Nearly over...

Here it comes... about to start the final week on Iconicles, my first contract for Dinamo.

I could never have guessed how rewarding an experience it would be, being in the industry. Also, how lucky we were, getting a year-long contract to (pretty much) build from the ground up a TV show for the BBC straight out of uni.

What I've learnt in the last 12 months has been staggering, and as sad as I am to be leaving, I'm also excited to put everything I've learnt back to start something from scratch again.

Main job will be rigging the characters, props etc then onto animating again but initially I'm guessing I'll be writing the pipeline and animation tools alongside Milan, which will be cool, its pretty rewarding actually, and I'm hoping to start posting up more of my findings as I go along this time, which tbh will probably just be during the first couple of months.

recorder

matt simpkins showed me a neat little node in maya on friday, and asked for an interface for it.

it turned out pretty awesome, when you set it up and start recording, any movements you make on the objects, on almost all attributes (even most custom ones) get recorded in real-time, and gives you an almost mo-cap-like set of keys on those attributes.

theres a few issues with re-recording or keyed object, but hopefully when i get some time, i'll tear into the command scripts and see what i can do.

time permitted, i think i could get a very simple rig set up, animatable with this command, being able to literately animate in real-time :)
that's a looong way off yet, and probably not even possible (otherwise some bright git would've done it by now) but in the mean time, this has probably got the potential to be as useful as the greasePencil tool, but in 3d.

mel. using the "eval" command

just quick note:
using mels "source" command can be a pain in the backside when your trying to combine it with "internalVar" or something.
I noticed this before in scripts but didnt bother trying myself so here goes:
//get user script directory. string $SCRIPTDir=(`internalVar -usd`+"SCRIPT/") ; //create string with source command and script path string $sourceSCRIPT=("source "+"\"" +$SCRIPTDir +"scripts/SCRIPT.mel"+"\"") ; //eval string eval $sourceSCRIPT ; //run sourced script SCRIPT ;

shoddy shelves

just thought of something, been using maya2011 64bit at work and seem to have an issue with shelf commands defaulting to "mel" even if saved as "python".

instead of thinking about it, i just put my python scripts into a mel wrapper, rather than;
closing maya, and editing the shelf pref flag to -sourceType "python".

duh.

updates...

been a while, thought I'd update. (I know its all boring text...)

locOnJoints scripts is up and running, can be found on http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/character/c/ld_loconjoints

been very, very busy lately, alot of updating and improving rigs and scripts. let alone a couple of projects for myself and a couple of other projects on the go.

One of which, is the Animal Wall project, and I spent a few hours filming in Cardiff Centre the other night, was well worth the cold for the results :)
Should start putting some more interesting bits up here...

RE: mel. Place loc on Joint

Update to previous post now ive had chance to test script, so couple of minor changes.


//script to place a locator at position of every joint in scene (if nothings selected) or at the position of every joint in heirachy underneath selection and rename to match joint.
string $mySel[]=`ls -sl` ; string $joints[]=`ls -type joint` ; if(size($mySel)==0) for($i=0;$i<(size($joints));$i++) { float $jntPos[] = `xform -q -ws -piv ($joints[$i])` ; string $loc[] = `spaceLocator -p $jntPos[0] $jntPos[1] $jntPos[2] -n (($joints[$i])+"_loc")` ; for($b =0; $b<(size($loc)); $b++) { select ($loc[$b]) ; CenterPivot ; } } } if(size($mySel)>=1) { select -hi ; string $selJoints[] = `ls -sl` ; for($a=0;$a<(size($selJoints));$a++) { float $selJntPos[] = `xform -q -ws -piv ($selJoints[$a])` ; string $loc[] = `spaceLocator -p $selJntPos[0] $selJntPos[1] $selJntPos[2] -n (($selJoints[$a])+"_loc")` ; for ($b =0;$b<(size($loc));$b++) { select ($loc[$b]) ; CenterPivot ; } } }

mel. Place loc on joint

just thinking bout speeding up my productivity led me to just write this little script to place and rename a locator at the position of every joint in the scene (if nothing is selected) or just on the current heirachy of the selection. (i havent even tested this as im on the laptop with no maya :( ) all just from top of me head :)

its not a global proc as its meant to be assigned to a shelf button, but may include into rigging toolset currently WIP (as is an animation toolset and modelling toolset - latter already has a beta version i use at work often already, so the v01 release wont be too long and will be found on here, my website - once finished - and creativeCrash.com)
//script to place a locator at position of every joint in scene (if nothings selected) or at the position of every joint in heirachy underneath selection and rename to match joint. string $mySel[] = `ls -sl' ; string $joints[] = `ls -type joint` ; if (size($mySel) == 0) { for ($i =0; $i<(size($joints)); $i++) { string $jointPos[] = `xform -q -ws -piv ($joints[$i])` ; string $loc = `spaceLocator -p $jointPos[0] jointPos[1] jointPos[2] (($joints[$i])+"_loc")` ; //rename (($joints[$i])+"_loc") $loc ; } } if (size($mySel) >= 1) { select -hi ; string $selJoints[] = `ls -sl` ; for ($a =0; $a<(size($selJoints)); $a++) { string $selJointPos[] = `xform -q -ws -piv ($selJoints[$a])` ; string $loc = `spaceLocator -p $selJointPos[0] selJointPos[1] selJointPos[2] (($selJoints[$a])+"_loc")` ; //rename (($selJoints[$a])+"_loc") $loc ; } }