I will pay GarageGames for a Maya Exporter

#1 It would be nice, but I do not know if a new Maya exporter is viable right now. As polysoup becomes more standard in Torque and a lightmapping solution is determined, it can be addressed. Also, if Collada becomes the format of choice down the road, then the whole exporter problem may take care of itself in many instances.

I'd love to see it because I see people asking about it, but I do not know if it is viable right now.

#2 Maybe its me or those Mac commercials where they poke fun at the PCs. I am coming to the fatal conclusion people here are poking me.

I am a Mac user but I guess that may not mean anything here. I just want to write games.

I just found out that the Torque DTS exporter is not yet available on the Houdini's Apprentice HD (maybe in August) for the few of us that use the Mac.

I use Maya for all my art work....

There is no way I can go on expecting something good from GG anymore.

Carpenter Software

#3 I used Lightwave with my Mac for quite a while, though I now do most of my work on my PC since my G5 died a horrible death that I haven't had time to resurrect it from. I wish there were something I could do on the Maya front, though. Sorry.

#4 Your best bet is probably to get your assets into Blender and use the DTS exporter for it to get your stuff in game. I'd suggest possibly only trying to export your *meshes* themselves into Blender, then using its weighting and armature tools for actually doing your animation possibly. You may be able to get skeleton data into Blender from Maya by exporting with the DirectX .x format.

#5 David are you suppose to be the Mac developer for GG? I remember we had this conversation before about Maya and GG's support for exporters.

What is Mac's main software for uploading art into Torque's engines?

Carpenter Software

#6 Nah, I'm not GG's mac guy. I just happen to have a couple of Macs and be a part of GG. Most of the exporters are done by third-party individuals rather than GG directly, so when a dev moves on, it can be hard to get the exporters updated. Since I'm on the forums and working with users every day, I would *LOVE* it if we had a good solution for different packages on various OS's.

I'm not sure what most people are using on the Mac, but I have a sneaky suspicion that many are exporting on a PC. I believe Blender has good support on the Mac. I haven't used LW 9 on my Mac, but the exporter worked nicely with 8. But other than that I'm not sure. I know that a number of people were tired of waiting for Constructor and ended up using Radiant when it was released, though they would have to massage the map files a bit to get them to compile in map2dif.

#7 I need to talk with someone who works with a Mac at GG....

Carpenter Software

#8 Not to reiterate what I've already posted, but just to be clear I've found that the Maya2DTS exporter for the Mac version of Maya 2008 appears to have a bug that prevents animation export. I get can around it by opening up the files in Maya 2008 under Windows and exporting, but it would be nice to know who created the Maya2DTS exporter to see if we can get it fixed. Does anyone know? I think it might have been Danny Ngan, but I tried e-mailing him with no response.

#9 @Rubes

I am afraid you will not get a straight answer about Maya DTS exporter for the Mac. Some noses are little bit too high to smell the coffee. I have been asking similar questions.

I also sent email to Danny Ngan without any response.

I am not sure but I believe that the Maya DTS exporter for the Mac is dead in the water especially for future versions of Autodesk Maya..

Carpenter Software

#10 To reiterate, I will PAY GarageGames $99 or more for a Mac OS X Torque DTS Exporter for Autodesk Maya with Documentation.

Carpenter Software

#11 It's not that "noses are too high" but that the Maya exporter was created by a third-party. At one time it was a great export path, though I believe it was mostly used on the Windows version. I'm not sure if anyone has taken up the maya exporter since Danny. I'll have to check the Maya forum (as noted in the other topic) to see if anyone has taken up the mantle in the past. I recall several people asking for an update (for Windows mostly), but I do not remember anyone actually working on it.

#12 To reiterate, I will PAY GarageGames $99 or more for a Mac OS X Torque DTS Exporter for Autodesk Maya with Documentation.

Carpenter Software

#13 Why don't you offer $99 to any programmer to create it, your more likely to get a bite from a freelancer than trying to throw money at GarageGames which has plenty on their plate at the moment.

Use the money to hire a freelancer to do it for you.

#14 I have been waiting (hoping) that the Maya DTS exporter would come through - I am to hire someone!? Some one would have to know the torque engine and Maya well.... Who better than GG to do this.

All this time - that I have worked with GG and I get an answer like this.

I might as well give up and find another game engine.

I am so disappointed.

Carpenter Software

#15 "I am to hire someone!?"

Well you have said yourself you will pay $99 or more. So yes.

"I have been waiting (hoping) that the Maya DTS exporter would come through."

This is the game industry - those who wait for something they can either 1) Make Themselves or 2) Hired someone to make. Will fall behind the others and ultimately fail.

"All this time - that I have worked with GG and I get an answer like this."

Just to be clear I am not a GarageGame employee, rather a paying member like yourself who is willing to take time out of my schedule to help you for free by giving you advice. Be grateful and take what you get.

"I might as well give up and find another game engine."

Okay go ahead. But throwing a temper tramdun won't get you anywhere no matter what engine you choose.

I gave you a viable solution. Take it or leave it.

#16 I will pay $1000 dollars to GarageGames or more for a Mac OS X Torque DTS Exporter for Autodesk Maya with Documentation.

Carpenter Software

#17 I doubt you're going to get GG to do this, honestly. They have SO much work that they are doing that it's just not really practical. If you, however, post a job offer somewhere (i.e., the jobs forums ;p) I'm sure you can probably get a bite.

Though IMO you should probably just save your money for other code work you might need done, and take my suggestion and get your stuff into Blender, which will work fine on Mac for exporting (since it has a Mac version and the exporter is in Python).

I'm sure David has the "Maya/Max like Blender interface" link handy enough. It's not like you'd have to learn the whole app to export something, really. If you can get your sequences out at least. If not, well, I guess you can buck up and learn how to get animation into Blender (depends on your rig really, if you need it compatible with the stock Torque rig then there is the Blender Orange Guy, if not you don't need to do anything special, just export). The exporter for Blender IMO is pretty dang easy to use.

I really think your money is better spent on gameplay related code work or something of that nature that would benefit you more directly. Though you might be able to post a "bounty" thread offering to pool your $100 or so with others in order to get someone to do the work of fixing things up for Maya on Mac.

Or you could just buy a cheap WinXP machine and export your stuff there (from Houdini maybe, if not Maya (is there a single version for Mac/Win? If not I can see why you wouldn't want to do this...though Houdini is just as easy to pay $99 for than get someone to fix your Mac path)) :P

#18 Finally I get some answers....

Carpenter Software

#19 Like I said in my earlier post in this thread, I have heard that you can get skeleton data if you can get your stuff out from Maya in DirectX .x format. Blender supposedly will keep the skeleton info.

If all you have is mesh data at the moment, I'd say just go ahead and export to Blender (.obj is reliable for mesh data, though you could go for .fbx too I guess). The skinning in Blender is quite awesome (the bone heat method). I am not an artist and I managed to get an armature and get my mesh rigged and skinned in a couple of days.

#20 I paid $99 for Houdini but there is no DTS exporter for the Mac. I have used blender in the past but recently paid for Maya.

Blender is a free program, it is sad that Blender is the only viable solution to my situation. I have paid thousands in this art program.... I do have Windows XP and I could have done as you had suggested - but I want others like myself know the truth behind the doors.

It is funny - I wonder if Autodesk knows that their program is worthless.

Carpenter Software