On Thursday, November 19^th at 6pm, the second in a series of lectures by Pratt School of Architecture faculty will take place in the Higgins Hall Auditorium. Fabrications 2 Lecture with Professors Lawrence Blough and David Ruy will be focusing on specific projects that demonstrate new means of digital fabrication and material experimentation. Directly following the lecture, the Fabrications 2 Exhibit with reception will open in the Siegel Gallery.

Title- An Introduction to MEL & Expressions in Maya.

Description- This workshop will serve as an introduction to MEL (MAYA EMBEDDED LANGUAGE) and its use through the command line, script editor and expression editor.  Participants will be introduced to scripting logic within the Maya platform and how this logic can be harnessed to create geometrical complexity.  Topics covered will include interface and navigation within Maya, fundamentals of variables, attributes, custom attributes and expressions. Emphasis will be placed on understanding how to harness these tools and effectively implement them through a series of architecturally relevant modeling exercises.

Location- HHN 308 (TBD)

Date + Time- 2009.11.02(6-9pm)

Requirements- Participants are required to bring a laptop with the following software installed:

Autodesk Maya 2009

Trial link

The following script allows you to array an object around a curve and designate a rotation.

You will need to do the following to execute the script

1. Select an object.
2. Set the “cplane” by designating 3 points (origin, X, Y)
2. Select a “curve” the array will occupy
3. Select the # in your array
4. Designate the degree of rotation.

Option Explicit'Script written by David Mans http://www.neoarchaic.net
 'Script copyrighted by core.form-ula under Creative Commons
 'Script version Tuesday, September 09, 2008 2:59:56 PM
 
Call Main()
 
Sub Main()
 
Call arrayRotateAboutCurve()
 
End Sub
 
Function arrayRotateAboutCurve()
 
arrayRotateAboutCurve = Null
 
Dim i,j, objects,angle, originPln, steps, curve, pt(2), dom, crvFrame, rotFrame
 
objects = Rhino.GetObjects("Select Objects")
 
If isNull(objects) Then Exit Function
 
pt(0) = Rhino.GetPoint("Select Origin Point")
 
If isNull(pt(0)) Then Exit Function
 
pt(2) = Rhino.GetPoint("Select Point for X Axis")
 
If isNull(pt(2)) Then Exit Function
 
pt(1) = Rhino.GetPoint("Select Point for Y Axis")
 
If isNull(pt(1)) Then Exit Function
 
originPln = Rhino.PlaneFitFromPoints(pt)
 
curve = Rhino.GetObject("Select Curve",4)
 
If isNull(curve) Then Exit Function
 
steps = Rhino.GetReal("Count",10)
 
If isNull(steps) Then Exit Function
 
angle = Rhino.GetReal("Rotational Increment", 15)
 
If isNull(angle) Then Exit Function
 
Call Rhino.EnableRedraw(False)
 
Call rhino.SelectObject(curve)
 
Call rhino.Command("reparameterize 0 1")
 
Call rhino.UnselectAllObjects()
 
dom = Rhino.CurveDomain(curve)(1)
 
For i = 0 To steps Step 1
 
crvFrame = Rhino.CurvePerpFrame(curve,(dom/steps)*i)
 
rotFrame = Rhino.RotatePlane(crvFrame,angle*i,crvFrame(3))
 
For j = 0 To uBound(objects) Step 1
 
Call Rhino.OrientObject(objects(j),pt,array(rotFrame(0),Rhino.PointAdd(rotFrame(0),rotFrame(1)),Rhino.PointAdd(rotFrame(0),rotFrame(3))),1)
 
Next
 
Next
 
Call Rhino.EnableRedraw(True)

via core.form-ula

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