This script is for converting the images into scripted function so that you don’t have to include them separately with your scripts and rely on setups or users to place them properly. Good for button icons etc.
I needed some icon buttons for a project, so I wrote this one based on the example code in maxscript manual. I’m sure all must have seen it and there must be some more scripts that do this. I’ve polished it a bit and it has 3 major improvements:
- the bitmap is exported with the alpha channel
- the alpha is converted into a mask for transparency
- you can directly render the bitmap from a max scene
For more features please see the code. I’d very much welcome any suggestions and improvements needed so that this can be developed further before release in wild. The script is attached and is free for any kind of use …
Nice script! Reminds me of Logo Tools by David Mackenzie. And also Bitmap2Maxscript convertor by Andru Phoenix. That one’s pretty cool cause it also has LZ compression.
Very very nice!
Yes these are good ones. I wrote it as an exercise and to get the mask thing automatically. Max renders the alpha so its a straightforward thing to add support for direct render. Compression is cool but it slows down script loading (for icons we don’t need it fortunately they are tiny)
I see that you are using a lot of icons in VME, perhaps this will be useful there. You can integrate it in VME, users can assign an image as texture to UI elements and VME converts it into built in icon !
@eIT, thanks for your feedback