About

melfunctions

mal-, mael- #aehem# melfunctions is a plugin for Alias Maya that gives you access to many new mel command functions most of which are only very hard to replicate purely in MEL.  A lot of the commands are actually just wrapper around functionality that is already in the Maya API. melfunctions gives the user access to this hidden power formerly only available to C++ developers.  Hopefully it will make it easier and faster to create more advanced software using Maya’s embedded scripting language.

If you want to compile melfunctions it for your favourite OS give me a shout and I’m sure we can work something out.

Installation

Installation is easy, just unzip the package and place the file “melfunctions.mll” (.so on linux) in your Maya plugin directory.  Then load it using the plugin manager.  Alternativly use the “loadPlugin(“/pathToMelfunctions/melfunctions.mll”)” mel command.

Loading the plugin

After the plugin is succesfully loaded you can start using it in your scripts just like any other MEL command.  There is howeever one thing to be aware of.  IMPORTANT: MEL files that were sourced before the plugin was loaded won’t know about the commands available through the plugin.  So if you are using the commands in your scripts make sure the plugin is loaded prior to sourcing them.  This can be achieved by:

• setting the load settings in the plugin window to “autoload”
• resourcing the scripts after loading the plugin
• using the “eval” directive in your scripts when using the plugin commands (which will execute them in another new scope which knows about the commands)
• have a small control script which a) loads the plugin and then b) sources your actual script prior to executing it

Version History

• 0.2, 02/09/06, changed matrix functions to work with arrays, added many double and vector array commands, due to various changes backwardscompatibility is not guaranteed
• 0.1, 16/02/06, initial release with a basic set of 15 matrix functions

Disclaimer

melfunctions, Copyright © 2006 Carsten Kolve, http://www.kolve.com, car.nosp@m.sten@kolv.nosp@m.e.com The standard disclaimer applies, this software comes without any warranties, there is not even a guarantee it works.  Use it at your own risk!

Please read carefully as this is important: melfunctions is NOT free software. melfunctions is charityware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charityware, this mean that in case you want to use this software commercially you are asked to donate an amount of money to a charity.  If you are using the software for private or educational purposes then there is no obligation to donate any money, but it certainly would be appreciated!

If you are not sure which charity to donate to, I recommend the Doctors Without Borders / Medicines Sans Frontieres http://www.msf.org/.  Here is a webpage with a list of their national offices http://www.msf.org/msfinternational/donations/.  It’s best to donate to your national office as they can provide you with tax receipts.  As to the question how much to donate, well that is entirely up to you - please do however take into account the amount of money it would have cost you to develop a similar solution inhouse, how much money you save by using it, all donations are tax deductible and you are supporting a good cause!  Please let me know if you do make a donation- I’d like to know if something like this actually works.