Chapter 13: Your Journey Begins Here: A Final Word on MEL

Overview

With that last project, we bring our lessons to an end. However, this does not bring the learning to an end. MEL is a very broad, very deep subject that we have only barely begun to broach. The language is ever evolving, with a handful of commands being added and revised with each release of Maya. As new elements are added to the Maya feature set, the corresponding MEL commands are also added. In addition, AliasWavefront responds to the requests of its users and continually adds additional commands and flags independent of the main feature set. Recent additions of this nature include the progessWindow and the scriptEditorInfo commands.

In addition, previously existing commands can change. Arguments might be added or sometimes removed, or might become redundant. For this reason, it is sometimes necessary to revise scripts to account for these changes in behavior.

Of course, the other aspect of our learning was our journey into programming. We literally only glimpsed a fraction of what is possible with MEL. We covered the creation and editing of geometry. We discovered how to use script jobs to seamlessly integrate our own functionality into Maya.

We also learned how to access the nodes that contribute to the history and animation of objects within Maya, whether that animation comes from animation curves or expressions.

Finally, we learned all the many ways to bring the Maya interface under our control. By building windows , panels, and heads-up displays, we put the powerful tools we create with MEL under the control of artists

Throughout this book we learned that MEL is just that ”a way of putting Maya completely under the control of an artist. By using the skills learned over the previous pages, a whole new world of possibilities is open to you.

However, this is not to say that we know all there is to know about MEL or programming. With every release, new features and capabilities are added to Maya. With these new features come new commands and capabilities to the MEL toolbox. Moreover, because the world of computer graphics is still a rapidly developing field of discovery, each year brings new techniques and technologies that can be implemented by a diligent scripter.

Simply picking up this book and working through its pages proves that you have what it takes to be a successful scripter: the inner desire to expand your knowledge with new skills. The greatest toolbox ever offered to a 3D artist is now open to you. Now, it is up to you to exploit it.