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Category: Stream

Season 01 – Episode 28 – Maya Evaluation Graph Explained

Published by Raffaele on 21 March, 2018

Maya’s Dependency Graph Demystified

With the scripting saga finally over we take a good look at how Maya’s DG (Dependency Graph) evaluation model works.

We introduce evaluation graphs in general, the concepts of push and pull, data vs evaluation, and then we move into more Maya specific territory.

Maya’s MDataBlock, compute(), Plugs and dirty state and all that goodness.

I do wish I had switched up to our own rig to show a more complex graph somewhere in the last third, but hopefully the simplicity of the example and the discussion will still get the point across even for the more complex scenarios. We will, no doubt, have a chance to revisit the subject again soon enough when we’ll be discussing profiling and performance.

During the Stream I mention a particularly important document about Maya’s graph, so here’s the link to Autodesk’s official page

In the end we also introduce some of the peculiarities and fundamentals of how the model behind the new multi-threaded evaluation looks like.

Enjoy,

Season 01 – Episode 27 – Scripting, Finished Guide/Control Toggle

Published by Raffaele on 16 March, 2018

Scripting Component Management, pt6, Finished Guide/Control Toggle

The end of the scripting saga of Season 1!

The scene is still the same from the previous days and it’s available from the resources page.

Don’t be afraid if you’re not interested in programming. Or maybe not up to scratch on your scripting to follow the details.
This will NOT be necessary to follow the stream once we’ll resume non programming work.
You will be able to copy and paste what I wrote and use it if your rig conventions are close enough to the ones we use on stream.

As always the “code” is available on a Public Repository on Github as linked here.

This episode we finish covering all cases in the first two thirds, more or less, of the video. Once you’ll get to me meandering about the rig, somewhere around the 40th minute, you will have seen all the goodness, the rest is just entertainment.

Also worth noting that at the very end of the stream I was surprised that our cleaned up Leg Component Guide wouldn’t respond as expected, so I announced I would have left it for another day. Of course the moment I stopped recording I realized I had left some prototype casing where I forced the swap case in, and therefore the script would run the wrong case.
The code available on the repository does not have the issue. If you watch the video it will become pretty obvious then what I’m talking about.

Enjoy,

Season 01 – Episode 26 – Scripting, Working DeGuiding

Published by Raffaele on 14 March, 2018

Scripting Component Management, pt5, Working DeGuiding

We finally have a working DeGuiding for our first case.

The scene is still the same from the previous days and it’s available from the resources page.

Don’t be afraid if you’re not interested in programming. Or maybe not up to scratch on your scripting to follow the details.

This will NOT be necessary to follow the stream once we’ll resume non programming work.
You should still check a couple posts ago for more thoughts on that, and scripting in general, before you give up on the subject.

As before the “code” is available on my Public Repository on Github as linked here.

We now seem to have everything working and we successfully addressed our first of four cases for DeGuiding any component. Success and the end of the scripting saga for this season seems now within reach!

Enjoy,

Season 01 – Episode 25 – Scripting, Swapping Plugs

Published by Raffaele on 13 March, 2018

Scripting Component Management, pt4, Swapping Plugs

More scripting, and specifically more on Plugs in Maya and the finishing stretch before our guide/control swap(MPlugs in the API).

I mention homework at the very end. If you want to use my scene it’s available from the resources page.

Don’t be afraid if you’re not interested in programming. Or maybe not up to scratch on your scripting to follow the details.

This will NOT be necessary to follow the stream once we’ll resume non programming work.
You should still check a couple posts ago for more thoughts on that, and scripting in general, before you give up on the subject.

As before the “code” is available on my Public Repository on Github as linked here.

This a “getting things done” kind of day, with some meandering thoughts in the end on how to manage development in the face of branching possibilities.

Enjoy,

Season 01 – Episode 24 – Scripting, Managing Plugs

Published by Raffaele on 9 March, 2018

Scripting Component Management, pt3, Maya Plugs Gotchas and Retrieval

More scripting, and specifically lots on plugs in Maya (MPlugs in the API).

Don’t be afraid if you’re not interested in programming. Or maybe not up to scratch on your scripting to follow the details.

This will NOT be necessary to follow the stream once we’ll resume non programming work.
You should still check a couple posts ago for more thoughts on that, and scripting in general, before you give up on the subject.

As before the “code” is available on my Public Repository on Github as linked here.

This episode we dig up the guide of the leg global component and refactor and simplify some connections with the consideration of the guiding/de-guiding automation needing a test bed.

We made good progress on the script front too and we should now have all we need for the final recipe of the guide swap.

Some insider knowledge on gotchas and managing plugs came up as well.

Enjoy,