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FBX Export Tool for Maya proxy assets

General / 29 June 2020

I've worked in Maya for years, and I've recently taken to developing tools for the program using Python. One of the things I've had trouble with is the number of artists I work with exporting assets for use in game engines, in this recent instance UE4, not remembering to place their pivots properly, delete history, freeze transformations... the list goes on.
SO

I made my own checklist for artists, or even non-artists that need to pop into Maya to create proxy assets, and push them through the basic essentials before getting into engine.

One of the most important things for me was readability - this is a checklist for artists. Something that, hopefully, they can phase out of after becoming more comfortable with the entire pipeline. Because of this, I set it up to jump from one step to the next, highlighting complete steps in green to say GO!

This is a first pass on the tool, and I've sent it to a few artists I am working with in for my Capstone for feedback and improvements. The next pass is looking to include the ability to skip steps manually, along with the script to read through the selected object and see if some of these have already been performed in order to automatically check them off.