[Closed] CGTALK MAXSCRIPT CHALLENGE – Topics and Suggestions

why not focusing on certain aspect of the software?
For instance

[ul]
[li]A script that display info on script.( use of the gw (if i’m correct))[/li][li]new procedural material.[/li][li]Something related to animation etc etc etc.[/li][/ul]one thing i finhard is to find THE idea. i mean for the past challenge you had to with a way to display info… info of what. and wich way? rollout on screen etc.
So maybe giving a secondairy pointer for the less knowledgeful (?) of us. like me and give just the first info for the most advanced.
But i’m sure intermediate/advanced user will find fun to relearn some stuff. maybe it could become a giant laboratory of scripting. oOoOoohh!

I think the concept of a challenge is great, and that last one where it was more or less up to the individual to decide the difficulty level (and a litte reminder that a little thinking could make it even more interesting ) … and the new rule about not posting before a certain date made it just great. Actually there would be no need to call it “Back to basics” since that would depend on the imagination and qualification of the individual scripter.

A workshop sort of thing might also be good or maybe someone teaching a simple subject every week and giving some examples and hints?

so whats the next challenge??
Can’t wait!
hehe i’m starting to love this

Sorry guys, the new challenge should be up today sometime… I’m flat out at the moment!

The new challenge is up. I’ll actually try and participate this time.

Ideas:

Compare Render: kinda like maya or the RAM player but enabling more than 2 images.

Inference locking and snapping á la SketchUp

Here’s some info:

Video tutorials:
http://download.sketchup.com/downloads/training/tutorials50/Sketchup%20Video%20Tutorials.html
Chapters:
Drawing while using inferences from other geometry
Inference locking
Basic Geometry in SketchUp

You can also download the free SketchUp Google version and try it for yourself.

I wrote the Mechnology-Viewrender script. It clearly shows that I don’t know enough about scripting.

I’m hoping anyone would take up the challenge of improving it to make it a stronger tool.

-Stephen

I wrote the Mechnology-Viewrender script. It clearly shows that I don’t know enough about scripting.

I’m hoping anyone would take up the challenge of improving it to make it a stronger tool.

-Stephen

I like your viewrender, but it would be great with a combined production renderview/interactive renderview/compare renders/tonemapping window.

Hey you Maxscripters! At my studio, we do a lot of buildings with tile roofs, especially S-tile or Spanish style roofs. We usually do this in 1 of 2 ways, depending on the time we have, and the level of detail we are going for.

Creating the roof slabs is the easy part. Creating the tiles is the more time consuming.

1. We have created special displacement maps for s-tiles, and then use Vray displacement on the flat roof slabs. This actually provides pretty decent results in most cases.

2. However, in our experience, you still just can’t beat actual geometry based tiles. The method we use for this is basically a refinement of the great tutorial posted at http://www.robeccaproductions.com/Spanish_Tile_toot.htm . One tile is modeled, then arrayed, then the whole group is attached as a single editable poly. You then position it and use Cut to trim up the roof slab.

This works great, but is still pretty time consuming to align the slabs, and then cut them all, especially on a complex roof, and especially when we build a good 5-10 houses a week.

Here’s the script challenge:

I have been told by an architect acquaintance of mine that someone at their firm created a maxscript that lets them pick the polys that define the roof slab faces and this routine automatically replaces the polys with this complex s-tile editable poly, and trims it up so that it matches the exact edges of the original poly! Pretty slick huh? This obviously saves them a ton of time. Unfortunately, despite my eager requests, they do not at all want to share this incredible tool. Secondly, I really don’t even know where to start on this, as I am a novice scripter at best.

Would someone like to take this on as a challenge? If you figure it out, tons of architectural viz artists would laud you!

If you don’t want to take it on, perhaps someone could at least give me some pointers on some ways to tackle this.

Here are some ideas I have:

1. User selects the editable poly roof object. Each face of the roof is a different poly within this object.

2. Max prompts user to select the s-tile editable poly object. This is a very large object, as wide and as tall as the largest roof face.

3. Max starts a ‘for each’ loop that steps through each poly in the roof.

4. Max obviously know the locations of the vertices on each poly, and uses these to move a copy of the s-tile poly object to align with the poly, lining it up with the bottom edge of the face (the edge having the lowest Z value, obviously), and making sure to rotate it appropriately so the tiles are overlapping properly.

5. Max then uses the vertex locations to calculate where the s-tile poly needs to be cut to match the dimensions of the roof face.

6. Repeat this process for each face in the original roof object.

7. Presto! You just saved a bundle!

Anyone up to the challenge?