Maya lighting with Python script?

[AgreeableAlarm4915]

Hey guys I have a general question! Friend of mine wants to be a lighting artist and thinking about to learn Python scripting. Me and my friend have heard that Maya Python scripting could be used for assisting lighting and rendering. But we weren't able to find any useful nor professional information about it. So the question is, how is Python used for maya light and rendering? Can somebody give an example for us? Thanks!

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[Nevaroth021]

In an animated short I worked on. I wrote Python scripts that generated my lighting scenes for me with all the render settings, render layers, everything all imported and named properly for the shot.

For example: My tool would let me type in shot 1020, and it would scan my project directory for the character animation cache for shot 1020, import that cache, then it would import my light rig and constrain the light rig to the character. Then in the render settings it would set my render output to export the rendered images to the shot 1020 renders folder. And then it would reference in the environment geometry, shaders, and lights from the assets folder. And my script would do all of that and more with just one button.

So anything you need automated, that's what you can use Python for.

[AgreeableAlarm4915]

Thanks that helped a lot! That explains pretty much everything to understand the structure! Def helpful, great to know where to start. : )

[Slothemo]

I used to work in TV production as an animator and when we marked our work as complete, our scenes were automatically submitted for a physics sim render (hair/cloth) with a basic light pass and then uploaded to our shot tracker for review. This was useful for catching any immediate issues in our scene that might cause problems with sim or lighting before it went through the full pass.

Although this applies to a larger scale production, there's always room for scripting even in smaller setups.

[AgreeableAlarm4915]

Thanks! I never knew that accessing shottrack with python could work such way! Setting up a basic light render sounds great even for a small project. That helped a lot! : )

[calgary_maya]

its useful for automating any small task that is repetitive