jEdit is a text editor for programming and scripting. The interface automatically indents and highlights as you type, making your code much easier to read and edit. If you've ever used Dreamweaver to write HTML, or some of the Python editors out there, this will be familiar to you. jEdit also has a plethora of utilities such as word-completion, regular expressions, keyboard shortcuts, and various organization tools. A giant leap up from coding in wordpad.
jEdit currently supports syntax highlighting for over 150 different programming and scripting languanges - among them, MEL and Python.
You can also download a plug-in that allows you to directly execute lines of script in Maya from jEdit, essentially replacing the script editor.
For anyone with even a vague interest in MEL or Python for Maya, it's a great tool. For those who do a substantial amount of coding, it's a must have.
You can go here to download jEdit.
If you poke around on Highend3D, you can find all the relevant Maya plug-ins. You have to download the MEL Mode Plugin, to configure jEdit for syntax highlighting MEL. In order to send commands to Maya from the jEdit buffer, you need the Maya Editor Plugin.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Animation Couple
There's been some buzz over the past couple weeks about "Meet Meline," a short film made entirely by a husband and wife team. I thought that sounded pretty cool - an animation couple. They definitely do some impressive work! Just goes to show that sometimes a small team, working efficiently, can be very effective. Here's the teaser trailer that they released:
MEET MELINE (2009) - TRAILER from Sebastien LABAN on Vimeo.
MEET MELINE (2009) - TRAILER from Sebastien LABAN on Vimeo.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
A Word of Caution
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 8 months or so, you're sure to have noticed that the economy isn't doing so well.
Nonetheless, the animation industry seams to be doing just fine. On the film end, box office receipts have been strong. And on the video game end, the industry grew another 10% last year and shows no signs of slowing.
But from the way the producers and execs are talking, you'd never know it.
It seams that employers are using the economic downturn as an excuse to slash wages, low-ball contractors, and downsize employees. Certainly, there is legitimate trouble brewing at some studios. But in a lot of cases, business is doing just fine, and execs are using scare tactics as bargaining chips to frighten workers and intimidate them into taking pay cuts. People are so afraid of losing their jobs (understandably so), that they're giving in without a fight.
Obviously this kind of thing applies to more than just the animation industry. When the job market goes south, a lot of companies see it as an opportunity to take advantage of employees and boost profits. But the problem is so evident in the animation industry right now because of the stark contrast; the industry is doing so well in the middle of a tanking economy.
There've been a few articles in the news recently about the issue as it applies to various fields. And I've heard from a number of artists in the animation world who have dealt with it first hand. The TAG blog has been keeping tabs on the trend. Here's a recent entry:
why-everyone-is-sucking-it-up
In any case, this is just a word of warning: be informed. Make sure you stay up to date on the state of the industry (this applies to anyone), or it's easy to have the wool pulled over your eyes. It's natural to worry when the economy starts churning. But it's important to know that animation is actually doing quite well in the midst of it all.
Nonetheless, the animation industry seams to be doing just fine. On the film end, box office receipts have been strong. And on the video game end, the industry grew another 10% last year and shows no signs of slowing.
But from the way the producers and execs are talking, you'd never know it.
It seams that employers are using the economic downturn as an excuse to slash wages, low-ball contractors, and downsize employees. Certainly, there is legitimate trouble brewing at some studios. But in a lot of cases, business is doing just fine, and execs are using scare tactics as bargaining chips to frighten workers and intimidate them into taking pay cuts. People are so afraid of losing their jobs (understandably so), that they're giving in without a fight.
Obviously this kind of thing applies to more than just the animation industry. When the job market goes south, a lot of companies see it as an opportunity to take advantage of employees and boost profits. But the problem is so evident in the animation industry right now because of the stark contrast; the industry is doing so well in the middle of a tanking economy.
There've been a few articles in the news recently about the issue as it applies to various fields. And I've heard from a number of artists in the animation world who have dealt with it first hand. The TAG blog has been keeping tabs on the trend. Here's a recent entry:
why-everyone-is-sucking-it-up
In any case, this is just a word of warning: be informed. Make sure you stay up to date on the state of the industry (this applies to anyone), or it's easy to have the wool pulled over your eyes. It's natural to worry when the economy starts churning. But it's important to know that animation is actually doing quite well in the midst of it all.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Tip of the Week:
Image Format Numbers
If you're using command line rendering in Maya, here's a helpful tip:
The flag -of is used to set the image format. For example, if you want to render a TGA sequence, you would write:
render -of 19 myrenderscene.mb
Why the number nineteen? Each file format corresponds to a particular number.
You don't need to memorize them. If you ever want to know the number of a particular image format, just open up the render globals window and the script editor. If, for example, you change the image format to IFF, the line
setAttr "defaultRenderGlobals.imageFormat" 7 ;
appears in the script editor, so the number seven corresponds to IFF.
Here's a list of some of the more commonly used formats:
IFF - 7
BMP - 20
RLA - 2
TGA - 19
TIF - 3
The flag -of is used to set the image format. For example, if you want to render a TGA sequence, you would write:
render -of 19 myrenderscene.mb
Why the number nineteen? Each file format corresponds to a particular number.
You don't need to memorize them. If you ever want to know the number of a particular image format, just open up the render globals window and the script editor. If, for example, you change the image format to IFF, the line
setAttr "defaultRenderGlobals.
appears in the script editor, so the number seven corresponds to IFF.
Here's a list of some of the more commonly used formats:
IFF - 7
BMP - 20
RLA - 2
TGA - 19
TIF - 3
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