Im working on a system and I need to store some data on a object. A simple CA could work but it doesnt really give me the flexibility that I need. Idealy I wouldve stored struct instances but AFAIK you cant do that in max.
So I was wondering which solution should I go for
-use a second CA stored on another node and store that node in my first CA
-use an xml string
Each method has their pros and cons but I cant really decide which one to take… Is there a better solution?
what types of data do you want to store?
I need to store matrix and different index and they all need to stay grouped in a specific order.
something like a list of index then each index got a sublist of subindex and each subindex are associated to a matrix.
I agree with what Vojtech says: use a simple solution where it works good enough.
but for more complicated cases you can store CAs which mimic you structure. in your case i could be:
StructCA = attributes StructCA attribID:#(0x1010101, 0x2020202)
(
parameters params
(
ids type:#inttab tabsizevariable:on animatable:off
tms type:#matrix3tab tabsizevariable:on
)
)
StructHolderCA = attributes StructHolderCA attribID:#(0x1010101, 0x2020203)
(
parameters params
(
cas type:#maxobjecttab tabsizevariable:on subanim:off
)
)
delete objects
b = box()
holder = createinstance StructHolderCA
for k=1 to 10 do
(
ca = createinstance StructCA
num = random 1 5
for i=1 to num do
(
append ca.ids (id = random 0 1e6)
append ca.tms (transmatrix [id,0,0])
)
append holder.cas ca
)
append b.baseobject.custattributes holder
for k=1 to b.cas.count do
(
ca = b.cas[k]
format "%: %
" k ca
format " ids:%
" ca.ids
format " tms:%
" ca.tms
)
Well, AFAIK you can store struct instances as persistent globals provided that they are defined at the time the scene is being opened (for example by running a script that contains the struct definition beforehands). Out of curiosity, can you show us what an example struct would look like? I have hard time imagining it given the description.
Sure.
At first I wanted To have something like
#(struct instance 1, struct instance 2, etc…)
and each struct would be uswd to store data like:
Id: #(1,2,3) – int array
matrix: #( an array of matrix)
Thing is I need to keep my Id array grouped with the matrix array ( there will be 1 matrix per id element).
I hope its clear, sorry if its still unclear I tried my best explaining it using my cellphone
In that case, there’s no reason to make a complicated setup. I’d use two intTabs and one matrix3Tab – the first intTab would hold the number of items for each of the index/matrix3 array pairs, the second intTab would contain all the indices and the matrix3Tab all the matrices.
So for
#(1,2,3) #(matrix1, matrix2, matrix3)
#(4) #(matrix4)
#(5,6) #(matrix5, matrix6)
the stored values would be
#(3,1,2)
#(1,2,3,4,5,6)
#(matrix1, matrix2, matrix3, matrix4, matrix5, matrix6)