RfM
RiMel - Place On Nurbs

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Figure 1

Introduction

This tutorial presents five scripts that implement an interface that enables rib archives to be placed on a nurbs surface at postions that correspond to either a texture map or a procedural pattern. For example, figure 1 shows a few hundred simple cylindrical shapes placed on a distorted nurbs plane using a standard Maya "File" node that used the following map.

Figure 2 - Crop Circle Map

The UI that controls the application of the rib archives and sets the name of the File or other Maya node that generates the pattern is shown in figure 3.

Figure 3 - Transform Node UI

Step 1 - Install the Scripts

It is assumed the reader has followed the recommendations on customizing RenderMan for Maya presented in the tutorial, "RfM: Customizing".

Download and unzip placeOnNurbs.zip and move,
    getNurbsData.mel, and
    aimY.mel
to your maya/scripts directory.
Move,
    PlaceOnNurbs.rman
    PlaceOnNurbsUI.mel, and
    PlaceOnNurbsRI.mel
to your maya/projects/RfM_mel directory.

Step 2 - Using the Scripts

Launch Maya and check the RenderMan_for_Maya plugin is loaded.
    - create a nurbs plane,
    - deselect, then re-select the plane,
    - execute the folloiwng mel command PlaceOnNurbsUI();
    - toggle the transform and shape tabs in the attribute editor.
The interface, figure 3, should appear in the transform tab of the plane. Assign PxrDisney to the plane and browse for a suitable rib archive. Connect, say, Maya's File node to Disney's "Base Color". Assign a map to the File node and render.