Contest postponed

You know, I was afraid that I'd jumped on the contest idea a bit too soon.  Sure enough, I haven't had time to even wrangle the details together.  Conceptually it's all there, but there are several things that need to be put into place before I can kick it off, and it's just not gonna happen right now.  Heck, I haven't even had time to work on the update in a while.

My apologies for the premature announcement.  When it's actually to roll, you'll hear more.

"Animate a Face" now online!

Wow!  It's been a while since I've written anything in this blog.  Not terribly surprising considering my career shift, but anyway, I've got some awesome news to share...

My "Animate a Face" tutorial videos are now available online!

For those who may not have heard of this product, the original was released in 2004, and was a 2 CD-ROM set containing 15 videos -- nearly 4 hours of fully-narrated screen-captured material -- all about the wonderful world of facial animation, including a couple detailed lip sync demonstrations.  As I was reviewing the videos to get them ready for uploading to MindBites, it was a little weird seeing such outdated animation software (I used Animation:Master v10.5, per my contract with Anzovin Studio).  However, as I've said numerous times about this product, it was created with a focus on principles over programs.  The core material is all about animation, and is just as useful now as it was then.  And now, it's a heckuvalot cheaper!  The original CD set made its debut at about $50 if I remember correctly, but on MindBites you can buy individual lessons for a buck or two, or the whole collection for less than $15!

If you want to really dig into facial animation, check out this material.  Happy animating!

Auto-placing Toolbars

I fiddled around with Maya 2012's toolbar options a bit more today, and learned a few interesting things. The most interesting of all was the discovery of a way to auto-load a custom toolbar when Maya opens, and have it appear in the same position that it was in when you last closed the program. (This is all in Python, by the way; I'm not sure if it would work the exact same way in MEL.)

Saving Toolbar Positions

The first thing I had to figure out was how Maya saved toolbar placement. When I wrote the other day about fixing a co-worker's missing tool settings panel, I mentioned the discovery of Maya's startupMainWindowState settings file. I also found some flags on the windowPrefs command for saving and restoring these settings. Today I learned that when using those flags, the full absolute path to the file should not be passed. Maya only wants the name of the file; it already knows where it lives. So to save, it's as simple as this:

import maya.cmds as mc

mc.windowPref(saveMainWindowState="startupMainWindowState")

Maya also saves the toolbar settings automatically when it closes, and we'll take advantage of this as we move forward.

Restoring the Toolbar
Immediately after you have built your interface and wrapped it up in a toolbar, restoring Maya's window state settings will move the toolbar back into its original position (assuming it had an original position when the settings were last saved).  Here's a quick example:

import maya.cmds as mc

window = mc.window("myWindow")

column = mc.columnLayout(p=window)

button = mc.button(p=column, l="Click me!",

                   c="print('clicked!')")

toolbar = mc.toolbar("myToolbar", content=window, label="Clicker",

                     area="top")

mc.windowPref(restoreMainWindowState="startupMainWindowState")

Naming the toolbar is important, as this is what will allow you to re-position that toolbar automatically between sessions.  If it doesn't have a consistent name, it won't work.

Obviously the last line won't do much the first time that you run it, because there is no saved position for this toolbar.  However, move the toolbar to some other position, then close Maya, which will save the toolbar's position.  Open Maya, run the same code, and the toolbar should re-spawn in the same place where you moved it.

The next step is to make Maya auto-load your toolbar each time that it starts.

Auto-Loading the Toolbar
Maya looks for  -- and executes the contents of -- two files each time that it starts: userSetup.mel and userSetup.py.  If used, these files should be placed in Maya's "scripts" folder.  In this case, we're going to use the Python startup file to kick off our toolbar.

First, we'll need to wrap our code inside a function, and save it in a file.  Copy the following into a new file in your favorite text editor:

import maya.cmds as mc

def main():

    window = mc.window("myWindow")

    column = mc.columnLayout(p=window)

    button = mc.button(p=column, l="Click me!",

                       c="print('clicked!')")

    toolbar = mc.toolbar("myToolbar", content=window,

                         label="Clicker", area="top")

    mc.windowPref(restoreMainWindowState="startupMainWindowState")

Save this file as "myToolbar.py" into Maya's prefs/scripts folder, which is one of the places in the sys.path setting of Maya's embedded Python.

Now start a new text file, and add this to it:

import maya.cmds as mc

import myToolbar

mc.evalDeferred(myToolbar.main)

Save this file as "userSetup.py" into Maya's scripts folder.

The reason we're using "evalDeferred" is because Maya needs to wait to execute the UI code until it has a UI to work with.  If you don't defer the execution, Maya will crash before it even opens.

Close Maya and re-open it.  Your custom toolbar should automatically appear where you last placed it.

New iPhone App: Coach's Eye

Earlier today I received an email about an interesting new iPhone app that was just released by the folks at TechSmith. It's called Coach's Eye, and while it's being primarily marketed as a tool for coaches (of various types), I think it has some definite potential in the realm of animation.

In a nutshell, Coach's Eye is a simple video review tool. You can load a video clip (from one of several possible sources), scrub through it, add annotations (or "telestrations" as the TechSmith folks call them), and even record vocal comments. Once you're done, save the whole thing and share it using the app's sharing tools.

So how could Coach's Eye be useful for animators? Here are just a few thoughts...

• Record a video critique of a piece of animation sent to you by a friend/colleague/student
• Create a series of action analysis clips where you break down animated or live-action footage
• Record reference footage for a shot you're animating, and make notes on specific things that you want to make sure to incorporate into your work

Right now they're offering Coach's Eye at a special introductory price of 99 cents. This deal won't be around forever, so swing on over to the App Store if you want to learn more.

And no, I'm not getting a kickback for plugging it. I just think it's cool, and wanted to pass the word.