techart (9)

MAXSCRIPT: Toggle trackbar / statusbar

Maxscript I wrote to salvage these 50 or so pixels on ther bottom area, especially when I'm doing some more devlook oriented tasks, not animating or duplicating / rotating / transforming objects. It'll hide trackbar slider + trackbar then status bar when you click it,…

MAXSCRIPT: Proportional Reference Plane

Script I often use while setting up reference planes from simple pictures: 1. Make plane object (any size/proportions). 2. Drag and drop image from folder to plane. 3. Select plane with now applied texture. 3. Click on button/toolbar/quad you assigned script to. 4. Plane width/height…

Getting best normalmap bakes

AKA why there are seams on my normalmaps / why there is weird shading on my model If you're not familiar with 3ds max terminology, setting up smoothgroups is equivalent to hard edges in maya, or editing normals in blender. tl;dr version for people who…

MAXSCRIPT: Open max file location in explorer

Very short one, written literally 5 minutes ago. Execute below maxscript to create macroscript in Customise User Interface menu, and use it to quickly open folder where the max scene is saved: macroScript OpenMaxFileLocation category:"_Piro_Tools" tooltip:"open max location" ( command = "explorer" commandArg = maxFilePatch…

MAXSCRIPT: Move/Scale uv chunks by value

Maxscript I wrote to help myself packing all the atlases from various textures, working on envirnoment jobs. Allows you to easily scale / move uv chunks / groups of them by defined values by clicking a D-PAD like controls. You need to have your UV…

MAXSCRIPT: Change the UVW Unwrap checker size on the fly.

Script that does something noone thinks about unless needed - adjusts size (or tiling if you wish) of checker board from UVW Unwrap modifier window (so it doesnt touch your material tiling, and checker vanishes after you exit UWV Modifier) Includes two macros, one for…

MAXSCRIPT: Centering pivot on selected object.

Small, very simple script that saves me few clicks: macroScript centerPivot Category:"_Piro_Tools" toolTip:"Center Pivot" ( $.pivot = $.center ) Centers the object pivot to geometry-weighted center, especially usefull when you duplicate mesh elements using shift+drag method. Found again here: Bind it to key, quad or toolbar as…

MAXSCRIPT: Copy & Paste files between max instances and scenes

Two small maxscript macros that let you copy and paste files using a temporary file created in $autoback directory. macroScript Copy_Objects_To_File Category:"_Piro_Tools" toolTip:"CopyToFile" ( thecopypastedir = getdir #autoback thecopypastefile = "\pastefile.max" thecopypastestring = thecopypastedir + thecopypastefile if $ != undefined do saveNodes $ thecopypastestring )…