Suggestion to add discussion board, contributions folder

[randym32]

I suggest adding a discussions to facilitate people asking questions, coordinating on activities (or changes), and so on. That can be done by following the steps here:
https://docs.github.com/en/discussions/quickstart

I recommend we create a folder some place for contributed animations. Perhaps /assets/contrib, and those that become adopted can migrate to the more central area.

[bussardrobbie]

@randym32
One concern that I have with an /assets/contrib folder is that we would effectively have to completely recreate the directory structure under that directory and that may confuse people because you will have effectively the same directory tree, 2 or more times, depending on the amount of tools under it (like assets/export/models/Vector as well as assets/models/Vector). Instead, I propose we use new folders with each different file format (leaving the .ma's unaffected until the scripts are updated, since those scripts reference those directories explicitly), so instead of /assets/export/models/Vector and /assets/models/Vector, we would have /assets/models/Vector/fbx and /assets/models/Vector/dae, etc. This, I would expect leads to less confusion over time. Definitely open to your opinion on that as well.

I will work on the Discussions aspect- good suggestion.

[bussardrobbie]

@randym32 Please see PR #5 to see how I imagined the dir structure would look- thanks!

[cyb3rdog]

Regarding to the contributions I would like to suggest one of the github best practices to take place:

• create a contribution guidelines / document of how people should contribute
• create a new branch called devel / contrib / or whatever name you wish (conventionally unstable branch)
• never accept pr's to main branch, but always into this new devel/contrib branch only
• optional (i guess this is not needed in this particullar scenario): in case of need for another level of checks before merging devel contributions to main branch, create and rc branch (release candidates) where maintainers of this repo will merge accepted contributions from devel to this rc (conventionally stable branch)
• after all neccessary reviews and tests, maintainers of this repo will merge to main (either from devel/contrib or from release candidates)

[randym32]

For me, the most important thing is that we have a structured approach, and do what we can to communicate expectations on how people can contribute. Cyberdog did an good write up on suggestions, beating me to a reply, (and is better than my ancient BSD4.1-days /contrib folder)

I think the structure you put there (folder for dea files, etc) is good and keeps things from being on top of each other.

As an example, below is a contributors guide I’ve been trying out on other projects (the documentation borrows from other projects, I tried to keep credits where I could). Something like this can be reused (etc) to help in these projects
https://github.com/randym32/Anki.Vector.Documentation/tree/master/documents/contributing
and
https://github.com/randym32/Anki.Resources.SDK/tree/master/.github/ISSUE_TEMPLATE

Randy

[moribundant]

Anybody get the plug-in up and running on Maya 2022? I get an error message when I try to load 'AnkiMenu':

// Error: file: /Applications/Autodesk/maya2022/Maya.app/Contents/scripts/others/pluginWin.mel line 934: (AnkiMenu)

Thanks for any guidance.

[cyb3rdog]

Noone, the tools are not compatible with new/latest versions of Maya, and will require some upgrade works...
However, take a look at readme file in wire's (@kercre123) fork. He got the anki menu and the tools running with Maya 2018 and 2019. So far I have checked these tools and the scripts, it should be running even for older versions like 2016, but not the latest...

[moribundant]

I saw that fork and things are different, I'll use that as a start point, thanks.

I really did not want to get this deep into it and frankly don't need to, but now I am intrigued at the notion of a simulation that drives robot behavior.

[kercre123]

The issue with Maya 2021 and over is that that they use Python 3 in the mayapy exexutable instead of Python 2 like 2020 and less use. So 2016-2020 should work, but I have only tried 2018 and 2019 so far. A 2022 install could possibly be modified to work with it. The best solution would be to edit the scripts and get them working with Python 3, but that's work

[moribundant]

Thanks, that is basically where I have come to (script mods) because of the P3 issue.

[moribundant]

The issue with Maya 2021 and over is that that they use Python 3 in the mayapy exexutable instead of Python 2 like 2020 and less use. So 2016-2020 should work, but I have only tried 2018 and 2019 so far. A 2022 install could possibly be modified to work with it. The best solution would be to edit the scripts and get them working with Python 3, but that's work

Oh, and thanks for the 2018/2019 work, that helped significantly.

[randym32]

Just a heads up: This will be a typical "problem" -- in development it's a good practice to settle on particular version of tools for a target. Usually its pretty easy to get that older version.

[moribundant]

Just a heads up: This will be a typical "problem" -- in development it's a good practice to settle on particular version of tools for a target. Usually its pretty easy to get that older version.

Well...wonders will never cease. I installed Maya 2019 and now have a Vector menu. Haven't seen anything yet, but I believe that to be little gotcha's in the path names.

My first email account was on a PDP 11 running BSD in the CS department at NMSU in the early 80's--things have changed. That said, to have a development environment (Maya) that is dependent on a different, separately evolving, environment (Python) is just lunacy to my mind. Thank god I am not a programmer (CS weenie) as their lives are clearly very unstable. I was an interloper in that department, the only EE with root password.

[randym32]

That said, to have a development environment (Maya) that is dependent on a different, separately evolving, environment (Python) is just lunacy to my mind.

Software world does a lot of, em, things that are known to be unstable as you say. Lots of good practices that were identified long ago, are intentionally disregarded (most have never even read things like the SWEBOK). My understanding is that Maya used a specific version of python internally -- like how EE tools use a specific version of TCL. according to the following link it is "Maya installs Python with your Maya installation. Maya uses Python version 2.7.11 on all supported platforms.” https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2020/ENU/Maya-Scripting/files/GUID-C0F27A50-3DD6-454C-A4D1-9E3C44B3C990-htm.html Randy — Sent unencumbered by the thought process