Maya Programming with Python Cookbook

Key Features

• Improve your modelling skills and reduce your scripting problems using Python in Maya
• Learn to communicate with web applications using Python for easier team development
• A quick and practical answer to every problem you can have whilst scripting in Maya with Python

Book Description

Maya is a 3D graphics and animation software, used to develop interactive 3D applications and games with stupendous visual effects. The Maya Programming with Python Cookbook is all about creating fast, powerful automation systems with minimum coding using Maya Python. With the help of insightful and essential recipes, this book will help you improve your modelling skills. Expand your development options and overcome scripting problems encountered whilst developing code in Maya. Right from the beginning, get solutions to complex development concerns faced when implementing as parts of build.

What you will learn

• Find out how to use Python scripting to automate tedious tasks
• Create functional user interfaces to make scripts easy to share with others
• Add new functionality to Maya via the power of scripting
• Import and export arbitrary data into and out of Maya
• Improve your workflow, and that of your team
• Create custom create custom controls to make rigs that are easy to work with
• Implement a system to render 3D assets for isometric games
• Use script jobs to trigger actions automatically in response to user interaction
• Open a command port to allow other applications to communicate with Maya

About the Author

Adrian Herbez is an accomplished software engineer and educator with a background in virtual worlds and gaming. He has worked as a web developer at Linden Lab (the creators of Second Life) and a senior software engineer at Sony Computer Entertainment, America, where he developed games and interactive content for PlayStation Home. He also served as the lead gameplay engineer for KIXEYE's War Commander. Adrian has also taught at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in a number of different departments over the years, covering Maya, web development, and game programming.

He is currently the cofounder and president of Jamwix, a game and media start-up. So far, Jamwix has released CineMagic: Hollywood Madness, a mobile game for iOS and Android as well as the first feature-length movie for virtual reality (The Banshee Chapter: Oculus Rift Edition).

Adrian holds a master's degree in Fine Arts from the University of California, Irvine, from the Arts, Computation, and Engineering department, and has served as a juror for IndieCade, the international festival of independent gaming, for a number of years.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started with Maya
2. Creating User Interfaces
3. Working with Geometry
4. Giving Things a Coat of Paint – UVs and Materials
5. Adding Controls – Scripting for Rigging
6. Making Things Move – Scripting for Animation
7. Scripting for Rendering
8. Working with File Input/Output
9. Communicating with the Web
10. Advanced Topics