Name: FollicleJoints Author: Nathan J. Chisholm, November 2015 Version: 1.01 (Video/Older Maya Version) Git Repo: https://github.com/chisn8tech/mayaFollicleJoints (Maya 2017 Version) License: GNU Lesser General Public License v.3; Tool can be used for commercial or personal work, but if distributing the code or derivatives of it commercially the terms of the license should be consulted. The tool is intended to be an API that can be built on by other, preferably free, rigging tools.
Purpose: To function as a Maya rigging API for working with 'follicle joints': a node setup which provides a (skin-able) joint, attached to a shaped and rigged surface, which is able to slide along it according to UV parameters, using exclusively native Maya nodes for ease of use. Useful both for traditional 'ribbon' techniques and for more advanced layered facial rigging etc. Ultimately this allows a rigged sliding offset between an underlying surface shape and the final geometry, eg. skin sliding over teeth, bones and eye lenses. The UI is a simple interface to the API. It hard codes some values that the API leaves open, such as the centre-line being a U value of 0.5 for mirror operations.
Code: Python Environment: Autodesk Maya. Old version (demo video) tested on Maya versions 2011 and 2013, with PyQt installs, on Windows. New Version (see Git repo.) tested on default Maya 2017, on Windows. Main Modules:
PyMel (Object oriented Python for Maya)
PySide2 and Shiboken2; (Old version: PyQt and sip) (Python bindings/wrappers around Qt/c++ interface)