Perhaps the most common use of MEL for beginning scripters is to create and manipulate geometry. Whether it is to integrate a mathematical formula, take advantage of the computer s ability to manipulate large data sets, or to expand upon Maya s tool base, MEL can be used to do all this and more.
Geometry, and specifically polygonal geometry, is also perhaps the easiest type of data to manipulate for beginning scripters and programmers, so we shall begin there. To those who want to work with higher order geometries such as NURBs, rest assured that this chapter provides a solid foundation for those data types. However, our goal is an education in MEL, not in the intricacies of Bezier splines and Catmull-Clark surfaces.
In this chapter, we present three projects dealing with common modeling challenges that serve as an introduction to the actual scripting process.