I discovered MJ Poly Tools about a year ago and have been using it nearly every day since. At the time I was working in Maya 6.5 which I already considered a very versatile and powerful modeling application. Implementing MJ Poly Tools only made my modeling faster and actually, more enjoyable. The “select ring loop” and “edge loop split” tools make it very easy to keep geometry evenly spaced and makes loop splitting a snap. Say good by to the split face tool.

Alright, alright. So MJ Poly Tools is great, it’s simple and powerful. If you don’t already have it or use it, I suggest finding it and downloading it. You will be thanking Mikkel Jans (the creator) everyday thereafter. But this isn’t only a rant about how much I like this plug-in, it’s actually more of a rant about a little disappointment with the newest version of Maya!

Ok so Maya 7 has recently been shipped and what can I say its great, I love Maya and there a tons of new features and functionality within this latest release to keep me happy and learning for a while. Great. One of the cool little set of tools that have been upgraded is the polygon selection tools. You can now select ring loops, and edge loops and face rings and just about every combination of loops to satisfy all your selection needs. Good stuff. I mean alias basically used MJ Poly Tools as its inspiration for these selection tools. No problem. Not only do get the functionality of MJPT but you get it with cute little icons. But wait! Wait one very disappointing minute! Could there be something missing? You betcha buddy. Remember the “edge loop split” tool, you know the one that makes my, and everyone’s, life so much easier as a modeler? Maya 7 has no equal representation of that wonderful tool. Instead of creating a simple script to place an edge loop in the center of an edge they have tried, and failed, I might add, in upgrading the idea of an edge loop split tool. Maya now has the “Split Edge Ring Tool”. Ok so sounds perfect right? Wrong. We now have a tool which when dragged along an edge will loop split but you can’t snap it to the center of the edge. To make a perfect middle dissection of edges you have to select out of component mode and into object mode and go find the “weight” attribute in the channel box under “polySplitRing”. Too many steps!

Now this isn’t that big of a deal, because I still use MJ Poly Tools in Maya 7. No problem. Its just interesting that Alias tried to upgrade this tool, and in its efforts to make it sleek and powerful they instead blundered in translating a very perfect plug-in. You know what they say, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. I now have a new menu item that I will never use. Mikkel Jans you and your plug-in will live on in Maya 7, and if Alias can’t get it right, in later versions as well.

Filed under Software.