Artist friendly tool for using RenderMan's Primitive Variables in Maya.

Documentation

When you want variation from your RenderMan shader, you could use Primvar. This RenderMan functionality gives you the ability to use only one shader for many objects and create variety at render time. But the process of assigning these attributes could be time consuming and discouraging for an artist.

To make this process easier, I created a tool that speeds up the process. Primvar Manager for Maya.

1. Download the Package

2. Unzip the downloaded file and rename it to rfmPrimVarTool.

3. Then move the entire rfmPrimVarTool folder to the specified path:

   • Mac OS X
     • ~/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/scripts
   • Linux
     • /maya/<version>/scripts
   • Windows
     • <drive>:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\maya\scripts

4. Then in a new instance of Maya, open the script editor and run the following in a Python tab:

   from rfmPrimVarTool.src import primVarApp
   reload(primVarApp)
   primVarApp.create_ui()

In case you don't have access to any of the above location, you can install this tool in a custom location. Following steps describe how to do it:

1. Download the Package

2. Unzip the downloaded file and rename it to rfmPrimVarTool.

3. Then move the entire rfmPrimVarTool folder to any location you want:

4. Then in a new instance of Maya, open the script editor and run the following in a Python tab:

   import sys, os
   
   # Update this path to where you copied the package
   PATH_TO_PACKAGE = r"REPLACE/ME/WITH/PATH/TO/WHERE/YOU/COPIED/THE/PACKAGE"
   
   src_path = os.path.realpath(PATH_TO_PACKAGE)
   
   # Adding the location to system path
   if not src_path in sys.path:
      sys.path.append(src_path)
      print "added {} to the path\n".format(src_path)
   
   from rfmPrimVarTool.src import primVarApp
   reload(primVarApp)
   primVarApp.create_ui()

   Make sure you set the PATH_TO_PACKAGE to where you copied the rfmPrimVarTool package

   example:

   If the path to rfmPrimVarTool is this:

   /Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya/scripts/rfmPrimVarTool

   Then you need to set the PATH_TO_PACKAGE as follow:

   PATH_TO_PACKAGE = r"/Users/Shared/Autodesk/maya/scripts"

Note: Probably you don't want to run the script from the python tab every time you wan to open the tool, you could drag and drop the code from the python tab to a shell

• v 0.2.0
  • Added Qt.py that helps the tool to be used in both Maya 2016 and 2017.
• v 0.1.0
  • First release.
  • The Edit section still is WIP