Using Gaffer Scripts as procedurals in Maya...

[Hradec]

Hi there... 

I'm starting to test running a gaffer script as a procedural inside Maya. 

I was able to use a simple gaffer script which reads an alembic geometry, and it works perfectly in Maya. 

But I was wondering... Is there a way to "expose" some gaffer node parameters to the Maya UI?

Also, what exactly does the "Context Items" parameters? 

cheers...
-H

[John Haddon]

Hi Hradec,

You can't automatically expose Gaffer node parameters directly in Maya at present. We have talked about making a custom Maya standin for Gaffer procedurals though, to encourage adoption for folks wanting a Maya/Gaffer hybrid solution but without access to Image Engine's fancy Caribou setup.

But you could use the context parameter to define a list of arbitrary variables which can be used in expressions in your Gaffer node graph. The syntax isn't particularly user friendly because it is just designed as an internal mechanism for passing arbitrary data - basically it's just a series of arbitrary flag/value pairs where the flag provides the variable name and the value is parsed as a python expression. So something like `-myInt 10 -myFloat 1.0 -myString something`.

To read those from a Gaffer expression you'd do something like `context.get( "myFloat", defaultValue )`. Let us know if that makes sense or you need any more information...

Cheers...

John

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