maya
file that none of these
default nodes will be
included.
Why?
Taking time in the middle of the creation process to name objects and
materials is not a favorite of beginning artists or students. The students
think they can select the object and know what it is, so who cares what the
thing is actually named? The problem is twofold. First, when working in
Unity and working with scripts, sometimes objects will be called by name,
not by the Unity user selecting them. If there are 50 spheres in the scene, it
really slows the process trying to track down exactly which sphere is what.
Second, game production is very often a team activity. Even a project that
a solo developer began can often end up being a team project before it
sees release. Team members that inherit a poorly named file with poorly
named assets within do not remain happy for long. Name your stuff.
