Technical Scripting

Requirements:

• Create a python script containing functions that when executed will build a scene in Maya that contains a Clock Face

• It should display the current real world time

• It should run for an hour as an animation

• Create a UI to operate the clock

• Utilize an image texture within the clock.

  
  

Vision for the project:

For this project, I wanted to create a working clock, that got the current time of the computer as per the project requirements, however I also wanted to add in some extra features, such as a time zone slider and colour controls for the clock, to give the artists as much control as possible over the design of the clock.

Production Process:

To start off the project I created the clock face by altering a polyCylinder through my script. After that I created the clock hands, once again within the script. For both instances however, I found the most productive way to know the values to use within the script was making the meshes physically first, and then copying the parameters from the script editor output window into the script. I originally copied the function controlling each hand for each of the hands, however I later returned to this to implement object orientated programming.

To make the hands synchronise to the local time of the computer, I used the python Time library, and then applied the corresponding values (hour, minute and second) to their hands.

Once both the clock face and clock hands had been created, I created the UI and its controls.

Next I set the timeline length to be 90,000 frames at 24 frames per second. I also set the playback time to be 1 within the script, so no matter who uses the script, it will always play at real time.

After this, I created one of the hour markings and set the origin to the centre of the clock. Using an iterative sequence, I then created a hand 30 degrees from the previous position, 12 times; this created 12 hour markings, where the hour markings should be on a clock.

Finally, I gave the clock some design, creating an Earth design in photoshop and then adding it to the project folder. Within the script I created a plane and then created a material for that plane whilst referencing the Earth PNG image within the script.


All of the code utilized classes and functions, and where applicable object orientated programming to make the code as optimised and efficient as possible.

Results:

My grade for this project was a First.

I was happy with the final outcome of this project, however I was not able to add all of the addition features that I would have liked to add to my clock, such as a time zone slider and colour controls. Despite this, I created a completely accurate clock which met the project requirements.