Parameter Wire Copying

Posted by Mat on Mar 19, 2010 in Featured, Tutorials | 5 comments

Max does not allow you to copy/paste parameter wires, as it does with most other controller types. This is still capable, however, through MAXScript.

This video shows you how to go about creating an instance (cake walk) and unique copy. When creating a unique copy, it copies the controller but the wire no longer updates along with it’s targeted track. Really, all the copy needs is a kick in the butt to get it to start working again.

This can really help improve workflow, as it allows you to set up instances of wires throughout your rig and easily copy from one track to the next rather than manually connecting each time.

New Wacom Tablet

Posted by Mat on Mar 4, 2010 in Featured, News | 0 comments

I just bought a new Wacom Bamboo tablet the other day and am very pleased with it so far. I have never been a heavy tablet user, and I’m not sure that I ever really will be, but following the advice of Paul Neale I started using my old Graphire to do skinning and creating morph targets.

As mentioned above, I used to own old-school Graphire tablets. They were only the smalls sizes, and I only ever used them for creating texture maps. I never thought of using them in Max because I just couldn’t see how navigating 3d space could comfortably work. I’ve had my Graphire4 sitting around since college, collecting dust, and had never even considered trying it for skinning.

Modifier Auto-Select

Posted by Mat on Feb 27, 2010 in 3D Studio Max, Featured | 8 comments

Current Version: v2.02 – Feburary 28, 2010

This is a tool I put together because sometimes you have to work with modifiers on multiple nodes and the modifiers aren’t at the very top of the stack. You’re constantly having to select the node and then selecting the proper modifier. Prime example of this is when you have a turbosmooths on top of all of your geometry while you are either skinning or modelling. It would be much easier, and save quite a bit of time, if every time you selected a node you just automatically were on the skin modifier or edit poly modifier.

Enter this tool! This is exactly what we have here. This tools works off of modifier class and also has an option for checking the modifier’s name using a “Has string” search. Baseobject has also been added to the modifier list, so you can automatically go right to the bottom of the stack.

Tools Section Added

Posted by Mat on Feb 27, 2010 in 3D Studio Max, Featured, News | 4 comments

I have added the tools section now and I will gradually add tools over time. They are going to be released as individual MZP installer packages.

The macroscript categories for my tools, if you are looking to add them to a quad menu or toolbar, will always start with facerFX.

Return to PEN

Posted by Mat on Feb 17, 2010 in Featured, News | 0 comments

I just realized that I have not updated my job situation in a long while! My contract with Prime Focus World wrapped up back in mid-July, and although I was sad to leave the friends I had made there, I was excited to return back home.

About 2 weeks after returning to Ontario, I resumed work with PEN Productions as Senior Technical Director and Production Supervisor. It has been great working with Paul Neale again. We have been very busy since getting back, working with familiar clients as well as a few new ones.

FFD Mirroring

Posted by Mat on Feb 17, 2010 in Featured, Tutorials | 3 comments

I’ve always found mirroring FFD Spacewarps to be a real pain. I finally decided to play a bit earlier today to try to find a good way of doing it rather than settling for a negative scale in the x-axis or roughing out a “mirrored” version.

So, we all know negative scale is a bad thing; however, mirroring without getting a negative scale is not as straight forward and easy as simply clicking the mirror button in the tool bar.  There are ways of getting around this for things such as morph targets: most straight forward in Max 2010 is using Symmetry Tools in the Graphite Modeling Tools. I’ve always found it to be extra tedious though when dealing with FFD Spacewarps. They are often warped into very obscure shapes for cartoon-style characters, and unfortunately the Graphite Tools only deal with Editable_Poly classes.  FFD Spacewarps are also a bit of a black hole when it comes to MAXScript, so as far as I know you can’t just go and write a tool to do it either.

Project XBR Webinar

Posted by Mat on Jan 28, 2010 in Featured, News | 1 comment

I attended the 9am EST “Project Excalibur Webinar” yesterday.  For those who do not know, what has been named “Project Excalibur” is the future of Autodesk’s 3DS Max.  It is a major overhaul of Max’s core that is being done in three phases.  The first phase was the Max 2010 release.

Some photographs were leaked in recent months from an private conference discussing these future plans.  Autodesk came out and confirmed the leaked photos as well as provided the information that could be seen in the blurred photos in text format so things were more clear.  Then, they held this webinar yesterday to inform people even further of the plans.