maulik13: New Design coming soon...

I am going a bit slow on my rigging framework since I decided to redesign my website (maulik13). I needed more space to put some content and share some of my scripts. And I wanted to add a simple database so that I can update downloads and portfolio easily. It's taking some time, but I have finished the new logo, layout, colors, login and database connectivity. So hopefully I will have my downloads section up and running live soon.
edit:
I just forgot to mention that I am using codeigniter php framework for my website and I am loving it. This is one of those few frameworks that I absolutely appreciate because of its ease and smooth learning curve. Hopefully I can get those characteristics in my rigging framework as well.

Rigenerator: Rules Based Graph Traversal

It is not very difficult to traverse the whole graph in Maya and make a data structure to be able to analyze it. In "Rigenerator" I can select one node in the outliner and I am able to get all the nodes related to it in anyway possible. The next step I want to add is to be able to specify rules in the graph traversal algorithm so that I can restrict the network within the specified hierarchy. This is so that my "Rigenerator" tool can extract only a part of the rig.

My goal is to come up with some kind of short hand notation for specifying these rules. I am trying to come up with different possible scenarios to be able to generalize these rules. So for example, I can specify levels and combine it with a node type(s) and their relationships with the source node. This is just theory and hopefully I can find some way to implement this idea.

Rigenerator: Rig Code Generator, Milestone 1

Rigenerator is one of the toolsets from my modular rigging framework (which is still in very very early stage). My goal with this tool is to help riggers speed up the coding and modularizing of the rig components. This can also be used for copying, mirroring rigs of any kind. The first step for this tool is to generate the raw code which is the same as .MA file commands. There are some very useful functions in API to generate a lot of code directly (e.g. setAttr commands for given plug, check MPlug class). You can check an example plugin called MA exporter in devkit. Later based on this raw code this tool allows to organize it and add modularity.

In my previous planning, I wanted to work on this tool at a later stage. But, since I have to create many rig parts for the framework, I thought I would actually finish Rigenerator first. So I can create rigs in different ways and whichever I find the best, I can convert it into code using this tool. This will speed up the coding process for my rigs.

I have reached the first Milestone for this module. I am able to generate the raw commands to regenerate the rigs. I have planned many features for this tool which includes, mirroring, code analysis/modification, dg graph inclusion/exclusion options, mel or python options,  etc. I will post more on this as I make some progress.

Parenting a Shape the Right Way

I had written a script some time ago to parent a shape to a given transform. I took into account frozen transformation on both source and target. However, script would not place the shape on to pivot point of the target in some cases. Recently I fixed this script as I need to use it quite often. I had to change the logic compeltely to parent a shape to account for different orientations on the source(s) and the target. The main idea is to match the pivots of both the objects before parenting. I will make this script avaiable for download once I create a download section on my website (hopefully very soon). Meanwhile if you need to try this script let me know and I will send it to you.