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MG-Picker Studio is a very intuitive and animator friendly maya picker gui, with powerful feature that enables you to create your own customised, free-style picker without any prior knowledge in coding.

Traditional maya picker gui only helps with selecting and command executing, but mgpicker does much more, it serves as an very improved, animator-friendly rig interface.

Check out the snapshots of mgpicker by iAnimate.net for their rigs using MG-Picker Studio:

More snapshots of the mgpicker in practice (from iAnimate.net):
http://www.ianimate.net/blog/item/mgland-ianimate-gui-pickers.html

Features demo video for animator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMyvoWdKqnI
Features demo video for Picker designer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEawQVEVilE
Intro on the programmability of MG-Picker Studio (Very brief): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZQQ90dgXjg

Availibilty: Windows (maya2011~2016 x86/x64), MacOS & Linux (maya2012~2016 x64)
It is totally free for Maya animator to download the program and free to use the picker file/node designed by picker studio.

Features in brief for animator:

1. Multiple picker views at the same time, zoomable picker view. Like Maya, you can switch to different layout, use hotkey spacebar to switch to single layout and vise versa.
   
   Different pickers can be loaded into UI at the same time, also searching directory and searching priority can be set to auto-load the related picker based on maya selection.
   
2. Free style Select-button for node selecting, with selection highlight / semi-highlight features:
   
   Select-buttons can be link together as parent & child, double clicking on parent will select nodes in all children buttons as well.
   Free-style shapes. 12 types of shapes built-in, including polygon, bezier curve and image shapes:
   
   the button can be a similar looking as the original rig control is, which make the picker more animator friendly.
   Also you can ctrl/shift + RMB click on select-button to select its members separately:
   
   Mirror relationship can be assigned for each two picker buttons, when you use them, alt + LMB click on the button will also select nodes in mirrored button.
   
3. Command-button for mel / python command executing.
   Free style shapes are also available for command button..
   
   Pose command-button can be created with two mouse clicks.
   
   
4. Attribute-button to control other picker item visibilities and a single maya attribute.
   The attribute button can be similiar to what it looks like in maya channelbox:
   
   or widget like:
   
   When it controls a maya attribute, it will stay sync with that attribute, other picker buttons visibility, including picker panel, can also be controlled via attirbute link:
   
   When using the picker, select multiple attr-buttons, MMB in 3d view to nudge the attributes, like what you did in maya channelbox.
   
5. Slider to control one / two attributes via its handle translation in x / y.
   
   Also slider background frame can be hidden, make it in-face deformer control like:
   
   All these sliders can be control via MMB dragging in 3d view, just like attribute buttons.
   Also with mirror relationship been assigned in design phase, you can use alt + LMB dragging the handle to tweak the mirrored controls.
   
6. Text item to annotate your picker. Also tooltip can be customized to make the picker even more animator-friendly:
   
   Text is extreamly useful to explain what button does in ui, also can be used as decoration.
   
   
7. Picker panel to organize your picker.
   Each picker panel has a panel index number, which is also the hotkey to scroll and frame to show that panel:
   
   It is good idea to disign one picker file for one character, while organize different contents in different picker panels.
   
8. Each type of picker button can be attached with right / left mouse clicking menus (marking menu & normal menu):
   
   This dramatically cleans up the picker gui, since many features can be embed and hidden in menus, no need to put them as command buttons in gui.
   You don't want to load a picker gui and find there are dense small buttons everywhere, really intimidating.

Powerful features for designing a picker:

1. Picker template support, make your picker reusable.
   
   Also pre-build picker template library come with the program.
   
2. One/Two click to create all the types of picker buttons mentioned above,
   including one click to create all the controls into select-buttons, all facial controls into sliders, etc.
   These new picker buttons will be placed in right place in picker panel automatically!
   
3. Snapshot to make the panel background image, image can be further edited / resize within the program.
   
4. Intuitive Menu designing:
   
   Also support marking menu (in Maya 2016, icon is also supported):
   
   
5. Items can be scaled in place, or be transformed globally, like you did in photoshop:
   
   Now you don't need to spend half a day just want to scale and reposition the picker buttons.
   
6. Fast mirrror relationship assigning:
   
   
7. Attribute copy/paste tool to transfer the picker button properties.
   
8. Very rich picker button editing, such as fill color, label, alignment, etc.
   
9. Many ways to distribute your picker in the pipeline so animator can easliy auto-load it.
   
10. ...

Programmability:

1. Each type of picker button can be created and fully edited with mel & python api.
2. Since the whole picker file can be built up with mel / python, you can write picker convertor to convert the picker file you used, into mgpicker.
3. Many script properties can be coded for some types of picker buttons, such as command of command-button, pre-change / post-change comamnd of attribute button,
   change-command of slider, load command and mouse enter command of picker file.
4. Use definable Code-snippet and command-button presets to speed up the coding process.
5. APIs to helps out the distribution of picker files.
   

Picker studio is a mature solution to connect your rigging and animating phase together in real production context , it will keep being developed and maintained, and continue to support all the comming maya version in future.

Download it for free!
http://twincodes.com/MGPicker_en.html?url=Download

Online manual:
http://twincodes.com/works/MGPickerStudio/OnlineManual/v1/English/index.html

Miguel Winfield

2015/10/11

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