Maya: Select -X Half of Object using object space pivot orientation in Maya Python?

Coding
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#1

Hey TA.org,

Forgive me I’m quite new to scripting and this seems really complicated… not sure where to start.

Is it possible to select vertices in the -x direction of an objects current pivot orientation?

I’m trying to use that function in delete half and mirror, delete half and mirror instance scripts

I looked at polyselectscontraints and xform but I don’t think they do what I want…

#2

You can use xform, but you’ll have to take the rotation pivot into account as well.
I think the snippet below will do what you need.

from maya import cmds, OpenMaya

node = "pSphere1"
vertices = cmds.ls("{}.vtx[*]".format(node), fl=True)
verticesMirrored = []

# get rotation pivot
pivotOffset = cmds.getAttr("{}.rotatePivot".format(node))[0]
pivotOffset = OpenMaya.MVector(*pivotOffset)

# loop vertices 
for vtx in vertices:
    # query position in local space
    pos = cmds.xform(vtx, q=True, os=True, t=True)
    pos = OpenMaya.MVector(*pos)
    
    # subtract the rotation pivot from the local space position
    pos -= pivotOffset
    
    # check x position is lower than 0
    if pos.x < 0:
        verticesMirrored.append(vtx)

# select vertices to mirror
cmds.select(verticesMirrored)

If you run this on a sphere you get something like this.
The plane in the picture is where the pivot point is.

mirror_verts

1 Like
#3

Thank you R.Joosten this helps a lot! I’m having trouble converting this to for current selection though.

I don’t get why I can’t make it work for my current selected object?

If i write

node = cmds.ls(sl=True)

I get this error:

Error: Syntax error: unexpected end [ at position 1 while parsing:
[].vtx[]
^
: [].vtx[]
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “”, line 6, in
RuntimeError: Syntax error: unexpected end [ at position 1 while parsing:
[].vtx[]
^
: [].vtx[] #

#4

Is this not because cmds.ls(sl=True) returns a list with the selected objects name in it? So you should just have to add [0] at the end of it.

so: cmds.ls(sl=True)[0]

2 Likes
#5

ah geeze, basic mistake. thanks Boogey