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Practical Maya Programming with Python

You're reading from   Practical Maya Programming with Python Unleash the power of Python in Maya and unlock your creativity

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jul 2014
Publisher
ISBN-13 9781849694728
Length 352 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
Tools
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Author (1):
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Robert Galanakis Robert Galanakis
Author Profile Icon Robert Galanakis
Robert Galanakis
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Table of Contents (12) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Introspecting Maya, Python, and PyMEL FREE CHAPTER 2. Writing Composable Code 3. Dealing with Errors 4. Leveraging Context Managers and Decorators in Maya 5. Building Graphical User Interfaces for Maya 6. Automating Maya from the Outside 7. Taming the Maya API 8. Unleashing the Maya API through Python 9. Becoming a Part of the Python Community A. Python Best Practices Index

Chapter 1. Introspecting Maya, Python, and PyMEL

Maya and Python are both excellent and elegant tools that can together achieve amazing results. And while it may be tempting to dive in and start wielding this power, it is prudent to understand some basic things first. Knowledge of the fundamentals will provide the platform from which we will grow great skills and conquer our obstacles throughout the rest of this book.

In this chapter, we will look at Python as a language, Maya as a program, and PyMEL as a framework. We will begin by briefly going over how to use the standard Python interpreter, the Maya Python interpreter, the Script Editor in Maya, and your Integrated Development Environment (IDE) or text editor in which you will do the majority of your development. Our goal for the chapter is to build a small library that can easily link us to documentation about Python and PyMEL objects. Building this library will illuminate how Maya, Python and PyMEL are designed, and demonstrate why PyMEL is superior to maya.cmds. We will use the powerful technique of type introspection to teach us more about Maya's node-based design than any Hypergraph or static documentation can. Along the way we will explore some core concepts that will reoccur throughout later chapters.

You have been reading a chapter from
Practical Maya Programming with Python
Published in: Jul 2014
Publisher:
ISBN-13: 9781849694728
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