Kid Colossus

Issue:Autodesk Maya adding a blendshape to a mesh after it has been smooth bound to joints causes the joint cluster to break.Causes:Input order of the deformers is incorrect. The skincluster should be above the blendshape.Solution:

Select your object.

Click the construction inputs button   on the Status Line and select All Inputs from the pop-up menu.

Locate the blendshape and the skin cluster.

Middle mouse drag the blendshape under the skin cluster.

If unable to rearrange the input, another option is to duplicate the mesh add blendshapes to the duplicate, then bind the duplicate and copy the skin weights from the original to the duplicate and use the duplicate as your new mesh.

For future rigs, be sure to create the blendshapes before performing a bind to the joints to avoid issues like these.

Smooth Bind Options:

Default +

Bind to - Selected Joints

Bind Method - Closest in Hierarchy

Skinning Method - Classic Linear

Before applying wrap deformer> Select wrap deformer options> deselect autoweight threshold

Selection: Ctrl+ click layer preview box in layers = bam.

Exporting 3DS Max > FBX. 

If the model is coming in triangulated, uncheck the box “preserve edge orientation”

Quicktime Gamma Shift.

1. Select Window

2. Show Movie Properties.

3. Select Video Track

4. Transparency > set to blend

5. Set Transparency level to 100%

6. Set Transparency to Straight Alpha

7. Save As.

Copy values from channel box to channel box faster. 

Downside, can only do one channel at a time. 

1) Select object with shitty info in channel box

2) Shift select object with good info in channel box

3) Highlight channel, (ex Trans X and value) 

4) Hit Tab. (Continue hitting tab and it will continuing copying channels.

For some reason at some point my AO render pass broke.

Set up a new AO pass using the first option here.

http://blog.digitaltutors.com/rendering-ambient-occlusion-passes-maya/

P.S.