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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

Inverting the subroutine


The idea of taking code that is similar between two blocks and factoring it out into a common function (also known as a subroutine) is well known. We've done it several places in this book. For example, the following block of code sets up objects for left and right feet, which are just mirrored. Nearly all of the code, except for the name of the sphere and its x translation, is duplicated.

>>> leftfoot = pmc.polySphere(name='left_foot')[0]
>>> leftfoot.translate.set(5, 0, 0)
>>> # ...other code that changes left_foot
>>> rightfoot = pmc.polySphere(name='right_foot')[0]
>>> rightfoot.translate.set(-5, 0, 0)
>>> # ...same code, but for right_foot

We can refactor the duplicated code into the makefoot function.

>>> def makefoot(prefix, x=1):
...     foot = pmc.polySphere(name=prefix + '_foot')[0]
...     foot.translate.set(5 * x, 0, 0)
...     # ...other code that changes foot
...     return foot
>>&gt...
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