sending commands to mayapy to run in the background, keeping current Maya session free

[sRheinfrank]

Hi---I want to be able to capture arguments from a UI in a Maya
session and send them to Mayapy to run in the background to keep from
locking up the current session while waiting for the process to
finish---

Ideally, I could access mayapy through the Script Editor (through a
system call) and also pass it arguments and the right module to
process them and still be able to work in Maya while it's running in
the background... I figure using the maya.standalone module would be a
vital part of this, what I'm unclear on is just how to get it going
purely by running a command from within Maya....

Thanks!!
-Steve

[Sylvain Berger]

I manage to do this... it is a bit complex to explain, so i'll try my best.

1. Create a command calling mayapy.exe -m <script to run> <arguments>

2. Create the script you are calling with mayapy.exe, in this script you can grab the arguments sent to the script using sys.argv

example:

import sys

# store the arguments in variables

argument1 = sys.argv[1]

argument2 = sys.argv[2]

etc.

3. call the mayapy.exe command using subprocess. Here is part of my script... Note that I am capturing the stdout and stderr of mayaPy so I can diagnose problem more easily... you don't have to capture them.

import subprocess

cmdAndArgs = 'mayapy.exe -m mayaPy.avol.batchExportInit '+objExportedScene+' '+avolObj.NodeName+' '+camExportedScene+' '+str(createPreviewRender)

tempFolder = os.path.dirname(objExportedScene)

# Create log file

sdtoutFile = r'%s\stdout.txt' %tempFolder

stderrFile = r'%s\sterr.txt' %tempFolder

outptr = file(sdtoutFile, 'w')

errptr = file(stderrFile, 'w')

# Call the subprocess using convenience method

startupinfo = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()

startupinfo.dwFlags = subprocess.STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW

retval = subprocess.call(cmdAndArgs, startupinfo=startupinfo, bufsize=0, executable=None, stdin=None, stdout=outptr, stderr=errptr)

# Close log handles

errptr.close()

outptr.close()

This works fine for me... From maya I am exporting an object, I start a maya in background using mayapy.exe, I cleanup the object, save it, etc.  In my case maya is loked because I am waiting for the stdout of the subprocess, but if you send the process and don't wait for it, maya should be free.

Hope this helps

--
They say, "Evil prevails when good men fail to act." What they ought to say is, "Evil prevails."
Nicolas Cage as Yuri Orlov in Lord of War.

[Juan Pablo]

Hi I'm having a similar situation. In my case I import obj files and apply materials but running it with mayapy it can't find the shading group of each material which has the same name as the material ie: BlueGlass and BlueGlassSG.

[mtherrell]

Sylvain, 

I would like to be able to get a maya standalone instance from within the Maya script editor, run a python function in that maya standalone instance, sending it arguments, and capture its return value in the maya script editor.

is there a way to return an instance of maya standalone in the script editor something like this:

import get_maya_inst as gmi

 

my_args = 'anything'

 

maya_inst = gmi.maya_inst()

maya_inst.import_module('my_module_name')

return_val = maya_inst.my_module_name.my_awesome_function(my_args)

maya_inst = None #maya_inst released / quit through garbage collection

 

print(return_val)

Otherwise,

Is there a way you could post a more generic and step by step demo of your example on how to achieve the original goals of sReinfrank's question?

[Justin Israel]

On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 12:00 PM 'mtherrell' via Python Programming for Autodesk Maya <python_in...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Sylvain, 

I would like to be able to get a maya standalone instance from within the Maya script editor, run a python function in that maya standalone instance, sending it arguments, and capture its return value in the maya script editor.

is there a way to return an instance of maya standalone in the script editor something like this:

import get_maya_inst as gmi

 

my_args = 'anything'

 

maya_inst = gmi.maya_inst()

maya_inst.import_module('my_module_name')

return_val = maya_inst.my_module_name.my_awesome_function(my_args)

maya_inst = None #maya_inst released / quit through garbage collection

 

print(return_val)

This can definitely be achieved if one wanted to write an abstraction over that previous example of using subprocess. The abstraction would launch the subprocess and provide a higher-level interface for running arbitrary python commands that get communicated to the running process.

 

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