Learn Python Inside Maya

Every week you will get access to 3+ hours of video content as well as example scripts, cheat sheets and UIs built in Designer for use in Maya’s PySide. The instructor is there to answer questions and share with you his experience as well as give feedback on your work.

You will learn proven production programming techniques and how to effectively and properly code using Object Oriented Programming and GUI programming using Pyside/Pyqt. If you are already familiar with Python, expect to solidify your skills and take them to the next level.

Week 1: Getting Started
You will:
– Get all your applications installed and bookmark important websites.
– Learn the history of python and various flavors of python in Maya.
– Get a tour of the Maya script editor
– Setup Maya, Sublime and QT Designer
– print statements, strings, and variables
– The dir and help commands
– Importing modules
– The xform and getAttr commands
– Translate, rotate and scale maya objects with a script.

Week 2: Fundamentals Part I
Learn about:
– Converting MEL to python with a nifty tool.
– variables
– dictionaries
– lists
– indexing and sorting
– tuples
– for loops
– if-then statements
– operators
– help() and dir(),
– strings
– enumerate()
– range()
– immutable vs. mutable

You will script the building of a model

Week 3: Fundamentals Part II
You will learn:
– functions
– arguments
– docstrings
– variables
– *args and **kwargs
– PYTHONPATH
– scope and the LEGB principle
– closures
– string formatting.

You’ll make your own module that can be run inside of maya.

Week 4: Core Concepts and Essential Kung Fu
Learn About:
– iterators
– sets
– list comprehensions
– generators
– the with statement
– Memory profiling
– installing Anaconda
– using the logging module.
– The differences between Python 2.7 and 3.0

You’ll parse and external text file and find the 3 most common words in the file.

Week 5: Classes and Object-Oriented Programming
You will Learn:
– Classes and OOP
– polymorphism and inheritance
– the __init__() function
– what does self mean
– duck-typing
– exceptions and the try/except statement
You’ll create your own class out of all your current code.

Week 6: Graphical User Interfaces
Learn about:
– decorators
– partial functions
– How to design your own GUI using QT Designer
– open your UI in Maya with PySide
– naming Qt widgets,
– convert a .ui file to python
– connect buttons to commands in Maya

You will build a UI that will create content inside of Maya using PySide.

Week 7: Improving GUIs and Intro to PyMEL
– An introduction to PyMEL.
– Build an API using PyMEL,
– the pickle, and JSON modules.
– you’ll create a GUI to generate and store NURBs curve controllers as part of your final project

Week 8: Finalizing your UI and Incredibly Useful Modules
– Continue working on your Nurbs Controller UI
– Finalize your API and GUI.
– Write a command line python tool using argparse.
– Launch a subprocess from within Maya.

You will write a command line tool using Python Image Library to crop icons for the Controller GUI.

Week 9: Useful Modules Every TD Should Know
Learn some useful python modules that every python coder should know about.
– Ensuring only one instance of your GUI ever exists.
– Cygwin the Linux emulator on windows and grep
– Regular Expressions
– Paths to files using the path module
– maya.standalone examples including covering pymel gotchas
– What is stdin, stdout, and stderr?
– What is a pipe?
– Using Regular Expressions to limit character entry into fields in PySide
– Detailed look at the subprocess module