How To Delete A Mobject?

[hp2oo1]

Hi,

I have a very simple question to ask: how to delete a MObject?

Specifically, I have created a camera as follows:

MFnCamera cam;
MObject camera = cam.create( /* args... */ );

Now I dont want the camera any more, how can I delete it?

I checked some books and read some tutorial, they only pointed out "Maya owns all the data, you own none of it!".
I have got it Maya API only provides handles but still confused what if I dont want a MObject any more, how can I release the memory. Can anyone help me?

Cheers,
Peng

[joojaa]

The MObject is not exactly the camera. Its just a handle to the camera. Deleting the handle does nothing for you the camera if something refeers to it would stay. But yes you can delete the nodes if you wish.

But yes you release the handles just like you would any other c++ objects by calling delete objName or letting the scope of your code run out. (note your not really supposed to keep the mobjects at all, so dynamically allocating them to memory is a bit careless for most cases. You should instead re ask the mobject every time you use it, because you cant really rely on it existing anymore. See MObjectHandle if you do keep them)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/h6227113(VS.80).aspx

[hp2oo1]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 01/16/09, 04:46 PM) [snapback]299030[/snapback]
The MObject is not exactly the camera. Its just a handle to the camera. Deleting the handle does nothing for you the camera if something refeers to it would stay. But yes you can delete the nodes if you wish.

But yes you release the handles just like you would any other c++ objects by calling delete objName or letting the scope of your code run out. (note your not really supposed to keep the mobjects at all, so dynamically allocating them to memory is a bit careless for most cases. You should instead re ask the mobject every time you use it, because you cant really rely on it existing anymore. See MObjectHandle if you do keep them)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/h6227113(VS.80).aspx

Thanks for your reply. I know delete handle actually does nothing but if I want to delete the camera what should I do?
I can select the camera in Maya and the click "delete" to delete it. How can I do the same thing in Maya API? I have written a Plugin, each time I load it, it will create 8 cameras but when I unload it, cameras stay, so you can imagine some time later, I will end in a lot of cameras and I have to delete them by hand..

Can you explain more in details how to do this in my case? Very appreciate your help.

Cheers,
Peng

[joojaa]

Use a MFn to delete the nodes. Anyway your plugin shouldnt really be creating the cameras. It should be creating a node. And that node should be connecting to cameras in its creation.

[armadillo-cgi]

I found this thread when trying to figure out the same problem (Is it just me, or did no one really answer the question?). I ended up figuring it out on my own, and I'm posting it here in case anyone else needs to it.

To delete an object, or node, in the Maya c++ API:

MDGModifier Modifier;

MObject Object;

Modifier.deleteNode(Object);

Modifier.doIt();

[joojaa]

the original question is the wrong question*. Your actually aswering a different answer**. You not deleting a mobject your deleting a node. Which is obviously a different thing. And this was aswered. Since most of the time when you know the real question you can also deduce the real answer (if you know thet you want to delete a node then you can look it up in the maya api documentaton with search, but you can not if you think your deleting a mobject).

Anyway the question develved into solmethinng of a invalid design assumption so I dropped the hread. Anywya theres really no point in discussing things that take less than 30 minutes to deduce on your own, because ultimately  that will prevent people form learning how to solve problems.

• yes there are wrong questions, wrong questions are those that allways lead to wrong answers.

** Despite the fact that that would be a valid aswer its still not a aswer thet fulfills the question. You havent actually deleted the mobject, youve still only deleted the object the mobject points to. You sill have the mobject handle. TRying to do anything with it would cause maya to crash/error tough. Which is why you dont keep mobjects, they arent your sto keep.