Copy script suggestion
I'll try to explain this correctly, occasionally I have to make copies of a greeble on a surface in one direction so that they all fit within a certain area. The way copy works (in max) is that you hold shift and drag and a copy dialogue box appears asking how many copies of the object you would like. The amount of copies then appear using the distance you initially used to drag the first copy.
Basically a lot of the time I have a rectangular section of my main model which i'm copying the greeble onto and I have to just judge by eye how many will fit in a certain area, often resulting in the final copy of my greeble overlapping the end edge and appearing off the object or falling way short and looking unevenly placed.
What would be ideal is if I could shift drag the first copy to the very end of where I want the final greeble to appear on the surface and the number of copies I want appear in between the initial object and the dragged copy, hope that makes sense.
It's a small problem but i'm just wondering if anyone else has this issue and how they get round it. I know you can just judge it a few times and wing it like that but i'm just looking for a bit more accuracy.
Basically a lot of the time I have a rectangular section of my main model which i'm copying the greeble onto and I have to just judge by eye how many will fit in a certain area, often resulting in the final copy of my greeble overlapping the end edge and appearing off the object or falling way short and looking unevenly placed.
What would be ideal is if I could shift drag the first copy to the very end of where I want the final greeble to appear on the surface and the number of copies I want appear in between the initial object and the dragged copy, hope that makes sense.
It's a small problem but i'm just wondering if anyone else has this issue and how they get round it. I know you can just judge it a few times and wing it like that but i'm just looking for a bit more accuracy.
Replies
Basically you make a spline for the path you want (mainly I use this with "Create Shape From Selection" in EPoly to convert a lot of edges into a matching spline), and the object you want to duplicate.
You then get a lot of options for how many copies you want, whether you want them evenly spaced or not, and whether to place objects at each end of the line.
Can be very powerful for work like this.
I think the most important thing is that I just learned the shift-drag clone menu has a copies function. When did this get added? I don't recall this in Max9.