Evaluation toolkit speed test rig tip

This video goes over evaluation speed tests using the evaluation toolkit in Maya so you can test the difference in speed between two similar setups.

I've been asked a few times how much faster matrix node networks can be over Maya's innate constraint system, so I thought it might be a good video to show how you can do a speed test to compare two similar ways to rig something.

I don't mind doing these speed tests (I think it's interesting to see some real numbers to compare, and can geek out over it a little), but it occurred to me that some newer Maya riggers may not even be aware of the tool or how to use it.

This video will specifically go over how I went about doing the test between an aim constraint and an aim constraint that has been de-cycled by breaking/shifting some connections.

The basic process is to create a simple example of one method you're testing between, set some keys and save that file - then modify the file to the other method you want to test while retaining any animation and save that as a separate file so that the two are as close to the same as possible. Then import several hundred of one type into a new scene, do the speed test and repeat the process for the other source scene, note the speed values and use those values to determine how much faster/slower it is.

In this particular case, so little is different that you won't see much of a speed increase, but every little bit counts in the final rig, so even a miniscule speed improvement can be helpful.

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