Objects That Are Visible In A Specific Camera?

[guygizmo]

I'm trying to create a set of controls in a scene, and want the controls to be visible in one camera and one camera only. That means that the other model panels or the default cameras like top, persp, side, and such would not see this object, and whatever new camera object I create will be able to see it. Since the user would be continuing to interact with the other camera views normally, using the view selected attribute of a camera isn't really an option, since presumably the user might want to use that for their own ends at any time.

So, is there any way to do this? I've been looking at the mel documentation for selectionSets, but I can't figure out how to get them to work. Furthermore, from what I've read I don't think they could actually be used for making these specific objects invisible in the other cameras or model panels. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[guygizmo]

bump - can anyone help with this at all? I've looked through tons of mel documentation but I haven't been able to find anything.

[joojaa]

Isolate lists are the only way to deal with this. but you can deal with them on deeper level amd rearange the gui and thus do a illusion of this.

[guygizmo]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/15/07, 03:02 PM) [snapback]262265[/snapback]
Isolate lists are the only way to deal with this. but you can deal with them on deeper level amd rearange the gui and thus do a illusion of this.

When you say deal with them on a deeper level, what exactly do you mean? I could set the individual modelEditors in the current GUI to have an isolate list that includes everything except these certain objects, but then if the user wanted to isolate something different or turn off isolate altogether it would override anything I just did.

[joojaa]

Not if you change the entire script thet builds the isolate menus i suggest yo do this in context of bookamrks and make a camera specific exclude list there.

[guygizmo]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/15/07, 05:10 PM) [snapback]262278[/snapback]
Not if you change the entire script thet builds the isolate menus

Whoa - now we're getting a little too crazy for what I want to do. If that's what it takes then I'll just design around the controls having to be visible.

[joojaa]

Well its approximately 10-30 lines of mel placed into 2 factory scripts (that you copy to your scripts directory before you startto modifuy them, this way you have factory originals and maya will use your edits)

Maybe all in all some 30 minutes of work (took me 5 to find out what where and how, but i didn't implement it)

PS its often sounds 100 more scary than it actually is.

[guygizmo]

The more I looked into this, the more I'm becoming convinced of modifying the way the "Isolate Select" menu works is a bad idea. I wouldn't want to go through with that unless I was sure it would be completely transparent to the user, in order for that to happen, there's at least two things I'd need to do:

1. Change all the commands in the Isolate Select popup menu to accomidate there being an option that is hidden all of the time except for one camera. This means that viewSelected will be true for all the model editors even when the user thinks it's not.

2. Make some kind of callback that runs everytime a camera is changed in a model view, and update what's visible accordingly. I don't even know if such a thing is possible. There's no consistent function that's called when a model editor changes which camera it's looking through so there's no function I can override in this case, and there's no scriptJob for that. Maybe it's possible with a plug-in.

Furthermore, if the user decides to interact directly with the viewSelected attribute of a model panel via a script or something other than the Isolate Select menu, things will start going wrong. There's just too many if's.

The other thing I'm looking into is modifying the main selectionConnection for a model editor, since that might do the trick in a way that doesn't involve tinkering with the user interface. However, I haven't been able to get it to work. Can selectionConnections be used for such a thing? I don't really have any idea how to use them yet so I don't know.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(Brian Kenda @ 03/16/07, 09:12 PM) [snapback]262349[/snapback]
1. Change all the commands in the Isolate Select popup menu to accomidate there being an option that is hidden all of the time except for one camera. This means that viewSelected will be true for all the model editors even when the user thinks it's not.

no problem filter the selection list whenever its added with stuff. And no you only have to change the behaviour of 2 scripts 6 if you want to be bulletproofer than wht maya is currently.

QUOTE(Brian Kenda @ 03/16/07, 09:12 PM) [snapback]262349[/snapback]
2. Make some kind of callback that runs everytime a camera is changed in a model view, and update what's visible accordingly. I don't even know if such a thing is possible. There's no consistent function that's called when a model editor changes which camera it's looking through so there's no function I can override in this case, and there's no scriptJob for that. Maybe it's possible with a plug-in.

why, maya operates on selection lits that themselves are invisible, you only need to autoload stuff into theese lists. And mayas allready doing this.

QUOTE
Furthermore, if the user decides to interact directly with the
viewSelected attribute of a model panel via a script or something other than the Isolate Select menu, things will start going wrong.

But that would happen in any case, for example if you use a bookmark in the list and start modifying the viewport via script and dont update active list it still craps the thing up equally well. Which it incidentally very rarely does. Indeed its jsut the same effect taking user just one step away the internals thats all. But no its a integral definition of maya so it dont break infact the script and mel commands get blurred here.

Well i actually tested this and i had a hard time beraking the ahcky solution mad e in 15 minutes.

PS the way isolate select is implemented is very clunky at best ata the moment too.

PPS I don't actually get peoples obsession with transparency, i mean people stop developing something way better just because its not transparent is stupid (so you change the way people opewrate and makei ti better then what they do now). Its like saying in order for us to make less fuelefficient vehicles lets not consider something other than cars. Anyway this builds on asumption users cant berak maya at all if its trasoparent... well they can easily in any case.

PPPS anyways yes api has access to theese functors. but somewhat limitedly, unless you want to redefine the whole shebang. (but it can overload the mel commands so they are more then totaly trasparent). But thenagain if you sue api jsut ame a new class of locators isntead that only show up in certain editors

[guygizmo]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/16/07, 02:32 PM) [snapback]262352[/snapback]
why, maya operates on selection lits that themselves are invisible, you only need to autoload stuff into theese lists. And mayas allready doing this.

What do you mean? Selection lists? I'm talking about using the viewSelected attribute in a modelEditor, but since which objects are visible when viewSelected is turned on is dependent on the modelEditor itself and not the camera, I'd need to update it every time the user changes the camera in a modelEditor, because I only want these objects visible in a certain camera, not a certain modelEditor.

QUOTE
But that would happen in any case, for example if you use a bookmark in the list and start modifying the viewport via script and dont update active list it still craps the thing up equally well. Which it incidentally very rarely does. Indeed its jsut the same effect taking user just one step away the internals thats all. But no its a integral definition of maya so it dont break infact the script and mel commands get blurred here.

I'm thinking more like having a script that toggles viewSelected in the active modelEditor that's, say, bound to a keystroke. I have that set up in my Maya configuration right now, and presumably other people could have something similar. Using that script would break this because it would turn off viewSelected (which was previously always on, even if the user didn't realize it), which makes the previously invisible objects visible again. And as far as I know there's nothing I can do about that.

QUOTE
PPS I don't actually get peoples obsession with transparency, i mean people stop developing something way better just because its not transparent is stupid (so you change the way people opewrate and makei ti better then what they do now). Its like saying in order for us to make less fuelefficient vehicles lets not consider something other than cars.

Transparency is important because it's good user interface design. Bad user interfaces happen when things get inconsistent or unexpected things start happening, which causes people to get confused or irritated. I'm developing a product that's targeted at a wide variety of Maya users who are going to expect things to work a certain way, and if somehow the product messes things up, like say the viewSelected feature, then people are going to complain. And I can't have the attitude "well that's how our product works and you have to adjust, take it or leave it!" because then people are going to say, "Well, screw you guys, I'm not taking it." and then they don't buy the product anymore, which is exactly the opposite of what we want to happen.

So right now I've been trying to get a custom selectionConnection to define what's visible in a modelEditor, but it's just not working. I'll change the mainListConnection, update it, made sure it's been unlocked, and all that, but the modelEditor doesn't change. Is there something else I have to do?

[joojaa]

QUOTE(Brian Kenda @ 03/16/07, 10:00 PM) [snapback]262355[/snapback]
What do you mean? Selection lists?

read the manual for selectionConnection, all that flag odes is makes a new selection connection and locks/ autoloads stuff int ot you can equaly well make the sellection list yourself.

QUOTE(Brian Kenda @ 03/16/07, 10:00 PM) [snapback]262355[/snapback]
I'm thinking more like having a script that toggles viewSelected in the active modelEditor that's, say, bound to a keystroke. I have that set up in my Maya configuration right now, and presumably other people could have something similar. Using that script would break this because it would turn off viewSelected (which was previously always on, even if the user didn't realize it), which makes the previously invisible objects visible again. And as far as I know there's nothing I can do about that.

Well it just switches to a new selection connection thats all. nothing actually breaks, you can allways reestablish the selection connection.

QUOTE
Transparency is important because it's good user interface design.

Yes, but its no excuse to do it better or somehow differently. If you sue a keustorke then just reassign it. Theres nothing you can do about a a wiseass beraking your things no matter what you do anyway. So theres no way to do a unbreakable or uninvestigeteable rig. I can allways break it if is wish, if nothing else i dig out the stuff directly from the firigging binary (its actually much easier then people think)

(list very much like you can steal 3d modells form the ogl or dx driver directly)

QUOTE
So right now I've been trying to get a custom selectionConnection to define what's visible in a modelEditor, but it's just not working.

Ahh but yes see you must have the isolate select on for it to not use the main list (but you can say waht exatly is on the list no matter what the user says, oh by the wayy use editor instead of model panel). Now all you need to do is make the gui such taht you are alleways in a isolate mode you just switch the mode look how the bookmark thing works.

(isolate either uses the list you prowide or then it maeks its own either or you win)

Now if you want to fix this so it filters even if you swiths the option offf you can redefine model editor in api to include this change.

[guygizmo]

Also, at some point actually I'm probably going to give the kludgey solution a try after all. I'll have to be careful to make sure future versions of Maya don't have different versions of the UI functions I'd be overriding, and getting a callback for when a camera changes requires a plugin, but that's not a big deal because the product I'm working on is a plugin already anyway. Also, worst case scenario the user has some script that turns of viewSelected on a modelPanel, and it makes the invisible objects visible. Not too bad. It would be nice if there was a cleaner way to do this, though.

I'll report back on how it goes, so future generations may benefit.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(Brian Kenda @ 03/16/07, 10:54 PM) [snapback]262359[/snapback]
Also, at some point actually I'm probably going to give the kludgey solution a try after all. I'll have to be careful to make sure future versions of Maya don't have different versions of the UI functions

Well yes nowdays it takes me as much time to update all my gui changes as it takes to test my models whan i switch over Anwaya the gui scripts evolve at vary slow pace much slower then what the api changes.

QUOTE
Also, worst case scenario the user has some script that turns of viewSelected on a modelPanel, and it makes the invisible objects visible. Not too bad. It would be nice if there was a cleaner way to do this, though.

Yes thet would be to use MPxModelEditorCommand to register a new command named modelEditor and just redefine how the flags related to isolate work. This would override the maya internal function with yours. (maya takes the last defined and uses it for example if you make a proc named file nobody could actually use the file command anymore)

PS everything is eventually kludge, but best is that its YOUR kludge! its msuhc worse when its the 1.0 verson of software comppanly thet will then sell you the 2.0 version for same price.

[guygizmo]

QUOTE(Joojaa @ 03/16/07, 04:23 PM) [snapback]262361[/snapback]
Yes thet would be to use MPxModelEditorCommand to register a new command named modelEditor and just redefine how the flags related to isolate work. This would override the maya internal function with yours. (maya takes the last defined and uses it for example if you make a proc named file nobody could actually use the file command anymore)

Okay, so I'm trying to make a new MPxModelEditorCommand subclass and accompanying MPx3dModelView subclass. It looks like there's functions in there I can use to specify specific objects be drawn into the view and specific times, so that's good and might do what I want. Unfortunately, it looks like neither of these two classes are actually defined! If I try to subclass them, I get a ton of link errors about undefined external functions in both base classes, including the constructor and destructor! So I can't actually make a subclass of these. Do you know what I'm supposed to do? These two classes are barely documented at all, and there's no example code anywhere.