Mplay and python

[Pancho]

I can't find anything in the docs nor the web. I'm so sick of entering manually details into the save dialogs in the mplay window. I actually want to script a shelf button which puts in a filename related to my scene and take, chooses the format, adds a comment and probably some other settings and presses the "save" button in one go. Unfortunately there is no obvious documentation popping in my eye. Can it be done? Or what would be the alternative? In a production is feels so clumsy to enter these parameters over and over again.

Cheers
Tom

[garf]

https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/hom/hou/FlipbookSettings.html

[Pancho]

Thanks for the link, but as far as I can tell, this is about the flipbook. Mplay seems to be the external file that Houdini runs to display the frames. And I would need to get hold off the code which is needed to alter Mplays windows and parameters.

[garf]

Mplay's dev kit is pretty limited as far as I know, but I've created a few custom flipbooks in the past using python and mplay.

This is will do the bulk of what you want to achieve. Essentially you want to write files to either to disk or directly into mplay - this will do that.

[Pancho]

Thanks! I thought what I can do by hand can be achieved with python, too. : )

,

[DonRomano]

I've done something similar a while ago if I understand you right, with flipbooks

 

import os

#Choose the camera

all_cams = hou.node("/obj").glob("cam*")

desktop = hou.ui.curDesktop()
scene_viewer = desktop.paneTabOfType(hou.paneTabType.SceneViewer)
viewport = scene_viewer.curViewport()

if len(all_cams)>0:
    camera = hou.ui.selectNode(node_type_filter = hou.nodeTypeFilter.ObjCamera)
    cam = hou.node(camera)
else:
    name = hou.ui.readInput("Enter camera name :", buttons=("OK", "Cancel"))
    cam = hou.node("/obj").createNode("cam", name[1])
    hou.GeometryViewport.saveViewToCamera(viewport, cam)
    
#Create comments
    
group = cam.parmTemplateGroup()

if group.find("vcomment") > -1:
    group.remove(group.find("vcomment"))
    group.remove(group.findFolder("Comment"))

folder = hou.FolderParmTemplate("OpenGL View", "Comment")
parm = hou.StringParmTemplate("vcomment", "Comment", 1)
parm.setTags({"editor": "1"})
folder.addParmTemplate(parm)
group.append(folder)
cam.setParmTemplateGroup(group)

commentCount = hou.ui.readInput("Number of Comments :", buttons=("Ok", "Cancel"))
print int(commentCount[1])
comments = []
for i in range(0, int(commentCount[1])):
    comments.append("Comment" + "_" + str(i))
    
commentInput = hou.ui.readMultiInput("Enter your Comment :", comments, buttons=("Ok", "Cancel"))  
comment = "\n".join(commentInput[1])
cam.parm("vcomment").set(comment)

hou.GeometryViewport.setCamera(viewport, cam)

#Create the flipbook

cur_desktop = hou.ui.curDesktop()
scene = cur_desktop.paneTabOfType(hou.paneTabType.SceneViewer)
flipbook_options = scene.flipbookSettings().stash()

flipbook_options.outputToMPlay(True)
flipbook_options.useResolution(False)
flipbook_options.cropOutMaskOverlay(False)
flipbook_options.frameRange(hou.playbar.timelineRange())
flipbook_options.outputZoom(100)

 

Maybe it can help..

 

Cheers,

[CinnamonMetal]

Mplay saving comments on the images ?

[trzanko]

Been having a go at this with shadesoforange

Using xml to append a menu you can get to a place where you can execute python, but there is an issue when trying to use hou.ui, it states that 'module' object has no attribute 'ui',  hou.qt throws the same error.

You can get access to the hou module without having to import, so it is working, you are able to do things like write out hou.getenv('foo') to a file.

What might be the limitation on accessing hou.ui here?

Also, there is seemingly no way to get access to the current mplay session for writing it out or doing stuff, as it is dependent on a hou.SceneViewer object to actually stash the settings.

Going to write to sesi with these findings, does anyone know of any options here we might be missing?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<mainMenu>
    <menuBar>

    <subMenu id = "extra_menu">
    <modifyItem><insertAfter>window_menu</insertAfter></modifyItem>
    <label>Extra</label>

            <scriptItem id="export_sequence">
                <label>Export Sequence</label>
        <scriptCode><![CDATA[
hou.ui.selectFile()
]]>
        </scriptCode>
            </scriptItem>

  </subMenu>

    </menuBar>

</mainMenu>

 

[michaelb-01]

@trzanko Have you managed to run a python script from an Mplay menu? I've tried importing it from:

$HOUDINI_PATH/scripts

$HOUDINI_PATH/scripts/python

$HOUDINI_PATH/python2.7libs

 

In Houdini all of those paths are fine but Mplay doesn't see them.. And I can't seem to do a relative import either..