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Billboarding in Maya

by Daniel Thornton · in Artist Corner · 08/30/2005 (9:10 am) · 4 replies

This is mainly a post to clear this up. can't find anything definate on this and can't get it to work either. Do I just add BB_ to my detail level name, like BB_detail1? Looking through the forums and it looks like people know how to do it but can't find how they are doing it. thanks
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Torque Owner Jeff Gran
#1
08/31/2005 (11:58 am)
Not to the detail marker, but to the actual mesh that you want to be a billboard. Also keep in mind that the axis must be aligned correctly (I believe you want positive z to be up and positive y to be backwards.... that's how it is in max). Also, just as a tip, remember that you can make any mesh a Billboard, not just a flat surface. So you can make half a sphere be a BB for example, and save half the polys.

Torque Owner Daniel Thornton
#2
09/01/2005 (9:42 am)
Hey, thanks for pointing out they don't always have to be flat surfaces, that sounds like cool stuff could be done with it.

Torque Owner Daniel Ly
#3
08/24/2006 (2:49 pm)
Hey, BB_ is for complete billboarding (always facing the user), but is there a prefix that to get the maya2dts exporter to set the flag for just billboardZ (so that the mesh can only rotate around its z-axis, as opposed to all axes)?

Torque Owner Jonathan Wetherall
#4
11/17/2006 (8:41 am)
I have tried the above but am confused i would like to generate a BillboardZ. I have managed this in Max but it never seems to work in Maya. Is it possible?

I named the billboard poly BBZ_plane2, skinned it and created a detail2 marker in the hierarchy. It doesn't crash but just generates a detail2 in showtool which isn't z facing. In Max this worked.