Maxscript - Probably a simple fix

Novian

Dear Polycount,

Greetings! I am new to the ranks and have a quick question for any Maxscript pros out there.

This is probably a simple fix and I am just missing something.

The Effect:

The effect that I have been charged with creating is a sort of card flipping visual you commonly see at sporting events where each person holding a sign flips it over and the people right next to the first person do so just after, creating a wave effect of cards flipping.

I have a model of the earth created out of quads that will all flip in sequence. The flipped texture will also power the alpha channel thus making the land masses appear from the ocean; traveling coast inward.

The Problem:

The issue is that each land mass is currently one mesh and what I need to do is take each polygon, detach it as an object, center the pivot, and animate the flip.

The Script:

To do so I am writting a script to loop through the polys and detach each one. I've done some debugging and I can see that it counts through all 3157 polys (using the USA land mass as my test) but it never detaches anything. The code is as follows, any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers~




Code:

rollout MU "Make Unique" width:125 height:200
(
button btnGo "Do it!" pos:[15,100] width:100 height:25

on btnGo pressed do
(
numfaces = $.GetNumFaces()

subobjectLevel = 4

for x = 1 to numfaces do
(

$.EditablePoly.SetSelection #Face #{x}

$.EditablePoly.detachToElement #Face keepOriginal:off
)
)
)

createdialog MU

Wesley

I've just tried that, without changing anything, and it detaches each face fine.

Novian

@Wesley: What version of Max are you running? I'm using Max 9 on Vista Pro x64

Cheers~

mLichy

Here you go

numfaces = selection[1].GetNumFaces()
objArray = #()

for x = 1 to numfaces do
(
polyop.detachFaces selection[1] #{x} delete:false asNode:true name:(uniqueName (selection[1].name))

--Gets the last created Object in the scene to add to the array
append objArray ((geometry as array)[(geometry as array).count])
)

delete selection[1]
for o in objArray do o.pivot = o.center
selectmore objArray

Wesley

I'm using Max 2012 on Windows 7. But I've just read through your post again and didn't realise you wanted them as separate objects. For me they're just separate faces now detached.

But mLichy has you covered!

Novian

@mLichy: Thanks so much! That worked perfectly, and fast too!

@Wesley: Thank you too for your help.

mLichy

np

cptSwing

hah, even just reading that script i learned more about MXS .. thanks ;-)

mLichy

I used selection[1] by the way, because if you use $, if your object is instanced, i've had it use another object instead, so the selection changed.

So selection[1] kept the proper node, and also, if you have more than 1 object selected, it takes the 1st one, otherwise if you had $, it would error.