Nate Aschenbach
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project / 2010

PyMEL Tools

Artist-centered workflow automation

unreal / maya / pymel

Career archive · through 2020. Roles and descriptions reflect that period.

My contribution

Wrote and released a robust set of character creation tools for Maya written in Python.

The project

When I started working on Coda in 2007, workflows involving normal map generation were arcane, tedious, and error-prone. Having felt burned by MEL in several previous projects, the switch to PyMEL was a breath of fresh air. I was able to achieve a simplicity in my approach which saved time and reduced the creative entropy.

Watch PyMEL Tools — video 1 on YouTube ↗
Original Demo Video
The toolset also included some animation features. Animation can be mirrored across a rig on a per-frame basis or in batch. An extension of this functionality is used in the animation-cycling tool. Walk and run cycles can be quickly created by animating the first half of the motion which is then mirrored across the character and seamlessly cycled for playback and export.
The toolset also included some animation features. Animation can be mirrored across a rig on a per-frame basis or in batch. An extension of this functionality is used in the animation-cycling tool. Walk and run cycles can be quickly created by animating the first half of the motion which is then mirrored across the character and seamlessly cycled for playback and export.

Further reading

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