Pre-Comp File Creation and Updates
Chapter 9, Pre-Compositing

You can import render layers from a Maya 2008 file. When you import Maya render layers, a new composition is created with a stack of render layers. You must have Maya 2008 installed and licensed on your system before importing a Maya file. Maya 8.5 is not supported--see Before Importing a Maya File....

1. Select File > Import or press Ctrl + I.

2. In the Import Browser, locate the folder that contains the Maya scene(s).

3. Right-click the file you want to import and select Import Render Layers & Passes.

   Hint: You can also drag and drop the Maya file into a particular Toxik folder to start the import, which sets the destination of the import to the drop folder. Otherwise, the destination is the project root folder.

   

4. You are prompted to specify the render directory that contains the render layers. Paste or type this path into the dialog box and select OK.

   The render layers are imported.

   Note: For Maya files, by default, Maya expects the render files to be in the default location for the Maya project. Place them there to avoid having to input the location or add the correct path in the dialog box. On Windows, the location is C:/My Documents/maya/projects/default. You will need to locate the My Documents folder as it could at a different location, depending on where it was installed. On Linux, the location is: ${HOME}/maya/projects/default.

   

   Once the import is complete, a scene composition named after the Maya file and a folder containing the render layer footage compositions named after the Maya file.

   

5. Drag the new composition in to a Player or Schematic. The scene composition and associated render layer compositions are opened and the chain of Blend & Comp nodes in the scene composition matches the order and blend modes between the Maya render layers.

   

You can also re-import a new version of the Maya file and regenerate the render layer compositions. Once the import process begins, a pop-up is displayed.

If you have changed render layers in Maya and select Update, new versions of those render layer compositions are created. If you have added new render layers in Maya, those render layers will also be imported. However, update of the master scene composition is not supported. The workflow to update the scene composition is to re-import the Maya file and overwrite the scene composition.

Note: Renaming the render layers folder or the render layer compositions will impair the update process.

Note that Toxik supports multiple camera views for each render layer which creates a composition with one output per camera.