Critical Evaluation

This post will contain my critical evaluation of my project, conclusions and suggestions for further work to improve and extend my treeGen tool.

Implementation - part 1

First part of my treeGen implementation containing commented sections of code.

More to follow until the entire code is finished and explained.

My basic tree generator code has now been finished, I now need to annotate it line by line, and separate it into functions which can be called by UI elements.

I then need to construct a plan for my UI layout.

Tool Design

I have chosen a multi-window design for my tool.

It will make for a less compact user interface - but it makes the code design easier, because each window can have its own isolated code function. This means that there is less chance of one section of code interfering with another.

In my design each window either executes code, or creates controls/sliders for attributes that have have been set up by the previous window.

The flow for the tool is like this:

Tool Proposal

I am required to write a custom tool for Maya that generates a tree (or trees) with ‘autumn’ foliage that can be setup to simulate leaves falling over time.

The custom tool treeGen should provide a user interface that provides a set of controls to configure the initial base tree before setting it up for step by step variation of its leaves and the simulation of falling leaves. The tool should include the following:

• A button to create Base Tree
• A locator or handle to help position the Base Tree model after it has been created
• Controls/sliders for Branch, Twig, Leaf attributes to control customisation of base tree model
• A button to create customised tree once configured
• A button to create leaf colour variation
• A button to add simulation to leaves for ‘falling leaf’ effect
• Control widgets to customise the simulation of the ‘falling leaf’ effect