Script Password Protection

I spend a bit of time to wrote this script requested by Michele at ScriptSpot. I guess he need it to add license system to his scripts, nm, it is an open source, i.e. you can read the code and use it for free as you like it ;-)

Sculpting explosions with Thinking Particles

A video tutorial by Hristo Velev on how to sculpt explosions with Thinking Particles using external mesh to control particles speed.

Cabinet creator

Cabinet creator is a script that become very popular at ScriptSpot for a no time, and thats make me laugh :) Ok, am not want to be rude, but the folks which look for tools/plug-ins for whatsoever instead of learning how to do this with what they already have... am call them lazy slaves. Yes, the author of this script might deserve respect for the time he spend to wrote it, but ask yourself - are you need any tool or plugin to create a cabinet object in 3ds Max? This is a no time work if using Max's Doors and Windows primitives, and they are so intuitive so hardly ever necessary to read/watch any tutorials to work with them. Also Doors and Windows primitives has built-in mapping co-ordinates. Actually, the script use boolean operations, and that also is a quick task using boxes, but boolean ops break built-in mapping co-ordinates of the primitives. Also Max's Doors and Windows primitives are parametric objects (more flexible). So, if howsoever you need to own/write a Cabinet plug-in as parametric object take a look the excellent video tutorial by Borislav 'Bobo' Petrov. He guides you through the basics of scripted plug-in creation in 3ds Max, covering almost everything you need to know about to write nice scripted geometry plug-ins (incl. mapping, smoothing groups, segmentation, ...).

Choose Renderer

Choose Renderer is one of my recent mini scripts. It give you a quick/lazy access to assign (production) renderer. Instead of pressing F10 and scroll down, this bean script will list all available renderers to choose from.

Mocapdata

Mocapdata.com offers more than 4000 free motion data files, as well as paid content.

SplineSync demo videos

New test videos by Ian Clemmer shows possibilities of SplineSync and Superflow Elements scripts.

Containers benefits

A tutorial by Chris Murray from Autodesk on using containers to manage scene complexity.

Superflow Elements tutorial

New 40 minutes length tutorial released by Ian Clemmer on advanced techniques with Superflow Elements script, to create more rich motion graphics effects. The video show how to integrate the script with Particle Flow, plus some new tools in action which Ian added to the Superflow script recently.

Clone and Select

How to clone array of objects and select this new objects at the end? Shortly, this was the question on this forum topic. Yes, its a MaxScript topic. May looks simple, but there covered some basic and important things about array and mapped functions. While helping on Ian, I wrote by the way the script who asked for (get the script), but the info itself posted in the forum is more interesting/useful to the people going to learn MaxScript. Well, still not explain too much about the mapped functions, but hey, this is a quick help, not large essential book :) The difference between mapped and non-mapped functions is not just in their performance. Mapped functions are more faster but not applicable sometimes. After reading the forum topic, I hope the next short example can help to bring some idea about the mapped functions.

-- Lets say we have 3 objects with names A01, A02, A03.

-- And wish to make 2 instance clones on each of them.



select #($A01, $A02, $A03) -- select them



-- mapped instance copy:

for i = 1 to 2 do instance selection



-- iterated instance copy:

for obj in selection do

    for i = 1 to 2 do instance obj

In the 1st case the A01 would have 2 instances: A04 and A07.
In the 2nd case the A01 would have 2 instances: A04 and A05.

Here is the result showed in table format (instances are sorted in columns):

Case 1:      Case 2:

-----------..-----------

A01 A02 A03  A01 A02 A03

A04 A05 A06  A04 A06 A08

A07 A08 A09  A05 A07 A09

As you see, the order of creation is different and that could affect on the rest
operations on this objects. Ok, that's it for now.

Superflow Elements 1.1

Ian Clemmer released at ScriptSpot the Superflow Elements scripted tool, including new video tutorial.

Audioflow SplineSync 1.1

Ian Clemmer released at ScriptSpot the Audioflow SplineSync scripted tool, including new video tutorial.

Whether or not use Mipmapping?

Ok, no time right now to discuss this, its a long story and need to share my way to speed up rendering time (without sacrifice production quality). Shortly, Mipmaps are designed for real-time rendering and has many critical weaknesses that made them useless in production, even the good performance is not guaranteed. So, if you use Mental Ray renderer anyway, may try mipmappimg. I found a good tutorial by Adnan Hussain on how to setup your Mental Ray to work with Mipmaps, which include as well, how to convert your bitmaps to Mipmaps. You can find also additional reference links about on Hussain web site.

Audioflow SplineSync

Recently I become a part of Ian Clemmer V-MOTION team. First two scripts programmed by me for him are Superflow Elements and Audioflow SplineSync, and both are ready to be released.

Ian currently work on his new web site, but Audioflow SplineSync is already available for download at V-MOTION web site. All demos and tutorials are in progress too. Now you can watch two short videos he made with this script and upload on FaceBook (video 1, video 2).

Remove vertices with 2 edges

Removing vertices that are shared by only 2 edges? As I see this question appear sequential. About two month ago I wrote a macro script (B-Vertex Eraser), also by user request, but recently asked my this again, so I'll post here (as reference) the last function I wrote for that purpose.

fn RemoveVertsWith2Edges epoly = (
    vList = for v=1 to epoly.GetNumVertices() where
    epoly.GetVertexEdgeCount v == 2 collect v
    epoly.SetSelection #Vertex (vList as BitArray)
    epoly.Remove selLevel:#Vertex
)

-- example usage:
RemoveVertsWith2Edges $
-- on multiple objects:
for obj in selection do RemoveVertsWith2Edges obj

This function work with Editable Poly and remove ALL vertices that are shared by only 2 edges. To remove SELECTED vertices with 2 edges, use my B-Vertex Eraser macro script, which works as with Editable Poly as with Edit Poly modifier.

Cheers.

Stretchy Bones Creator 2.1

A free script by Garrick Campsey for creating chains of stretchy bones and projecting them onto a mesh.

Pulldownit propagation tutorial

A video tutorial shows demolition setup with Pulldownit (dynamic solver) plugin using new "global/local propagation" properties (added to PDI 1.5). The feature looks promising. As I see, this upgrade is for PDI Pro version only.

Scene Notes helper

Scripted helper plugin which hold your notes, and print 'active' notes to the Listener (when load the scene). For more details check at ScriptSpot.

Show Main Notes

This bean script just open notes from text file. When you open/load a scene file, it check for a text file with the same name at the same directory, and if found it, just open it in your default text editor (e.g. NotePad). For more details check at ScriptSpot.

Max 2011 quick tips & tricks

Four quick tips & tricks videos created by Chris Murray from Autodesk.

Work with INI files

Work with INI files (Read/Write) via MAXScript is the most easy job comparable to all other formats. Here is a new forum topic about. I trying to explain the work with INI`s as simple as possible. Hope its usefully anyway.

Detach All Faces

A MAXScript (posted here), which was asked here by Ian Clemmer.

If the title not say enough, well, this script detach all object`s faces to separate objects and automatize detach process on multiple objects.

Enjoy.

Disable Ribbon in 3ds Max 2011?

Not everyone like the new Ribbon (added to Max 2011), and for my regret I can't delete it at all. I find only this modified UI, but am still not happy.

Vue 9 Infinite

E-on Software release Vue 9 Infinite. New features and improvments in Vue 9.

Wiring Non Animatable Properties

Actually we can't wire (directly) non animatable properties to any controller/track, but if you interesting/involved in rigging, may find (I hope) some good tips in this forum thread on how to bind this properties to your rig attributes.

3D Process / Post Process

Ramy Hanna share his workflow post production process.

Free online image vectorizer

Convert raster images like JPEGs, GIFs and PNGs to scalable vector graphics (EPS, SVG, and PDF) with this free online vectorizer.

Select Edges by lenght

Free scrited tool which allow to select edges wich is less, equal or grater than value that you want. Also, you can measure the lenght of single or multiple edges.

3D Studio MAX turns 20

3D Studio turned 20 years old last Sunday (October 31st). More information at Autodesk's 3DS Max 20th anniversary news section.

Custom Subdivision LOD

Tiago Medeiros tutorial show (actually not new, maybe just forgotten) a nice custom LOD technique, and he explain it very well with rich useful notes. Example scene (Max 2010) also included. Glad and hope to see more tut's like this online ;) The original Portuguese version (Google translated English version).

P.S. - A few hints -- if using target camera, link the control object (the sphere) to the camera target object and bind (with Wireing Params or script controllers) the sphere radius to the camera distance and fov.