[Closed] Accessing Submaterials with Gradientramp

If you apply a noise texture to the middle flag of the gradient and execute the following in the Listener:

show meditMaterials[1].diffusemap.gradient_ramp.flag__3

-- it should return something like this:
.Color : point3
.Position : float
.Texture__Map__2____Noise

So the texture map can be accessed like so:

meditMaterials[1].diffusemap.gradient_ramp.flag__3.Texture__Map__2____Noise

As you can imagine, changing the texture of this flag to something else will break your script since the property name will also change. So, instead of using properties, you could access the bitmap through the flag’s subanims structure (the textureMap is at index 6):

meditMaterials[1].diffusemap.gradient_ramp.flag__3[6].starttime = 30f

Same goes for the flags themselves. Renaming the flag will also cause the property name (.__flag3) to change. So instead use the gradient ramp’s subanim structure to retrieve the flag (3rd flag is at index 4):

meditMaterials[1].diffusemap.gradient_ramp[4]

Combined:

meditMaterials[1].diffusemap.gradient_ramp[4][6].starttime = 30f

Hope this helps,
Martijn.

Thanks a million Martijn!

That really helps me a lot, but as for the index of “[6]”
for bitmap, how is this defined? I looked for details
of the SubAnim structure of GradientRamp in the
documentation on that issue and it’s general definition
and had no success…

And as I said, if you can recommend a script using
all these sub-texture operations? I would like to see
it to understand the whole process better.

Best, Rob

PS: I would like to assign textures to flags via script and
it always says “No put function for SubAnim:Flag”…

The MacroRecorder safes the following:

meditMaterials[1][#Maps][#Diffuse_Color__Map__1____Gradient_Ramp].Flag__3__Texture = Bitmaptexture fileName:“c:\bla.ifl”

And using this as a Script base, I get an “Error occurred in anonymous codeblock”,
“Unknown property: “Flag__3__Texture” in SubAnim:
Diffuse_Color__Map__1____Gradient_Ramp”

I wished the MaxScript documentation would feature some more
Material/Texture samples… Rob

Unfortunately, you cannot rely on anything the macro recorder spits out. It will work for simple commands, but that’s about it. The reason behind this has been explained in several other threads so I won’t get into details.

Back to your question. As far as I know, you cannot assign textures to flags using mxs. You could replace an existing texture (see below), but this will not work if the flag didn’t have a texture assigned to it in the first place.

replaceInstances meditMaterials[1].diffuseMap.Gradient_Ramp[4][6] (noise())

As for your question about subanims, I’d recommend reading the topic in the mxs reference (topic “Subanims”). Here’s a quick summery taken from that topic:

As an alternative to using named property accesses, you can access in an object any animatable property that is visible as a track in Track View by indexing the 3ds Max object value as though it were an array. This simplifies such tasks as iterating over all the animatable properties in an object and accessing sub-controllers that don’t have unique names, such as within list controllers.

Hope that helps,
Martijn

Thanks Martijn, this helps a lot (again). So I’ll set up a base material
and use scripts only to change values / maps. That’s fine, just
thought this could be done more elegantly…

Best, Rob

On a side note, the following:

will replace all instances of the texturemap. So if you’re using the same texture (instanced) somewhere else in the scene, that texture will be replaced as well.

Cheers,
Martijn

I generated an array of maps with the same IFL sequence but
different starttimes. Then I use replaceInstances and (of course)
all of these get unified…

Is there a possibility to apply them without ALL instances replaced?

Thanks, Rob

Other than using replaceInstances, I don’t think there’s a way to replace a flag’s texture. So all gradient maps and the textures applied to the flag need to be unique for this to work…

Thanks, so what would be an efficient way to create lots of
maps consiting of the same Bitmap but with unique names
that then could be linked afterwards?

I still haven’t understood how Max handles names of Maps,
especially when I want to access them array-like…

Thanks, Rob