Edit Maya Ascii File

[amitc]

Hi,

I am interested in editing Maya ASCII files to include MEL such that anything in the scene gets framed to fit in standard cameras.

So basically append the following at the end of maya ascii files

CODE
viewFit -all topShape;
viewFit -all frontShape;
viewFit -all sideShape;
viewFit -all perspShape;
// End of test.ma

While this works correctly with th Maya UI, but it is unpredictable the way I am doing it by editing Maya ASCII.
Maya documentation also mentions not to add MEL in maya ascii files, but I can't figure out a better way
Can someone point out a better way to do this.

I need to render snapshots of large number of scenes, so manually doing this is not a good way.

Help appreciated.
Thanks

[rgkovach]

you could use a scriptJob that fires when a file is opened.
the scriptJob could fit the camera views and do your rendering.

[amitc]

QUOTE(rgkovach @ 03/18/09, 05:22 AM) [snapback]303303[/snapback]
you could use a scriptJob that fires when a file is opened.
the scriptJob could fit the camera views and do your rendering.

Thanks rgkovach.
Seems like scriptJob will not cut it. This is what I see in maya documentation for scriptJob

Script jobs are tied to the event loop in the interactive application. They are run during idle events. This means that script jobs do not exist in the batch application. The scriptJob command does nothing in batch mode.

scriptNode might be an answer. I am checking them up.

[amitc]

scriptNode did not accomplish what I was trying to do.

added a simple option -preRender in batch renderer which did the trick

CODE
-preRender "viewFit -f 0.9 -all topShape; viewFit -f 0.9 -all sideShape; viewFit -f 0.9 -all frontShape; viewFit -f 0.9 -all perspShape;" \

[joojaa]

No Scriptobs in maya ascii files. It is mel but it only supports createNode, setAttr, fileInfo and connectAttr since to use maya you only ever need those commands in maya to do anything.

There is however script nodes inject the code into one of them. Jut open exression editor and make one, or just inject code for scriptnode into the stream.

But yes prerender mel is perfectly good.

[amitc]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/19/09, 08:35 AM) [snapback]303416[/snapback]
There is however script nodes inject the code into one of them. Jut open exression editor and make one, or just inject code for scriptnode into the stream.

Cool thanks Joojaa