UV animation in Maya

first thing you need is the new plugin I compiled, it works with the dtsUtility no problem

here be the link:

simpletofind.ca/mike/maya2dtsExporter.mll

(this one is for Maya8.5, but I can easily build it against an older version of maya if I get enough requests)


and for Maya 7.0: simpletofind.ca/mike/maya2dtsExporterMaya7.0.rar


How to animate UV's in Maya:

A few before notes:

My Maya exporter Menu is slightly different then the dtsUtil, it will work with dtsUtil, just dont go asking me
"how did you manage to export withought bounds? or why is it different?

the answers are simple, I wrote my own tool from the ground up that is more efficient, with this tool I
export an entire world all at once, and not piece by piece ( and builds datablocks with proper rotation and
scale information )

I will release the tool as soon as I convert it from Mel script to a .mll
(company wants to keep the source hidden, go figure :P )




1: delete your history before you start animating UV's



2: select a single UV in the UV texture editor*** and then use "merge Uv's." (your UV map should not
change whatsoever, but it will add a history node to your object)
(also noted, better then max, you can have your custom placed UV's move, and not just a projection gizmo :D...
although I gave up on the max one long ago and I could be wrong... )


*** has to be the UV editor, or it will change your UV map






3: select all your UV's that will be animated, then in the channel box you should see under Inputs "polyMergeUV1" .





4: move your UV's, not much, but enough for it to add a "polyTweakUV1".





5: you can now set keys on the UV's.



6: on your sequence node there is an attribute called "enable TVert", set it to on, and it will export your
new UV animation.



hit export!!

(once again, for fun I went and added a status bar when my exporter is exporting :P that way when you
do your 100+ model exports you know it hasnt froze Maya)