Complete Maya Programming

Chapter 3. MEL

Introduction

The Maya Embedded Language (MEL) is Maya's most easily accessible programming interface. Without knowing it, you have been using MEL from the very moment you opened Maya. Selecting an object or displaying a dialog box is the direct result of a MEL command being executed. In fact, the entire Maya graphical user interface (GUI) is controlled by MEL. Almost all of Maya's functionality can be accessed through MEL. As you move through this chapter, you'll get a much better idea of how pervasive MEL is throughout Maya and thereby understand when and how you can access and control Maya's functionality.

Fortunately, MEL is a relatively simple programming language to learn. Following is an example of a MEL command to create a ...