Hi!
I wrote maxscript, but it works too long for me, so I though about exporting it to C++.
The bad part about it all – Max SDK is not very noob-friendly, so I decided to port as minimum as possible out of it.
Someone familiar with SDK, can please tell, which parts of the script below I can port without nightmare?
obj = $Man
getFaceC = meshop.getFaceCenter
cam = $Camera1
f_count = getnumfaces obj
del_faces = #{}
del_faces.count = f_count
for i = 1 to f_count do
(
del_faces[i] =true
)
for g = 1 to 2 do (
execute("cam = $Camera"+(g as string))
viewport.setCamera cam
completeRedraw()
v_pos = (Inverse(getViewTM())).row4
for i = 1 to f_count do (
f_pos = getFaceC obj i
dir = normalize (f_pos - v_pos)
exampleray = ray v_pos dir
result = intersectRayScene exampleray
if result.count <=1 then del_faces[i] =false
)
)
meshop.deleteFaces obj del_faces delIsoVerts: true
Like, I have no idea how to get object by name from within SDK (obj = $Man ),
but I guess I don’t need it at all, if I keep it on maxscript side.
And stuff like this function – ‘intersectRayScene ’ – SDK has intersectRay as well, will it work faster, even if maxscript has exactly the same function?
you need to decide what sort of plugin to use, modifier, compound object and utility spring to mind as possible candidates. Have a look at whats already available with max and decide which best suits how you would like it to work. have a look how other people attack similar tasks in maxplugins.de. Once you know what plugin type to use start with a plugin of the same type from the sdk samples as a base for the code.
A small aside, just something I noticed in your code:
del_faces = #{}
del_faces.count = f_count
for i = 1 to f_count do
(
del_faces[i] =true
)
is equivalent to:
del_faces = #{1..f_count}
It won’t help performance very much, but it saves a few lines at least.
As for what to make into a plugin, at a glance it seems to me as though the raying is the bottleneck here, right? I assume that this maxscript function just wraps the SDK function, so you might not get a huge speed-up from moving to the SDK there. But you could certainly try it and benchmark, that’s the only way to find out
Thanks for the replies.
I was worried that it is only the wrapper around here too, hmmm, maybe I should rather look for some way to optimize actual logic itself.
Also… Seems like intersectRayScene did not make it into SDK. Oh well. Poor little me :bounce:
Isn’t it this, or some similar method?
virtual BOOL RenderGlobalContext::IntersectWorld ( Ray & ray, int skipID, ISect & hit, ISectList & xplist, int blurFrame = NO_MOTBLUR )
This method takes the specified ray and intersects it with the entire 3ds Max scene.