My first Maya Python/PyQt plugin

THE PLUGIN

What i'm gonna show in the next video is the first plugin for Maya i've coded. I wanted to do something with GUI so i forced myself to use PyQt and the QTDesigner to get familiar with it. The idea of this plugin came up during one of the sessions of the Máster in audiovisual production with Autodesk Maya that i'm following at CICE here in Madrid.

I recalled that 3ds max has a very complete tool for pivot alignment and orientation. One can do the practically the same with Maya but the local axis alignment. This comes handy when we cannot do a snap to the grid or geometric vertex to position the object's pivot.

Modifying the object's pivot position is a very usual operation when we find ourselves modeling stuff. It allows for example to rotate an object's duplicate around a geometric center that can be found through the bounding box of the proper object itself.

ABOUT MY INTEREST IN MAYA TOOLS DEVELOPMENT

The course is mainly focused on 3d concepts such as NURBS & polygon modeling, lighting, texturing, rendering, dynamics etc, all from a Maya artist point of view so no coding at all taught. I felt very disappointed when the other Master i was about to do was cancelled, this one oriented exclusively to Maya tools development and API understanding. The reason was that there wasnt people enough interested in the course. Truth is we were at first 10 people (enough for it) but 5 of them were being sent by the same company as an education at work thing and this company backed off at the last moment. So there we were only 5 people, which the school though was not a proper amount to dedicate a room during five and a half months, in other words, it wasn't profitable.

'Okay, then i'll try in April 2015 while im working' (the schedule allowed me to balance it with work) but then new surprise "the teacher is leaving to work for MPC in Canada, the course will not be released anymore".

Well then find another teacher!!! Apparently this is such a "high profile" that there is little demand for this kind of education (usually 3d artist dont wanna know anything about coding) and at the same time it's difficult to find a teacher. Is this caused by the fact that there are few Technical Directors or Tech Artists out there? is it a "niche" job?

All this said, that's why im trying to make it up and start learning tools development on my own since there is no place else where to study this here in Spain. It will require more effort and the steps will be smaller but with help from other technical directors in a facebook group and mainly my will power  (yes! i can !) i hope to get enough understanding and experience to land a job as CG Generalist/TD.

Ohhhh excuse me, this post is about the plugin. I 'll let the video do the talking!!