Set Dressing in Maya
Table of Contents
Summary
This document details the workflow of set dressing in Maya with SYNK, highlighting essential tools and workflow, hierarchy and assets management. Set dressing is the task of populating and dressing a set, using a library of pre-created assets.
Tutorial Video
Starting the task
Ftrack
In order to start working on the dressing of your set, you will first need to:
Make sure you’re logged in to Ftrack connect, which is a standalone app.
Travel to the Set Dressing task of the asset you want to work on. Set Dressing tasks are specific to set and environment assets.
Launch the SYNK Maya action.
A version of Maya which includes the SYNK Pipeline will now launch automatically.
Maya
Once Maya opens, you will be greeted by a window that will allow you to select which version of the file you want to work with.
Open the version you want to work with or create a new version and start set dressing.
Tools
Set Dressing with SYNK Maya will require the use of tools from the Tools window.
The three most important tools will be discussed below.
Asset Browser
When creating the first version of a dressing file in Maya, linked asset models will be automatically referenced in your scene and grouped under a root node with the same name as the set you’re working on (the sanity check will always look if linked assets are present in the scene).
If the linked assets that were loaded at the creation of the scene aren’t enough to complete the set dressing, you can always add new assets to the scene with the Asset Browser. A link from that asset to the set will automatically be created in ftrack when the file is published.
Usually you should only load assets from the Modeling task.
If you need to remove an asset, remove the reference by right clicking on it in the hierarchy, then select Remove reference, then delete the empty locator. This will not delete the link on ftrack!
Duplicate Reference
Set Dressing files work only with referenced scenes. Everything that isn’t a reference won’t be registered to the file. To add an additional asset that is already in the scene you shouldn’t use the Asset Browser but you should use the Duplicate Reference tool.
NEVER press Ctrl+D on an asset in the set dressing scene! This will not create a correct duplicate in the pipeline!
Asset Variant Switcher
If you need to use a different variant of an asset in the scene you can easily switch it to another one with this tool.
Manipulating the assets
You are now ready to rotate, move and scale up and down the referenced models (be careful with texture deformations! There are special cases of assets that can go higher in scale values only because the shader is projected on it).
All of these operations are to be done on the locator, not the reference (but the reference transforms should be locked anyway). This is why there is a Locator Snapping active by default that automatically selects the parent locator when you click on any object.
Creating placeholders and publishing them
If you want to create a placholder asset from within the Set Dressing and publish it to update it automatically later on, you can use the Create Asset From Selection tool.
Best Practices
Outliner Hierarchy
The outliner doesn’t require a specific structure except that the root node needs to be the name of the set following the SYNK naming convention.
The way you group assets below to build the set is as you prefer. However, please make groupings when it makes sense so it’s easier to read and manage. Here is an example of an outliner structure and grouping of assets:
Never move groups as transform informations are only written from the locators of the assets. Move the locators individually instead.
Naming
You can’t rename the locator node of the assets you import into the scene. However, you can create groups and rename them to your liking. Just keep it clean and clear so it’s easy to understand what they group or which area of the set they cover.