question about scaling objects
 

I was hoping someone with a few minutes might be able to help me out. I am interested in using maya for pc game development and have started working on making skyscraper models. My main question is how to figure out how to scale your objects to a "life like" size. For example... the same size buildings used in GTA vice city. When I am making my models, I've noticed once I scale them to a certain size, they start to dissapear from the viewplane. Is there a setting I can change or am I missing a fundamental concept here? Do I need to make all my models independently and import them into some sort of gaming engine like ut2004 level editor? Any advice would be appreciated and if anyone has any maya specific links for pc game development that would be awesome.. Thanxs

You need to adjust the draw distance of the camera... I'm not sure exaaaaaactly what the setting is off hand... but its possible through maya.

thanxs for the reply
 

thanxs for the fast reply and will look into it. Also, if you happen to know, I am interested in creating large scale outdoor environments. Is this possible using maya or do I need to go with other software like animatek world builder. Thanxs again

Heh, I'm a bit of a newbie to Maya, but from what I've seen it can do large scale outdoor pictures... but will it be your best option?

And I actually got the menu combination now -- (in the viewing window of whatever camera you want to increase the draw distance of)

View -> Camera Attribute Editor -> Far clip plane (set this value to the maximum draw distance of the camera)

As for Maya's outdoors capacities:

http://www.highend3d.com/artists/art...oanala&iid=194

I forgot how to do it this second but you might try using different units of measurement. You can probobly find how to change this in the help>contents and search.

Hey Vion.

You just need to alter the values for the far clip plane if you find your scene is disappearing. Select the relative camera where the scene is disappearing, activate the attribute editor, then boost it up to about 1000 - 3000, I find this ample. If it still is looking wierd, the near clip plane may also need adjusting, try setting this to a higher number too, such as 0.5.

Where I work we have to create a lot of scenes to scale. We use a scale of 1/10th, which is really good. If your building is, say, 200m high, simply divide by 10 to get the distance in maya units...apply this to everything to get a nicely scaled scene.

Hope this helps.

LisaG :alien:

thanxs for the help everyone
 

thanxs for the help everyone.. I tried the methods above and got everything working as I need it :) I think I'm god to go for now. Hopefully i will have something to post/share soon and can get some constructive criticism. Have a good one....

probably the easiest thing to do to determine scale from maya to the game is to use the grid in Maya and assume that each one is a foot or yard or whatever. Scale an object (cube is easy) as it should be with that assumption and export it into the game.

In the game, check it's size compared to an object in the game of the same size you want. Make a note of the difference, if any, and calculate your objects like so from then on.

So, for example, if a cube six units tall is exported into the game and is about the size of a character, you can assume 6 units is approx. 6 feet and go from there.