Tools and Scripts
I have accumulated a large volume of scripts in my CG career. I started dabbling and building simple tools in MEL to save time. My scripts have never been particularly fancy, but they have been used successfully on shows and even passed on to team members. I decided to create an archive of all the tools, scripts, and macros I have put together, as a way to showcase and to eventually share, if the VFX community and the wider industry survive this devastating downturn.
ADD FRUSTUM
It is a very simple idea, and adds a frustum to the selected camera, in this case, a red polygon object. The object generated matches the camera’s frustum setting, which can be found in the attribute editor. I use this for techvis or when I need to demonstrate what the camera sees from another view.
LIGHT INTENSITY RANDOMIZER
The tool randomizes the intensity of a selected light. The user can opt for a single random value, keyframed or expression-based values. The min and max are controlled via the GUI input. In visualization you often get shots that you need to have light flicker or create reflected light from an explosion or fire-strewn crash site.
LOCK AND UNLOCK OBJECTS
When importing cameras into my scenes, I almost always lock them to avoid unintended alterations. This can be avoided by referencing the camera in, but the script is a macro that puts in the effort of heading to the channel box, highlighting the transforms, and locking or unlocking. This script puts all that into a button, so click to lock, and click again to unlock.
CUSTOM HUD DISPLAY
From my many reviews and video call sessions, I often want to be able to display information as I was working in a passive way. The script piggybacks on Maya’s default UI element displays and customises it to display what I think could be useful.
VERSION UP AND BAKE SUFFIX
Every session we save, save as. I wanted to reduce the time spent doing this task and have a couple of buttons. The first part is versions up the current scene file, and adds the v001, v002, etc. The second adds a suffix of _BAKE to the file. I use this when I’m ready to send my animation to Unreal. I create a secondary file as the bake-to-FBX process is destructive.
FPS PLAYBACK
This was designed for use in my video call sessions with clients. I found that it was always beneficial and needed to be able to quickly slow down the animation globally. Half or quarter speed is almost always the best, but there is extra functionality should I need it.
MOVE AI MOCAP UI
Bringing in and prepping mocap can be tedious once you have done a few takes. This tool helps streamline my process. Launch the UI and import the desired FBX take.
APPLE BOX BUILDER
A UI that allows the user to quickly create the iconic Apple Box you've seen on almost every film set. I designed this to help lineups and layouts in my postvis bookings. Often, we are sent plates that require fully digital characters to be placed in the shot. The photography can be tricky to get the sizes correct. The apple box method gives me a recognisable dimension and can be understood along the chain, especially useful when communicating with the editorial department.
SCATTER OBJECTS
A UI that allows the user to quickly create the iconic Apple Box you've seen on almost every film set. I designed this to help lineups and layouts in my postvis bookings. Often, we are sent plates that require fully digital characters to be placed in the shot. The photography can be tricky to get the sizes correct. The apple box method gives me a recognisable dimension and can be understood along the chain, especially useful when communicating with the editorial department.
CONES TO TRACKERS
Originally designed for use with PF Track, but I still use it with my newer Syntheyes workflow. The UI looks for all locators in the scene and adds a cone to each one.
ADD IMAGE PLANE
Another tool created directly from having to track plates in postvis. You can often setup and track several shots a day so automising aspects can be useful. This UI
TEAR OFF PANEL AND SHOW POLYGONS
This tool is really a combination of two scripts that I almost exclusively use as one script. When animating I always tear off a camera view and the script just makes that much more simple.