Maya Booleans is a plug-in that
allows you to do polygonal boolean operations in Maya. Those operations include intersection, union,
and difference. The booleans can also animate! Click on the image to the left to see a quicktime movie of a Maya
boolean operation in motion.
Maya Booleans is now available. You can download it here on the website. All we ask is that if you decide to try out the plug-in, please email your company information including: company name, contact person, and phone number. The plug-in expires March 1st. Below are the instructions on how to install the plug-in.
Installation
1.) Download the file into your home directory.
2.) gunzip Booleans.tar.gz
3.) tar -xvf Booleans.tar
4.) type INSTALL
5.) edit your userSetup.mel. If the INSTALL script didn't detect a userSetup.mel in your maya/scripts directory, it copies the new userSetup.mel to that location. If you already have one, which you most likely do, edit your file to make sure it contains everything from the one we have provided, which is in your home directory.
6.) run maya
7.) In maya, go under Window/General Editors/Plug-In Manager. A dialog will pop up. Find Booleans.so. To the right of it press loaded and auto-load. A Booleans menu should appear on the modeling menu bar. Setup is now complete.
How to use
Using the plug-in is pretty simple. Select two polygonal objects you want to boolean. Then, select the opeation you want from the booleans menu. A new object will appear, which is the boolean result. Note that this object can be moved and animated, along with the original, changing the boolean result. You can dynamically change the type of operation performed in the channel box, by left-clicking on operation, under the boolean INPUTS.
Bugs
1.) Smoothing --The major bug with the plug-in is that the boolean object's normals are not smoothed. You will have to smooth the normals manually.
1.) Patch 2758 --Maya Booleans may crash if you do not have SGI patch 2758. You can get the patch from the SGI website.
