10. Advanced Topics | Maya Programming with Python Cookbook

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Table Of Contents

Maya Programming with Python Cookbook

By : Pankaj K P Singh, Herbez

4 (4)

Maya Programming with Python Cookbook

4 (4)

By: Pankaj K P Singh, Herbez

Overview of this book

Maya is a 3D graphics and animation software, used to develop interactive 3D applications and games with stupendous visual effects. The Maya Programming with Python Cookbook is all about creating fast, powerful automation systems with minimum coding using Maya Python. With the help of insightful and essential recipes, this book will help you improve your modelling skills. Expand your development options and overcome scripting problems encountered whilst developing code in Maya. Right from the beginning, get solutions to complex development concerns faced when implementing as parts of build.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Sections

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Getting Started with Maya

1. Getting Started with Maya

Introduction

Using the script editor to investigate functionality

Running code from the script editor

Importing Maya's built-in Python functionality

Accessing documentation for a specific command

Understanding Create, Query, and Edit flags

Adding custom folders to your script path

Writing and running an external script

Calling a MEL script with Python

2. Creating User Interfaces

2. Creating User Interfaces

Introduction

Making a basic window

Simple controls – making a button

Retrieving input from controls

Using classes to organize UI logic

Using nested layouts

Using tabs and scrolling

Adding menus to your UIs

3. Working with Geometry

3. Working with Geometry

Introduction

Working with selected objects and checking node type

Accessing geometric data in polygonal models

Accessing geometric data in NURBS objects

Creating curves

Creating new polygonal faces

Creating new modifiers (noise)

Creating novel primitives (tetrahedron)

4. Giving Things a Coat of Paint – UVs and Materials

4. Giving Things a Coat of Paint – UVs and Materials

Introduction

Querying UV data

Laying out UVs with Python

Creating shading networks with code

Applying shaders to objects

Using shading nodes for non-shading tasks

5. Adding Controls – Scripting for Rigging

5. Adding Controls – Scripting for Rigging

Introduction

Creating skeletons with script

Setting up set-driven key relationships with script

Adding custom attributes and locking and hiding attributes

Setting up inverse kinematics (IK) with script

6. Making Things Move – Scripting for Animation

6. Making Things Move – Scripting for Animation

Introduction

Querying animation data

Working with animation layers

Copying animation from one object to another

Setting keyframes

Creating expressions via script

7. Scripting for Rendering

7. Scripting for Rendering

Introduction

Creating and editing lights

Creating GUI to control all lights

Creating cameras from code

Rendering a sprite sheet

8. Working with File Input/Output

8. Working with File Input/Output

Introduction

Using the fileDialog2 command to navigate the file system

Reading text files

Writing text files

Writing binary data

Reading binary data

Reading multiple types of files

9. Communicating with the Web

9. Communicating with the Web

Introduction

Opening a web page from script

Grabbing data from a server

Working with XML data

Working with JSON data

Sending POST data to a web server from Maya

10. Advanced Topics

10. Advanced Topics

Introduction

Wrapping Python functionality in MEL

Creating custom tools using contexts

Using script jobs to trigger custom functionality

Using script nodes to embed code in scenes

Combining script jobs and script nodes

Index

Index

Wrapping Python functionality in MEL

Although Python is definitely the preferred way to go about scripting for Maya, there are some features that still require you to use MEL. We'll be seeing several of those features in this chapter, but first we'll need to look at how to call Python code from MEL.

Getting ready

First off, we'll need a Python script to call. You can either use something you've already written or make something new. For the sake of this example, I'll use a new script that simply creates a NURBS sphere at the origin, as follows:

# listing of pythonFromMel.py
import maya.cmds as cmds

def makeSphere():
    cmds.sphere()

How to do it...

In this example, we'll create an MEL script that will in turn call our Python script. Create a new file and add the following code, being sure to save it with a .mel extension. In this case, we'll create a file named melToPython.mel:

global proc melToPython()
{
    python "import pythonFromMel";
    python "pythonFromMel.makeSphere()";
}

Note that...

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