Parameter wiring

[UnrealMirage]

I was hoping someone out there could help me with parameter wiring. I’d like to wire operations in edit poly, say like my history tree in Photoshop with sliders for those operation. For example, say I start with a box, since it is already parametric I can wire a slider to any existing parameter (length, width, height, segments, etc)-great! But, now I want to convert that box, as I always start everything from a box and carve it into an articulated piece of geometry. If I had made an inset I want later control on that geometry to modify the amount of inset that will then ripple up the history stack through the following extrusion, to the following bevel and so on. In essence I want a parametric model in max and I believe the tools are pretty much there but not advertised. I’ve used Digital Project, Revit, Triforma and even Generative Components. I think max is better equipped to do this type of stuff than any of them at a complex conceptual level. Anybody know how to wire the operations performed with-in editpoly, editmesh and polyboost to variable sliders? I don’t see any tracks available in the parameter wire dialogue that are useful for “dumb” objects-objects that are no longer parametric, that have been collapsed. In the future I’d like to to wire relationships and formulas to parameters, say the window mullions are to be 0.25 the value of the widow panes width ; no matter how large the window pane becomes. This could unleash a lot of possibilities and allow for design changes easily. Thanks in advance to any who can help me out

[Nils Norgren]

I think I understand what you are asking, but there may be a flaw in the way Max deals with editable poly modifications, when you change anything in an editable poly (move verts, extrude, bevel) you are changing the object's topology, either through movement, or adding polys. This modification is held in memory by Max as assigned ID to each part of the Editable Poly object. If you change the base topology underneath these changes, then the ID system is thrown off and now the internal way the transformations happened gets applied to the wrong parts of the object.

 

If you take a box, put an edit poly on top and extrude a face, move a few verticies, go back to the box and change the number of segments in the box watch what happens to your modifications.

 

I think that building parametric relationships in Max is possible but It may be a considerable amount of work and take some careful attention to Max's logic.

 

I don't model often but many of the modelers here use the DWG linking facilities in max to update changes in Acad or FormZ and have the Max model update to reflect the changes.

 

Hope this helps, Parameter wiring is a very cool way of getting some complicated relationships in max but it was conceived (in my understanding) to be used for animation, not to say that it cannot be used other ways though.

 

Good Luck.

 

-Nils