Learning MXS

[WAcky]

Heya,

 

I'm trying to create a couple of tools for remove some of the major bottle necks in my modelling workflow and I thought what a good opportunity to learn MXS!

 

Althout after doing some of the most popular tutorials on the net and the most basic of basic tutorials in the MXS help file there seems to be no more practicaly tutorials. They all seem to go from beginner to expert levels with no practical tutorials in sight? I'm talking about using arrays in a practical and how to do things like more advanced looping.

 

I have done alot of actionscripting in the past so I know how my code should be set up but It's quite difficult migrating with the lack of good tutorial...

 

Anyway my question is, how have you all learned to script in max from the early days??

 

 

Cheers,

James

[rmccoy]

I am in similar shoes to you. I am in the process of learning maxscript to try and make my workflow better. I have found that the built in MaxScript help file is very useful, you can find about everything you need in there.

 

There is a book called 3ds Max MAXScript Essentials that is useful as well.

 

I have found that looking at various scripts that are on scriptspot has been the most useful resource overall.

[anton]

Best way to do it is just by doing it . The mxs reference is the best as bobo did an amazing job on it and CGTalk has a section for mxs which is the best place to ask your questions. You should search that forum and you can find solutions to almost all questions you might have as a beginer or expert.

Your experience with actionscript will prove priecless.

[Dave Buchhofer]

I just found something repetitive and tried and build it, starting small helps..

 

If you want more good tutorial stuff check out the Maxscript series at cg-academy, pay for them, but its definitely worth it as a good intro to scripting. the first disk is mostly into to generalized scripting, second disk is more or less 'what can we do with 1 line' and goes through quite a few of the main looping mechanisms, third is a bit more advanced.

 

other than that, reading other peoples scripts (scriptspot), following a lot of the questions/answer discussions at CGTalk, and trial and error!

Edited March 9, 2009 by Dave Buchhofer

[WAcky]

I'm starting to get around the help file a bit better. I know its all there but its still hard to find what you're looking for when you don't have any idea what the function or syntax is...

 

For example selecting all objects when in sub-object mode. I had no idea what it was until i had to post on a forum.

 

Anyway I've finished my first two scripts. One probably takes out a good 2 minutes for each job The second, once its fleshed out a bit more should save me a good hour or two per week.

 

They're simple scripts like creating ridge tiles and booleaning holes in walls for windows + sils. The next one I'm looking at working on is a pailing fence maker with the horizontal and vertical struts + spacing and so forth.

 

Simple yes, but once I've got them all done it should effectively halve my modelling time for the dogbox houses I do. (One door, one garage door, two windows etc)

 

Its a great thing MXS but damn it gets frustrating when I cant work out the syntax

[luckymutt]

In addition to seeking tutorials, you can learn a lot just from keeping the Listener Window open (you can even put it in a viewport)

By doing this, you can see the Maxscript commands showing up as you are working in a scene.

[anton]

In addition to seeking tutorials, you can learn a lot just from keeping the Listener Window open (you can even put it in a viewport)

By doing this, you can see the Maxscript commands showing up as you are working in a scene.

 

That should be more for "entertainment purposes" or reference for command names as the code most of the time not usable for a separate script. It would be so nice to just do the stuff you need then copy/paste from the listener and have the script ready Unfortunately it's not the case...