Uses of MEL
 

Hi,
I've heard a lot about MEL and that it can be used extensively in the CG industry. But can someone explain to me exactly what areas it is used in? What can I DO using MEL? Can I animate a character? Can I make Effects? Can I make an environment? Why is it better/worse than using the GUI?
Are there any website that have examples of what can be done using MEL along with the script that does it?

I'm kinda lost as far as MEL and its uses and I need someone to enlighten me :)

Well, the maya GUI is actually a one big MEL interpreter. Every time you issue a menu command, change an attribute, drag the timeslider and whatnot you're actually executing a MEL command. So everything you do manually in the GUI can be done via MEL scripts also. With MEL you can even create your own GUIs. Take a look at the MEL command reference in the online documentation and you'll find a huge amount of commands. Also take a look at the scripts available here at SM or for example highend3d. That should give you an idea what can be done with MEL.

I have written a little MEL tutorial. You can find it here: http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/karppa/pier.html

Yes, I do realise that the Maya is built upon MEL scripts, but my question is, why would I want to learn MEL and not just stick to the GUI? I suppose since I dont know MEL yet, I'm unable to visualize its uses.

And If I do decide to go for MEL, then what kind of jobs am I going to get?

I know this posting is kind of out of the blue, but, hey, I love the simplyamaya forum,and it has always come through for me ;)

Do my tut and you will see some points where utilizing mel is more powerful than doing the same thing manually.

Yes, Sir! :)

I have just the book that will answer your questions! :D

There's MEL, and there are expressions. Expressions are nodes in your scene that get recalculated on the fly by Maya, and MEL scripts are programs that are usually triggered by the user interface and modify the contents of a scene.

You can use MEL scripts to modify your scene or set things up (like a chunk of a character rig, or a dynamics system) while expressions are part of the scene's evaluation and get executed during playback.

Back to the book, there are a ton of examples in here that illustrate how MEL and expressions can be useful. I recommend that you check it out:

http://www.melscripting.com/

-- Mark