Documentation: The MARUI Settings Dialog

The MARUI Settings Dialog

Click the Settings icon in the MARUI shelf tab to bring up the settings menu.
Icon Settings

Settings Vr

The MARUI Settings Dialog categorizes the available settings into three tabs: “VR”, “Display”, and “User Interface”.

 

VR Settings

VR Priority

The VR Priority Setting controls how much processor power is reserved for the Maya UI.
A lower value will improve VR performance, but the Maya window and mouse may become slow or even unresponsive.
(Default: 1)

Maya Viewport Refresh Rate

This setting controls how often the viewports in the Maya desktop window will be refreshed.
A lower number (higher refresh rate) will make it possible to use the default Maya viewport while MARUI is running, but will reduce VR performance.
(Default: 1000ms)

Ocular Dominance

Just as there are “right-handed” and “left-handed” people, everyone has a “dominant eye” which he or she uses predominantly, for example when taking aim.
In VR this is important, because when pointing at objects in a distance we naturally use our dominant eye.
If you experience that your interactions seem to be off to one side (or example: clicking on one object but accidentally selecting the object next to it), then your ocular dominance may be set incorrectly.

In order to find out which of your eyes is dominant, you can perform the following self-test:
Oculardominance

  • Hold your hands in front of you, forming a triangle.
  • Looking through the triangle, focus on some object in the distance.
  • While staying focused on the object, slowly move your hands towards your eyes.
  • When your hands are very close to your face, you will discover which eye you were using to look at the object. This is your dominant eye.

VR Environment

MARUI Desktop Window

This will define how large the MARUI window will appear on your desktop.
This is useful if you intend to have other people see the main user’s view in VR (for example when demonstrating MARUI to an audience.
The desktop window size has no effect on the display resolution in VR.
This setting can only be set before you start MARUI. It is not possible to change the size of the MARUI desktop window while MARUI is running.

Gamma Correction

This adjusts the brightness inside the head-set.
If your scene is very bright or very dark, you can use this setting to make MARUI display it brighter or darker.
This only affects the VR view inside the head-set.

Background Color

This sets the background color in the VR environment.

CubeMap Environment

Here you can specify the virtual environment for your scene.
MARUI provides two default environments: a neutral “plane” and a visually pleasing “lake” environment,
or you can disable cubemap environment altogether, in which case a flat color will be displayed (“empty”).

You can also load your own cube-map texture to display as a VR environment.
JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF, PSD, and TGA formats are supported.
The cube-map textures must be square and of a pixel size that is a power-of-two (512×512, 1024×1024, 2048×2048, …).

Often, cube-maps follow a naming convention that describes their axis in the coordinate system.
These relate to the MARUI naming convention in the following way:

  • negX : Left
  • negY : Down (ie: the floor)
  • negZ : Front (ie: your view direction)
  • posX : Right
  • posY : Up (ie: the sky)
  • posZ : Back (ie. behind your back)

The files will only be loaded when you click the “Set CubeMap Files” button.
The “Render CubeMap Environment” checkbox must be checked in order to see it.

Set scene display scale, position, and orientation

Here you can set the VR view of your scene so than Maya units of scale match a certain scale in reality.
Thus you can ensure that an object that is 1 meter long in Maya is also 1 meter long in VR.
This setting will not prevent you from changing the display scale manually by zooming in or out later.

You can also choose the position of the Maya scene in relation to real-world millimeters.
If you set the position to (0, 0, 0), then the Maya origin will be on the floor in the center of the room as you defined it in the StreamVR or Oculus Room Setup.

AutoSave

MARUI can be set to automatically save your Maya scene at a given time interval (in minutes).
MARUI uses Maya’s “increment and save” feature to protect your original Maya scene file from being overwriten.

Display Settings

The “Display” tab in the settings dialog offers settings regarding how your Maya scene will be displayed in VR.
These settings can also be accessed via scripting when using the MARUI_Display Command.

Clipping Planes

Clipping distances are set in meters or real-world space.
They will stay the same in relation to the real world, even when you zoom in or out, so you won’t have to adjust the distance when the Maya scale of your scene changes.
When you experience flickering, try setting narrower clipping planes.

Line Width

This adjust the width at which wireframe lines and splines are displayed in VR.
If you are having trouble selecting polygon edges or NURBS splines, try setting this value higher.
This value can be changed while MARUI is running.

Shading, Lighting, Shadows

In this section you can choose the style of shading (wireframe, solid, textured, wireframe on textured)
and lighting (Maya default lighting, use all lights, use selected lights).
You can also turn cast-shadows on and off.

Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO)

In this section you can enable / disable SSAO and set its parameters
including amount, radius, filter radius, and samples.
These are the same display parameters as in the Maya rendering settings for Hardware 2.0 renderer.

 

User Interface Settings

The “User Interface” tab in the settings dialog offers settings for the MARUI User Interface.

Selection Options

MARUI offers several options regarding the way in which you can select objects.

Proximity-based selection
Instead of pointing at distant objects, you can set MARUI to only select objects that are in 3-dimensional proximity to your controller. This can be helpful in very cluttered scenes or when trying to avoid selecting the back side of an object.

When the selection tool is active, you can drag to start a “selection box”. It will select all objects (or components) that intersect with the box.

Please see the following video for an in-depth explanation of the different selection modes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWzZk7vgUok&list=PLYt4XosVlCmWKxhYrVzBwu8yEXVGm3jwg&index=1

Selection Tolerance
This setting specifies how precisely you must “hit” an object or component to select it.
A low tolerance can make it difficult to select single vertices in 3D space if your hand is not very steady.
However, a too large tolerance may lead to unintended selections such as selecting the back-side of polygon objects.

Click-Drag Threshold Distance
This is the distance (in millimeter) at which MARUI recognizes your interaction as a dragging motion, rather than a “click”.
If you are having trouble keeping your hand still when clicking in VR, increase this value.

Click-Drag Threshold Rotation
This is the rotational angle (in degrees) at which MARUI recognizes your interaction as a dragging motion, rather than a “click”.
If you are having trouble keeping your hand still when clicking in VR, increase this value.

Instant Select-and-Drag
When you enable this option, MARUI will perform a selection operation automatically when you use the VR controller trigger.
Thus you can quickly grab and drag objects without having to select them in a prior selection operation.
On the other hand, you will always loose the current selection when starting a dragging motion.
Please see the following video for a brief illustration on how this feature works.
https://youtu.be/u80bLS07umA?t=19

Navigation Mode

  • Disable: Pressing the navigation (shoulder) button on the controller will have no effect.
  • Grabbing-the-Air: Move the world around it by “grabbing” it.
  • Maya-mouse-style: Rotate around a selection pivot, similar to the way the Maya viewport works.
  • Joystick-style: Drive through the Maya scene similar to operating a vehicle by joystick.

For an in-depth explanation of the modes, please see the article on Navigation in VR.

Keep Global Up-Axis
With this option enabled, “upwards” in VR will always remain “upwards” in the real world.
This is useful when you enter a scene with a clearly defined “ceiling” and “floor”, such as an architectural model.

Keep Rotation
With this option enabled, you will not be able to rotate the scene in any direction with the navigation buttons on the controllers.
You will still be able to move through the scene, but not rotate it.

Snapping

In the snapping section you can set the distance over which the basic Maya tools snap to units, curves, or vertices when you have Snapping enabled.

Windows

In the Windows section, you can decide whether MARUI should automatically open the VR NumPad keyboard when you click into a numeric input text field in a floating window.

Handedness

Here you can switch between left-handed and right-handed mode.

Saving, loading, and resetting settings

At the bottom of the Settings window you will find buttons to safe and load your settings.
MARUI stores settings as a MEL script named “MARUI_VR_settings.mel” in your Maya “prefs” folder.
This folder is usually located at
C:\Users\<your name>\Documents\maya\<maya version>\prefs
for example, for a user named “Max” and Maya version 2018, this folder would be:
C:\Users\max\Documents\maya\2018\prefs

Upon loading the MARUI plug-in, it will try to find an existing settings file and load it. Thus your settings will be automatically restored every time you load MARUI.

If you want to reset your settings to the MARUI defaults, find the “MARUI_VR_settings.mel” in your Maya prefs/ folder and delete it.