WOULD SCRIPTING HELP ME WITH MY RIGGING CAREER?
Antony Ward replies
Building a rig from scratch, in any application, can be a timeconsuming and technically challenging process. Not only do you have to wrestle with constraints, expressions, ribbons and all hosts of node variations, but it can sometimes be repetitive, and a bit tedious.
Learning even the basics of scripting, be it MEL (Maya Embedded Language) or Python, can not only eliminate many of these tasks, but it can also make you a more productive and valuable member of any team.
You see, scripting does not need to be restricted to rig building. Imagine helping the other artists on your team by compressing a whole day’s work into the press of a button, with a script that only took you ten minutes to write. Take this a step further and you could see yourself streamlining the pipeline, shaving days if not weeks off the schedule.
Scripting isn’t always about being more economical, it can also help with consistency. Let’s say you are working on several rigs for a client. Using scripts can help to ensure that naming conventions and base systems are the same across each character. Building and renaming everything manually can introduce unintended variations, even if it is just a rogue capital letter or underscore, it could cause problems further down the chain.
Now there is a downside to automating the creation of your rig elements. Yes it makes their creation faster, but over time your rigs can become inefficient and outdated. You will find that you rely too much on those scripts and eventually the techniques you used in them can become outdated, because new versions of Maya are released with better, more efficient ways to build a rig. So, my advice would be to learn some scripting, but initially just
EXPERT TIP INTRODUCTION TO PYTHON
If you find the thought of learning to script in Maya intimidating, don’t worry. I have a full series of videos available on my Youtube channel, which introduce you to scripting by teaching you how to create your own automatic limb rigging tool.
enough to speed up your workflow or even create some rig automation. However, make sure you always stay on top of what’s happening within the rigging community otherwise your rigs, which were once highly sought after, will go the same way as the video tape.