mayatk 0.12.73

A comprehensive toolkit for Autodesk Maya providing utilities for modeling, animation, rigging, and UI management.

mayatk

A collection of utility classes and helper functions for Autodesk Maya — modeling, rigging, animation, materials, scene management, and UI tooling. Built on maya.cmds + maya.api.OpenMaya (no PyMEL).

Installation

pip install mayatk

Requirements: Maya 2025+ (Python 3.11+).

mayatk also ships mayapy-package-manager.bat — an interactive Windows menu for installing/updating/backing up packages in Maya's bundled Python interpreter.

---

Packages

Package	What it covers
anim_utils	Animation curves, shots, blendshape animation, playblast, smart bake
audio_utils	Audio clips, ffmpeg-backed conversion, timeline-keyed events
cam_utils	Camera utilities and default-camera handling
core_utils	CoreUtils, Components, AutoInstancer, MASH bridge, diagnostics, preview
display_utils	Display layers, color management, exploded view
edit_utils	Selection, naming, primitives, snap, bevel, bridge, mirror, duplicate (linear/radial/grid), mesh graph
env_utils	MayaConnection, workspace, namespace sandbox, references, hierarchy manager, FBX, scene exporter
light_utils	Lighting helpers
mat_utils	GameShader, RenderOpacity, ImageToPlane, MatUpdater, shader templates, Marmoset bridge
node_utils	NodeUtils, Attributes, event triggers, shared scene data nodes
nurbs_utils	NURBS surfaces, ImageTracer
rig_utils	Controls, ShadowRig
ui_utils	MayaUiHandler, channel box, native menus, hotkey collision check, node icons
uv_utils	UV utilities, Rizom bridge
xform_utils	Transforms, matrices, pivot watcher

Classes and module-level functions are exposed at the package root via the lazy-loading resolver. Both bare and class-qualified forms work:

import mayatk as mtk

@mtk.undoable                           # bare form — wildcard-exposed
def operation():
    mtk.freeze_transforms("pCube1")

# Class-qualified form — explicit, no risk of collision
mtk.NodeUtils.is_group("group1")
mtk.XformUtils.freeze_transforms("pCube1")
mtk.EnvUtils.SCENE_UNIT_VALUES

sel = mtk.Selection()

For the full public surface (auto-generated, refreshed bi-weekly) see API_REGISTRY.md.

---

Bundled UITK Editors

MayaUiHandler ships with a one-line entry point for launching the uitk editor windows from a Maya shelf button or script:

from mayatk.ui_utils.maya_ui_handler import MayaUiHandler
MayaUiHandler.instance().editors.show("browser")

Editor key	Description
browser	Searchable launcher for every UI registered with the switchboard — tags, filtering, hide lists, launch options, JSON-portable presets.
style	Theme + QSS variable editor for live restyling of the dark/light themes.
hotkey	Keyboard-shortcut editor for slots registered with the switchboard.

MayaUiHandler.instance() is reentrant: if tentacle (or any other tool) already created the handler, the call returns the existing singleton; otherwise it bootstraps one with a fresh Switchboard. The editor window is cached per-handler — clicking the shelf button twice focuses the existing window rather than spawning a duplicate.

---

Session safety

MayaConnection.connect() defaults to launch=True, force_new_instance=True — every call launches a fresh Maya on an unused port. The user's open session is never touched. The test runner (test/run_tests.py) defaults the same way; only --reuse overrides, and you should not pass it. See CLAUDE.md for the full rule.

---

Guides

• Scene data nodes — the shared data_internal / data_export two-node model that every tool uses to stash scene-wide metadata and (optionally) embed it in an FBX.
• Shot data in the FBX → Unity — exporting Shots as named Unity AnimationClips plus embedded shot metadata, and side-by-side coexistence with Audio events.

Format specs (co-located with the code that consumes them):

• Shot-manifest behaviors — behavior file format for the shot manifest.
• Shot-manifest mapping — mapping file format for the shot manifest.
• Scene-exporter template rules — export-template rule syntax.

---

Links

• Full API: API_REGISTRY.md · API_CHANGES.md
• Changelog: CHANGELOG.md
• Contributor / AI-agent guide: CLAUDE.md
• PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/mayatk/
• Issues: https://github.com/m3trik/mayatk/issues

License

MIT — see LICENSE.