If you’ve got a lot of add-ons, you probably have a bit of clutter in the browser Paths menu. Like this:
You can get rid of all those add-ons by cleaning out the Addons/InstalledAddons folders in your User and Workgroup locations. Softimage checks those folders (at startup) to build the list of add-ons for the Paths menu.
Don’t worry; removing the .xsiaddon files from the InstalledAddons folder doesn’t uninstall the addons.
I recently had reason to investigate the order in which things are loaded from workgroups, and here’s what I found:
What was my motive for looking into this? A plugin that was trying to get the OriginPath of a plugin in the SItoA addon. That was never going to work, because the plugin was loaded before the SItoA addon.
I tested this on Windows 7, not Linux.
I read somewhere that installing PyQtForSoftimage could be difficult, so I gave it a try. I didn’t have any problems.
For my test, I installed PyQtForSoftimage in Softimage 2014 SP2, using Python 2.7.3 and pywin32 218.
Here’s a recipe that will work with Softimage 2014 and earlier. But if you’re using Softimage 2014, you can skip the part about using the system Python. Instead, use PYTHONPATH to point to folder where PyQt4 is installed (hat tip: Tim C).
On-sentence-summary
You need to switch from the Python installed with Softimage to the system Python (and pywin32), install PyQT, and then install the PyQtForSoftimage addon.
General Recipe
Or edit your prefs file (%XSI_USERHOME%\Data\Preferences\default.xsipref) and add this line: scripting.sipython = False
I found that the ExampleDialog and ExampleSignalSlot examples did pop up dialogs, but the Log Text button didn’t log anything to the history log.
Softimage 2014 Recipe
Now that there are intrinsic ICE attributes like NbPoints and NbPolygons, there a couple of ways you can check for an empty mesh:
# Assume a polymesh is selected...
o = Application.Selection(0)
# Check the intrinsic ICE attribute
nb = o.ActivePrimitive.ICEAttributes("NbPoints")
print nb.IsDefined and nb.DataArray[0] <= 0
# Check using the object model
print o.ActivePrimitive.Geometry.Points.Count <= 0
The typical way to package this up for users it to define a filter. Then a user just has to select the filter and press CTRL+A. Here’s the Match callback for a filter that finds empty polygon meshes. Note that I switched to checking the number of polygons. That way, if somehow there was something weird like a mesh with just one point, you’d still find it.
The intrinsic attribute NbPolygons should always exist, but just to be sure I check IsDefined, and if that is False, I fall back to checking Geometry.Polygons.Count.
# Match callback for the EmptyPolygonMesh custom filter.
def EmptyPolygonMesh_Match( in_ctxt ):
Application.LogMessage("EmptyPolygonMesh_Match called",constants.siVerbose)
o = in_ctxt.GetAttribute( 'Input' )
if o.type == 'polymsh':
nb = o.ActivePrimitive.ICEAttributes("NbPolygons")
return (nb.IsDefined and nb.DataArray[0] <= 0) or o.ActivePrimitive.Geometry.Polygons.Count <= 0
else:
return False
I packaged the filter as an addon. Get it here.
As an exercise, I updated Tim Crowson’s Multi_ImporterPPG addon with a DragAndDrop event, so you can import multiple files with a single drag-and-drop. You can download the modified version here.
Here’s the DragAndDrop event handler. The doit() function is also used by the Import menu command; I just had to generalize it a bit to work in either case (menu or drag-and-drop).
def Multi_Importer_DragAndDrop_OnEvent( in_ctxt ):
action = in_ctxt.GetAttribute( "DragAndDropAction" )
source = in_ctxt.GetAttribute( "DragSource" )
if action == constants.siSourceDragAction:
if re.search( r"\obj$", source, re.I ):
in_ctxt.SetAttribute( "DragSourceSupported", True )
elif re.search( r"fbx$", source, re.I ):
in_ctxt.SetAttribute( "DragSourceSupported", True )
elif re.search( r"emdl$", source, re.I ):
in_ctxt.SetAttribute( "DragSourceSupported", True )
elif re.search( r"lwo$", source, re.I ):
in_ctxt.SetAttribute( "DragSourceSupported", True )
else:
in_ctxt.SetAttribute( "DragSourceSupported", False )
if action == constants.siSourceDropAction:
Application.SetValue('preferences.Interaction.autoinspect', False, '')
if not Application.ActiveSceneRoot.Properties( 'Multi_Importer' ):
vtcol = Application.AddProp('Multi_Importer','Scene_Root')
p = Application.Dictionary.GetObject( vtcol.Value("Value") )
# Set the flag that hides certain parts of the PPG layout
p.Parameters("bMenuCommand").Value = False
# Inspect the PPG in modal mode
Application.InspectObj( vtcol.Value("Value"), "", "", 4 )
p.Parameters("bMenuCommand").Value = True
p = Application.ActiveSceneRoot.Properties('Multi_Importer')
options = {
'OBJgrouping' : p.Parameters('importOBJgrouping').Value,
'OBJhrc' : p.Parameters('importOBJhrc').Value,
'importOBJnormals' : p.Parameters('importOBJNormals').Value,
'includeOBJmat' : p.Parameters('includeOBJMaterial').Value,
'includeOBJuv' : p.Parameters('includeOBJUV').Value,
'includeOBJwrap' : p.Parameters('includeOBJUVWrap').Value,
'fbxScale' : p.Parameters('fbxScale').Value,
'importEMDLasRef' : p.Parameters('importEMDLasRef').Value,
'lwoScaleFactor' : p.Parameters('lwoScaleFactor').Value
}
doit( source, options )
return True
In this video, I walk through the process of packaging a toolbar and its script commands into an addon. I also touch on the subject of the command maps used by Softimage for non-self-installing script commands.
We’ve had a couple of questions about this recently, so here goes…
In the 2011 release, parameters like the Environment shader’s Transformation parameter were changed to expose the raw transformation matrix instead of StaticKineState. This allows ICE attributes to plug directly in the shader input matrix ports and have texturable matrix ports.
A transformation matrix is a combination of the scaling, rotation, and translation, and when you start animating those values, you’re going to see some “weird” numbers 😉 For example, if I animate the Z rotation from 0 to 45 degrees, I’ll see this in the Animation Editor. Note that in the viewport I’m using ICE to show the transformation matrix for a cone that has the same Z rotation from 0 to 45 degrees: see how it matches up with the fcurves for the Environment transformation.
To make things more artist-friendly, you have to make the Transformation parameter texturable so you can plug in a Create_Transform node in the render tree.
To make the Transformation parameter texturable, install this addon.
In this video, I show how to package a collection of ICE compounds as an addon (.xsiaddon).
The compounds I use are by Piotrekm.
eX-SI 