Perfect answer Paul, I'm set now... my turn to give some. Yes I'm looking after scripted plugins creation, for a featured exporter using XML scene description.
Plugins will involve new shaders, utilities and new DAG nodes in general. I want AE support for these nodes and specific HyperShade tabs, off course :) How much API is this ? Parsing XML with MEL is... sick ? My take was that there must be better than just MEL to parse DAG and stuff, plus achieving deep UI integration, question mark. Thanks so far. Adam On 20 avr, 00:38, Paul Molodowitch <[email protected]> wrote: > Ditto what Judah said - if you want to use the api, you're gonna > either need to know python or C++... and if you don't want to > compile... > > However, regarding pymel + maya API... first, you need to ask yourself > a question: what do you want to use the API for? Are you looking to > gain access to all of the API methods / functions to use when writing > scripts? Or do you want to write plugins - which allows the creation > of custom node types, manipulators, locators, etc, as Count Zero > pointed out? > > It's a very important distinction, because, depending on which you > intend to do, there are very different restrictions on what methods / > etc you can safely use. If you're doing script-level programming, you > can use... pretty much everything. There are dangers associated with > mixing in some of the API functions in in scripts (mainly due to > issues with undo), but there are ways around these (the simplest / > most brute force being just disabling undo, for instance). If this is > your goal, then pymel may be a good option for you - it will enable > you to get at a lot of the API functionality without the extra hassle > that dealing directly with the API can involve. > > If, on the other hand, you want to do api-level programming - ie, > plugins - there are a lot more restrictions on what you can use: > essentially, you're stuck with only using what the API provides, and > none of the script level stuff - ie, maya.cmds, which has all the > mel-like functions you're probably used to. In this context, pymel is > less useful, for the simple reason that it's never really been > designed to be used in this context. While it does have a fair amount > of internal workings for dealing with the api, they're not really > easily accessible, and would probably just make things even more > confusing for someone new to the API. (We do have plans to eventually > provide more API-level support, but that's another discussion > entirely...) > > In either case, though, if your goal is really to LEARN the maya API, > pymel is probably NOT the best option. While it provides access to a > lot of the API functionality, it's also essentially trying to protect > you from it. The goal with pymel is that you shouldn't need to know > the details of the api - which is great if you just want to use it, > but not if you want to learn it. If you want to learn about the API, > then either check out MRV or just use the standard python API... (or, > bite the bullet and learn it in C++... the python API is just a crude > wrap over the top of the C++ api, and introduces a number of other > complications, so in many ways the API only really makes sense when > you view it through a C++ lens...) > > - Paul > > --http://groups.google.com/group/python_inside_maya -- http://groups.google.com/group/python_inside_maya
