Advanced Rigging

Script Set-Up

Introduction

These scripts are slightly modified versions of the master class scripts written by Jason Schleifer for SIGGRAPH 2006. We will be adding a few more scripts to the ones that we are already using so that we can complete the rest of the rig.

Tutorial

1. Close Maya! Since you are going to be editing a script for the shelf, you will have to have maya closed. If you edit the script with maya open, then restart maya, it will save it's current shelf preferences over the script that you edited.
2. Download the additional icons from the assignment page.
3. Go to the My Documents folder and open the "maya" folder.
4. Copy the icon files (there should be many images zipped together in the download, all are of type .bmp) to the My Documents\maya\2008\prefs\icons folder. Don't delete the previous icons.
5. Navigate to My Documents\maya\2008\prefs\shelves.
6. Right Click on the file called shelf_Rigging.mel and choose Open With > Word Pad.
7. Hit Ctrl + f and find the phrase "Setup Multi Constraint UI"
8. You will see the following text:
   /*shelfButton
   -enableCommandRepeat 1
   -enable 1
   -width 34
   -height 34
   -manage 1
   -visible 1
   -preventOverride 0
   -align "center"
   -label "Setup Multi Constraint UI"
   -labelOffset 0
   -font "tinyBoldLabelFont"
   -image "mergeMult.bmp"
   -image1 "mergeMult.bmp"
   -style "iconOnly"
   -marginWidth 1
   -marginHeight 1
   -command "source js_setUpMultiConstraintUI;js_setUpMultiConstraintUI\r"
   -sourceType "mel"
   -actionIsSubstitute 0
   ;
9. Delete the "/*" before the shelfButton and move it to after the ";". This will uncomment a block of code enabling another icon on your shelf.
10. Your script should now look like this:
    shelfButton
    -enableCommandRepeat 1
    -enable 1
    -width 34
    -height 34
    -manage 1
    -visible 1
    -preventOverride 0
    -align "center"
    -label "Setup Multi Constraint UI"
    -labelOffset 0
    -font "tinyBoldLabelFont"
    -image "mergeMult.bmp"
    -image1 "mergeMult.bmp"
    -style "iconOnly"
    -marginWidth 1
    -marginHeight 1
    -command "source js_setUpMultiConstraintUI;js_setUpMultiConstraintUI\r"
    -sourceType "mel"
    -actionIsSubstitute 0
    ; /*
11. Save the script.
12. Open maya. You should now have another button on your Rigging Shelf.