Maya’s built-in calculator (sort of)

Just a little Maya tip here if you have Maya 8.5 or later. If you need to make some calculations and don’t want to go find your calculator of choice you can use Maya to calculate stuff for you. First, make sure you have python active in the command line (bottom left text field).

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If it says MEL, just click it and it should switch to Python

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Then you just type in what you want calculated, for example if you type in “4+4” and then hit control-enter, then the results pops up in the command response window. Easy.

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IMPORTANT NOTE To use Python as your calculator you have to remember that if you are using division remember to type the number you want to divide as a decimal number (like 5.0 instead of 5) otherwise you’ll get a rounded down result. 5/2 gives you 2 and 5.0/2 gives you 2.5. This obviously doesn’t matter if you are adding, multiplying or subtracting.