What’s New in the Maya 2013 API?

• The “devkit/plug-ins” folder has been reorganized so that the plug-in associated files are encapsulated under one folder and the plug-in project will be parented under a single parent solution file called “Plug-ins.sln”
• The module support for plug-in distribution has been improved so that you will be able to more easily create a distributable deployment of your plug-in.
• New attribute pattern API classes
• MAttributePattern: class that will provide a pattern of attributes to be applied to nodes as dynamic attributes or to node classes as extension attributes.
• MAttributePatternArray: class that will provide methods for manipulating arrays of attribute patterns.
• MPxAttributeFactory: base class added for user-defined attribute pattern factories.
• New threaded device node classes added for creating threaded Maya device nodes
• MPxThreadedDeviceNode: base class added for creating threaded Maya device nodes.
• MPxClientDeviceNode: extension of MPxThreadedDeviceNode, intended for creating Maya devices that act as clients.
• MCharBuffer (MPxThreadedDeviceNode.h): utility class added to deal with reference to a char* type.
• A group of new classes added under namespace MHWRender to work with index buffer and vertex buffer in Viewport 2.0
• MComponentDataIndexing: added class for storing index mapping when vertices are shared
• MComponentDataIndexingList: added class that defines a list of MComponentDataIndexing objects   
• MHWGeometryUtilities: added a utility class for rendering geometry in Viewport 2.0, its wireframeColor() function will get the final wireframe color the draw can use.
• MGeometryExtractor: added base class for extracting renderable geometry, constructed an instance of this class to populate buffers with vertex and indexing data.
• MIndexBufferDescriptor (MHWGeometry.h): added class represents a description of an indexing scheme, indexing type, primitive type, primitive stride and component information.
• MIndexBufferDescriptorList (MHWGeometry.h): added a list of MIndexBufferDescriptor objects.
• MLightParameterInformation (MDrawContext.h): added a class for providing lighting information, which will allow for access to various per-light information accessible via the MDrawContext class in Viewport 2.0.
• MPxVertexBufferGenerator: added a base class for user defined vertex buffer generators.
• New classes added to provide callback hook into Maya software’s drag-and-drop mechanism.
• MExternalDropCallback: This class will be used to register callbacks to gain access to Maya software’s drag-and-drop information during dropping an external object to Maya. You can replace or augment Maya software’s drop behavior for external drag-and-drop operations.
• MExternalDropData: a class that represents data that a drag-and-drop operation carries if dragging from an external application and dropping onto Maya. It typically will arrive from a MExternalDropCallback callback method.

Comments

[Michael]

Maybe its noob question but why in Maya 2013 Python API MImage class is omitted?

[Kristine Middlemiss]

All questions are good, can you just clarify for me where you are seeing the MImage for Python API is beign omitted? I don't see that in my post or documentation...

[Michael]

I didnt mean Your post but this page:
http://docs.autodesk.com/MAYAUL/2013/ENU/Maya-API-Documentation/python-api/index.html
In documentation for Maya 2012 Python and C++ were described together, now its on separete page and i dont see that class or I just missed something.

[Kristine Middlemiss]

Oh, I am with you now! Thanks for explaining! So this is Python 2.0 and it's going to take a couple of releases to finish as you have noticed everything is not there yet including MImage, it will come in time. If you need MImage continue to use the Python 1.0 that has everything you need in this namespace:

import maya.OpenMaya as OpenMaya

rather then the Python 2.0 namespace:

import maya.api.OpenMaya as newOpenMaya

This actually would be a good post topic on explaining the how Python 2.0 is additional to the original 1.0.

Kristine

[Michael]

I felt that it was a silly question, thanks!

[Kristine Middlemiss]

Nah, all questions are great! :)