Build Maya Muscle setups with Python?

[Ken_orams]

Just as the title says, I’m wondering if it’s possible to build Maya Muscle setups with Python. Are Maya muscle commands included in Maya.cmds or does it have its own api? 

It would be great to automate Maya Muscle setups but I haven’t been able to find any resources on the topic.

[Kahylan · Accepted solution]

Hi!

This is the only documentation I could find is this one:

https://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2010help/index.html?url=Technical_API_Maya_Muscle_Commands.htm...

Which seems to include some old Python API commands for this, but it's from 2010, so I don't know how useful it is. TBH, Maya Muscle isn't really a tool that is used all that much anymore, there are 3rd Person plugins that do muscle sim more reliable, which is why maya muscle hasn't seen a lot of updates over the last few versions.

An approach to automate older utilities in Maya, like Maya Muscle, is to code node based.

If you know how your setup should look like and what kinds of nodes are involved, you can automate pretty much any setup by using the following 4 commands:

cmds.createNode() -> for creating nodetypes by name

cmds.parent() -> for creating hierarchies as needed

cmds.connectAttr() -> for connecting attriubtes with each other

cmds.xform() -> for moving nodes to the right position in space

I hope it helps!

[Ken_orams]

Thanks for the quick response on this. Knowing the different node types for Maya Muscle will go a long way. I wasn’t sure if one could invoke them using the createNode command since MM is a plugin but looks like you can! I mainly wanted to make use of some of the collision nodes to explore different kinds of setups for rigging clothes more so than muscle simulation.

thanks again!