djx blog

I always tell people to never modify the original maya mel scripts. Always make changes to a copy that is in your local scripts folder. This modified copy will over-ride the original maya version.

The downside to this is that when you upgrade to a new version of maya, the modified script may now be out of date, and since it still overrides the newer version, it could cause unpredictable problems.

A while ago I modified createMentalRayGlobalsTab.mel to add the ability to choose a tone mapper when creaing the physical sun/sky environment. After upgrading to maya 2008 sp1 this week I discovered that the "Render Settings" window loaded with an unhelpful error message and was completely blank. It took me a while to realize that my modified createMentalRayGlobalsTab.mel was to blame.

Often when things go wrong after an upgrade people start by removing their prefs folder, but if you have modified mel scripts, try removing them first.

I have updated the createMentalRayGlobalsTab.rar on the downloads page. It now contains a sp1 version as well as the original.