[Closed] Grabbing The Material Preview

the easiest way is to copy and paste into the any of the files of the mxsagni project in the samples and recompile (as release) it and replace the mxsagni.dlx in stdplugins with the newly compiled version.

Klvnk. could you make a tutorial how to do this please? When I look to Useful mxs sdk extension functions I understand that for some people it is useful, but unfortunately not for me, because I don’t know how to use them

Or, at least, point us to a “short” tutorial.

Yes please Klunk, that would be an awesome tutorial. I’d love to use that function.

guys! using MAX sdk is the power. (Klunk can confirm it :))

almost all functions in the “useful maxscript extentions” thread are really-really useful.

thanks Klvnk, would it be possible to add “cleaan way” or if possible on the fly compile like in C# code ?

I’m sure it’s possible but I’m probably not the man for that sort of thing c# is not my bag !

Ya, thanks Denis, reckon I should ban myself from trying to think at weekends.

Opening the preview window seems to be a little buggy, especially if you already have some preview windows opened.

I thought perhaps using just one Material Slot and changing it could be useful too, for example if you have a scene with materials that are not currently opened in the Editor.

I haven’t tested if it really captures the material preview or if it works with different Renderers. In theory I believe it should work.

The code below does not use the DialogMonitorOPS. It is just some testing thing and so it is a little messy. Also it is missing the C# functions for capturing the screen.

The flashing Editor is annoying, but I think it could be hidden with a bit of C# or moved out of screen.

(
 	
 	fn GrabPreviewThumbnail mHWND =
 	(
 		-- Nothing here, just print the material name
 		print (UIAccessor.GetWindowText mHWND)
 	)
 	
 	fn GetMaterialEditorHWNDs mClosePreviews:true =
 	(
 		children = windows.getChildrenHWND 0
 		
 		editorHWND  = undefined
 		previewHWND = undefined
 		
 		for j in children do
 		(
 			hwnd  = j[1]
 			class = j[4]
 			
 			if class == "#32770" do
 			(
 				DLL = UIAccessor.GetWindowDllFileName hwnd
 				DLL = filenamefromPath DLL
 				
 				if DLL == "res1.dll" do
 				(
 					if (UIAccessor.GetChildWindows hwnd).count == 3 then
 					(
 						if mClosePreviews do UIAccessor.CloseDialog hwnd
 						previewHWND = hwnd
 					)else(
 						editorHWND = hwnd
 					)
 				)
 			)
 		)
 		
 		return #(editorHWND, previewHWND)
 		
 	)
 	
 	fn BuildMaterialsPreviews mType =
 	(
 		case mType of
 		(
 			1: (materials = for j in scenematerials collect j)
 			2: (materials = for j in meditmaterials collect j)
 			default: return ()
 		)
 	
 		materialEditor = MatEditor.mode
 		MatEditor.mode = #basic
 	
 		MatEditor.Open()
 	
 		GetMaterialEditorHWNDs mClosePreviews:true
 
 		medit.SetActiveMtlSlot 1 true
 		windows.processPostedMessages()
 	
 		materialSlot1 = meditmaterials[1]
 		actionMan.executeAction 2 "40296"
 		
 		HWNDs = GetMaterialEditorHWNDs mClosePreviews:false
 		previewHWND = HWNDs[2]
 	
 		for j in materials do
 		(
 			meditmaterials[1] = j
 			windows.processPostedMessages()
 			
 			-- Grab Image here
 			GrabPreviewThumbnail previewHWND
 		)
 	
 		UIAccessor.CloseDialog previewHWND
 		meditmaterials[1] = materialSlot1
 		MatEditor.mode = materialEditor
 	)
 	
 	BuildMaterialsPreviews 1
 	
 )

recent max versions have getWindowPos method. the preview window pops up on the top. so we can use .net screen grab methods instead of print HDC

so today with recent versions of max we can do everything without extra pre-compiled (or on-the-fly) .net assemblies