(part 1) Better Maya controller node pickwalking tutorial

Publicado el: 10 octubre 2017
en el canal de: Jarred Love
3,257
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Here's a few tips on how to use controller nodes for a more complex/user friendly pickwalking setup which can reduce the need for custom pickwalking scripts.

part 1 - Background/overview:
   • (part 1) Better Maya controller node pickw...  

part 2 - Main principles:
   • (part 2) Better Maya controller node pickw...  

part 3 - Additional complexity:
   • (part 3) Better Maya controller node pickw...  

part 4 - Suggestions for Maya developers:
   • (part 4) Better Maya controller node pickw...  


Just to clarify, this is not about rig controls (nodes that you use to control a rig) - it's specifically about the new(ish) controller nodes in Maya that have some pickwalking built into them. Look here for a developer's breakdown of the controller nodes:

   • Maya 2017: Controller Nodes (Part 1)  
   • Maya 2018:  Controller Nodes (Part 2)  



The controller node pickwalking seems to work pretty great for simple 'control hierarchies' but becomes less useful as you branch off more and more siblings/grandsiblings. I posted a question on the maya forums about some pickwalking issues I ran across using these controller nodes and it gained no responses after 2 weeks... So, I did some experimenting and found a few tricks to make it inherently work a little better. If you are interested, here's a link to that question on the forums:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-a...

I wanted to try my best to not require a custom pickwalking setup to keep extra 'clutter' down to a minimum - whether writing my own, or using some that can be found online... If Maya can inherently do something, it usually works faster than jumping through some other hoops yourself. Fortunately, I was able to get something that works pretty nicely for possibly 90-95% of situations. I also made some suggestions that would push it over the edge to 'fully usable' status that the developers will hopefully take into consideration.



here's the script I wrote for grouping controller nodes and maintaining the 'parent chain' of controller nodes:

import maya.cmds as mc

group selected controls and parent group to first control's
parent to retain an unbroken chain
#
controls = mc.ls(sl=True)
plug = '%s.parent' %mc.listConnections(controls[0], type='controller')[0]
parent_plugs = mc.listConnections(plug, p=True)
mc.controller(controls, group=True)
buf = mc.listConnections(plug)[0]
if parent_plugs:
for parent_plug in parent_plugs:
mc.connectAttr('%s.parent' %buf, parent_plug)
mc.connectAttr('%s.prepopulate' %parent_plugs[0].partition('.')[0], '%s.prepopulate' %buf)


I hope you find this to be useful! Feel free to leave any questions or comments.


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