Select By Material ID

As the title of the script telling all, no need extra notes, right? I wrote this script by user request at ScriptSpot forum. More details and the script you can find there.

But... OK, here is a few notes anyway.

It's a macro script that select all faces with Mareial ID equal to selected one. Work with base objects converted to Editable Poly or Mesh, plus with 4 modifiers (Edit Mesh, Mesh Select, Edit Poly, Poly Select). Work on currently selected object/modifier in the modifier stack (which make it usage very flexible).

Well, need some warning notes about Edit Poly Modifier.
Yeah, a very powerful modifier but with unstable scripting control.

The rest 3 modifiers involved here works fine and stable, but you can end with incorrect result when using Edit Poly modifier, and this not come from the script code but from the unstable nature of EditPolyMod interface. Sorry to tell that but this cannot be fixed with scripting code.

Possible "Plan B" could be to add new modifier on top (as Poly Select for instance), but this is very dirty solution. As we need stable and working code in production as more sensibly would be to replace "naughty mod" with other modifiers (like Edit Mesh for instance).

This is another script which reminded me why I not trust to this modifier and why I do not use it anymore in my scripts. So you're warned, and I can't do anything more than this for you, right?

However, I hope you appreciate my efforts and all the comforts that come from this macros.

SOX Realtime Spring

Inspired by Harrison Yu script Realtime Spring, a new (very neat coded) script for the same goal is out - SOX Realtime Spring by SangWon Lee.

LiveMeasure

Another measurement script by Kostadin Kotev goes out - LiveMeasure. Script that dynamical display faces area, edges or segments length.

Set programmatically Direct3D Driver Antialiasing settings

Mainly scripters topic, where was discussed concrete Direct3D setting that is new in 3ds Max 2010, but it's a good reference for everybody looking for workaround on how to set any Direct3D driver settings programmatically.

I'm too helps with code function on this subject, but that's not important. Those thread hold useful info for me, and I wish to can find it quickly in the future, there is why I pin a note here mostly for myself.

How To Rig A Crank-Connecting Rod System

Very quick video tutorial (51 secends) by Henrique Lundeqvist shows crank rig made with wireing expression.

Z_Spline2Bone

Z_Spline2Bone is a Max script by Sai Ling that create bones follows spline.

Fit the UVW Mapping Gizmo

Fit the UVW Mapping Gizmo is a macro script for 3ds Max 2008 and higher, and will works in previous version with free AVG extensions installed.

Hardly need to explain what Fit gizmo do in UVW Mapping modifier, nor yet the need and benefit of it automation via script, right?

That operation is not directly accessible to MAXScript, but thanks to Borislav "Bobo" Petrov and his nice tutorial on this task. He explain very well (as always) the matrix transforms.

Well, maybe my code hold some learning value too. However, as I not found such script online, I hope my script would be welcome to all Max'ers. (Script page)

Stretch Spline

Stretch Spline is new Max script by Kostadin Kotev that get the length of all or selected segments of selected shape and create new spline with the same length.

Self Referencing Script Controllers

It's a known problem, I think. The recursion issue appear if we call itself from within Script Controller. The main subject of this thread is how to simplify the "bypass" that usually we made with Custom Attributies. So, I think its s'd be interesting subject for animators and mostly riggers, for scripters maybe too. Usually I suggest workaround that I call "proxy controller", as it's easy for understanding and following, but this time I decide to share and another approach that not so abstract as it looks. It's based on "at time" context which made self-call safety. Well, I'll not going to repeat myself, so just read the forum topic. Cheers!

The Seventh World Festival of Animated Film in Varna

The Seventh World Festival of Animated Film in Varna, Bulgaria, is a successor of the famous festival from the eighties, whose last edition was in 1989, and which was one of the five most important festivals in the world organized under the patronage of ASIFA, was held between 8 and 12 September 2011.

After so many (22) years finally WFAF resurrected! As Bulgarian this event is very important to me. We suffered a period of 20 years with zero animation production in our country. Yeah, this industry was completely dead, and start to reborn in the last few years, relatively slow for now. Why did this happen is a large and political subject, and I do not intend to write about it.

Read more about into VarnaFest.org or the news in Vesti.bg (Bulgarian news translated with Google).

Undo SubObject Level

This is a macro script requested in the ScriptSpot forum. First to say, Kostadin Kotev already filled that request with his SubObjectModeToggle script.

My quick version (Undo SubObject Level) is a bit more simple, and probably not match strictly David request, but I beliеve it's more than simple and allows everybody to grasp the idea behind and calibrate the code to his personal needs.

The nut here is the Swap function I used to do 2 operations at once - store current SubObject Level (SOL) to a variable and restore the previous SOL state stored in those the same variable.

Well, too much words for so simple tool, right? I'm sure that after trying it you'll find out for a no time what it do and how it works ;) To test the script after running it once, open your Customize dialog and assign a keyboard shortcut, i.e. follow usual macro script installation procedure. And have fun ;)

Populate Terrain script

Marc Lorenz post scripted tool Populate:Terrain that assists in creating optimized terrain surfaces from shapes.

3D Environment Competition 2011 Winners Announced

The Vue 3D Environment Competition 2011 is closed and E-on announce the winners.

Ballooning file issue

A time ago I searched for "long time saving issue" and found 2 scripts (removeNoteTrack and removeMixerReftargs) in RangEmotions (RU forum) that solve this problem. And as I remember, I post about this somewhere in my blog. Now I see that this problem has another name - "ballooning file issue" (read notes about by Shane Griffith from Autodesk here) The 2 scripts that Autodesk offer to solve this are identical to previously posted into RangEmotions forum. However is, Denis Trofimov at CGTalk posted optimized version of both scripts and they're very welcome in case we met this problem again.

Forest Pack Pro review

Itoo Software's Forest Pack Pro review by Matt Guetta at MaxUnderground.