Around the Corner

November’s Plugin of the Month live on Autodesk Labs: MASH nodes

Another month, another plugin. :-) As announced over on Scott’s blog a few days ago, the latest Plugin of the Month is now live. MASH is a suite of Maya nodes, developed in-house at Mainframe, aimed at enabling their artists to create versatile 'motion design' style animations. It offers a selection of effector nodes which can be daisy-chained together to generate a wide variety of customizable effects. It's fully controllable from both Maya's Attribute and Node Editors. MASH has been... Read more →

Debugging Python in Maya with Eclipse/Pydev

This post is a follow-up on the previous post here. Installing Eclipse & Pydev Note: On Windows: depending on whether you are on a 64 or 32 bit machine, make sure you install the correct version of Java and Eclipse. Install Java on your machine if it isn’t yet done http://www.java.com/ http://www.java.com/en/download/ie_manual.jsp?locale=en&host=www.java.com:80 Go to http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ and then click ‘Eclipse Packages' Choose any of the last ‘Packages’ version. It is not really important which one you download, could be the Java,... Read more →

Python debugging in Maya

With the power of the Maya API and the scriptability of MEL, Maya Python hits a sweet spot in Maya's suite of development tools. Being an interpreted language it allows for quick turnaround, making it perfect for rapid prototyping and with thousands or dedicated users around the world contributing modules to Python, Maya inherits a large and growing array of new capabilities. However, debugging Python code in Maya has not made to be easy like it is with C++ and... Read more →

Using LXML in Maya

Recently someone asked me if we could use lxml inside Maya and it turns out that lxml can be used in Maya excepted the Linux version. If you wonder what is lxml, here is a quick description: The lxml XML toolkit is a Pythonic binding for the C libraries libxml2 and libxslt. It is unique in that it combines the speed and XML feature completeness of these libraries with the simplicity of a native Python API, mostly compatible but superior... Read more →

Building Qt, PyQt, PySide for Maya 2013 - Part 2

This is a continuation of the previous post and this time we will focus on building PySide. PySide [http://www.pyside.org/ or http://qt-project.org/wiki/PySide/] is a python binding to the Qt library. Because Maya uses Qt internally, you can use the PySide modules in Maya python scripts to create custom UI. PySide does not have the same licensing as Maya, Qt, or Python. Please consult the PySide website for information about licensing for PySide. Download Shiboken & PySide: http://qt-project.org/wiki/PySideDownloads Download Cmake: http://www.cmake.org/cmake/resources/software.html Maya... Read more →

Building Qt, PyQt, PySide for Maya 2013 - Part 1

To complete the article written by Kristine last month, I could not resist to go through the process of building these libraries myself on the 3 platforms Windows x64, Linux and MacOS (I tend not to work on win32 anymore). Unfortunately, the documentation provided by Autodesk isn't always very clear. Not I mean it is wrong or incorrect, but sometimes assumes you either know these Qt underneath requirements and/or Autodesk internal build procedures. Building Qt Whatever you decide to do,... Read more →

Maya and Node Types

In Maya, both intrinsic and user-defined Maya Objects are registered and recognized by their type identifier or type id. The basis of the type id system is a tag which is used at run-time to determine how to create and destroy Maya Objects, and how they are to be input/output from/to files. These tag-based identifiers are implemented by the class MTypeId. Before going into more details, we need to come back briefly on that statement "type identifier or type id".... Read more →

Access the Qt event loop in Maya

Maya uses a customized version of Nokia's Open Source Qt 4.7.1 framework (for Maya 2013). If you want to use Qt in your Maya plug-ins then you will have to use the same modified version as Maya. Most of the Qt modified libs ship with the Maya distribution (located in $MAYA_LOCATION/lib). So in theory you would not need build the libraries yourself unless you need more. Then it will require that you build a local copy of Qt from the... Read more →

Creating a New Attribute from MPlug

Have you ever wanted to create a new attribute from the definition of an existing one, such as kTransform? However you cannot get the proper type from the attribute since MDataHanle::type() returns kInvalid: // Create attribute for future access MDataHandle hData =plug.asMDataHandle(); MFnTypedAttribute typedAttr; MFnAttribute fnAttr; fnAttr.setObject( plug.attribute() ); MString sName =fnAttr.name(); MString sShortName =fnAttr.shortName(); MFnData::Type type =hData.type(); MObject newAttr =typedAttr.create( sName, sShortName, type, MObject::kNullObj, &st ); if ( MS::kSuccess == st ) { // Add a dynamic attribute to... Read more →

Avoid Gimbal Lock for Rotation/Direction Maya Manipulators

In the past few weeks, my colleague Naiqi Weng had to work on an issue where someone had a Maya manipulator that contains both a rotateManip and a directionManip, which controlled one single “rotate” attribute. The manipulator was working fine excepted under some specific rotations where the directional manipulator "pops" the object's rotation. She noticed that when this was happening there was two axes on top of each other when looking at the rotateManip and the rotateMode was in "Gimbal"... Read more →

Small Annoying Things Maya Forum

Please help us identify things that bother you when you’re working in Maya that we can easily fix. http://mayafeedback.autodesk.com/forums/160518-small-annoying-things-to-fix-in-maya-forum Suggest and vote for annoying little quirks or problems in Maya you want us to fix, and get others to vote for your ideas. Describe both the steps to show the issue, and how you would prefer it. Enter each idea separately (we’ll remove items with multiple ideas). Put larger issues in the Ideas for Maya forum. We’ll move issues that... Read more →

a Mathematical DG Node

Many of you probably knows about the sineNode available in the Maya devkit written in C++ and/or Python. This example is very useful if you interested running the sin() function. But there is several limitations which make this example a bit dry. First, it is just the sin() function and with this approach it means you would need to create as many 'math' node you want mathematical functions. Second, it has one input and one output parameter only, so it... Read more →

What do I mean by a “handle”…?

Through my years at Autodesk/Alias, I have done a lot of teaching and education (some is recorded and some is not), but some things you might catch me saying during training are… “Now you get the handle to the object”, or “this now returns the handle to the object”, but what the heck does that really mean? I will know try to explain my colloquialism below using MotionBuilder Python SDK code as an example. A Handle in Programming Terms What... Read more →

Looking at undo in regards to deleting attributes and nodes

Today, I want to talk about the recommended way of handling the deletion of attributes and nodes within Maya through the wise guidance of Dean Edmonds (Autodesk Maya API Architect). We will examine this potential solution for this scenario: Let’s say you have plug-in that has a connection to a user defined attributes on other objects in a scene. You may write some code that detects that if the node is deleted, then the user defined attributes on the connected... Read more →

Setting a user event within Maya

I was looking through some interesting questions that have come into ADN in the past, and thought I would share this one, it was about the possibility of setting a user event with a scriptJob (Maya Command). There are no MEL commands to create user events and the scriptJob command cannot be used to wait for them. However, you can do both in a Python script using API calls. Here's how you would register a new user event type called... Read more →

Using a MEL/Python Script to Load Plug-Ins

You may come across a time where you want to tell Maya to load/unload a plug-in during "plug-in load time" (i.e. while Maya is launching) or maybe you have certain plug-ins that conflict with each other, and you would like to have an automatic way of unloading (or "not" loading) various plug-ins. To go about doing this there are four options, I highly recommend option 1, as it is the most perdictable and safest. Option 1: Using Maya API Within... Read more →

Dirtying a Maya MPlug for Array Attribute

In Maya API, there is no way to explicitly set a plug dirty. However there is a MEL command "dgdirty()" to do exactly that. The MEL command takes the plug name and optionally the index if the plug is an array. I.e. 'dgdirty myNode.myattribute[1]'. In this example you set dirty the second element of your array plug. There is also a MEL command to determine is a plug is dirty or not - that command is simply named "isDirty()". From... Read more →

All Things Qt

Okay, let me re-phrase that, “All Things Qt….and Maya” :) In the past couple of years I have been getting more and more interested and into Qt, why you ask? Because it’s fun to develop things that are visual! I am what you would call a “Visual Learner” if I can see it or picture it with my mind’s eye, and then I will understand it a lot quicker! And reason two; there are Python wrappers for Qt!!! (Need I... Read more →

Maya Programming: The Beginning

…Computer Programming…. Does that sound scary and yet inviting all at the same time? Are you ever curious to dive into programming and Maya? Are you a power user of Maya, or maybe interested in customizing or automating work flows? Are looking to take your work to the next level and challenge yourself, but not sure where to start… Here I will provide you with some places to start so you can get familiar with scripting so that you are... Read more →

Top 10 Autodesk Maya Python API Gotchas When Getting Started

Not Understanding the Difference between Python Script and Python API Maya has four programming interfaces, two of which are using the Python language. It’s important to know the distinction between the terminology of Python Script and the Python API, because they each access different functionality within Maya (with very little overlap). The other two interfaces are Maya Embedded Language (MEL) and the C++ API. Python Plug-in Disclosure You cannot hide your Python API code from users! If you’re a games... Read more →

Maya MMeshIntersector and memory

Before anything 'Happy 4th of July' to our american readers! In the documentation of MMeshIntersector::create(MObject &meshObject, const MMatrix &matrix), it says "This method creates the data required by the intersector. It is a heavy operation that should be called only when necessary." Internally, that class will tessellate the mesh, if it hasn't already been, and will build an octree for its triangles, which is going to be at least as heavy as the mesh itself and probably heavier. However there... Read more →

Are you looking to rewrite some of our Maya default scripts?

First things first Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians :) Are you looking to rewrite some of our Maya default scripts? In your environment, likely you will get to the point where you want to customize some of the MEL scripts that either builds the Maya UI or that create the functionality in Maya. To do this it means you will have to rewrite/change some of Maya’s default scripts. Rewrite/Change a MEL script Let’s examine all the ways... Read more →

Updated Maya API Documentation Online and New Python API Learning Path

We have updated the Maya 2013 API Documentation, so please download the latest version here: http://www.autodesk.com/me-sdk-docs Within the updated documentation there are two major additions which have been done by Martin Ashton are API documentations Guru: First, we have a brand new Maya Python Learning Path http://docs.autodesk.com/MAYAUL/2013/ENU/Maya-API-Documentation/files/GUID-856DDB26-93E7-493D-A1D4-60C4CBA38B9C.htm Second, a class taxonomy – all classes arranged according to subject/concept http://docs.autodesk.com/MAYAUL/2013/ENU/Maya-API-Documentation/cpp_ref/_maya.html Enjoy! Kristine Read more →

Expose your code to Python - Deploy & Consume

If you want to know in details follow that link - or use this tools But since Python is already installed on your Maya (or MotionBuilder) distribution, it is fairly easy to distribute your Python 'module' onto other machines for these products. However depending on what you did while compiling your module, you may run into couple of issues. It is never simple, isn't it? let's take the simple approach and we see the downfalls later. In case you did... Read more →

What’s New in the FBX 2013 SDK?

The FBX SDK animation system has been completely redesigned. Take nodes, take node containers, current takes, and FCurves have all been replaced by animation stacks (FbxAnimStack), animation layers (FbxAnimLayer) animation curve nodes (FbxAnimCurveNode), and animation curves (FbxAnimCurve). The classes in the FBX SDK have all been renamed using the "Fbx" prefix, instead of "KFbx" or "K". All structures have also been renamed with the same prefix, including global functions and enumerations. We did this to make the SDK simpler and... Read more →

Expose your code to Python - get Boost 'ed!

Some house cleaning first... "Boost provides free peer-reviewed portable C++ source libraries". http://www.boost.org/ The Boost C++/Python binding library is just one member of the boost C++ library collection at http://www.boost.org It is quick and easy to export C++ to Python using Boost. Boost is also designed to be minimally intrusive on your C++ design. In most cases, you should not have to alter your C++ classes in any way in order to use them with Boost Python. The system should... Read more →

What’s New in the MotionBuilder 2013 SDK?

Programming Environment and Code Refactoring Changes MotionBuilder and its distributed plug-ins are now compiled using Visual Studio 2010 (Service Pack 1). FBContainer has been renamed to FBVisualContainer for uniformity of cross-product naming schemes. const correctness improvements. Although not enforced in this release, we recommend that the "H" prefix in classes such as HFBPlug be removed and replaced by the pointer suffix "*", for example: FBPlug*. This change is intended to facilitate the use of the documentation system in the near... Read more →

Expose your code to Python - the Python way

In a previous post, I quickly explained why Python isn't secure and may be a bad guy performance wise. One option to solve the two issues at the same time is to write your code in C++ for example. And in case you still want to access the C++ functionality, you expose it to Python. There is several way to do this, you either expose your code to Python using: the Python SDK Swig Boost SWIG is a software development... Read more →

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... Read more →

Compatibility of Maya plug-ins between releases

This is a huge topic, so I'm not going to be able to do it justice in this one post. Plug-ins developed using Maya's APIs need to be ported and tested on each major releases to make sure they work with a new release of the Maya platform. For several generations of Maya we have consistently broken binary plug-in compatibility every major releases. To make plug-ins work on interim hotfix, service pack, they might need minor porting work to migrate... Read more →

Maya and Python a love story?

With version 8.5, Maya introduced Python as a complementary language to MEL and C++. I have to say, Python isn’t my preference (sorry Kristine – she is a big fan of Python ;). I said it isn’t my preference but not because of what Python is or can do, but because of the indentation requirements and syntax scheme. I feel returning to my Lisp experience with AutoCAD 25 years ago where if you had forgotten a parenthesis somewhere, your code... Read more →

Webcast in the making

I thought I’d mention one of the projects we’re working on in DevTech right now. While the Maya Python training as been delivered already (and recorded - see my previous post), there is more coming: MotionBuilder/OpenReality SDK (Python/C++) starting on May 29th 2012 - 1 hour per day during 9 days 3ds Max SDK (C++) starting on July 16th 2012 for English - 1 hour per day during 10 days July 30th 2012 for Japanese - 1 hour per day... Read more →

Getting started with Autodesk's APIs

Autodesk has a wide range of products that expose Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), to the point that it can be a bit overwhelming for developers new to our products. A great place to look for introductory information around developing with Autodesk software is the Developer Center on Autodesk.com: http://www.autodesk.com/developer From here you will be able to navigate to individual Developer Centers for a number of our products, some of which I’ve provided direct links to below: http://www.autodesk.com/developmaya (Maya) http://www.autodesk.com/develop3dsMax (3ds... Read more →