get_dagpath_from_name( node_name )

This is the first post of it’s kind where I will post a useful function that can be used to build up your library.

I find myself bouncing between maya.cmds and maya.api.OpenMaya quite a bit, and have run into the issue of converting string names objects that can be used with OpenMaya operations. Here is a simple function that will get a maya.api.OpenMaya.MDagPath object from the given node name.

import maya.api.OpenMaya
import maya.cmds

def get_dagpath_from_name( node_name ):
    """
    Gets a node's MDagPath object from it's name.
    
    args:
    
    node_name: string | The name of the node.
    
    kwargs:
    
    return:
    
    MDagPath if successful, None otherwise.
    
    """
    
    selection_list = OpenMaya.MSelectionList( )
    
    if not maya.cmds.objExists( node_name ):
        return None
    
    selection_list.add( node_name )
    
    dag_path = selection_list.getDagPath( 0 )
    
    return dag_path