Maya Asset Tools
Shaders, Animation and Groom Management
DESCRIPTION
As the studio got bigger, it became essential to manage data efficiently between the different departments and teams.In the process of developing a VFX pipeline, a series of tool had to be created to accelerate and automate assets workflows within Maya.
The main areas of interest were shader, animation, and fur management.
The resulting suite of tools included:
- Shader Management
- Export Shader
- Reexport Shader
- Import Shader
- Animation Caching
- Export Still Cache
- Export Anim Cache
- Import Anim Cache
- Yeti (Fur) Tools
- Export Yeti Nodes
- Export Yeti Curves
- Export Yeti Fur
- Import Yeti Cache
Combined with our QC and publishing tools, these formed the foundation of a basic yet effective VFX pipeline centered around Maya.
These tools greatly helped the studio to successfully deliver hundreds of shots across major productions, including the Chinese fantasy film The Yinyang Master and the Korean horror series Sweet Home.
ROLE
Tool design and implementation were carried out in close collaboration with the VFX supervisor.Through a combination of notes, diagrams, UI mockups, and ongoing discussions, we defined a clear development roadmap.
All the tools were developed in Python.
Initially, the user interfaces were built using Maya's cmds module, but were later refactored with Qt.
These were the studio's first import/export pipeline tools.
They were fully integrated into Maya via custom shelves and menus, and also usable as command line tools (through mayapy).
Publishing functionality supported project-specific configurations based on predefined rules and naming conventions.
This automated the handling of version control, file naming and storage paths.
