I attended Adam Pletcher’s GDC talk on Python at GDC this year. Before I attended the talk I’d only just heard of Python and I’d never tried using it in a production environment. In his talk, Adam did a great job showing just how useful Python can be, so I determined to start learning it. Upon returning from GDC, I spent about a week with the Python docs and with the helpful samples that Adam wrote. Then I started writing my own tools to help us on our project.
I’m sure there are lots of others out there with similar stories, so I started this thread so we can share our successes and talk about all of the time that Python has saved us in production. Here’s what I’m using it for:
Our animated characters use hundreds of animations, and each character has it’s own set. Not only that, but each animation also has a mark-up data file that goes along with it. That translates into thousands of assets to keep track of. I use Python to quickly build a list of all of the animations that are actually implemented and being used in the game. With that list, I can then compare the files in each animation directory to see if characters are missing animations, and to see if the dir contains anim files that haven’t been implemented yet. My Python scripts automatically find and repair animations that are missing, move unused animations to a separate folder, and check things in and out of our resource control library. I just click a couple of buttons on my script’s UI and in a few minutes our animation directories are sparkling clean.
Another script that I’ve written generates reports of animations that are missing for a particular character. That way, the animators always know exactly what has been done and what is still left to do.
Anyway - I’m hooked on how useful the language is. If you’re a TA, you really need to check it out.
Ok, now it’s your turn. Tell us about what cool stuff you’re doing with Python!