Just finished a trawl through various forums and thought of a challenge:
Ways of meshing point clouds. I know that there are a few algorithms out there for doing it (Voronoi etc) but my math has never been up to converting these into maxscript.
A utility or even a collection of functions that other scripts can feed off would be REALLY useful!
A few ideas:
Most of the algorithms fall over in determining convex/concave surfaces – perhaps a couple of helper gizmos might do the trick to locally define normals (soft selection?)
This pops up all the time in scans from LIDAR and terrain information given as spot heights on survey drawings etc. What do you think?
Apologies for my absence. I’m presenty in moving house mode and have little time. Everything will be back to normal soon.
We can give idea right?
Well… Here’s one that’s been giving me headache for a while.
A script that would bake stencil shadows in the different meshes casting and receiving the shadows. Capacity to use directionnal or point light. Capacity to make the edge of the shadow be smooth as the receiver get further from the caster. Maybe even the capacity to have mutliple lights.
The problematic here is large, as it require you to bake light as vertex color, do projection of the meshes, then finally cut all the meshes correctly. (On top of assigning the shadow color to the hidden meshes)
Non-deforming tank treads and bicycle chains.
Beginner – static
Medium – follows path (looped animation)
Advanced – controler push, pull, rotate causes track rotation
Bonus – working set
i’d like to see a 2d animation tool like this mel script but as a maxscript!
BOBO…grease up your elbows on this challenge!
demo video of the melscript:-
http://jonhandhisdog.com/movies/js_greasePencil_movie.zip
I am new to this thread but I decided to post some imformation about a new rigging tool I recently developed. I call it the Bend Twist-Rig It is designed to easily and quickly skin joint deformations for joints like shoulders and hips.
It can be downloaded along with some demo videos here.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/joint-bend-rig
Here is a link to a quick motion test I did using the bend rig. All joints were rigged with it.
http://www.scriptspot.com/files/char_joint_motion_bnd_rig_tst1.mov
I feel that the actual main task of rigging when it comes down to it is getting things to bend , twist and stretch properly. Otherwise we could just simply skin everything at 100 % to joints and be done with it. I feel that there is no reason why it should always be such a complicated and time consuming task. Why spend weeks trying to rig something. I would rather spend time on the fun parts like animating and character design. The ideal is to be able to push a button and have everything be skinned in a few seconds automatically. I feel this type of tool is a step in that direction.
So basically it is a series of cross section objects that are position and rotation constrained to eachother in a way that produces a even twisting and bending motion. The cross sections can be skinned to and will maintain volume and a consistent bending and twisting motion at any angle (at least all humanly possible). It also stretches.
Neat even creases are created at all angles. The arms that control the Bending motion and the Com that controls its center, can be linked to any other object ( i.e. biped or any pre-setup rig).
I know this is not a script per se, But I have already set it up so I might as well make it available for anyone to use.
actually I was inspired to post here by a request that was made in this thread a couple of years ago on the below link
Specifically idea number 6 in the post below
More ideas…
1.How about a Non Liniear Animation Mixer Utlity device :D…oh wait… didn’t… hmm
2.An interactive beveler with drawing capability’s to draw branches on trees etc. LW has a plugin for that…
3.An extended Custom Attribute editor, that let’s you insert/edit scripts in a CA
4.FindMayaOnThisSystemAndTotallyUninstallIt-andQuicktimeToo script
One of my favourites would be a shaderOverride
5.shaderOverride would take the shading properties of one material, but let’s you use maps/materials of an other material, completely take shading and texturing apart.
6.Complete rig existing of only parametric modifiers for skin (like bend/twist/stretch etc) and only Nulls to control them (no FFD’s though!:)) … hmm
7.Greeble that does subdivide
Well, I guess these are more or less my wishes… thought I would chip in some…
Cheers,
Johan
This is the basic idea behind the bend rig. Basically a bend and twist modifier combined,
but implemented as a rig and much more powerful but also with the ability to stretch.
More of an explanation is given on the scripspot post where it can be downloaded.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/joint-bend-rig
Matthew Dicks
http://s18.photobucket.com/albums/b117/dalek333/
can you help me to write a simple script?
Please post requests such as these in their own thread sunboy. More to the point, specify what you’re after, as asking for help without saying what you need is not going to move things along.
:bounce: and tomblers etc…
ok… running out of ideas…:eek:
I would also like to suggest that challengers indicate which max version they are using, sometimes some scripts won’t work with other versions…:)
How about AI, has anyone suggested that yet?
For example, it could be a scripted robot that walks around in the scene and interacts
with some objects.
Looking for some more suggestions for the maxscript challenges. I’d like to get another one going soon ish.