Proxies enhancements

[studioDIM]

Would it be possible to use the proxy functions (mesh saving, and auto-proxy generation) from maxscript?
That way it would be fairly easy to create some script that switches from loaded meshes to proxies, and back.
It would help greatly with our workflow, where i am concerned with the rendering (so the proxies visualisation of meshes is way good, and i always prefer a slim scene loaded in memory), and my colleague decides camera angles (so he likes to see precisely the objects in shaded mode, however much ram the scene will take up on load).
At the moment, i am not aware of any other way to create proxies than to use a dovraymeshexport(), which brings up a dialog...

Thanks in advance,

Lele

[joconnell]

Dunno about functions for exporting proxy objects but I've got a few scripts for swapping different objects back and forth - I was using them recently to lay out a load of trees using low res obejcts and then replace them with proxy objects so you're more than welcome to it if it'll help.

[studioDIM]

I'm finsihing now a project with some 1800 poly trees in a huge park, and scripted myself a tree planter/spline conformer, and a path changer for proxies.

The replacement (i started without proxies at all) is a simple "Replace" command in max, even though it works only on same-name objects.
Easy enough to rename a set of trees to match the name of the proxy representing them...

What i'd love is to be able to script an automated switcher that does something like this: select a batch of objects, press a button, make the lot of them proxies with no interface popping up.
Selects a few proxies, and from the script app, check and uncheck "use originals" to have them switch to/from mesh without fiddling further with max.

Thinking of it, the last part might already be done with custom attributes (to hold the proxy data with the substituted mesh and be able to go back and forth).

It's just i can't encapsulate the proxy generation into the interface of the script...
Or can i?

In any case, if you have already solved this, please yes: i'd love to give it a look :P

Thanks!

Lele

[joconnell]

In my case it's probably quite similar - I'm just using the baseobject command to switch one object with another and I have a collection of objects offscreen that I use as the objects to change too. Pretty much just a button to define an array of the tree objects you want to switch to, then select the trees to replace, hit another button and it'll replace each tree with a random member of the first array. It sounds like you've got something like this set up in the first place but let me know if it might be useful.

Some stage soon we'll have to compile a list of all these little utilities and release a chaosgroup forum pack like the egz materials...

[vlado]

Re: Proxies enhancements

Would it be possible to use the proxy functions (mesh saving, and auto-proxy generation) from maxscript?

This is already implemented in more recent builds.

Best regards,
Vlado

[studioDIM]

Re: Proxies enhancements

Would it be possible to use the proxy functions (mesh saving, and auto-proxy generation) from maxscript?

This is already implemented in more recent builds.

Best regards,
Vlado

i wanna die!!!!

and aye, Jo!
Let's stick all these maxscript in one package, and let's let them lose on the community!
I guess it's better to wait for 1.5, though...
I'd hate to do it wrong and having to do it again

Lele