Beer glass scene creation
This course contains a little bit of everything with modeling, UVing, texturing and dynamics in Maya, as well as compositing multilayered EXR's in Photoshop.
# 1 07-03-2014 , 09:31 AM
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Repeat action in parts of mesh

So this is a problem i have stumbled on many times.

user added image

See i get a certain area in my mesh that are the same, but when i want to scale them all i got to go through every part for itself and scale it exactly as the other etc ..

i tried to copy+paste MEL script commands but i didnt quite understand -_-


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# 2 08-03-2014 , 12:34 AM
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What you can do is take a segment of your wheel in your case 1 tenth with the hole and do a duplicate special as a instance, when you are happy with the hole size delete the instances and redo with copies..............dave




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# 3 09-03-2014 , 02:05 AM
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What you can do is take a segment of your wheel in your case 1 tenth with the hole and do a duplicate special as a instance, when you are happy with the hole size delete the instances and redo with copies..............dave

Ended up doing just that. Just hoped there would be a more simple way though


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# 4 09-03-2014 , 03:02 AM
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You need to understand what the MEL commands are actually doing. It's referencing specific vertices/faces etc. Obviously with different points, you will need to use a different command, so what you're doing won't work. You would need to figure out how to traverse the topology, which isn't worth the time. MEL can't save you from everything user added image


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# 5 09-03-2014 , 06:26 PM
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You need to understand what the MEL commands are actually doing. It's referencing specific vertices/faces etc. Obviously with different points, you will need to use a different command, so what you're doing won't work. You would need to figure out how to traverse the topology, which isn't worth the time. MEL can't save you from everything user added image

Plus I think MEL might even be too slow for that. I can't imagine how that will bog down with any kind of high res mesh.


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# 6 09-03-2014 , 07:49 PM
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It all depends on how you traverse the mesh. However, yes, using the Maya C++ API or the Python wrappers would be faster.


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# 7 09-03-2014 , 09:33 PM
EduSciVis-er
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If the vertex selection isn't too onerous, you can just use the MEL for whatever operation needs to happen after selecting it yourself, might be a good halfway step.

# 8 10-03-2014 , 08:40 AM
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You need to understand what the MEL commands are actually doing. It's referencing specific vertices/faces etc. Obviously with different points, you will need to use a different command, so what you're doing won't work. You would need to figure out how to traverse the topology, which isn't worth the time. MEL can't save you from everything user added image

How would MEL scripting do this? Is there any way that MEL can find vertex groups just like the new tool in 2014 'Select similar'?


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# 9 10-03-2014 , 08:43 AM
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It all depends on how you traverse the mesh. However, yes, using the Maya C++ API or the Python wrappers would be faster.

Is there any tutorials how to do this? I have barvley been working in MEL, but would love to learn if i can find any positive shortcuts such as this. thanks for the reply user added image


20 year old guy from Sweden



Big Bob Marley fan
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# 10 10-03-2014 , 02:13 PM
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If you just started with MEL, you have a long way to go before you get to the API. For that you need to learn C++, memory management, etc.


Imagination is more important than knowledge.
# 11 11-03-2014 , 09:16 AM
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If you just started with MEL, you have a long way to go before you get to the API. For that you need to learn C++, memory management, etc.

What are the advantages of learning C++? and how come ive never heard of it, when i see tutorials i can only see people using MEL. When do i use C++? I would be interested in learning to code if it can benefit for my modeling ... but i dont know where to begin user added image


20 year old guy from Sweden



Big Bob Marley fan
Love skateboarding
Maya, Mudbox and Photoshop user

Full name: Marcus Ralman


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# 12 11-03-2014 , 01:05 PM
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C++ is a compiled language rather than an interpreted language. This means that the code you write is converted (compiled) into machine instructions. MEL and Python are interpreted languages meaning that it goes through line by line, reads the command, converts the data, then executes the command. Obviously compiled code will be faster, as the code is compiled once, rather than every time the script is run.

The reason why it is much harder to find examples of the C++ Maya API is that it is much lower level than the MEL and Python wrappers; a lot of the functionality is left for you to implement. It also takes much more time to learn the API, develop new plugins, and maintain them with newer versions of Maya. You need to have a good grasp on what Maya is doing in the background (DAGs, etc) as well.


Imagination is more important than knowledge.
# 13 12-03-2014 , 07:45 PM
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C++ is a compiled language rather than an interpreted language. This means that the code you write is converted (compiled) into machine instructions. MEL and Python are interpreted languages meaning that it goes through line by line, reads the command, converts the data, then executes the command. Obviously compiled code will be faster, as the code is compiled once, rather than every time the script is run.

The reason why it is much harder to find examples of the C++ Maya API is that it is much lower level than the MEL and Python wrappers; a lot of the functionality is left for you to implement. It also takes much more time to learn the API, develop new plugins, and maintain them with newer versions of Maya. You need to have a good grasp on what Maya is doing in the background (DAGs, etc) as well.

Thanks for the reply man, definatly got me a good picture of how diffrent coding languages work within maya. all this has been a mystery to me for a long time now haha.


20 year old guy from Sweden



Big Bob Marley fan
Love skateboarding
Maya, Mudbox and Photoshop user

Full name: Marcus Ralman


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