It was my first attempt at writing something in Maya API. Attached in plugin which I have tested on Maya 2008 to 2011. Right now its command line but UI is coming soon.

Mel Command to export weights
scSaveWeights -roundOff 5 -action “export” -file “d:/weights.txt”;

Mel Command to import weights
scSaveWeights -action “import” -file “d:/weights.txt;

Download
scSaveWeights.py

Go to windows>Settings/prefrence > plug-in manager and browse to the scSaveWeights.py
I would suggest to open the py file in IDE and read through comments in the beginning of  script.

I have a confession to make. I am slowly becoming ROM junkie. I got my first android device about three year back(HTC hero) After it got old and was crying out loud for retirement, I got myself nexus 4g. Its cdma device and has its pains involved to make it work in India.

But anyways today I have installed  AOSP ICS ROM on it with custom kernel(Glados). Making battery life in this baby almost 50 percent more.
If you are with same specs. I highly recommends you to visit XDA developers and get the ICS rom for your nexus S.
So bye bye gingerbread and Hello ice cream sandwich.
XDA aosp

Nonetheless it gave me my first theatrical credit, I’m thankful to Mr. Ajay Pratap Singh, who is CG head of pixion,
for heading the team to efficiently and timely delivery of product.

check for yourself Download here

Edit: Enable normalize weights before you save weights in maya 2011,
“;” was missing in some line, that is fixed now.

A guy named darvy has created a set of vehicle rigging scripts I found above method nicely implemented in there.

I find one tricky way to calculate auto rotations without worrying about rotations and direction where our rig is going. In brief I wrote expression which finds direction magnitude
where our wheel is going (forward or back). Also expression calculate the distance covered by wheel between last frame and current and calculate distance using circumference (2 π r)

Code:

float $radius =1;
int $dirVec;// get Joint translation value for calculating direction vector.
float $pastValX = `getAttr -time (frame -1) basePos_jnt.tx`;
float $pastValZ = `getAttr -time (frame -1) basePos_jnt.tz`;

// Now compare the difference of tip joint with base joint and basejoint’s previous frame

float $currPosX = tipPos_jnt.translateX – basePos_jnt.translateX;
float $currPosZ = tipPos_jnt.translateZ – basePos_jnt.translateZ;

// with past

float $pastPosX = tipPos_jnt.translateX – $pastValX;
float $pastPosZ = tipPos_jnt.translateZ – $pastValZ;

// now calculate the magnitude

float $currMag = `mag << $currPosX,0,$currPosZ>>`;
float $pastMag = `mag << $pastPosX,0,$pastPosZ>>`;
if ($pastMag >= $currMag) $dirVec = 1;
else $dirVec = -1;

// get controls translation value for actual calculations.

float $pastCtrValX = `getAttr -time (frame -1) placement_ctr.tx`;
float $pastCtrValZ = `getAttr -time (frame -1) placement_ctr.tz`;
float $currDistX = placement_ctr.translateX – $pastCtrValX;
float $currDistZ = placement_ctr.translateZ – $pastCtrValZ;
float $distance = ($currDistX*$currDistX) + ($currDistZ*$currDistZ);
$distance = sqrt($distance);

// finding distance by dividing into circumfrence

float $rotation = $distance /(2* 3.1428*$radius) *-360 * $dirVec;
$rotation += tyreRot.rotateX;
tyreRot.rotateX = $rotation %360;

sample sceneFile

scMassiveSkin.mel

I haven’t looked much around in other 3d packages but everyone was saying python is way foward.
I used python inside maya and find it pretty boring cluttered repetitive compared to MEL
(apart from standard python librarypython inside maya has nothing to offer).

And then about year pass by i was member of Google group PYTHON_INSIDE_MAYA they were developing PyMEL
guy named Chad Dombrova actually cook this whole new concept of pythonic way to look inside maya.

I gave PyMEL shot about a month back i installed release 0.9.1 and i was completely hooked. Before i go further i must say
I think PyMel is way forward to do scripting and programming inside maya (the python way). I also think there are some tiny miny glitches
here and there inside PyMEL which may prevent you from migrating, but with so many talented people collaborating i don’t think there would be
much problem once the final build is released.

Maya commands the PyMEL way:

mel code :

getAttr “pPlane1.translateX”

PyMEL:

>>> plane = polyPlane(n=’myPlane’)
>>> plane.translateX.get()

0.0

>>> plane.translateX.set(10.0)

Basically what PyMEL does is it attaches attributes directly to object (PyNode) and then we can play with those attributes and properties (Methods)
It is whole OOPS based system with classes and all those modern language terminologies put into practice. With objects inheriting properties from
parent classes like “joint” inheriting from “transform” and all