prSelectionUi 2023.0 update with Python 3.0 support

A few months ago I released an update (2023.0) for prSelectionUi that supports Python 3 (Maya >2022.x). It also still works with older Maya versions (Python 2.0).

You can get it here: https://pazrot.gumroad.com/l/prselectionui

It still requires PyMEL to be installed, which sadly has become more difficult with the PyMEL installation switching to pip. I think that installation change was a bad call and I regret using PyMEL. The time I saved was not worth the time lost for the users, and I might now have to rewrite the script with maya.cmds anyways.

prPanelCtx - making of

Source

https://pazrot.gumroad.com/l/prpanelctx

Description

This script allows the user to have temporary panel settings during manipulator dragging and timeline changes (dragging, playback). The idea was to hide control shapes during this time, to allow animators to evaluate the deformation.

When using this script together with Mayas controller autohide on proximity, it can get pretty close to "Pixar style controls"

Related

The purpose is similar to "Pixar style controls". I'm not aware of a publicly available version of them. I have only seen around a dozen videos of prototypes from independent users.

Origin

I randomly stumbled upon the -preDragCommand and -postDragCommand flags of the manip*Context commands (manipMoveContex, ...). Before that I was not aware that the user can access these events. So when I saw them I thought they can be used for the purpose of this script.

Evolution
At first I thought about setting an attribute in the rig (global control visibility switch). But then I realized that it makes more sense to use it like a Maya setting and change the panel settings ("Panel > Show > .."), because:

• It works for any rig and does not introduce any per asset requirements (visibility attribute has to exist and has to be hard coded in the script)
• It can hide shot objects that are not part of the rig, like locators used for constraint setups
• It makes the animator completely independent and gives them full control over what to hide
• Can be used to hide the manipulator itself and other panel settings (wireFrameOnShaded, ...)

After that was done I added the timeline dragging / playback context. This is partially already possible in Maya:

- Custom Playblast settings "panel > show"

- Display layer playback setting

Comparison

Compared to "Pixar style controls" it is not as intuitive, but there are some advantages:

- It has less complexity than writing a Locator plugin that works in all Maya Viewports (legacy, 2.0) and on different OSs.

- It does not introduce dependency. The animator does not rely on an RnD department to develop the plugin and a rigging department to create these custom controls for each asset.

- It does not slow down the rig. In my limited speed testing it actually did speed up all the rigs a little bit.

Limitations
I could not find a way to access camera and channelBox dragging.
I could not find a way to make it work with component selection for modeling. Because the command flags I'm using require there to be a specific node type in the selection.

Personal usage
I don't think its that useful when rigging. I usually auto-hide the manipulators and only sometimes do I hide the controls in the timeline context when I'm working on the deformation. 

Harald rig breakdown

Harald rig breakdown from Parzival Roethlein on Vimeo.

In 2011 I worked on my last student short at Filmakademie called Harald: https://www.facebook.com/haraldfilm

I was responsible for the main character rigs (including blendshape and some meshflow modeling), animation scripts/support and animated one shot.

Final meshflow

At first I updated my PyMEL autorigger from 2010 and rigged the bodies with it. Both spine and the bendy limbs are modified ribbon setups (see older post: Joint chain rigging techniques). There are no (corrective-) blendshapes for the body, only skinning.
The faces use a standard blendshape + joint combination to match the expression sheet and allow for customization. Reverse wrap deformer for eye bulge in eyelid. Eyelid joints sliding on geometry. Rig performance had some priority and the finished rig showing the final deformation (one subdivision level) ran at over 20 fps.

I created some animation scripts for the project Maya shelf including a UI (first time using Qt) requested by the animators, which was supposed to be similar to the one they used in a previous Filmakademie short: Der Besuch

And finally I animated one shot because I always wanted to do that, even thou I am not an animator. My previous experience was very limited, so I had to learn most animation principles for the first time and it certainly was a fun exercise to use my own rigs.

BabyDragon walkcycle rig breakdown

Baby Dragon walkcycle rig breakdown from Parzival Roethlein on Vimeo.

This is a personal project from early 2013.
When I saw a turntable of the dragon on Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/52581835), I contacted the modeler. And after I was done with the rig a co-worker / fellow student did the animation.

For the neck / spine / tail I used the curve/up-curve setup, described in an older post of mine, with one joint for each spike:
Joint chain rigging techniques

Credits:
Modeller/Surfacing: Angel Navarro angelnavarroart.com/
Character TD: Parzival Roethlein
Animator: Alexander Dietrich cargocollective.com/alexanderdietrich



Unrelated to this post, I recently updated an older post:
Maya naming conventions

Harald Trailer

Here is the trailer for the last student short I worked on at Filmakademie. I was the Character/Animation TD and animated one shot.



Facebook page for the short:
https://www.facebook.com/haraldfilm

It recently got the SIGGRAPH 2013 Best Student Runners-Up award, yay!
https://siggraphmediablog.blogspot.de/2013/06/european-directors-win-majority-of.html
The Best Student award also went to a Filmakademie project called Rollin' Safari, all clips are online at: https://www.youtube.com/user/rollinsafari/videos

Adventure Time - A Glitch is a Glitch

Yesterday aired the Adventure Time episode "A Glitch is a Glitch" (AT S5E15 AGIAG).
It was a special 3D episode (usually the show is 2D) and directed by David OReilly.
The rigging was done by Mark Feller and me at Studio Soi in July 2012. My main responsibility were the faces and spines. The faces were made by hand, some parts I could import and adjust after the first one was done. The mouth joints were sliding on a nurbs surface, that had the shape of the face polygons. For the spines I wrote a script (ribbon based. See older post: Joint chain rigging techniques).

This is a clip from the episode:

Fish rig - Beck's Sapphire

The last project I worked on at Psyop. I was responsible for the rigging. 
Update: HD version

Beck's Sapphire "Serenade" from Psyop on Vimeo.

prSelectionUi updates

prSelectionUi - Animation UI (Maya) from Parzival Roethlein on Vimeo.

I recently updated the prSelectionUi quite a bit. The Vimeo video got updated as well, but since there have been new script updates, it does not show all new features. You can find the download link in the Vimeo description.

There is some background information in my old blogpost:
https://pazrot3d.blogspot.com/2012/03/prselectionui.html

prSelectionUi - dynamic Maya Python UI

(The script got updated in December 2012, so there are some inaccuracies in this post now)


prSelectionUi - Animation UI (Maya)


This post is about my prSelectionUi.py Maya script, which was written in PyMEL. It is made to manage selections and poses. This can be useful during animation. The main problem were the dynamic UI elements and how to save/load the information in Maya

This script might also be a decent example on how to write PyMEL UI code? I am not sure, since I have not seen any other PyMEL UI scripts. I just used some features from the PyMEL documentation and the posting of one of the PyMEL authors, which is mentioned at the end of this post.

I have made selection UIs before, but they had to be made for each project. This UI is flexible and should work for any project. To save the rigger time, but also allow the animator to create the selections they want on the fly. The attached video shows all the functionality and there is also the open-source download link in the Vimeo video description.

The idea came from an animator friend (Harry Fast), who was not happy with the existing freely available selection scripts. So he asked me to create a new one. It is written in PyMEL and stores all information in Maya sets. That way you can create selections in the rig-file and the script can read those sets in the animation-shot (with referenced rig file). Also the animator can always create their own selections and import/export the sets between scenes.

The code can be summarized as six classes (UI, Tab, TabElement, Pose (TabElement), Selection (TabElement), Member), which inherit from Maya UI elements (window, formlayout, menuItem). There are maya-sets for tabs, selections and poses. The member information is stored in the selection-set attributes. The set types are identified with custom attributes. That way the scene-name of the set is not important. Also it is no problem if there are name clashes. If the set is from a reference file, the attributes can be edited in the shot. (If the animator is not happy with the default order/colors). Because all elements are dynamic I did not split the UI from the functionality. But I don't have a lot of UI programming experience, so I don't know the normal way. In the past I only created UIs the Maya/MEL way. But I am happy with the current classes, because it was easy to add new features and modify the existing ones.
The basic idea to inherit from PyMEL UI elements was from this post of Ofer Koren: https://www.mail-archive.com/python_inside_maya@googlegroups.com/msg01015.html

Here is a simple UML generated from the code using PyNSource - UML tool for Python. (It does not show that UI, Tab, TabElement and Member inherit from Maya UI elements.)