Does the node naming work the same on both platforms? We recently started outsourcing to a company that is using macs, we’re all PC. All of out tools are looking for <name_space>:<node_name> On the Mac we’re seeing <name_space>_<node_name> which breaks all the tools. Is : not a thing on Macs? I don’t have access to one to see what’s going on.
Colons are used in Windows to split drive letters from paths; OsX does not have drive letters.
It is possible to store the reference paths relative to an environment variable. So you could set an environment variable called on both your windows and mac machines and save all the paths relative to that, ie, paths would look like $PROJECT_DIR/files/reference.ma
Another option is to stick with project relative paths based on your active Maya workspace – ie, your path looks like a/b/c where a is in the folder structure of your maya workspace)
Unfortunately both possible fixes come with a big issue: the maya UI always tries to convert those values to absolute paths, which are not compatible across different operating systems. So people generally end up writing a file save hook which forces relative paths on the way out the door.
Or if this is not worth solving “correctly” – use MA files and write a scanner which knows how to do the necessary formatting in the text version of the MA file.
I’m talking about namespaces, not file paths. Lets say I have a rig file called “Goon”. Then I reference that rig into another scene for animation. All of the nodes from the Goon file will have the Goon: namespace in their scene names. Like Goon:LeftWrist. At least that’s how it works on PC. On mac they are telling me they get Goon_LeftWrist which breaks all the rig tools which are looking for the colon.
I don’t know anything about Macs, but if your tools are not completely controlling the actual referencing in of the files, then the users current “Import Reference” options will dictate how namespaces are applied. One of the import options is “Don’t use Namespaces, prefix with filename” (or something to that effect) which means you get Goon_nodeName instead of Goon:nodeName.
Could just be your import settings are one way, theirs are the other.
Never worked with macs, but Maya’s doc states that namespaces are separated by a :, a _ would mean that the name of the object has been modified. Which is not possible with referenced objects.
Can you check that the objects are actually from a referenced scene rather than simply imported? You can do that with cmds.referenceQuery and the tag isNodeReferenced.