2. Mini Me: Maya Project manager that lets the maya artist access files and folder from within maya without having to switch to Explorer or finder set favorite projects, fix file texture paths, email scene or selected file or upload to ftp and even perform incremental save.
(both 1. Pose manager & Project manager has multi platform compatibility i.e on mac, linux and Windows)
3. Batch Renderer for Autodesk Maya and Foundry Nuke performs batch render, what unique you might find it reads the ma, mb or nk file for the setting set by the artist for rendering and this reduces the chance of a mistake of entering wrong values manually. you can also choose the render camera in case of may from dropdown similarly choose write node in case of Nuke while doing render setup. I have written plenty of other tools that can be viewed on Creative crash website here: goo.gl/xCljF
I started preparing for Python 6-7 months back and self studies from a lot of resources. I started with docs that come with Python, continued over video tutorials such as those of Lynda, Show Me the hard way, live lessons, CmiVFX. I came to know about this book called Maya Python for Games & Films .
So I tried searching here in Chandigarh & Ludhiana but its from International Author from US, i was having hard time getting it, so I asked my sister who lives in UK to buy from there and since she was visiting in November She got me the book, and yes the book turned out really helpful .
Although the most part of it was basic level until you get to chapter 9th. It gave me a good start with PyQt4 as well. I didn't go indepth with last chapters which I plan to go after I get into job.
And other than videos and book, online forum like cgtalk and tech artist was a good resource. When I started with Python I knew this thing to be a technical artist for maya or which ever software I had to get good in python first. since Python is a very easy to understand programming language getting a grasp onto it wasn't so hard for me.
So I first went on learning various python modules like os module, sys module and most importantly string. I very quickly got knowledge of Lists & Dictionaries. and List compression is one of the most powerful thing I got a hook onto.
While I got somewhat started with the basics of python I thought making tools and learning maya python side by side can be more fun so I made few tools in python for Maya and Eyeon Fusion like:
1: Reveal in Outliner- useful if you have big project with so many nested and parented objects it lest you reveal the selected object either in outliner or hypershade with just a single click. while I made this tool I came to learn about cmds.evaldeffered(..) and util.executeDeffered(..)
2: Set Imageplanes - useful to set image planes of all four modal panels with just few clicks.
3: Multi Clip Loader for Eyeon Fusion
4: Eyeon Fusion 6.x small Studio setup (while making 3rd and 4th I learnt somewhat about Peyeonscript) but since maya python have more resources I kept going increasing my knowledge in python for maya.
while I learnt how to make GUI in maya using command module, it was little difficult in the beginning but when I made Wireframe render tool, Mini Me maya project manager, and pose it (pose manager) I learnt some good tricks however when i started with pyqt4 making a gui was as easy like writing abc.. before I could drench myself into GUI toolkit PyQt4 I decided to clear some concept of inheritance such as use of super(), Decoraters, class method and static method.
I met Justin Israel on Python inside Maya group , and he helped me understand the use of super keyword in one to one email. I have to say is an asset in the industry and he has indepth knowledge of Python & PyQt . He is brilliant and amazing tech artist. I also watched some of his CMIVfx tutorials.
Another guy I met from Seattle on tech artist forum is Steve Theodore, he is also super amazing with huge knowledge of python.
I am really thankful to these guys in teaching whatever I asked them.
Resource for research and reference
online fourms[tech artist, cgtalk, Daniweb, python forums, qtcenter]
Books:
Maya Python for Games & Films
Expert Python Programming
Rapid GUI in Pyqt4
PS: 6 months back I asked this question on linkedin, now I have a clear vision into what I am heading.