Around the Corner

Kinect for Xbox One

Another great week for tech. I’m in hog heaven reading all the information being shared regarding the newly-revealed Xbox One.

I’m obviously most interested in the upgrade to the Kinect technology. Here’s what I’ve gleaned, thus far:

• Full HD with 1080p resolution
• Use of something called “Active IR”, a type of time-of-flight depth detection rather than relying on structured light, allowing accurate depth data even in the dark
• Enhanced skeleton tracking, with muscular stress and joint orientation down to the finger level
• Heart rate estimation, presumably using something akin to the Eulerian video magnification that made such a splash earlier in the year
• Facial expression (and therefore mood) detection
• Tracks up to 6 players simultaneously

All of which needs much more console horsepower than the previous version of the Kinect technology – and keeping games responsive with the existing (and already long-in-the-tooth) Xbox 360 hardware was a major driver behind the decision to limit the resolution and ultimately accuracy of the original Kinect device – but the Xbox One looks set to deliver essentially 8x the performance of the Xbox 360. All of which looks very encouraging (if not downright amazing).

To say I’m impatient to get my hands on one of these is an understatement. I’m also very curious about how and when this tech will make it into an equivalent Kinect for Windows device, and how this will be reflected in an updated KfW SDK. At the lowest level, the current SDK provides RGB and depth frames – which are essentially captured by the two cameras built into the Kinect device – and I’m interested to know whether the “Active IR” data will be presented in a similar way, or whether the modified scanning technique will force an API change there.

The enhanced skeleton tracking capabilities will also lead to more skeleton information being presented, of course (apart from anything else, more joints being tracked will mean more – and probably reassigned – Joint IDs), but I’m sure there are more fundamental changes planned. Time will tell.

 

API wishlist surveys - Spring 2013

This year’s API wishlist surveys for Autodesk Maya and Autodesk 3ds Max are now live:

• Autodesk Maya
• Autodesk 3ds Max

Our Engineering teams use the results from these surveys to help steer their ongoing API development priorities, release on release. If you have feedback or specific requests regarding our APIs, this is a great way to get them in front of the right people inside Autodesk.

The deadline for completing these surveys is – July 28th, 2013 – so if you’re interested in providing us with feedback, please don’t procrastinate: while I expect they’ll remain open a little longer, the deadline probably won’t be extended by very much.

And I will, of course, post the survey' results link, once they're available sometimes in August.

API webcast archives

As part of our ADN Open work to move our API content to more accessible (search-engine-findable) locations, I'm posting our webcast archives to this blog. Some of these recordings are old now, but still contain useful information for people on legacy releases. And, being recordings of live webcasts, they are not as polished as our DevTV recordings. Note that the developer center pages contains additional material which go along the latest training webcast listed below.

3ds Max - http://www.autodesk.com/develop3dsmax

Title	Language	Date
3ds Max (C++)	English	July 2012
3ds Max (Intermediate)	English	May 2009

Maya - http://www.autodesk.com/developmaya

Title	Language	Date
Maya API (Python)	English	April 2012
Maya (Intermediate)	English	May 2009

MotionBuilder - http://www.autodesk.com/developmotionbuilder

Title	Language	Date
MotionBuilder API (Python)	English	May 2012
MotionBuilder API (Beginner)	English	May 2009

FBX - http://www.autodesk.com/developfbx

Title	Language	Date
FBX (C++)	English	June 2012

Call for proposals: Autodesk University 2013

As many of you will now be aware, the call for proposals for AU 2013 is now open and will remain so until May 19th. It’s always great to have people presenting fresh ideas at the conference, so think about whether you have something to share with fellow Autodesk customers/partners/developers and submit a proposal or two!

I'll follow-up in a few weeks with another call for presentation but for our ADN DevDays which will run just before AU (December 2nd) - you can see recording from last year here. If you come back in a few days on that link, you will be able to see more presentations than what was available until now.

Using Global Interpreter Locks (GIL) when developing Python code in C++

Python uses a Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) to ensures that Python code in only executing in a single thread at a time.

When you use the Python C API and/or expose C++ code to Python, you have to re-acquire the GIL each time you call in a C Python API. This is also true when writing Python extensions for Maya or when using the Python C API from a Maya plug-ins.

You will need to add these calls in a few high-level places in your code, like this:

PyGILState_STATE state = PyGILState_Ensure();
// call your python code here:
PyGILState_Release(state);

Distributing plug-ins/files on Maya (and 3ds Max)

You probably remember this article where I described in details how to work with Maya Modules and integrate your files and plug-ins in Maya. This time, I am going to explain what changes were made in Maya to support the Autodesk Exchange Store.

To submit an application / content package on Autodesk Exchange Store, you need to follow few but important rules. The application should be self-contained and easy to install for example. Self-contained means that all files should go in one single directory structure and outside the host application directory structure. In the past, I know, many people were copying their files directly into 'c:\Program Files\Autodesk\MayaNNNN' or '/Applications/Autodesk/MayaNNNN', but for Exchange this is not allowed and unacceptable.

The other thing with the legacy Maya Module approach was that you needed to have a text file posted under the user profile at a specific place, meaning the installer had to determine which Maya version you wanted to use in case you had many on your computer. Many people were instead having a readme to explain people to copy files here and here, to make changes in their Maya.env or userPrefs.mel file, etc... and that was true as well for the Maya Bonus Tools ;)

The last but not least limitation was about initializing the application in Maya. Like the Maya Bonus Tools, you could provide a userSetup.mel to initialize your menu, shelve, plug-ins, ... but in remember that Maya load one and only one userSetup.mel file (and only the first one found :(

The Exchange approach is that you now put your application in one common place, and describe your application. Any Autodesk software watch that folder and if the application says 'I am for Maya 2014', Maya 2014 will load the application. If it says 'I am for Maya 2014, AutoCAD 2014 and 3ds Max 2014 & 2015', these 4 app/version will load the application but not the others.

Describe your application

Let's take a quick look to my favorite little Maya Math node sample in Python. The XML description file looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ApplicationPackage SchemaVersion="1.0"
	ProductType="Application"
	AutodeskProduct="Maya"
	Name="MathNode"
	Description="Autodesk Maya MathNode"
	AppVersion="1.0.0"
	Author="Autodesk"
	AppNameSpace="com.autodesk.exchange.maya.mathnode"
	HelpFile="./Contents/docs/index.html"
	OnlineDocumentation="http://www.autodesk.com/maya"
	ProductCode="*"
	UpgradeCode="{52c87085-07d5-4cfa-b76e-e348553c30ac}" >
	
	<CompanyDetails Name="Autodesk"
		Phone=" "
		Url="http://www.autodesk.com"
		Email="labs.plugins@autodesk.com" />

	<!-- Prevent to load in older version than Maya 2008 -->
	<RuntimeRequirements SupportPath="./Contents/docs" OS="win64|macOS|linux" Platform="Maya" SeriesMin="2008"  />

	<Components>
		<RuntimeRequirements SupportPath="./Contents/docs" OS="win64|macOS|linux" Platform="Maya" SeriesMin="2008" />
		<MayaEnv expr="MAYA_SCRIPT_PATH+:=shelves" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/plug-ins/asdkMathNode.py" AutoLoad="True" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/scripts/AEasdkMathNodeTemplate.mel" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/scripts/MathNode_load.mel" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/icons/MathNode.png" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/shelves/MathNode_shelf.mel" />
	</Components>
	
</ApplicationPackage>

The 'ApplicationPackage' and the first 'RuntimeRequirements' tags are the ones all Autodesk Application are watching to determine if the package if something they should eventually consider loading. The OS, Platform, can contain multiple values.

Each following 'Components' tag will describe an entire application like here, or components. In short, I could have had something like:

	<Components>
		<RuntimeRequirements SupportPath="./Contents/docs" OS="win64" Platform="3dsMax" SeriesMin="2013" SeriesMax="2014" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/plug-ins/asdkMathNode-x64.dlu" AutoLoad="True" />
	</Components>
	<Components>
		<RuntimeRequirements SupportPath="./Contents/docs" OS="win32" Platform="3dsMax" SeriesMin="2013" SeriesMax="2013" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/plug-ins/asdkMathNode-x86.dlu" AutoLoad="True" />
	</Components>

	<Components>
		<RuntimeRequirements SupportPath="./Contents/docs" OS="win64|macOS|linux" Platform="Maya" SeriesMin="2008" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/plug-ins/asdkMathNode.py" AutoLoad="True" />
	</Components>

	<Components>
		<RuntimeRequirements SupportPath="./Contents/docs" OS="win64|macOS|linux" Platform="Maya|3dsMax" />
		<ComponentEntry ModuleName="./Contents/docs/ReadMeFirst.txt" />
	</Components>

Which tells there is an application for:

• 3ds Max 2013 - 32-bits
• 3ds Max 2013 & 2014 - x64
• Maya 2008 and beyond on Windows x64 / Max OSX, Linux

and a readme for

• all OS,
• 3ds Max and Maya (all releases)

Nothing really new for Maya, but no more user profile text file to tell where to find a module on disk. For 3ds Max this is a completely new way for plug-ins to work with 3ds Max and would recommend using that approach instead of copying into the 3ds Max directory structure.

Autoload

One new thing for Maya is that Maya will now call a <moduleName>_load.mel/.py file as soon as a module is detected. Is that _load script, it is your chance to initialize menus, shelves, or anything you want. Note this _load script is source'd right before the userSetup.mel script which gives you a chance to setup your application environment and let the user to change it if he needs to.

But, Maya will also load modules at runtime. That means you would not need to restart Maya if you decide to install an Exchange compliant application (this can be turned off if you unload the 'autoLoader' plug-in in the Plug-in Manager).

Installer

Because the files are self-contained, and we got an XML file which describe the application, it is very easy to create installers for the 3 platforms in few minutes. The MSI, PKG, and Shell script installers for Maya are entirely automated and takes only 5 minutes once you got your application working. There is no additional work to do - you give the path where to find the files, and the AppPacker tool reads the XML file and directory structure to produce all the installers. The ADN team will create these installers for you and will help you to make changes in your application for a better Exchange Store integration.

You are unsure where to start - go here and/or Autodesk Developer Center 

You got plug-ins for year without installer and interested to have one without knowing where to start? I got the scripts and tools on GitHub and willing to share them with individuals. If interested, drop me a line with your GitHub account name. In future, I'll make them in public repository, but at this time, I am still testing couple of more complex scenario.

 

a New Distribution Channel for Maya & 3ds Max

With the release of Maya 2014 and 3ds Max 2014 the Autodesk Exchange site makes it easier for plug-in, content, and tutorial developers to distribute and sell their content more easily to Autodesk customers.

This is a new channel to make new customers and does not necessarily means that you have to switch from your existing distribution channel to this one entirely. You should really see that as a new oportunity for you and your future customers to work together.

But behind the scene 3ds Max and Maya have both been mofidifed to support the Exchange Store for a better customer experience. So now, if you familiar with Mac OSX and the bundle approach, 3ds Max and Maya both have a modular bundle system in place to support plug-in application. A module (or bundle) is a self-contained directory which contains all the application files. 3ds Max and Maya (as well as other Autodesk applications) will watch these bundles and load them depending of what they are. In the next post, I'll go in details how to configure such system. Not only that was developed for Exchange, but 3rd party developers can take advantage of that system to install their application versus copying files in 3ds Max and Maya root directories. At the end, the ADN team developed some simple scripts and template for you to create installers in a very simple way. Curious? take a look to the 'Maya Bonus Tools' or 'Bulge-O-Matic from Di-O-Matic, Inc.' apps or read the next post for more details.

The Autodesk Exchange pages can be found at:

• 3ds Max - http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax-exchange 
• Maya - http://www.autodesk.com/maya-exchange

Both Maya and 3ds Max have direct links to the exchange app store from within the product under the help menu. In Maya go to "Help > Exchange Apps" in the main menu. In 3ds Max go to "Help > Autodesk Product Information > Exchange Apps".

According to the Autodesk Exchange developer center "apps" aren't restricted to plug-ins, and can be anything a customer will find useful. For example:

• Plug-ins
• Standalone applications
• Training tutorials
• E-books
• Content

Note that at the current time there is no cost to sign-up and Autodesk is currently taking no commission, but may do so in the future. For more information on that see the Publisher FAQ.

You feel it is too complicated, or the information given on the FAQ and/or WEB page confusing? Contact the Exchange Store team, there is always solutions to a problem.

If you have enough information and want to get started publishing your content for 3ds Max or Maya, you can go directly the following links:

• 3ds Max - http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/Publisher/Description?productline=3DSMAX
• Maya - http://apps.exchange.autodesk.com/Publisher/Description?productline=MAYA

Happy content publishing!

 

Building SIP, and PyQt for Maya 2014

This is an updated version for Maya 2014' PyQt build instructions.

This is an updated version of the Maya 2013 build instructions for PyQt and PySide (here). The very good news is that with Maya 2014, there is no more need to build PySide as it is coming by default in Maya :) 

libxml, openSSL, OpenAL, python2.7, qt-4.8.2-64, and tbb are also coming by default in the Maya include and lib folder, so unless you have a very specific need, you would not need to rebuild any of those libraries like before. Note as well that there is a 'C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2014\support\opensource' folder now which contains some of the community source. http://www.autodesk.com/lgplsource is also a location you want to remember for future.

I'll come back later with instructions to rebuild Qt itself for those who needs to, but again you do not need to build Qt to build PyQt anymore.

Maya 2014 also includes most of the tools we need to build PyQt without the need of compiling Qt source & tools - so in this post we will see the easy way to build PyQt.

Download SIP and PyQt source from 'http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk' - here I downloaded 'sip-4.14.5' and 'PyQt-win-gpl-4.10'. Unzip them in one folder, then you should get something like this:

Mac

/Users/cyrille/Documents/_Maya2014Scripts/sip-4.14.5
/Users/cyrille/Documents/_Maya2014Scripts/PyQt-mac-gpl-4.10

'/Users/cyrille/Documents/_Maya2014Scripts' being my local folder. Now the instructions, and bash scripts to build that stuff.

Follow the instructions from the API docs to setup your environment (Developer Resources > API Guide > Setting up your build environment > Mac OS X environment, in the Maya Documentation) 

Untar the /devkit/include/qt-4.8.2-include.tar.gz into /devkit/include/Qt

Copy /Resources/qt.conf into /bin/qt.conf and edit it like this:

[Paths]
Prefix=
Libraries=../MacOS
Binaries=../bin
Headers=../../../devkit/include/Qt
Data=..
Plugins=../qt-plugins
Translations=../qt-translations

Untar the qt-4.8.2-64-mkspecs.tar.gz into $MAYA_LOCATION/Maya.app/Contents/bin/mkspecs Unfortunately, this file is not present in the Maya Mac distribution, so you either need to get it from your Window or Linux Maya distribution, or from the Qt Mac source. Make sure the qconfig.pri looks like this:

qconfig.pri

#configuration
CONFIG += release def_files_disabled exceptions no_mocdepend stl x86_64 qt #qt_framework
QT_ARCH = macosx
QT_EDITION = OpenSource
QT_CONFIG +=  minimal-config small-config medium-config large-config full-config no-pkg-config dwarf2 phonon phonon-backend accessibility opengl reduce_exports ipv6 getaddrinfo ipv6ifname getifaddrs png no-freetype system-zlib nis cups iconv openssl corewlan concurrent xmlpatterns multimedia audio-backend svg script scripttools declarative release x86_64 qt #qt_framework

#versioning
QT_VERSION = 4.8.2
QT_MAJOR_VERSION = 4
QT_MINOR_VERSION = 8
QT_PATCH_VERSION = 2

#namespaces
QT_LIBINFIX = 
QT_NAMESPACE = 
QT_NAMESPACE_MAC_CRC = 

QT_GCC_MAJOR_VERSION = 4
QT_GCC_MINOR_VERSION = 2
QT_GCC_PATCH_VERSION = 1

You also need to create copy of the Qt lib files as fake .dylib files from the /MacOS directory. The script below will give you the commands to run to do that.

Build & Install SIP

#!/usr/bin/env bash

MAYAQTBUILD="`dirname \"$0\"`" # Relative
export MAYAQTBUILD="`( cd \"$MAYAQTBUILD\" && pwd )`" # Absolutized and normalized
cd $MAYAQTBUILD

export SIPDIR=$MAYAQTBUILD/sip-4.14.5
export MAYA_LOCATION=/Applications/Autodesk/maya2014

cd $SIPDIR
$MAYA_LOCATION/Maya.app/Contents/bin/mayapy ./configure.py --arch=x86_64
make
sudo make install

Build & Install PyQt

#!/usr/bin/env bash

MAYAQTBUILD="`dirname \"$0\"`" # Relative
export MAYAQTBUILD="`( cd \"$MAYAQTBUILD\" && pwd )`" # Absolutized and normalized
cd $MAYAQTBUILD

export MAYA_LOCATION=/Applications/Autodesk/maya2014
export QTDIR=$MAYA_LOCATION/Maya.app/Contents
export QMAKESPEC=$QTDIR/mkspecs/macx-g++
export INCDIR_QT=$MAYA_LOCATION/devkit/include/Qt
export LIBDIR_QT=$QTDIR/MacOS

if [ ! -f $QMAKESPEC/qmake.conf ];
then
  echo "You need to install qt-4.8.2-64-mkspecs.tar.gz in $QTDIR/mkspecs !"
  exit
fi
if [ ! -f $INCDIR_QT/QtCore/qdir.h ];
then
  echo "You need to uncompress $MAYA_LOCATION/devkit/include/qt-4.8.2-include.tar.gz in $INCDIR_QT !"
  exit
fi
# qt.conf - /Applications/Autodesk/maya2014/Maya.app/Contents/Resources
if [ ! -f $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf ];
then
  echo "You need to copy $QTDIR/Resources/qt.conf in $QTDIR/bin !"
  exit
fi

test=`grep "Data=../.." $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf`
if [ ! -z "$test" ];
then
  echo "You need to edit $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf to use 'Data=..'"
  exit
fi
test=`grep "Headers=../../include" $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf`
if [ ! -z "$test" ];
then
  echo "You need to edit $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf to use 'Headers=../../../devkit/include/Qt'"
  exit
fi
test=`grep "Libraries=../lib" $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf`
if [ ! -z "$test" ];
then
  echo "You need to edit $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf to use 'Libraries =../MacOS'"
  exit
fi
test=`grep "Plugins = qt-plugins" $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf`
if [ ! -z "$test" ];
then
  echo "You need to edit $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf to use 'Plugins=../qt-plugins'"
  exit
fi
test=`grep "Translations = qt-translations" $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf`
if [ ! -z "$test" ];
then
  echo "You need to edit $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf to use 'Translations=../qt-translations'"
  exit
fi

for mod in Core Declarative Designer DesignerComponents Gui Help Multimedia Network OpenGL Script ScriptTools Sql Svg WebKit Xml XmlPatterns
do
  if [ ! -f $QTDIR/MacOS/libQt${mod}.dylib ];
  then
    echo "You need to copy a fake Qt$mod dylib - cp $QTDIR/MacOS/Qt$mod $QTDIR/MacOS/libQt${mod}.dylib !"
    #cp $QTDIR/MacOS/Qt$mod $QTDIR/MacOS/libQt${mod}.dylib
    exit
  fi
done
if [ ! -f $QTDIR/MacOS/libphonon.dylib ];
then
  echo "You need to copy a fake phonon dylib - cp $QTDIR/MacOS/phonon $QTDIR/MacOS/libphonon.dylib !"
  #cp $QTDIR/MacOS/phonon $QTDIR/MacOS/libphonon.dylib
  exit
fi

export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$QTDIR/MacOS
export DYLD_FRAMEWORK_PATH=$QTDIR/Frameworks

export SIPDIR=$MAYAQTBUILD/sip-4.14.5
export PYQTDIR=$MAYAQTBUILD/PyQt-mac-gpl-4.10

cd $PYQTDIR
export PATH=$QTDIR/bin:$PATH
$QTDIR/bin/mayapy ./configure.py LIBDIR_QT=$LIBDIR_QT INCDIR_QT=$INCDIR_QT MOC=$QTDIR/bin/moc -w --no-designer-plugin -g
make -j 8
sudo make install

You're done! go to the testing paragraph at the end of the article.

Linux

/home/cyrille/Documents/_Maya2014Scripts/sip-4.14.5
/home/cyrille/Documents/_Maya2014Scripts/PyQt-mac-gpl-4.10

'/home/cyrille/Documents/_Maya2014Scripts' being my local folder. Now the instructions, and bash scripts to build that stuff.

Follow the instructions from the API docs to setup your environment (Developer Resources > API Guide > Setting up your build environment > Linux environments (64 bit), in the Maya Documentation).

Edit your qt.conf file (/usr/autodesk/maya2014-x64/bin) like below

[Paths]
Prefix=
Libraries=../lib
Binaries=../bin
Headers=../include/Qt
Data=../
Plugins=../qt-plugins
Translations=../qt-translations

Untar the /include/qt-4.8.2-include.tar.gz into /include/Qt

Untart the /mkspecs/qt-4.8.2-mkspecs.tar.gz into /mkspecs

Make qmake, moc executables from the Maya bin directory

sudo chmod aog+x /usr/autodesk/maya2014-x64/bin/moc
sudo chmod aog+x /usr/autodesk/maya2014-x64/bin/qmake

Build & Install SIP

#!/usr/bin/env bash

MAYAQTBUILD="`dirname \"$0\"`" # Relative
export MAYAQTBUILD="`( cd \"$MAYAQTBUILD\" && pwd )`" # Absolutized and normalized
cd $MAYAQTBUILD

export SIPDIR=$MAYAQTBUILD/sip-4.14.5
export MAYA_LOCATION=/usr/autodesk/maya2014-x64

cd $SIPDIR
$MAYA_LOCATION/bin/mayapy ./configure.py
make
sudo make install

Build & Install PyQt

#!/usr/bin/env bash

MAYAQTBUILD="`dirname \"$0\"`" # Relative
export MAYAQTBUILD="`( cd \"$MAYAQTBUILD\" && pwd )`" # Absolutized and normalized
cd $MAYAQTBUILD

export MAYA_LOCATION=/usr/autodesk/maya2014-x64
export QTDIR=$MAYA_LOCATION
export QMAKESPEC=$QTDIR/mkspecs/linux-g++-64
export INCDIR_QT=$MAYA_LOCATION/include/Qt
export LIBDIR_QT=$QTDIR/lib

if [ ! -f $QMAKESPEC/qmake.conf ];
then
  echo "You need to install qt-4.8.2-mkspecs.tar.gz in $QTDIR/mkspecs !"
  exit
fi
if [ ! -f $INCDIR_QT/QtCore/qdir.h ];
then
  echo "You need to uncompress $MAYA_LOCATION/include/qt-4.8.2-include.tar.gz in $INCDIR_QT !"
  exit
fi
# qt.conf - /Applications/Autodesk/maya2014/Maya.app/Contents/Resources
if [ ! -f $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf ];
then
  echo "You need to copy $QTDIR/Resources/qt.conf in $QTDIR/bin !"
  exit
fi

test=`grep "Headers=../include/Qt" $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf`
if [ -z "$test" ];
then
  echo "You need to edit $QTDIR/bin/qt.conf to use 'Headers=../include/Qt'"
  exit
fi

export SIPDIR=$MAYAQTBUILD/sip-4.14.5
export PYQTDIR=$MAYAQTBUILD/PyQt-x11-gpl-4.10

cd $PYQTDIR
export PATH=$QTDIR/bin:$PATH
$QTDIR/bin/mayapy ./configure.py LIBDIR_QT=$LIBDIR_QT INCDIR_QT=$INCDIR_QT MOC=$QTDIR/bin/moc -w --no-designer-plugin -g
make -j 8
sudo make install

You're done! go to the testing paragraph at the end of the article.

Windows

D:\__sdkext\_Maya2014 Scripts\sip-4.14.5
D:\__sdkext\_Maya2014 Scripts\PyQt-win-gpl-4.10

'D:\__sdkext\_Maya2014 Scripts' being my local folder. Now the instructions and scripts to build that stuff.

Follow the instructions from the API docs to setup your environment (Developer Resources > API Guide > Setting up your build environment > Windows environment (64‐bit), in the Maya Documentation)

Edit your qt.conf file (C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2014\bin) like below

[Paths]
Prefix=
Libraries=../lib
Binaries=../bin
Headers=../include/Qt
Data=../
Plugins=../qt-plugins
Translations=../qt-translations

Unzip the /include/qt-4.8.2-64-include.tar.gz into /include/Qt

Unzip the /mkspecs/qt-4.8.2-64-mkspecs.tar.gz into /mkspecs

Build & Install SIP

@echo off

set MAYAQTBUILD=%~dp0
set MAYAQTBUILD=%MAYAQTBUILD:~0,-1%
if exist v:\nul subst v: /d
subst v: "%MAYAQTBUILD%"
v:

set SIPDIR=v:\sip-4.14.5
set MSVC_DIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0
if [%LIBPATH%]==[] call "%MSVC_DIR%\VC\vcvarsall" amd64

set MAYA_LOCATION=C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2014
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;%MAYA_LOCATION%\include\python2.7;%MAYA_LOCATION%\Python\include
set LIB=%LIB%;%MAYA_LOCATION%\lib

cd %SIPDIR%
"%MAYA_LOCATION%\bin\mayapy" configure.py
nmake
nmake install

Build & Install PyQt

@echo off

set MAYAQTBUILD=%~dp0
set MAYAQTBUILD=%MAYAQTBUILD:~0,-1%
if exist v:\nul subst v: /d
subst v: "%MAYAQTBUILD%"
v:

set MAYA_LOCATION=C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2014
if exist m:\nul subst m: /d
subst m: "%MAYA_LOCATION%"
set MAYA_LOCATION=m:

set QTDIR=%MAYA_LOCATION%
set MSVC_VERSION=2010
set QMAKESPEC=%QTDIR%\mkspecs\win32-msvc%MSVC_VERSION%
if not exist "%QMAKESPEC%\qmake.conf" (
	echo "You need to uncompress %MAYA_LOCATION%\mkspecs\qt-4.8.2-64-mkspecs.tar.gz !"
	goto :end
)
if not exist "%MAYA_LOCATION%\include\Qt\QtCore\qdir.h" (
	echo "You need to uncompress %MAYA_LOCATION%\include\qt-4.8.2-64-include.tar.gz in %MAYA_LOCATION%\include\Qt !"
	goto :end
)
findstr /L /C:"Headers=../include/Qt" %MAYA_LOCATION%\bin\qt.conf >nul 2>&1
if ERRORLEVEL 1 (
	echo "You need to edit %MAYA_LOCATION%\bin\qt.conf to use 'Headers=../include/Qt'"
	goto :end
)

set SIPDIR=v:\sip-4.14.5
set PYQTDIR=v:\PyQt-win-gpl-4.10

set MSVC_DIR=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0
if [%LIBPATH%]==[] call "%MSVC_DIR%\VC\vcvarsall" amd64

set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;%MAYA_LOCATION%\include\python2.7;%MAYA_LOCATION%\Python\include
set LIB=%LIB%;%MAYA_LOCATION%\lib

cd %PYQTDIR%
set PATH=%QTDIR%\bin;%PATH%
"%MAYA_LOCATION%\bin\mayapy" configure.py LIBDIR_QT=%QTDIR%\lib INCDIR_QT=%QTDIR%\include\Qt MOC=%QTDIR%\bin\moc.exe -w --no-designer-plugin
nmake
nmake install

:end
pause

You're done! go to the testing paragraph at the end of the article.

Testing

Copy and paste this example in the Maya Script Editor (in a Python tab), and execute the code:

import sys
from PyQt4 import QtGui


class Example(QtGui.QWidget):
    
    def __init__(self):
        super(Example, self).__init__()
        
        self.initUI()
        
    def initUI(self):      

        self.btn = QtGui.QPushButton('Dialog', self)
        self.btn.move(20, 20)
        self.btn.clicked.connect(self.showDialog)
        
        self.le = QtGui.QLineEdit(self)
        self.le.move(130, 22)
        
        self.setGeometry(300, 300, 290, 150)
        self.setWindowTitle('Input dialog')
        self.show()
        
    def showDialog(self):
        
        text, ok = QtGui.QInputDialog.getText(self, 'Input Dialog', 'Enter your name:')
        
        if ok:
            self.le.setText(str(text))
        
ex = Example()

 If you see the dialog is showing, you are all set :)

 

Selection time in MotionBuilder isn't as fast as expected

If you are using MotionBuilder 2012 and above, you should use the functions FBBeginChangeAllModels() and FBEndChangeAllModels() to accelerate the selection time otherwise the selection might not be smooth like in the UI.

Here is an example:

import time
from pyfbsdk import *

FBBeginChangeAllModels()
s_Time = time.clock()
all_Grp = FBSystem().Scene.Groups
for grp in all_Grp :
    for item in grp.Items :
        item.Selected = True
e_Time = time.clock()
FBEndChangeAllModels()
print "Select","ProccesTime = %s"%(e_Time - s_Time),"OK"

If now you try the same code without these 2 function calls, you see the difference immediately.

Maya, 3ds Max, SoftImage, Mudbox, MotionBuilder 2014 for developers

    

    

Following the new "origami" theme

Tomorrow will be the first day where the 2014 family of Autodesk products will be available around the world. You’ll no doubt find lots of information on the interwebs regarding the product’s features (including the AREA), so I’m going to focus specifically on the opportunities – and requirements – the new release presents to developers.

Firstly, ADN members should refer to the (as ever) thorough information produced by the ADN team and posted under the “Events” section of the ADN web site.

I have been holding my breath for couple of weeks now, but I think it is time now to publically talk about what's coming.

In today’s post we’ll take a high-level look at 3ds Max 2014 / Maya 2014 for developers, and then drill into a couple of the specific areas over the coming days/weeks.

Binary compatible release for 3ds Max

The first thing to mention is that this release is binary application compatible with 3ds Max 2013. (If you’re not sure what this means, this ancient – at least from this blog’s perspective – post should help.) Applications built for 3ds Max 2013 should just work with 3ds Max 2014. It’s also worth noting that we’re still targeting .NET Framework 4.0 with this release.

Reading between the lines, you should realise that we’re still building 3ds Max 2014 with the C++ compiler provided in Visual Studio 2010 SP1, for now (although we’re using the VS 2012 IDE with the 2010 platform toolset, in case that’s of interest to people).

Binary break release for Maya (as always)

Unlike 3ds Max, Maya is not binary compatible, so you will need to recompile your C++ plug-ins to get them work on Maya 2014. If you are programming using Python, the only change is that Maya 2014 is now using the Python 2.7.3 vs 2.6.4, but that should be a transparent change unless you need additional Python modules such as PyQt. We’re still building Maya 2014 with the C++ compiler provided in Visual Studio 2010 SP1 for Windows, for now (although we’re using the VS 2012 IDE with the 2010 platform toolset, in case that’s of interest to people). And gcc 4.1.2 for Linux, and Xcode 3.2.1 (gcc 4.2.1) for Mac OSX.

Exchange Store for applications

I’m pleased to announce that the Autodesk Exchange store is now open to all for app submissions for 3ds Max and Maya 2014. The Autodesk Exchnage store isn't new, it exists for almost 2 years now, but tomorrow we will officially launch it for anyone to submit plug-ins, scripts, etc...

Click on the link below to visit the store.

Once you’re in the store of your choice, sign in using your Autodesk Single-Sign-On account and click on the ‘publisher’ link to start submitting your app:

Next week, I'll blog to explain more on the requirements and how to prepare the application to be submitted.