Pierre-Felix Breton » MAXScript

Sun Study Assistant for 3ds Max

Pierre-Felix Breton — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:54:54 +0000

This tool is an assistant which controls the date and time of a Daylight System object for key moments in the year.

It will also control Text objects to display the current Time and Date of the Daylight System:

Here is a video demonstrating its usage:

You can download the tool here.

Material and Layer Name Columns in Scene Explorer

Pierre-Felix Breton — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:58:11 +0000

Have you ever wanted to display the material and layer names of objects in the 3ds Max Scene Explorer like this?

This can be done with a relatively simple MAXScript that you must install under the \Scripts\Startup directory of your 3ds Max installation.

By doing so, the script will execute each time 3ds Max is launched and will instruct the Scene Explorer to fetch the Material and Layer names of your objects and create 2 new columns that you can drag and drop in place.

Click Here to Download the MAXScript

UltraEdit Color File for mi shaders and MaxScript editing

Pierre-Felix Breton — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 03:34:21 +0000

If you happen to edit mental ray shaders or MaxScripts in UltraEdit, you may appreciate the attached color coding file.

Click here to download the Wordfile.txt file for UltraEdit (Right Click | Save Target As…)

Install it in your UltraEdit installation folder:

When opening a mi file you should see something like this:

Removing Unwanted Edges from Imported FBX Files

Pierre-Felix Breton — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:40:02 +0000

If you import an FBX model from Revit in 3ds Max you will most likely see more polygonal edges than expected. Those are not extra polygons, it is simply that generally, 3ds Max hides adjacent edges by default. In the case of FBX import, meshes are created with all edges being visible – and the viewport does not look as clean as it should:

To get rid of those edges, you can hide them from the editable mesh panel:

Or better, use a Maxscript tool that will let you hide them all at once.

Click here to download the MaxScript

Usage: Select all your EditableMesh objects and execute the script. The script will only affect selected EditableMesh objects so the selection can contain lights, lines, cameras: they won’t be affected by the script.

The result:

Special Thanks to Chris P. Johnson who helped improving the speed and stability of the script on large models containing several instances.

Xrite Color Munki CxF Reader for 3ds Max

Pierre-Felix Breton — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:07:41 +0000

Xrite’s Color Munki allows for calibrating monitors and measuring spectral samples. This is an excellent tool for measuring colors of materials and finishes for improved accuracy in computer renderings and simulations.

The measured color palettes can be exported from the Color Munki software as *.CxF files and read back in 3ds Max with the help of a script that I have developped.

The 3ds Max script can be downloaded here. Simply run it from within 3ds Max using the Maxscript | Run command, browse to a CxF file and drag and drop colors in your materials from the color swatch of your choice.

Lighting Analysis Tools for 3ds Max Design 2010

Pierre-Felix Breton — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:52:49 +0000

MacroScript files for 3ds Max Design 2009 created to improve the workflow of lighting analysis projects.