Skin Objects 0.0.1 for Maya (maya script)

This is a messily written script I just finished for personal use and to learn some basic scripting. The script takes multiple objects of any hierarchy and creates a game engine ready skinned version with all animation intact. This is useful for game artists who need to rig things like battle effects, debris, fractures etc. Doing that manually is unproductive.

 

Known Issues:

 

 

This script should work on almost any hierarchy of objects except null groups which are transforms with no shape node. Use locators or nurbsCurves etc instead of null groups.

Also this script does not work with a selection of objects within a hierarchy unless you include the top most parent too. EG: trying to combine Obj 2, 3, 4, within Obj 1,2,3,4, will not work. You must select Obj1 too, or just ungroup from Obj 1 before running the script.

Sometime the script doesn't work and Maya / the script needs to be restarted for it to work again. Its probably an issue with my variables in the script not resetting.

 

This script is not optimized so depending on the number of objects and total vertex count, it can take up to several minutes. On my computer, a fractured bridge with 100 pieces and a vertex count of 5,000 takes the script about 2-3 minutes. However you probably wouldn't want to use this for anything larger.

 

How to use.

 

1. First enter the prefix you want the new mesh and joints to have.

 

2. Create a RootJoint and position that accordingly. Sometimes you may want it at the origin which is what it does by defualt, but at other times you may want to move it to the center of the object.

 

 

3.You must select your objects you want to skin Top to Bottom. That's pretty easy to do if you don't have complex nested hierarchies. If not just select your root objects and whatever else, press the Expand Hierarchy button and then press F or "frame selected" in your outliner. This will expand/ open up all the complex hierarchies and let you easily select them Top to Bottom in just a couple of seconds.

 

4. Press SkinObjects.

 

 

 

Feel free to post any comments, I hope people find it useful or can improve my script and make it better!