Ive been looking at scripted materials and textures in max 9 and I just want to confirm what I think is bad news:
Is it possible to write a fully custom scripted texture plugin in maxScript that doesnt save out to bitmaps?
Meaning… Id like to draw into a bitmap whatever I want based on other stuff in the scene and apply that bitmap to my plugins diffuse slot at a given frame and Id like this to update dynamically…
As far as I can tell, the only way to do this is to run a script before rendering that saves out a series of files, but given the number of objects thatll have this texture in my scene, this is a hugely clunky option.
Please, someone tell me Im wrong and that theres something simple Ive overlooked. If not, I think Im going to have to dive into mentalRay shaders.