Camera Inferno for Maya

Autodesk Maya Plug-in for visualising camera burn-in text.

The Camera Inferno tool is a Maya Viewport 2.0 visualisation tool for displaying helpful, dynamic information for pre-vis, post-vis and tech-vis in Visual Effects.

The Camera Inferno tool has the following features:

• Display Film Gate
• Display Mask for an aspect ratio
• Display Fields with configurable information.
• Unlimited number of fields to be displayed on the screen.
• Python-based formatting options for dynamic text display.
• Allows connections from Maya DAG/DG nodes into the text displays.
• Drawing straight lines, and dots in the viewport, in 2D or 3D space.

Dynamic Text

This tool differs from others because we can display dynamic text information. Dynamic text can be generated via Maya's DAG or DG node evaluation, or using the internally provided keywords. Finally it is possible to embed environment variables directly into the text.

The formatting for Camera Inferno uses Python String Formatting Operations. Please see the Python documentation for the small details of formatting strings.

Keyword Example Usage	Description	Type	Unit
{a} or {0}	Current field's value "A" DG evaluation value.	Float or String	N/A
{b} or {1}	Current field's value "B" DG evaluation value.	Float or String	N/A
{c} or {2}	Current field's value "C" DG evaluation value.	Float or String	N/A
{d} or {3}	Current field's value "D" DG evaluation value.	Float or String	N/A
{user_name}	User name currently logged in.	String	N/A
{file_path}	Full file path to the currently open Maya Scene file.	String	N/A
{file_name}	Short file name (no file extension) to the currently open Maya Scene file.	String	N/A
{time}	Current time, as '9:42PM' format.	String	N/A
{date}	Current date, as 'Mon 03 Feb 2020' format.	String	N/A
{datetime}	Current date and time, as 'Mon 03 Feb 9:42PM 2020' format.	String	N/A
{time_iso}	Current time, as '21:42' format.	String	N/A
{date_iso}	Current date, as '2020-02-03' format.	String	N/A
{datetime_iso}	Current date and time, as '2020-02-03 21:42' format.	String	N/A
{camera_short_name}	Name of the camera transform node, as short as possible.	String	N/A
{camera_long_name}	Name of the camera transform node, as long as possible.	String	N/A
{frame_integer:04d}	Current frame number.	Integer	Frame
{frame_float:.1f}	Current frame number.	Float	Frame
{film_back_width_inches:.2f}in	Camera film back width	Float	Inch
{film_back_height_inches:.2f}in	Camera film back height	Float	Inch
{film_back_width_mm:.2f}mm	Camera film back width	Float	Millimeter
{film_back_height_mm:.2f}mm	Camera film back height	Float	Millimeter
{camera_tilt:+.01f}°	Camera world-space tilt (X axis in ZXY rotation order)	Float	Degree
{camera_pan:+.01f}°	Camera world-space pan (Y axis in ZXY rotation order)	Float	Degree
{camera_roll:+.01f}°	Camera world-space roll (Z axis in ZXY rotation order)	Float	Degree
{camera_shutter_angle:.02f}°	Camera shutter angle	Float	Degree
{lens_focal_length:.01f}mm	Lens focal length	Float	Millimeter
{lens_focus_distance:.01f}	Lens focus distance	Float	Maya Unit
{lens_f_stop:.01f}	Lens F-Stop number	Float	1/F Number
{lens_angle_of_view_x:.01f}°	Lens horizontal angle of view	Float	Degree
{lens_angle_of_view_y:.01f}°	Lens vertical angle of view	Float	Degree

Each field attribute contains attributes fieldValueA, ..B, ..C and ..D. By connecting DG node attributes and using {a} in the field_text_value attribute, you may add arbitrary values and display them in the viewport. Any numeric (boolean, integer, float, double, etc) or string data type can be connected and used.

Additionally, after keywords are substituted, any strings that appear as a (UNIX-style) environment variable will be replaced. For example $USER $PROJECT/$SHOT, may become David MyProject/001_0010, if environment variables are set up correctly.

Usage

The current usage is very bare, simply create the node under a camera transform, and configure the node as desired. Below is an example set up.

First, select a camera, then run the code below.

import maya.cmds

# Load Plug-in
maya.cmds.loadPlugin("dcCameraInferno", quiet=False)

# Create Node
sel = maya.cmds.ls(selection=True, long=True, type="transform") or []
tfm = maya.cmds.createNode("transform", name="cameraInferno1", parent=sel[0])
node = maya.cmds.createNode("dcCameraInferno", parent=tfm)

# Make non-selectable.
maya.cmds.setAttr(tfm + ".template", 1)

# Create a default mask aspect ratio.
maya.cmds.setAttr(node + ".maskAspectRatio", 1.7777)

# Select the newly created node.
maya.cmds.select(node, replace=True)

Known Issues

• This is a Maya plug-in only, no configuration or friendly user-interface is provided; only the Maya Attribute Editor.
• The mask screen space depth cannot be changed, it is currently hard-coded to 1.0 units from camera.
  • To workaround this issue, you may scale the node under the camera will allow moving the phyisical mask closer than 1.0 unit from camera.
• Maya versions below 2017 are not supported.
• Performance is not optimised.
• The use of the Maya camera's "Lens Squeeze Ratio" attribute may produce unexpected results.

Planned Features

• A graphicial user interface with presets, and easy customisation.
• Display the speed of the camera, as different speeds.
• Ability to add static images to the burn-in, such as a logo.
• Ability to draw directly on-top of the image, rather than needing to worry about clipping planes or objects near/far from camera.

Installation

The installation is basic and manual, simply copy the Python and MEL files to your home directory's maya folder.

• Copy ./plug-ins/dcCameraInferno.py into the directory ${HOME}/maya/<maya version>/plug-ins.
• Copy ./scripts/AEdcCameraInfernoTemplate.mel into the directory ${HOME}/maya/<maya version>/scripts.

Both Windows and Linux are supported, and Maya 2017 and 2018 have been tested.