Antibaker

Example Use Scenarios:

1. Lets say you have to hold state of few objects but dont want to keyframe them. Then use this state later on again and again. You can create presets/morphs in Antibaker and reuse them later.
2. Creating emotions on joint based models. Lets say you have an emotion "anger". Now you wish to create variation of this without starting afresh for each variation. You can create presets/morphs in Antibaker and reuse them later.
3. Copy the setup directory to other artist who are working on same model to use your presets/morphs and vice-versa.

Requirements: Windows 2000 + , Maya 5.x + <(not tested for previous versions of maya though it should work)

Features:

• GUI based object transformation for simple control
• (Presets) Save object transformations as external files
• (Morphs) Save morphs between presets or object states as external files
• Re-use presets and morphs with other users
• Intuitive work-flow for repetitive tasks
• Easy customization

Download: AntiBaker-0.92 ( 217 kb updated Feb 1st 2005)

Limitations:

• Currently works for only translation, rotation and scale transforms
• Uses short names for objects (all objects needs to have unique names)

Disclaimer: AntiBaker is provided 'As is'. Use it at your own risk. Copyright (C) 2005 Amit Chourasia

1. Download and unzip
2. Open Script Editor - In
   Maya go to Window > General Editors
   > Script Editor
3. In Script Editor go to File > Source Script > Create_AntiBaker-0.92.mel (browse to folder where you unzipped AntiBaker source) (Important : Do not cut and paste code in script editor as there are dependencies which will get affected. Always source the script)
4. Choose location where you'd like to save configuration (dont create directory - step 5 will create one later automatically)
5. Type name of directory. (This will create a directory at above location ie step 4)
6. Select objects to be in one ui group.(you can choose all but its better if its organised)
7. Type name for this set of selected objects. Hit Enter
8. Click "Add UI group" repeat step 6 and 7
9. Click "Finish! and Run"

Running
AntiBaker at a later time - Open Script Editor <(step 2) go to File > Source Script > AntiBaker.mel (located at path chosen in step 4 )

1. Running AntiBaker (as configured above)- Open Script Editor go to File > Source Script > AntiBaker.mel (located at path chosen earlier )
2. Mouse Roll over buttons to get tools tips about its function
3. Click on buttons with object names to select them (Refer screen shot No. 8 -Your custom UI region shown in blue text below )
4. Select object(s) - Use selection mode single or multiple (Refer screen shot No. 4)
5. Tweak objects - Use top sliders to transform objects (Refer screen shot No. 3 - choose move/rotate/scale icons for changing modes of transform)
6. Click Make Preset >Type Name>Load A button should appear under "User Presets" frame. This captures current state of objects. Later on you can click different preset button to change objects as they were when you created preset (Refer screen shot No. 5)
7. Tweak objects - (step 4 & 5) and Make Presets: (step 6). Now click to see the magic of presets you created in User Presets frame.
8. Morphing - Click 1)Base to mark initial state, tweak objects to your liking then click 2)Target >Type Name>Load. A control set is created under "User Morphs". This will create a morph from Base to Target state with linear interpolation. Use the slider to view in between states (Refer screen shot No. 6)
9. Use Temp/Temp2 to set your ranges and increments and Recall Temp(2) for translation/rotation/scaling (Refer screen shot No. 2)
10. Bind 2 Current Obj will associate the current ranges to the object. This will be recalled everytime that object is selected via UI. Recall Temp(2) could be used to override this setting (Refer screen shot No. 2)
11. Utilize the key'ing and timeline for keyframing.

1. Why all my objects not present in the AntiBaker UI? During setup you did not choose them. Do the setup again.
2. Some Object(s) state is not saved in preset why? You did not include the objects in your setup. Do the setup again. Antibaker needs to know before hand the objects it'll need to track and save their state.
3. Why I cannot use slider when I select objects in Maya? You need to click "Direct Selection" button under slider controls when you select objects directly in Maya. There is no way of knowing when user selects objects in maya so you'd have to click the "Direct Selection" button everytime you wish to use sliders.
4. Why do Morphs objects shrink to zero when I use the slider? You did not choose the base state for creating morph. Morph requires two states start and end, if start state is not chosen the default is zero (ie. all transform will start from zero)