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# 1 23-11-2013 , 11:51 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 17

Question about a Maya + Python project for school class.

Hi, My name is Devin. So, I am currently a student in a program at the University of New Mexico called IFDM (Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media). It is a lot like say, Full Sail or the Savannah Animation Program.

They are teaching us how to create CGI VFX for Film, TV and Video Games. My specialty is Modeling, Texturing, and some Animation using software such as Maya, 3DS Max, Houdini, and Cinema 4D.

I am a second year Freshman. One class I have this year, is an "Intro to Python" class. For me this is a very hard class, in fact I failed the midterm and had to hire a professional tutor to help me get through the labs and study for the Final. Good news is if I do well on the Final, our teacher will throw out the midterm grade and replace it with the Final grade. However, we still need to do a final project.

Normally this would be doing a game of some sort (coding it in Python), but due to an unfortunate issue in my life (My mom battling cancer), our teacher is allowing me to do something that combines Maya (which I know pretty well), and Python...which I am getting better at, but still need a lot of help on.

So I met with my Maya I and II teacher and he brought up the idea of making a Python program within Maya that "replicates" say "rocks". It then duplicates them, randomly disperses them, and randomly changes their shape.

He did not tell me "ultimately" how hard this might me. It sounds cool, but I am wondering if someone on this forum could tell me two things

1: Is this already something that someone has actually done
2: For two guys who have a great book on Maya + Python coding, but have never actually tried it...how hard would this probably be.

I don't know if anyone can answer the last question, but if someone could I would appreciate the attempt. Thank Youuser added image

# 2 26-11-2013 , 09:59 AM
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Join Date: Nov 2013
Location: Singapore
Posts: 1
Hi Devin,
Answering your first question, Yes this is something that someone has already done in Maya. It was made more than 12 years ago and its available free on the link I'm posting. The reason I'm giving you this direct link is that the script is written in MEL (Maya Embedded Language), So it will still be quite a bit of study for you to write it in python. Due to the time the script was written, there may be some errors running it if some command names have changed, but Hey, at least it will be a start!
Answering your second question, the major learning curve of making this (I wouldnt say hard) is learning how maya uses Python. Its not direct python as you use normally, but maya has its own layer (wrapper) to call python commands. You can get a lot of info on this on the internet.

Here's the link (Rock Generator):
https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/rockgen (Updated script)
https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/rockgen-mel (Original version of script)
https://www.creativecrash.com/maya/script/rockpaint (Script made by the same person to paint rocks on surface, may/may not work)

Good luck for your project. Hope this helps.

P.S Funnily I came upon your post while doing a google search. Couldn't help answering you.


-Harshad Bari
creaturerigs.com
# 3 02-12-2013 , 05:46 PM
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 17

Thank for the links and help

We are doing the game "Pong" in regular Python. Thanks for the links though, I can use these for my Maya projects. Really appreciate the replyuser added image

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