Detach Using Material IDs

This script detaches faces as new objects, using Material ID property of the faces. Most of the cases, matIDs are used to assign multiple materials on one object. Sometimes you might want to detach these as new objects.

Download Detach Using Material IDs Maxscript

It is possible to detach every matID as object, or simply a range, or just one with Min ID and Max ID ranges. If you keep the default settings, every matID becomes a new poly object. The remainder will be a faceless poly, script deletes this poly if this is the case. Naming will be done by adding the ID number at the end of the original name of the selected object (originalname_ID_#). Wirecolor will also be randomly changed. The pivots of the detached objects will be the same as the original object.

Before using the script please keep these in mind :

• Script only works with polys. If you have a mesh or patch, you’ll need to convert it to poly mesh, or add an “edit poly” modifier on the stack.
• Do not detach instanced objects, as this will cause deletion of the faces on the instances.
• For objects with high poly count, it may take some time to process all the faces. I tried the script with a million poly object, it took 30 seconds or something close to detach every matID available. It might be better to detach some of the matID’s by hand, and then using the script.
• Why is it slow with high poly objects ? There is no method in 3dsmax for detecting the matID count directly. Script goes through every face and count unique matID channels. Then detaches these if desired.

Maxscript to Macroscript

If you do not like running maxscript files from the maxscript utility everytime, or by drag dropping the same script over and over again, there is a better way. Macroscript. Converting a maxscript file to macroscript is simple, and after the convertion, the script can be accesed from lots of places: from a toolbar icon, quad menus, shortcuts, etc… What you have to do is writing this at the top of the script:

macroScript myScriptName
category: "mycategory"
tooltip: "What you want to name"
(
"Your working code goes here..."
)

You can expand what macroscript defines. Like, a button text, icons. Just check the maxscript reference from the Help menu of 3dsmax. Let’s assume that you have a script named “Planter” which will go to the category of “MyScripts”. This is the way to code :

macroScript myPlanter
category:"My Scripts"
tooltip:"Planter"
buttontext:"Random Scale"
(
"Your Planter Code"
)

After writing the code, save and evaluate the script (from the maxscript editor File -> Evaluate, or, shortcut CTRL+E) or save the script and drag drop to 3dsmax. The script will be installed to 3dsmax automatically. If you ever change the code, just re-evaluate/reinstall it. Max will update the script. You can also add more scripts into just one file as macroscripts.

If you want to add some icons, you can create 8 bit bitmap files with a mask file. Maxscript reference has a really good entry on what to do and how to accomplish creating icons.

Auto Mirror Selected Using a Specific/Picked Object

One of the missing parts of 3ds max is, you can’t find any APIs related to most of the functions. Mirroring is one of them. It has no functions that you can use from maxscript. Just “max mirror” which actually opens the mirror dialog toolbox.

Yet, there is another way for controlling max: dialog monitoring. If you are so tired of selecting objects that needs to be mirrored to a specific object, and selecting or picking that object, plus changing the axis to “use transform center”, this is the script for you.

Download Auto Mirror Script

macroScript AUTO_MIRROR
category:"emrahgunduz.com"
tooltip:"Auto mirror using MIRROROBJ"
buttontext:"Auto Mirror"
(
  fn XMirror =
  (
    local Xhwnd=dialogMonitorOps.getWindowHandle()
    local Xstring=UIAccessor.GetWindowText Xhwnd
    --//--
    if Xhwnd != undefined then
      (
      if Xstring != undefined and (findString Xstring "Mirror") != undefined then
        (
        UIAccessor.PressButtonByName Xhwnd "X"
        UIAccessor.PressButtonByName Xhwnd "Instance"
        UIAccessor.PressDefaultButton()
        )
      )
    true
  )
  undo on (
    MirrorOBJ = $MIRROROBJ
    SelectedOBJ = $

    toolMode.coordsys MirrorOBJ
    toolMode.transformCenter()

    dialogMonitorOps.registerNotification XMirror id:#findmirror
    dialogMonitorOps.enabled=true
    --//--
    max mirror
    --//--
    dialogMonitorOps.unregisterNotification id:#findmirror
    dialogMonitorOps.enabled=false

    toolMode.coordsys #view
    toolMode.selectionCenter()
  )
)

Here are a few screenshots of how this script works:

3dsmax : Name An Object From Material Name

This question came a few days ago via a comment. Is it possible to name an object by simply checking the material, and assign that name to the object? Answer is yes, and here is a script that will accomplish this easy task.

A selected object’s material name can be accessed with :
$.material.name

Assigning a name to an object goes like this :
$.name = “MyNewName”

And for a unique name you can use this one :
$.name = uniqueName “MyNewName”

If you’ve got more than one object selected, you can do something like this :

sel = selection as array
count = 1
undo on
  (
    if sel.count > 0 then
    (
      while count <= sel.count do
      (
        select sel[count]
        count += 1
        $.name = uniqueName ($.material.name as String)
      )
    )
)

There is no error caching in this script. If you select an object that is not a member of the mesh class (like lights, cameras, helpers, etc), you might encounter errors.