Symbiotic Design:  Maya To XAML Exporter
Using Alias | Maya with Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation* aka Avalon

**** Updated For Maya 6, 6.5, and 7.  Now includes textures, materials, and transforms!
Download MayaToXAML Beta 2 
If you receive an error opening the zip directly from the site or the file is empty or corrupted, try right clicking the link and saving the file to your desktop before opening.

* this software is distributed freely, as is, with no warranties. 

Installing Maya To XAML

• Extract the contents of the compressed file.
• Copy the correct version of the [MayaVersion]/MayaToXAML.mll file to your bin/plug-ins directory.
• Copy the scripts/ExportXAML.mel to the Alias/Maya/scripts directory.
• Launch Maya > and go to the Window Menu > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager...
• In the Plug-in Manager > Click loaded and auto load next to MayaToXAML.mll

Using Maya To XAML

• Open or create a new mesh file: File > New Scene or Open Scene...

Note:  If your mesh is NURBS, you will need to convert it to polygons.  To convert to polygons, go to the Modeling view and select the mesh.  In the Edit NURBS menu, click the Rebuild Surface Options button icon.  Choose the Polygons option, in the Output Geometry section and click Rebuild.  You can optionally combine all meshes in your scene, before exporting.  This is suggested, for this version of the exporter, since models are not translated to new XAML scene locations during export.  However if you need to apply materials to each object separately, you can translate the models in Visual Studio .net after exporting.

To export the mesh data, go to the File menu and click the Export All Options icon.  Choose the XAML file type.  The only export items supported in this version are objects, object instances.  Click the Export All button and enter the file name.  The mesh file is exported as a .xaml file to the specified location. Note:  You must place the scene in a new XAML window in order to use it in a xaml application.

Here are some tests I ran for the exporter.  I ran the export on an 18mb mesh and loaded it up in Visual Studio .net 2005.

Here is the Maya view of the model.  A huge thank you to Mike Fudge, an awesome 3d artist for EA Games.  His works include The Matrix, NHL 2005, and more!

New Features

• Materials, textures, transformations(rotate,translate,scale).

Future Features

• Lights, Cameras, Action!(animation).
• Tutorial on game character with baked textures.
• Real time XAML preview in Maya.
• Mac OS X Version.  This is entirely unmanaged C++, so it should be a smooth port.

Known Issues

• Scene cameras and lights are not exported. A default camera and set of lights are exported instead.
• Scenes with a very large landscape will have culling issues. To resolve this issue, turn the farplane distance up in the exported camera object.
• Scenes with some group types do not export. Removing the groups will resolve this issue.
• Export options do not actually do anything at the moment. All exportable scene data is exported.

A Quick History of Maya and XAML/WPF
Incorporation of 3D design in video production, computer generated animation, and graphics has created a sea change in the entertainment and media industry with the evolution of faster computers and more accessible broadband information access.  At the advent of designing in 3D in the digital space, people could envision the advantages and features that this type of design could have in desktop applications and the internet.  However it was difficult and time consuming to implement.  Resultingly it took some time for this technology to get a foothold in the market.

In the mid to late 1990's companies such as Silicon Graphics (SGI) first explored the possibilities of 3D to enhance the user experience.  SGI broke ground with the first 3D chat and web player called "Cosmo Player".  This application was comprised of basic 3D modeling tools that could create realistic environments where people could meet online in a virtual space.  They could assign themselves a selected Avatar and put that object into an Open GL rendered scene along with other individuals in the same virtual space.  This scenario has become more practical and realistic in more recent times with faster processors and broader technology access.

There were detractors to this setup.  SGI hardware was costly and they realized that they needed to stay on top of their competitors like Max and Lightwave on the Windows platform. Competitors, such as  Alias, released a version of Maya for both Mac and Windows.  Like Apple Mac OS of today, Alias Wavefront was able to develop the software to run on a cheaper Intel chip.  The goal to have entirely real-time photorealistic 3D on desktops by 2010 had been set by most software companies in the graphics sector. 2010- what a revolutionary year that could be when the best in graphics is available to the common PC not just industrial computers.

SGI's commercial assets were Softimage and Alias, software applications.  SGI announced a spin off of Alias | Wavefront into a separate company and Microsoft purchased Softimage.  They both believed there was a future lay in developing these applications.  Meanwhile, SGI banked their future on high end hardware and the Irix OS that is used in medical fields and large government organizations.

Another player in this field was an upstart company based in San Francisco, Macromedia.  They developed a vector based UI called Flash.  Their attempts at creating a desktop application platform were not as successful.  They ran a quick launch with Macromedia Flex but ran into cost issues and Flashes downfall being no windows integration and no propagation into the offline user experience.  This tool was not as attractive to desktop developers because it lacked the integration with core operating system functionality and the desktop development tools.  Arguably, they tried to fix these shortcomings with jGenerator, later known as Lazlo, and Flex.  Flash was developed as a web platform and pushed into the desktop and kiosk markets.  They looked at it from the top down instead of bottom up and pushed a web product as a desktop development tool, vs. a desktop development tool as a web product.  Flash will remain a widely popular platform for the web and will always be the cross platform leader in vector UI.

Maya went from IRIX (SGI) to running on Windows (the same is true for Softimage), and Alias was just acquired by Autodesk.  Alias won an academy award for Mental Ray, "a highly programmable computer-graphics renderer incorporating ray tracing and global illumination to realistically simulate the behavior of light in computer-generated imagery." Alias|Wavefront's Maya received highest honor the Academy can bestow - an Oscar® statuette for "... the development of a 3D animation, dynamics, modeling, and rendering production tool known as Maya.  With its significant and dominant impact on the motion picture industry, the Maya software package offers a robust and widely used commercial visual effects tool with a rich infrastructure for extension and customization.",  so photo realistic that it has changed special effects in the motion picture industry.  Download a free version of Maya Personal Learning Edition at www.alias.com.

Better graphics is the singlemost important feature of a compelling UI, and upstart companies such as Wavefront and Apple realized this.  Enter a surprising player in this field, Microsoft.  Microsoft applications have not been known for their compelling user experience.  Windows is a form meets function application, having none of the aqueous design like Mac OS X, for example.  The dark horse in this race, Microsoft made a non- headline-making purchase of Softimage.  Was this a peek into what they hoped to add to their user experience?  I can only imagine that Microsoft's rationale for this was to fill the gaps with Avalon, their next highly anticipated Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Forms predecessor.