Getting into Scripting

Rigging
1

Hello! Haven’t posted on here for a few years but I’ve recently started rigging bipedal characters again (mainly in Maya) and I wanted to know how does one start to get into scripting?

I’ve bought a few books on rigging/scripting for games etc but to be honest it’s a lot of text thrown at me and I was wondering if anyone had a story of how they got into it.

Sorry it’s quite vast but if you could point me in a direction I wouldn’t mind learning anyway that could get me into it.

I used to do a bit of coding (Java) a fair few years ago but I’ve forgotten most of it now.

Thanks in advance! I’ll undoubtedly come back with a lot more frequent questions. :stuck_out_tongue:

2

No magic bullet here I’m afraid, it was books, videos, forums, banging head against wall for a while, for me at least…

You do, thankfully, have some aids to help you - Maya has great output of what you are doing in the script editor, so lots of people actually start scripting by doing what you want in Maya and copying/editing the commands Maya spits back at you.

That’s all in mel though, and i would advise using python (though its worth knowing mel a bit in maya). A good resource for you may be some video learning/training on maya python. Digital tutors has some, i think, but there should be tons out there.

As you have previous scripting knowledge that that helps, you just need to learn the maya context and syntax.

3

Most of us here are self taught. Cultivate stubbornness! If it seems like it should be possible to do what you want, it probably is - you just need to poke at it a while. TAO, CGTalk and StackOverflow are all great resources when you get stuck – but nothing beats sheer bloody-mindedness as an educational tool.

4

This is great advice, thanks a lot!

I knew there wouldn’t be an easy way to get into it, it’s just so large I don’t even know where to start. Guess it’s time to re-charge the Kindle and start reading!

I will definitely look into Digital Tutors, TAO, CGTalk and StackOverflow as well as fumbling the internet. Cheers for the recommendations guys. All definitely noted! :slight_smile:

5

Ditto to all that’s been suggested. I’ll just add that a good place to begin is in automating a task you do all the time (naming nodes, making FK controls…?).

Maya’s own documentation is damn helpful when you’re starting out - if you haven’t already, take the time to take a real good look through the docs, tutorials, command reference links found under the Help Menu.

6

That IS useful, Creature! I already have a few tedious commands I constantly enter in manually that I could easily set tools up for.

Thanks for suggesting Maya’s own documentation! Didn’t even think to look there!

7

I recently learned the basics of scripting, so I can give you a few hoops to jump through from a beginners perspective:

  1. Start by understanding the basics variables and data types- (Integer, String, Float etc).
  2. Learn how to concatenate variables. It basically just means glue or add them together. So 2 + 2 = 4, and “Potato” + “Banana” = “PotatoBanana”
  3. Learn how to do loops. If statements, for loops and while loops.
  4. Learn how to create functions. This massively optimizes your code and allows you to create much more complex scripts. They’re also a lot easier to edit.

Once you’ve got these fundamentals down it’s basically a case of experimentation, googling and excessive use of the F1 button.

Edit: Derp… Concatenating actually means enclosing things in brackets (but it’s useful for adding stuff together). Guess i didn’t press F1 enough :stuck_out_tongue: