CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonloopsstatemayacycle
Michael Isaakidis
Michael Isaakidis

Reputation: 11

Making a script that will cycle through 3 different states in Maya Python

I want to create a script in Maya using Python and bind it on a hotkey. Every time I run the script I want to loop through 3 states, cube/ cylinder / plane. So for example first time I run the script it will create a cube, second time delete the cube and create a cylinder third time delete the cylinder and create a plane., fourth time delete the plane and create a cube etc... I want this to happen until the user decides what primitive he wants and end the loop. I tried using while loop but I failed miserably.

Ended up with this:

def createCube():
    return "cube"

def createCylinder():
    return "cylinder"

def createPlane():
    return "plane"

def numbers_to_primitives(argument):
    switcher = {
        1: createCube,
        2: createCylinder,
        3: createPlane,
    }
    # Get the function from switcher dictionary
    func = switcher.get(argument, lambda: "Invalid primitive")
    # Execute the function
    print func()

numbers_to_primitives(2)

This kinda seems to work. But I foresee issues when running the command over and over as I am creating more and more primitives instead of replacing the existing ones. Would also need to create a toggle button to cycle through these?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 235

Answers (1)

haggi krey
haggi krey

Reputation: 1978

You have several questions problems to solve. First, you want to use the script in a hotkey what means it should produce a different result every time you call numbers_to_primitive() without any argument. So you first need to save and read the current state. You have several ways to do it. If you only need the state in the current maya session, you can use a global variable like this:

state = 0

def box():
    print "Box"

def cyl():
    print "Cylinder"

def sph():
    print "Sphere"
    
def creator():
    global state
    print "current state", state
    state = state + 1
    if state > 2:
        state = 0
        
creator()

This way the state variable cycles through values 0-2. Now you want to create geometry and replace it as soon as the function is called again. It works very similiar: Save the current object and delete it as soon as the function is called again like this:

import maya.cmds as cmds
state = 0
transformName = "" #again a global variable

def box():
    print "Box"
    global transformName #to use the global variable you have do use "global" keyword
    transformName, shape = cmds.polyCube()

def cyl():
    print "Cylinder"
    global transformName
    transformName, shape = cmds.polyCylinder()

def sph():
    print "Sphere"
    global transformName
    transformName, shape = cmds.polySphere()
    
def creator():
    global state
    funcs = [box, cyl, sph]
    print "current state", state
    print "TransformName", transformName
    if cmds.objExists(transformName):
        cmds.delete(transformName)
    funcs[state]()
    state = state + 1
    if state > 2:
        state = 0

Now you can call the creator() function and every time it will delete the old object and create a new one.

Upvotes: 1

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