AC754 Digital and Physical Lighting

Arts Col 694X : Experimental Scripting for Animation in Maya
An introduction to Maya Embedded Language (MEL) as a tool for animators to streamline workflow, exercise control over complex operations, and to explore ideas originating from the generation of motion graphics through mathematical procedures. Sophisticated software programs often provide tools for user customization of the interface, implementation of new methods for interaction, and to virtually build new applications within the existing one. Many 3D animation programs have this adaptability for extending functionality. The objective of this course is to familiarize students with the practice of writing custom expressions and MEL scripts for the purpose of expanding their toolset for art making, design, and visualization. This extensibility allows for experimentation in new ways of thinking about process and creative problem solving.
George Gantzer		New Scene Generator Finding MEL commands in the script editor's history window and building up a sequence of commands to achieve a final result.


Cara Christeson		Expression-driven animated scene Use of expressions to drive the motion of objects in a scene and attributes that control aspects of the motion or relationships between objects.


Yisheng Chen		GUI for interactively generating event(s) Creating and formatting custom user interfaces.



Steve Conroy		GUI for persistent control over scene elements Designing a UI that remains open for the user to continuously adjust controls that affect the scene as it runs.



Matt Bain		Generator of custom connections with dynamic properties or particles with expressions Designing a variation on controlling dynamics and particles with expressions, and setting up the initial conditions with a script.