Tentacle is a Python3/PySide2 marking menu implemented using Qt's QStackedWidget. It is designed for use with Maya, 3ds Max, Blender, and any other DCC app that supports the PySide2 framework, but in it's current implementation, it only has slots set up for Maya.
Tentacle runs on top of uitk, a PySide2 dynamic UI loader and management package, which allows for the creation of fully-featured UI with less time and code.
The following example demonstrates re-opening the last scene, renaming a material, and selecting geometry by that material.
The structure of the project is as follows:
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
| tcl | Handles main GUI construction for the marking menu. |
| overlay | Tracks cursor position and UI hierarchy to generate paint events that overlay its parent widget. |
| ui | Location of the dynamic UI files. |
| slots | Location of the various slot modules. |
Tentacle can be installed either using pip directly in the command line or by downloading and running mayapy package manager in Windows.
Install via pip in a command line window using:
path/to/mayapy.exe -m pip install tentacletkAlternatively, you can use the mayapy package manager for a streamlined installation process.
Download the mayapy package manager from here. (Give your Maya version. Hit 1 to install package. The package name is tentacletk)
To launch the marking menu:
For Maya, add a macro to a hotkey similar to the following:
from tentacle import tcl_maya
tcl_maya.show(key_show='Z') # Change to match your chosen hotkey.