Around the Corner

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... Read more →

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... Read more →

Vote for Visual Studio x64 Edit-and-Continue

A colleague in one of our product development teams pinged me today to ask for my support in voting up this request for Microsoft to implement x64 edit-and-continue. I’m sure this isn’t the first time this topic has been raised with Microsoft – but hopefully it will be the last . I went ahead and added my votes. And what’s a blog for, if not to nudge your readers into helping each other out once in a while . I... Read more →

How I Plan a Tool…

This post isn’t super technical but more of peak into my thought process when creating tools, I think it is worth sharing and I would love to have other’s feedback if you have other thoughts that work for you. I was once asked by an attendee from one of my Maya API trainings if I could share some wisdom with them about writing a tool. How do I plan my work? How do I start thinking about the way I... 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 →