mayatk
Maya 2025+ tech-art toolkit built on maya.cmds + maya.api.OpenMaya (no PyMEL) — modeling, animation, materials, rigging, and scene-pipeline automation, plus tool panels and one-click bridges into Marmoset, Substance Painter, RizomUV, Blender, and Unity.
mayatk is the Maya layer of the pythontk → uitk → mayatk → tentacle ecosystem: a library of composable helpers first, with a fleet of uitk-based tool panels (Shot Sequencer, Channels, Scene Exporter, …) built on top of it.
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 sync, 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.
Tour
A curated subset — the packages table is the map; these are the standouts.
Auto-instancing
Convert geometrically identical meshes to instances. Duplicates are matched by geometry signature, so rotated and scaled copies are found regardless of transform or name:
import mayatk as mtk
mtk.auto_instance(tolerance=0.001, require_same_material=True)
Drive Maya from outside
MayaConnection launches and remote-controls Maya from any Python process — the backbone of mayatk's own test suite:
from mayatk import MayaConnection
conn = MayaConnection.get_instance()
conn.connect() # launches a fresh Maya on a free port
conn.execute("import maya.cmds as cmds; cmds.polySphere()") # runs in that Maya, not yours
By default every connect() gets a new instance — an artist's open session is never touched (see Session safety below).
Smart bake
Analyzes what is actually driven — constraints, set-driven keys, expressions, IK — and bakes only those channels, onto an override layer, with a persisted manifest that makes the bake reversible even after save/reopen:
result = mtk.SmartBake(optimize_keys=True).execute()
mtk.SmartBake.restore() # undo the bake — drivers resume
Scene audit
mtk.SceneAnalyzer.run_audit(adaptive=True)
# → triangle/material budgets, top-offender Pareto, missing-texture impact,
# instancing stats (format_audit_html for an HTML report)
DCC bridges
One-click hand-offs that export the selection and drive the target app with a templated script: Marmoset Toolbag (including a bundled JSON-RPC plugin for live Toolbag scene ops), Substance 3D Painter, RizomUV, Blender, and Unity. Built on pythontk's HandoffBridge engine (RizomUV uses its own script-driven flow); each ships as a tool panel.
More highlights
Preview— hermetic operation preview: tools show live results, roll back on cancel, replay on commit.Components/MeshGraph— component islands, border edges, edge paths, A* shortest paths, normal-angle edge selection.ExplodedView— force-based exploded view (vectorized repulsion), toggleable and reversible.NamespaceSandbox— import files into disposable namespaces for analysis or object swapping, with guaranteed cleanup.HierarchySync— diff a working scene against a reference and repair it: create stubs, quarantine extras, fix fuzzy renames and reparents.TubeRig/WheelRig/ShadowRig— rig builders: FK / spline-IK / anchor chains from a mesh centerline, expression-driven wheel rotation, fake contact shadows.ImageTracer— trace images or Blue Pencil strokes into curves and meshes.DevTools/WidgetInspector— grep Maya's MEL source and globals; walk, snapshot, and diff Maya's live Qt widget tree.StyleSetter— restyle Maya's scriptable viewport colors to match another DCC.
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. |
shortcut |
Keyboard-shortcut editor for slots and commands; a focused global_shortcuts view also exists. Hosts can wire in Maya-aware collision checking via mtk.maya_collision_checker. |
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_exporttwo-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.
- Emissive groups → Unity — runtime-toggleable emissive regions: one all-on emissive map, per-group gating via vertex-color or mask-texture encoding; cross-package SSoT (pythontk region-mask engine, blendertk mirror, unitytk templates).
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.
1 maintainer
Release files for mayatk 0.13.38
For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.
Built distribution (wheel)
| File | Interpreter | ABI | Platform | Reset |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mayatk-0.13.38-py3-none-any.whl | Python 3 | none | any | Details |
Release files / mayatk-0.13.38-py3-none-any.whl
| Download URL | mayatk-0.13.38-py3-none-any.whl |
|---|---|
| Size | 1.9 MB |
| Tags | Python 3 |
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