Poser Python Lists


	Python Lists

Lists of objects

Python gives you access to most elements in a scene through lists. If you have read the basics tutorial, you will remember that Python stores all Poser elements as a reference to an object, and this is what is stored in these lists.

All the code samples in this tutorial assume that your script starts with

import poser
scene=poser.Scene()

Lists of objects appear at different levels of your Poser scene. At the level of the scene, you have

scene.Actors()
scene.Figures()
scene.Cameras()
scene.Lights()

In this list, scene.Actors() contains a list of all actors not part of a figure, scene.Figures() gives you all of the figures in a scene, while the Cameras and Lights are treated in the same way as actors, so most methods that work for Actors also work for Cameras and Lights.

Other lists appear as part of an individual object.

scene.Figures().Actors()
scene.Figures().Materials()
scene.Actors().Materials()
scene.Actors().Parameters()

Anything that works for scene.Actors() should also work for scene.Figures().Actors(), so

scene.Figures().Actors().Materials()

Would return a list of Materials, organised by actors within figures. The following piece of code should print out a list of body parts in the current figure, with lists of parameters

import poser
scene=poser.Scene()
for eachActor in scene.CurrentFigure().Actors():
	print (eachActor.Name())
	for eachMat in eachActor.Parameters():
		print (eachMat.Name())

This piece of code introduces a key python technique - the for in loop. This loop will run as many times as there are elements in a list, setting the loop variable to the value of each item in the list. In the code

for eachActor in scene.CurrentFigure().Actors():

the loop will repeat for each actor in current figure. The first time though the loop, eachActor will be set to scene.CurrentFigure().Actors()[0], then to scene.CurrentFigure().Actors()[1], and on until there are no more actors.

eachActor can then be used with any actor method, so eachActor.Parameters() is the same as poser.Scene().CurrentFigure().Actors()[0].Parameters(). If the list is empty, then the loop will not run.