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Author: changsooeun

Mini OSL tutorial #1 – Random map rotation per tile

changsooeun

Let me just borrow text from 3dsMax help. You guys should read manual all the time’ Three are many good in formation! I highlighted important aspect of 3dsMax OSL map for you!

Open shading language (OSL) is an open source shading language that is fairly simple to understand. It can be used in several different ways. You can use the OSL Map, which is an execution environment for OSL shaders inside of 3ds Max, and it works like any regular built-in 3ds Max map. There is also a category of pre-loaded OSL maps that you can easily use. In addition, you can use any OSL maps you download from the internet. Finally, you can creating a shader or map in OSL using our development tools. This is a much simpler method to create custom maps than developing the equivalent functionality as a 3ds Max C++ map.

OSL works in any renderer supporting the regular 3ds Max shading API (Scanline, vRay, Corona, etc.). It also works outside of renderers, anywhere in 3ds Max where a regular map is requested, such as in the Displacement modifier. It also works with renderers that support OSL natively, such as Arnold. In those cases, the execution environment inside the OSL map is not sued, instead, the OSL source code, the parameter values and shader bindings are sent to the renderer, which executes the OSL code. More renderers supporting OSL natively are appearing daily.

OSL uses “just-in-time” compilation and optimization of entire shade trees at once, as long as all the shaders in the shade tree are OSL shaders. You can mix OSL shaders and regular shaders, but the optimizations will suffer.

First of all, I really really want to make sure about this.

As I posted before, You don’t have to code to use OSL maps in 3dsMax.

3dsMax OSL is seamlessly integrated just like all other C++ maps. There is ZERO difference in terms of how to use and where you can use. Also if you chain OSL map together, 3dsMax combine them the entire OSL chain and make a single shader under the hood. Essentially Slate ME is acting as an OSL node editor for you. Even better 3dsMax 2021 ships with 123 build-in shaders to start with. At these point, almost all 3dsMax legacy map could be replace with OSL. This mini tutorial is a very good example of using Slate ME as an OSL node editor.

At a Stack post, we god a question.

In this tutorial, the blender guru is using a custom tool in order to randomize the uv’s rotation so we can’t see anymore the repetitive pattern on a large scale tiling texture. He says that, as far as he knows, this kind of tool doesn’t exist in any other 3d software because it involves maths tricks and vectors and nobody wants to deal with this.

Good news! you don’t need custom node for this. Master Zap let me know how to do this with built-in OSL node. I’m posting the master;s answer with my explanation so you can go further.

First, this is the graph. 4 nodes!

 

Let’s see one by one.

UVTransform : Tiling

This OSL map is like Coordinate rollout in other maps. It allows you to move, rotate and scale uv coordinate. I tiled uv coordinate here. So, I tilted here with Tiling parameters.

Tip! You can connect one UVTransform to many OSL maps whicn means you can control the coordinate of all those map at once.

Noise : Give random value per tile

This map generates a random 0-1 value per tile which will be used as rotation value later.

As the name says, it is an OSL version of Noise map. It has 6 types of noise in a map. We will use Cell type which makes random pixel bitmap patter.

Then, set Scale to 1.0 and Octave to 1. This makes the noise function generates one value per tile. If you increase Scale or Octave, it will essentially divide each tile.

Then, turn off Step Function to prevent blending.

Multiply : convert to degree

Multiply 360 so we can get rotation value between 0-360. As you can see, you don’t have to make a map for value B. You can just type in B parameters of the map.

UVTransform : randomize uv rot

This map rotates UV per tile. You don;t need to set any value here. Just connect UVTransform : Tiling to Input(UVW) which inherit tiling from UVTransform : Tiling map. Then, connect Multiply : convert to degree to Rotate.

Now you can connect this map to any maps UVW port.

Download random rotation per tile OSL setup max file

Do you like to work smart? Just like this map? Then, you will like renderStacks. Click here and check it out!

simpleMapBaker

changsooeun

3dsMax 2021 has been release. One of the new feature is the brand new BakingToTexture tool. This tool is written from scratch and the replacement of legacy Render to Texture tool. This is the first iteration of this tool and still in active development.

Along with this tool, now 3dsMax provide the full support of MikkT tangent space from baking to rendering , viewport and SDK.

simpleMapBaker is a simplified front-end of new BakingToTexture. It allow users to bake certain utility map with one click. Also it was used to test the maxscript exposure of BakingToTexture tool.

Download simpleMapBaker

You can bake the following maps.

  • Curvature
  • AO
  • Position
  • World Normal
  • Vertex Normal
  • Material IDs
  • Normal

simpleMapBaker utilize the new override map feature to render most maps at once. Also it uses Arnold’s Curvature and AO shader. Therefore, it will save render preset of the current render.Therefore, it will switch to Arnold for all maps other than Normal map. For normal map, it will switch to Scanline renderer(This is temporary workaround until Arnold normal baking is ready). After baking, the renderer will be reverted to back.

Select objects, and just turn on the map buttons to render and press the big Bake button.

You can set up parameters for some maps and output parameters that BakingToTexture supports.

After bake, it will show all baked maps in the dropdownlist at the bottom. If you select a map there, it will use viewport override for preview baked map.

For normal map, it is using the new MikkT tangent space.

If you want to preview the previously baked maps, select object and press Reload button. It will search the maps and show preview if it finds the map.

Installation
  1. Download simpleMapBaker zip file
  2. Unzip
  3. drag and drop .ms into a viewport
  4. csTools > simpleMapBaker

thanks!

renderStacks can also make your work a lot simpler. Click here and check it out!

 

 

UIAccessor mini tutorial – How to control Make Preview dialog

changsooeun

I have been using jpg sequence for my Make Preview output. It is allways easier and more flexible to deal with image sequence than avi, mov or mp4.

The problem is Make Preview windows is the one of the old window which doesn’t have full exposure to Mmaxscript.  3dsMax dev added more argument for createPreview method in 3dsMax 2020. But, unfortunately some of option in the Make Preview dialog is still not available for Maxscript.

But, that doesn’t mean you can not set Make Preview automatically. 3dsMax has the ultimate hack(?) for controlling any UI component. UIAccessor and DialogMonitorOPS.

This allow you to emulate user interaction with UI like clicking button, choosing dropdown items and pressing Enter with Maxscript.

If you don’t want all these, Download the final template.

Skeleton code of DialogMonitorOPS  

Let’s start with very simple script.

fn setMakePreview = (
local WindowHandle = DialogMonitorOPS.GetWindowHandle()
local WindowTitle =  (UIAccessor.GetWindowText WindowHandle)

if WindowTitle == "Make Preview" then (
print "Hello"
)
True
)

DialogMonitorOPS.enabled = true
DialogMonitorOPS.RegisterNotification setMakePreview id:#setMakePreview  

max preview

DialogMonitorOPS.unRegisterNotification id:#setMakePreview 
DialogMonitorOPS.enabled = false

DialogMonitorOPS.enabled = true

First, you need to turn on DialogMonitorOPS.so 3dsMax can monitor any UI. Of course, you don’t want to turn on this all the time. So, after our job is done, we will turn off.

DialogMonitorOPS.RegisterNotification setMakePreview id:#setMakePreview

Then, resister your function to run(setMakePreview) and give id. Again, after our job is done, make sure to unresister.

max preview

This runs Make Preview

DialogMonitorOPS.enabled = true
DialogMonitorOPS.RegisterNotification setMakePreview id:#setMakePreview

Unresister setMakePreview and turn off DialogMonitorOPS

Now let’s see the setMakePreview fucntion. This function will run all the time while DialogMonitorOPS is running.

The most important thing to know is that this function need to return true at the end. I forgot why. But, you MUST do it. So, just do it.

local WindowHandle = DialogMonitorOPS.GetWindowHandle()

How would you let Maxscript know which UI you want to control? We will use window handle or hwnd which is a unique id of each UI element. The above line will give is the handle of window which DialogMonitorOPS detected.

local WindowTitle = (UIAccessor.GetWindowText WindowHandle)

Then, this above line will give us the title of dialog.

if WindowTitle == “Make Preview” then (
print “Hello”
)
True

DialogMonitorOPS will check if the dialog is “Make Preview” dialog. If so, it will print Hello.

Let’s set custom output path

From now on I’ll only show setMakePreview function.

fn setMakePreview = (
local WindowHandle = DialogMonitorOPS.GetWindowHandle()
local WIndowTitle =  (UIAccessor.GetWindowText WindowHandle)

if WindowTitle == "Make Preview" then (
for i in (windows.getChildrenHWND WindowHandle) do (format "%\n" i)
UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle "File..."
)
True
)

I removed print “Hello” and added UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle “File…”. As you can read, this will find a button named “File…” and press it for you.

for i in (windows.getChildrenHWND WindowHandle) do (format “%\n” i)

What does this do? It just printed a bunch of things in Maxscript listener. This is how we sees what kinds of UI element is in the current dialog and fid a way to access each UI element. As I said in the begining, we use windows handle to specify UI element. This line will print out the information of all children of the dialog with given handle, Make Preview dialog. it gives us an array for each UI element. The important ones are first(hwnd of child), forth(UI type) and fifth( displayed text).

fn setMakePreview = (
local WindowHandle = DialogMonitorOPS.GetWindowHandle()
local WindowTitle =  (UIAccessor.GetWindowText WindowHandle)

if WindowTitle == "Make Preview" then (
UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle "File..."
)
if WindowTitle == "Create Animated Sequence File..." then (
-- Set cusom output path
local edits = for i in (windows.getChildrenHWND WindowHandle) where i[4] == "Edit" collect i[1]
uiaccessor.setwindowtext edits[1] @"c:\temp\test_.jpg"
UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle "&Save"
)
True
)

Because we pressed “File…” button. A new dialog pops up, “Create Animated Sequence File…”. In this dialog, we need to these.

  1. Set custom output path
  2. Set Save as Type to jpg
  3. Press Save button

To set custom output path, we need to know hwnd of path input UI. But, if you check fifth item of array. Text input doesn’t have name! What should I do? Other information we have is type of control on fourth item. The type UI you can input text is “Edit”. So, I collected hwnd of “Edit”s. Fortunately 3dsMax seems collecting UI info in the same order from top to bottom. So, let’s try on the first one. You can use uiaccessor.setwindowtext to set value on Spinner of Edit. If you want to use own naming convention. Replace @”c:\temp\test_.jpg” with own function or variable.

uiaccessor.setwindowtext edits[1] @”c:\temp\test_.jpg”

The, press “Save” button.

UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle “&Save”

Wait? why the name iis “&Save”. How do I know I need &? I also don’t know where & come from. But, I know “Save” did not work. So, I printed out all child UI elem data and checked the names.

Did it work? Maybe or Maybe not. Because 3dsmax remembers the format you used last time, if it was not jpg, Make Preview window will automatically switch to the format. So, we need to choose jpg from format dropdown. Now this is real fun!

fn setMakePreview = (
local WindowHandle = DialogMonitorOPS.GetWindowHandle()
local WindowTitle =  (UIAccessor.GetWindowText WindowHandle)

if WindowTitle == "Make Preview" then (
UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle "File..."
)
if WindowTitle == "Create Animated Sequence File..." then (

local edits = for i in (windows.getChildrenHWND WindowHandle) where i[4] == "Edit" collect i[1]
uiaccessor.setwindowtext edits[1] @"c:\temp\reallyanothertest_.jpg"

local comboboxes = for i in (windows.getChildrenHWND WindowHandle) where i[4] == "ComboBox" collect i[1]
local filetypeHwnd = comboboxes[3] 

local CB_SHOWDROPDOWN = 0x014F
local CB_SETCURSEL = 0x014E 
local WM_LBUTTONDOWN = 0x0201
local WM_LBUTTONUP = 0x0202
windows.sendMessage filetypeHwnd CB_SHOWDROPDOWN 1 0 -- Open combobox dropdown
windows.sendMessage filetypeHwnd CB_SETCURSEL 7 0 -- Select 7th item
windows.sendMessage filetypeHwnd WM_LBUTTONDOWN 0 -1  -- Press left mouse button
windows.sendMessage filetypeHwnd WM_LBUTTONUP 0 -1  -- Raise left mouse button
windows.sendMessage filetypeHwnd CB_SHOWDROPDOWN 0 0    -- Close dropdown

UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle "&Save"
)
True
)

I guess you already have figured out what this does. Yes, it collect hwnd of all comboboxes.Them 3rd one was the Save As Type dropdown.

local comboboxes = for i in (windows.getChildrenHWND WindowHandle) where i[4] == “ComboBox” collect i[1]
local filetypeHwnd = comboboxes[3]

All cool. Butn thet the heck is the next lines?

windows.sendMessage Sends a Win32 message to the HWND specified in the first argument. This is how you emulate UI interaction programmatically.

I commented on the code what each lines does. But, you may think how am I suppose to know all the secret code?

CGTalk maxscript forum has a lot of answers for common operations. You can also google windows message reference like this.

Now since you set jpg as a new format, JPEG Image Control windows pops up. This one is easy. We can just press OK button like this.

if WIndowTitle == “JPEG Image Control” then ( UIAccessor.PressButtonByName WindowHandle “OK” )

How about other controls like checkbox?

Since checkbox text usually doesn’t change, we can search the string pattern of fifth item to find hwnd. This is function to get hwnd using UI name. Then you can BM_SETCHECK window message to check the checkbox. if the first argument is 1, the chebox will be checked. If it is 0, the checkbox will be unchecked.

 

fn getChildHwndByName parent_hwnd childUIname = (
    local child_hwnd = 0
    for i in (windows.getChildrenHWND parent_hwnd) where matchPattern i[5] pattern:childUIname do (child_hwnd = i[1])
    child_hwnd
)
local frameNumHwnd = (getChildHwndByName WindowHandle  "Frame Numbers" )
windows.sendMessage frameNumHwnd BM_SETCHECK 1 0

Runscript after Make Preview is done

If you want to automatically run image sequence player like PDPlayer or RAMPlayer or resister to Shotgun, simple add the code after max preview.

Final template code

Here is the cleaned final template code. If you don’t want to read all this, start from this.

Download the final template.

This is made in 3dsMax 2019. Other version might not work with this if there is UI difference.

3dsMax 2020 Preview Enhancement

3dsMax 2020 has some nice improvement for Make Preview.

  • Much faster. 1.5 – 3x faster creation on local drives
  • Capture size greater than viewport dimensions supported
  • “Quality” setting accessible from Preview UI (Nitrous only)
  • Default preview filename based on current scene filename
  • 100% output resolution on by default
  • MXS snippet can be executed per frame for custom strings
  • Filename and MXS snippet values can be specified from MXS command line of CreatePreview()
  • After executing the preview, the time slider is returned to the original starting frame
  • “Play when done” accessible from Preview UI
  • If running from MXS command line, avoid dialog boxes, output to listener instead

3dsMax 2020 also has the bug fix for “User defined” Per-view preset missing issue. This issue is related to the permission. If you are still on older version. Make sure to open the permission for folders under 3dsMax root to be able to choose “User Defined” Per-view preset in Make Preview. Or, upgrade to 2020.

renderStacks – Render Pass Manager for 3dsMax.

 

3dsMax 2020.1 Hot Key Editor

changsooeun

One of the new feature of 3dsMax 2020.1 is the new Hot Key Editor plus Hot Keys and underlying system.

Hot Key Editor

The new Hot Key editor is cool. But, the more important change is the way of how the customized hot keys are stored and loaded. When you save and load hot keys in the past, 3dsMax had saved and loaded the entire hot key assignment. Because of this save/load mechanism, any newly added hot keys by 3dsMax dev would have lost when you load the hot keys from previous version. It was not possible to have a studio0wide custom hot keys since the hot keys would have gone when an artist load their own hot keys.

To solve this kinds of issues and make UI customization upgrade-safe, the new override based hot key customization engine is developed. Now 3dsMax stores only the changed hot key assignments in the file when users customize their hot keys. Then 3dsMax will override only the changed keys when the file is loaded.

This will allow users to keep the changed they made while still receiving updates from the global changes. Also you can deploy multiple level of hot key customization.  For example, you can have a studio-wide hot keys on top of 3dsmax default hot key while artist still can have own hot keys if they want.

New Hot Keys

Another change is the new hot keys.Yes, some of hot keys have been changed. This new hot key assignment is the fruit of the community effort of 3dsMax and beta users. There has been many feedback and discussion for the best hot keys on the beta. Special thanks to Sergio Santos for the great contribution. 3dsMax put a nice documentation with map images to show the complete list of changes like this. Please visit HERE for all images.

But, I know there are always ones who doesn’t want to change their 20 years old hot keys. For them, here is a hot key files to go back the legacy hot keys. Download it and load in the Hotkey Editor.

Download 3dsMaxLegacyHotKeys

If you have had customized hot key in pre-2019 version, this is the step to move to new hot key system.

1) Generate KBDX file using the maxscript command actionMan.saveKeyboardFile “C:\TEMP\LegacyDefaultUI-2019.kbdx”.
If you specify a KBDX extension, it will convert the entire active hotkey set to the legacy format through the old code. If you specify HSX, it will output in the new format and only contain user customizations.
Or Download this file.

2) Swap it out with the one in your UI_ln/CUI folder (rename the old one to keep a backup). This will use the new hotkey defaults as a reference point when doing the migration, and will treat every difference as a user customization, reaching the same result as if you remapped every single difference back to how it was in 2020-

 

How to share your awesome MCGs – MCG Installation and network deployment

changsooeun

MCG had a big changed in 3dsMax 2018. This post is based on 3dsMax 2018+.

One of the biggest changes was Improved MCG Package Installation Experience. Let me just norrow the words from dev.

“In previous versions of MCG, the package installation process of an .mcg file involved the automatic extraction of its contained .maxtool and .maxcompound files into the user’s 3ds Max /Max Creation Graph/Tools/Downloads directory. A consequence of this installation method was that common compounds would often conflict with each other, resulting in duplication messages.

In MCG 2018, we’ve simplified the package installation process to make it much more robust. You can now install a .mcg file by dragging it into the viewport. All installed packages now reside in the user’s 3ds Max 2018/Max Creation Graph/Packages directory, and are evaluated as standalone .mcg files. No more file extraction, no more conflicts, no more problems.”

Basically, 3dsMax will consume .mcg package file directly and use the compound in that package first to avoid compound version conflict. Now .mcg file act much like a plugin dll file.

Packaging MCG

MCG Editor > File > Package Tool Graph… will allow you to package the current tool graph and all compound in a .mcg file.

Installing MCG

It means just copying .mcg file into MCG package folder, and drag and dropping .mcg file into 3dsMax viewport will do that f or you. The MCG packages folder is in your user folder/Autodesk. 2018/2019 shares the same structure. But, 2020 MCG package folder is a slightly different.
C:\Users\[username]\Autodesk\3ds Max 2018\Max Creation Graph\Packages
C:\Users\[username]\Autodesk\3ds Max 2019\Max Creation Graph\Packages
C:\Users\[username]\Autodesk\3ds Max 2020\User Tools\Max Creation Graph\Packages

ProceduralContent.ms

Before I tal about network deployment. I need to mention about this file first. The mCG is implemented with dotnet and Maxscript. The engine is dotnet and UI and communicaion with 3dsMax portion id Maxscript. This means we can actually see the source of many MCG functions which are in C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2020\scripts\Startup\ProceduralContent.ms file. If you dissect this file, you can learn a lot about how MCG is working.

Custom MCG Path

By default, 3dsMax uses the above MCG folders. But, you can also have own custom path for MCGs. RegisterCustomGraphPaths function in ProceduralContentOps struct in  ProceduralContent.ms manages how to set the path.

By default, it is set to use 3dsMax.ini file, C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2020 – 64bit\ENU\3dsMax.ini. You can type getMaxiniFIle() in Maxscript Listener to get your 3dsMax.ini file path

You can add MCG Compound Directories, MCG Tools Directories, MCG Package Directories sections and add path like this.

[MCG Tools Directories]
tools_dir=C:\path\to\my\tools
other_tools=C:\path\to\other\tools
[MCG Compound Directories]
common_compounds=C:\path\to\my\compounds
experimental_compounds=C:\path\to\experimental\compounds
[MCG Package Directories]
networkPackages=\\path\to\network\packages

Custom MCG path without using 3dsMax.ini #1

But, what if you do not want to use 3dsMax.ini. The one way of using own .ini file for MCG path would be modifying ProceduralContent.ms. Open the file,C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2020\scripts\Startup\ProceduralContent.ms, search “getMAXIniFile()”. Then, replace with whatever path you want.

fn RegisterCustomGraphPaths =
(
local iniFile = getMAXIniFile()
local settings = dotNetClass "Viper3dsMaxBridge.Settings"

Custom MCG path without using 3dsMax.ini #2

But, then you have to modify on all workstations and render node. That might be too much. The next methods is taking the function from ProceduralContent.ms and make own script.

If you check the code, you can see all the functionality is coming from Viper3dsMaxBridge.Main dotnet class. So, I check what kinds of methods it has with showMethods command. CompileGraphsByFolder is what we need. There are a lot more methods. But, I revmoed not to scare you.

bridge = dotNetClass "Viper3dsMaxBridge.Main" 
dotNetClass:Viper3dsMaxBridge.Main
showMethods bridge
.[static]CompileGraphsByFolder <System.String>folder
....

Now, this is the final maxscript you can use

local viperbridge = dotNetClass "Viper3dsMaxBridge.Main"
-- Just in case if Viper3dsMaxBridge.dll has not been loaded yet
if viperbridge == undefined then (
    local bridgePath = (symbolicPaths.getPathValue "$max") + @"\Viper3dsMaxBridge.dll"
    dotNet.loadAssembly bridgePath returnPassFail:true
    viperbridge = dotNetClass "Viper3dsMaxBridge.Main"
)
viperbridge.ReloadOperators()
viperbridge.CompileGraphsByFolder @"D:\myfolder1\"
viperbridge.CompileGraphsByFolder @"E:\myfolder2\

Put this in a .ms file like myMCGload.ms. Then, throw in one of your network shared plugin folder. I’m sure you probably already have a plugin folder for a free plugins. Any .ms fil in plugin folder will be automatically runs when 3dsMax start.

 

A few more things to know

  • mcg files are registered in 3dsMax file as an asset. It will show up in Asset Tracker and asset metadata stream.
  • If you use BackBurner and use Include Maps, .mcg filw will be submiited with the job like maps.
  • When 3dsMax starts in slave mode, it will automatically evaulate all .mcg file in the folder where the max files are. Therefore, if you use 3rd party render farm, all you need to do is put .mcgs in the same folder as max file. You don’t need to set any path.

I hope this post is helpful for MCGers.

3dsMax 2020 – OSL update

changsooeun

3dsMax developer has changed their delivery model to continuous delivery. Instead of delivering a feature at one release, now a feature will be delivered continuously until all the planned feature is finished. The automatic OSL > HLSL conversion for viewport was the one of them. It has been improved in every PU since tisinception. Now almost all OSL shader will be automatically converted to HLSL including 3rd party OSL shaders.

Also, the viewport playback performance of animated OSL map has been greatly improved.

This is the viewport playback of the sample file for my OSL shader pack1 in 3dsMax 2019/2020.

3dsMax 2019.3 – Alembic update

changsooeun

Since I posted the Alembic improvement of 3dsMax 2019 release, each PU has been added more and more improvements continuously. Let’s check what has been added.

Per object metadata with .userProperties and .arbGeomParams

3dsMax 2019 introduced the export of per object propery. But, it was only compatible between 3dsMax. With the PU3 update, you can export/import per object properties via .userProperties and .arbGeomParams. This allows a greater compatibility between 3dsMax and Maya/Houdini.

Here is an example of Alembic file exported to Maya.

Here is some details.

Import
  • It will read from both .arbGeomParams(Maya default) and .userProperties
  • It supports integer, float, boolean, string.
  • It supports animated value.
  • If Extra Attribute is on shape node, it will be in Alembic Geom Parameters rollout(alembic_geom_attributes). If Extra Attribute is on transform node, it will be in Alembic XformParameters rollout(alembic_xform_attributes)
Export
  • The custom attributes on the top modifier and base object will be exported.
  • 3dsMax will use .userProperties for export and store data on transform node by default.
  • If you use the same custom attribute name alembic_geom_attributes and alembic_xform_attributes which 3dsMax alembic importer uses. You can even have control over where your custom attribute export goes. To store data on shape node, you need to make the alembic_geom_attributes on the baseObject.
  • If you have duplicated name custom attributes on an object, none of custom attributes  will be exported. You will see the warning in Maxscript elistener.
  • Layer name will be on transform node.
  • Material name and Object ID will be shape node.
  • 3dsMax will import Layer name/Material name/Object ID as custom attribut on the respective rollout, too

Alembic Inspector

This is added in PU1. This allows to browse the content of the alembic object even without opening the alembic file. Now PU3 allow you to open the Alembic Inspector for the already imported alembic files. Use the Alembic Inspector button in the Alembic container object(the root Alembic object with Alembic logo icon),

Alembic Inspector is also accessible via Maxscript. Link.

Maya compatble Multi UV and Vertex Color

Maya is very picky about reading the multi UV and vertex color in Alembic file. To send multi UV(UV channel 2+) to Maya,  you need to choose UV for Extra Channels type. Also vertex color data from Maya will be imported as a proper vertex color channel. Before PU3, the vertex color channel was imported as an UV 2+ channel.

Instancing Support

Support for instances allows files to be much smaller while maintaining complexity and can dramatically improve export speed. PU2.

Alembic library 1.7.5

Alembic library has been updated to 1.7,5 in PU2.

Alembic Transform Controller Performance improvemant

Alembic Transform controller playback is more than 2x faster in PU3. Also Source and Object browse buttons are added for Alembic Transform controller.

Material ID will be exported when all Material IDs for an object were the same

Before PU3, None if mMaterial ID was exported.

Alembic Peformance mode will only cache the current animation range

Before PU3, it was caching from frame 0 all the time.

UV Channel will be preserved

Unicode Support

Fixed Alembic not able to use relative paths

Fixed High-speed rotations no longer deform objects

 

Thanks  for 3dsMax team for continuous effort to improve Alembic support!

3dsMax 2019.3 – OSL Viewport Support : OSL > HLSL

changsooeun

Since it is introduced in 3dsMax 2019, OSL Map has been comtinuously improved in every release.
There has been many updated on performance, OSL editor useability and viewport display.
The most important improvement among all is the viewport display.

Now 3dsMax viewpot can display almost all shippinig OSL and many 3rd party OSL shaders properly even as 3D procedural map.
How canit even support random 3rd party OSL shader?
The 3dsMax rendering team has developed automatic OSL > HLSL converter instead of making HLSL shader for each OSL shader.

The OSL shaders in the following images are all 3rd party OSL as 3D procedural map.
It is oddly satisfying to see all the 3D shaderes in the viewport exactly as renders.

And,,, a little bird told me even more stuff might come in the future. 🙂

3dsMax 2019.1 – Attaching large amounts of meshes is up to 7 times faster

changsooeun

3dsMax 2019.1 has been release with many improved features.

Many new features has been added to Alembic/OSL/Fluid/Arnold. Python and Project got some improvement. Plus 94 fixes.

One of the item among “Bringing your ideas to life in 3ds Max 2019.1 Update” was “Attaching large amounts of meshes is up to 7 times faster”.

So, I decided to test if it is true. The enhancement was done for Collapse utility. I think 3dsMax dev choose to enhance this because this is the only attach which keeps explicit normals.

I test total 4 files. I open the file and attach all geometries.
The result is… drum roll…

05_TM_manyLowRes

Obj:5616 Verts:99,686 Faces: 165,505
2019 : 3.335s
2018 : 32.724
9.81 times faster

08_Static_Many
Obj:19913 Verts:2,264,540 Faces: 3,265,430
2019 : 11.2s
2018 : 2236s
199.35 times faster

bistro
Obj:2429 Verts:2,766,360 Faces: 3,850.480
2019 : 9.5s
2018 : 546s
57.23 times faster

EmeraldSquare
Obj:29596 Verts:9,065,430 Faces: 7,722,170
2019 : 274s
2018 : 19980s
72.95 times faster

It is actually far better than 7 times!