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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
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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

Writing a skeleton converter library

Let's put composability to work for us. We'll implement a true rite of passage for programming in Maya—a routine to automatically convert a hierarchy of nodes into a hierarchy of joints (a skeleton). This task allows us to focus on building small, composable pieces of code, and string them together so that the character creator tool we build later in the chapter can be very simple. These composable pieces won't just serve our character creator. They'll serve us all throughout the book and our coding lives.

Writing the docstring and pseudocode

Before we start coding, we need a place to put the code. Create the skeletonutils.py file inside the development root you chose in Chapter 1, Introspecting Maya, Python, and PyMEL. This book's examples use C:\mayapybook\pylib.

After creating skeletonutils.py, open it in your IDE. Add the following code. The code defines a function, a docstring that explains precisely what it will do...

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