Maya Tool - Reparent Tool v2

[david-cattermole]

Feature

The Reparent Under Node and Unparent to World tools are helpful for changing the parent node, however the tool is lacking a number of helpful features.

• Create a (option-box) UI with widgets to control the tool:
  • The frame range to bake (using the common "inner", "outer" and "custom" options)
  • Keyframe placement; "smart bake" (Maya's "smart bake option"), "parent node", "every-frame"
  • Change nodes to "rotation order" (automatically change a transform from XYZ while re-parenting).
• When using the "parent node" or "smart bake" options it should be possible for the user to tell the tool to calculate the animation curve tangent angles to match the in-between frames, without adding more keyframes.
  • This would mean integrating the animCurveMatch tool inside mmSolver.

Implementation Details

In the previous implementation mmSolver.tools.reparent.tool, the tool used the mmSolver.utils.transform module for all transformation calculations. This module is very fast, but sometimes it seems to cause crashes or simply evaluates incorrectly in Maya.

Therefore, the new version should use tried-and-true methods of re-parenting, such as this video, which uses a reparent.py Python script - developed by me - to perform reparenting.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Select nodes to change parent, then select the new parent node.
   • The first nodes will become the children of the last selected node.
   • The last node is the new parent.
2. Open "option box" UI (optional)
   • Change UI settings.
3. Run tool.
   • The children nodes are re-parented and baked under the target parent transform node.

Software Versions

• mmSolver version: v0.3.x and v0.4.x
• Maya version: All supported
• Operating System (OS): All supported.

[david-cattermole]

@bpatchasaheb is going to have a look at this, but we're going to forget the This would mean integrating the animCurveMatch tool inside mmSolver. feature for now

[david-cattermole]

Scratch that, @bpatchasaheb doesn't have time, I will instead look at this tool.

[david-cattermole]

I have written a window and updated the existing "Reparent Under Node" and "Unparent to World" tools.

This has been merged into develop_v0.3.x branch and will be released in v0.3.14.