VFX Mentor

Mel is the powerful current that flows under the hood of Maya. The outcome for this course is to give the artist and aspiring TD's a solid grounding in Maya Embedded Language (MEL) to assist them in speeding up, streamlining and automating their workflows.

The course covers all main aspects of Mel scripting and programming from simple scripts for animation and quickly working in maya, right through to programming Graphical User Interfaces (GUI), automating repetitive tasks and communicating with and controlling the operating system.

This course requires extra assignment work to be done outside of class, so a working version of Maya or extra access to machines is recommended.

After completion of this course, participants will be able to program mel scripts, understand and design new scripts, and will be generally proficient in mel programming at a TD entry level.

The power of mel is huge in maya, and this course doesn't just teach you Mel, but also how to think a bit like a TD and programmer.

This course is tought in a highly interactive online lecture/lab format running over 10 weeks. Each week 1 hour of video demonstrations and a lecture plus tutorials and required work & research time will add up to about 4-6 hours work depending on your abilities. The tutorlal sessions will provide hands-on experience to apply and re-inforce the earlier learnt material. The session format is kept informal and highly interactive to be able to better facilitate individuals learning experiences and outcomes using our exclusive forum access restriced to course participants. Overall the lab exercises and extra-curricular exercises consist of a series of projects designed to increase exposure to various uses and applications of MEL, procedures, scripts and problem solving techniques.

Part of VFX Mentors Mentored Online Workshop programs is an ongoing support program, which allows participants to have access and up to 10 hours of dedicated support and exclusive online workshop forum access for 3 months after the course. This helps to increase and re-inforce the effectiveness of your training during the time you will learn the most, in the real-world application phase. This can a real-world on-the-job project or a personal project, of course all handled under non-disclosure and in confidence.

After successful completion of the Mel Scripting course you will be able to:

• Customize the Maya environment to increase overall productivity.
• Use MEL to access and manipulate attributes.
• Be familiar with the MEL syntax
• Understand how MEL can be used to easily create complex animations and how to control animations with expressions in many different applications and using several different techniques.
• Understand the importance and use of variables
• Use programming structures to create and write more complex mel programs
• Create graphical user interfaces.
• Learn about the application, portability, and ease of use of MEL procedures in clip effects, utilities, and script files.
• Create new commands to improve workflow
• Design and build custom procedures.
• Build custom script files.

• Understand some of the important Mel idiosyncracies

• Be able to trouble-shoot mel scripts effectively

• Use external text editors to create and manipulate mel

• Effectively and safely deploy mel scripts in a larger production environment

This course is specifically designed for individuals who want to gain a professional foundation to intermediate understanding and knowledge of MEL, and who want to be able to use MEL more effectively and powerfully in their work. This course is better suited for professionals requiring a quick and powerful introduction to MEL, its power, pit-falls and its uses.

A working knowledge of Maya, preferably in a production environment is required. You should be familiar with the interface, the "Complete" set of modules. It is recommended you have the equivalent of 1-2 years of production experience to most benefit from this course. Prior to the course we recommend, if possible, to study the Learning Maya documentation and tutorials, especially the tutorials on MEL. This will help provide some familiarity with Maya and MEL. Good grasp of the English language in written and spoken form is required for this course.

This course aims to give you the understanding and tools you need effectively and confidently apply MEL in your work.

Topics and skills covered are:

1) script editor, command line and external programming tools, mel development workflows and practical tips.

2) common commands, command syntax and common flags, variables and declaration. Script and syntax, data flow control, procedures and basic organization, naming standards.

3) GUI's (Graphical User Interface) widgets, controls and layouts. Data flow and feedback procedures. simple GUI setup automation. Script-jobs, automatic and user defined events, controlling rigs and such with scripts, consideration in referencing.

4) Dynamic expressions, Character Control automation, selection context changes.

5) Storing information outside of Maya, accessing files and controlling the system and outside programs.

Throughout the course emphasis is placed on conveying an understanding of efficiency, syntax, algorithms and planning your work. Particular emphasis is placed on good commenting practices and naming and workflow practices and also on how maya deals with scripts in a larger work environment.

We recommend you purchase a copy of Mel Scripting for MAYA Animators 2nd Edition, Morgan Kaufman if you enroll in this program. Please contact us for more information and bulk purchasing.

It is recommended to have access to a legal copy of Maya 7.0+, a text editor, preferably with syntax highlighting capabilities. This is a requirement for the On-Line format course. A computer can of course help :). Further you will need broadband access, a download limit of >1GB / month and 4-6 hours of time per week for assignments and exams (yes we will do exams to give out our certificates)