Los Angeles API tutor

[sheriffcicada]

I am looking for a los angeles based API developer to tutor me in python and the API. I am an artist with many years of experience in production including mel, rigging and expressions, but simply don't have the time to go through the trial and error to get over the API hump. 

I apologize if there is a better place to post this, or of this violates the forum rules, but every site that offers to post jobs costs money which would otherwise be going directly to the tutor.

Thanks

-s

[joojaa]

No its fine to post it here. However for the benefit for the tutor you might want to explain what your programming skills are. So how much do you know about algorithm design etc. And how much do you understand about programming architecture. Because maya has a very deep architectural insight, which is hard to grasp if you dont have quite good understanding of computation.

Anyway this can be a bit unproductive if you do not know how to do thinsg WITHOUT maya api, in your own software an or paper.

[sheriffcicada]

Thanks Joojaa-

To be a bit clearer about my understanding and goals. I have 7 years experience in MEL, 3 in Processing (processing.org)  and 1 in Unity3d, so I understand the ideas of classes, inheretence and the importing of libraries. As for the software architecture my understanding does not go too far beyond that. My knowledge of algorithm creation is about the same. 

My goals are simple (at least to understand, execution may be far more difficult). There are two specific plugins that I would like to write, or at least understand how they might be constructed.

1. A custom mesh modifier - similair to the reduce polygon node, and or to utilize the fluid mesh constructor to create my own mesh modifyer which derives its shape from an input mesh and utilizes patterns to create uniques surface constructions... essentially a deformer.

2. an object array handler - this may already be implemented in the particle array node, but I would like to be able to loop over many objects and be able to modify them in mass... ie their transform nodes. I have done this with expressions, which worked, but was very slow to execute.

The ideal instructor would be have several hours available, 6-10, to help me understand in plain english how the API works in general and how it relates to these two areas. I of course, will do the brass tax of the programming on my own time, so the instructor would need to have several days available, thought not consecutively.

Hope that clears it up a bit. I have a window of time from now until the middle of October which would be best for me, though not absolutely critical.

Thanks 

Scott

[joojaa]

1. mmost likely wont be much faster, unless you were writing a bad expression, in which case your code will suck even more. only worh visiting IF you do something you can use a clearer algoriithm on. So unless you have something that you KNOW can be computed faster then no not much benefit.

To test this run dgTimer and dump that to disk and look how long the expression is using time and what rest is using up your time. If the rest is using more theres no gain.* Which brings lesson number 1 dont guess you can be faster know it. You profile to find the thing that is using up your time, then you have to KNOW/device a better way**.

1. is a bit convoluted, has nothimg to do with maya. per see. Possibly ok amount of code. But again if you cant do this outside of maya you dont get one form a api tutor, then you need to study 3d ALGORTIM design which is at minimum a foundational degree.

to help me understand in plain english how the API works

It doesnt work in plain english*** Its a architecture, interface and many stuff are coincidental. Its not magic it just puches a hole for your code to work with the internal data structure. Additionally you have a notion  built in form of a assumptionis that you dont violate the inner desin of maya. Unless you have strong grasp on reality outside of how to do things in maya. Atleast a general understanding on hwo you wont software would be written then it does not help.

So what you want is tutor on Computer Science primarily.

• well ok if you do it in C++ then you can get a minimal boost, but this is most likely not the place that kills your bank. If it is then youd be better invested in writing a better expression. CS is about organising things so you DONT do it at all prefeerably (because not doing costs no time)

** a cs students toolkit is pretty big, so they know a lot fo stuff ans choose things of the shelf. Thay dont reprogram things as much as adapt them to new situations.

*** it just doesn't, you need to get over the fact that theres not necceserily any magic about it, its just how a computer scientsist would do things in a lazy evaluation graph.