[Maxscript] UIMod = Advanced UI for modifiers

Nysuatro

Hey everybody. Some already have seen a screen of a project I made for school in the
"Tech Artist - What are you working on: 2010 Edition!" I am making this thread to get some feedback and suggestions for getting a better script.

Some info about the script/tool :
I will start by posting the screen I already posted.



This script is a new kind of UI for modifiers that is on top of your viewport. It is a liquid design that will always adjust itszelf to the width and height of your viewport.

How to use it?

- Instal the script ... (I don't think I have to explain this, hehe)
- For practice and explaining only, add a teapot and put a Symmetry, shell and turbosmooth on it.
- Keep the object selected
- Press the button of the script
- Press on the addbutton in the right bottomcorner of your active viewport.
- Move/rotate/pan in your viewport the let the UI disappear.

When you now press again on the button to launch the script you will see a new button.
You can modify this by rightklicking on the new button and giving it a name and a color.

- Then press save button
- Again rotate/move/pan in your viewport and the UI will dissapear.

!Now you have created a new custom button. You always have to have selected a object when using the new button.

You can make Max 39 Buttons.


Known bugs :

- When having a too small viewport, the UI will be damn ugly.
- He doesn't want to make a button from some modifiers. 80% of the modifiers works.

Next features :

- The buttons will also be able to save your settings of your modifiers. Like a turbosmooth of 3 and ...
- The posibility to also save subanims, like pivots and ...


Download :

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/uimod

About some weeks I am going to release a tutorial about how to create a UI like this.
If you can give me feedback on my way of script scripting. It is always welcome

Greetz and I hope you like it.

r_fletch_r

Sounds awesome, You realise you havent posted the link to the actual script. all i can see on script spot is your image. no attachments.

Eric Chadwick

Yeah, no script uploaded on your Scriptspot page, just the jpg.

Could you explain a bit more what this script actually does? It needs a summary like "This script makes a button for each of the modifiers on an object, so you can activate each modifier in sub-object mode." Or something.

Nysuatro wrote: »

- Instal the script ... (I don't think I have to explain this, hehe)
- For practice and explaining only, add a teapot and put a Symmetry, shell and turbosmooth on it.
- Keep the object selected
- Press the button of the script

What actually happens at this point. Like "The script then queries the object, and creates a UI button for each of its modifiers." Or something.

Nysuatro wrote: »

- Press on the addbutton in the right bottomcorner of your active viewport.

What does the Add button actually do?

Nysuatro wrote: »

When you now press again on the button to launch the script you will see a new button.
You can modify this by rightklicking on the new button and giving it a name and a color.

Why do I need to relaunch the script? Is it because the object has to be queried first, then the script can create a UI for its modifiers?? And what does this new button do when clicked?

Nysuatro wrote: »

- Then press save button
- Again rotate/move/pan in your viewport and the UI will dissapear.

It would help to explain why the user needs to run the script with the object selected, press an Add button, then press a Save button. What does each step do exactly.

Nysuatro

Ow, it looks like I forgot to say it had to list in the post.
Can you download it now?

Wel first of all the script is the UI in general. But when you start it, you will not see a button. You will have to make your own buttons by putting some modifiers on a object, select it and push the addbutton in the UI. This way it makes a button that remembers all the modifiers on that object and the sequence of them.

Every time you make a new button you have to refresh your viewport by moving, rotation, ... That is because when you press the addbutton he is going to write data to a initfile. So the UI has to be reloaded to load up the new data from the initfile.

So the button for the script is only to toggle the visibility of the UI on and off. its best you assign a shortcut to the script.

And the reason why you have to select an object is because the script has to know to what object he has to add the modifiers. Or when adding a button, he has to know which modifiers he has to put in a button. But you will get a messagebox to warn you that you have to select an object.

I hope this makes it a bit clearer. if you want I can make a little video about how using the script?

r_fletch_r

awesome, i've allways fancied seeing how to get huds working in max. might have to unearth a few old plans

thanks for posting this

Nysuatro

I am glad you like it. I will be expanding this script with some extra features. And after that I will be working on a new UI for animation. So more to come

I will also try to implement that you can link a script to a button. Someone requested this and I think it can be usefull.

If you find a bug or have a suggestion. pleas let me know

r_fletch_r

linking a button to a script should easy. The ui side will take some messing though.

You could really push this much further than you have at the moment. Have you considered other formats for the layout of the buttons. A Maya style marking menu might be worth looking at.

PolyHertz

A marking menu? In Max? Blasphemy!

cman2k

r_fletch_r wrote: »

A Maya style marking menu might be worth looking at.

Ok...I'm sold. make it happen!

Eric Chadwick

Take a look at RadMax
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0xGCZLI5-w[/ame]

Also take a look at MZP Rucksack (from our own renderhjs)
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwLjVH27P9s[/ame]

Nysuatro

So you all would prefer the UI structure of Maya ? What is there that you dont like about the UI now? Just to be sure what I have to work on

Found an other example
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gVJoYrPkBY&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

Eric Chadwick

I would love to see a full Maya hotbox for Max: all the Max menu items, in a radial layout around the cursor, invoked via hotkey.

Would also love to see a marking menu style layout instead of the current Quad style layout. Marking menus are so fast to use, once you memorize a certain tool location, you can access it very very quickly.

However your current script seems to be built for only adding modifiers to objects.

There is a bug... if I have the UI visible and I maximize the viewport (Alt W) the Add button either disappears or moves to the center of the view.

Another bug... I have BlurScripts installed, which includes the modifier NewNoise. After I add this modifier to your UI, when I click its button I get a script error. Does this occur with all third-party modifiers?

Nysuatro

I will look into it.
yes, he still has problems with third-party modifiers. Something I have to check.
Update will come after I finished my 2 exames.

Thanks for the reply.

Nysuatro

Thanks to a script of Norman3D I will be able to make a UI Like Maya for my script. And even one for launching other scripts. I am going to find a good way to combine those. More updates will be coming after I finished my mattepainting and animations for my next exam

Eric Chadwick

Awesome, looking forward to it!

renderhjs

I will try to look at the next evenings into my keystroke script to capture and assign scripts to shortcuts - maybe we can combine it all together.

Nysuatro

It looks like I can't make dynamic rollouts. Someone has a sollution for that?
Somebody already said using .net form
But I was hoping that I could keep my rollout

renderhjs

there is a way to execute strings as maxscript using 'execute' followed by a string like this:

c= "print(\"hello, this is renderhjs\")";
execute c

with that in mind you can dynamically add and remove for example rollouts and or other things within maxscript. I for example redid some of the TexTools bar with that simply because every button was taking to much lines of code to add so I wanted to streamline it and make sure all buttons have the same events.

Nysuatro

Just to let you all know that I stopped this project because of some technical problems and it looks someone else was faster then me.

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/max-hotbox

r_fletch_r

I wouldnt let him discourage you. He's posted no code so its just vapour ware. If your having tech problems post them on the boards, or over at tech-artists.org. there are some SUPER talented helpfull and generous folks on those sites.

haiddasalami

Man dont let someone stop you from finishing your script I just learned today that MoP has an FBX exporter and importer but still working on mine

EDIT: Its always good to put on your portfolio and stuff.

Nysuatro

Got an update.
Now you can make a buttons from every modifier and you can save the values of the properties. Check it out.

Now I will be working on the graphics. Any request?

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddelUGT23aw[/ame]

Script can be found at http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/uimod

Nysuatro

Little update on graphics. Also making some properties for the ui so you can custimise a bit.



Just a sidequestion. Is someone using this tool?

BeatKitano

I would use it if it was a permanent ui, not something you have to click on a button or hotkey to bring up.
Also, to me its nice but limiting it to modifiers only is a shame, there's potential for external scripts/mel command here.... /me think silo.

Nysuatro

I don't mind making a version for you where you don't have to click on a button or hotkey.
That is not so much work.
If you got more request for a UI like Silo let me know.
I just have to know what features you want.

BeatKitano

OOh, it's simple (for me, I'm not sure about you huhu): the ability to add buttons linking to external mel scripts and internal mel commands. If you make the ui permanent, and customisable to that extend, that would be terrific.

Nysuatro

I just read your previous reply again. I overlooked the mel command.
You are using maya ? I hope you see that I can only make this for Max.

BeatKitano

OOps, my bad I meant maxscript sorry, old habits from maya :>

CodeFather

Nysuatro, great script man !
Like BeatKitano said, the ability to link buttons to scripts, would be awesome

* Save and Load Presets : it would be a good idea if you can save your modifiers/scripts or whatever for another sessions.

* Another suggestion is to keep the button order vertical, and organize the buttons in pages. If it is possible, flicking through pages via mouse gesture would be great.

Nysuatro

I will make the buttons for scripts.

@CodeFather: Thanks for replying. The save and load is already in the script. Everthing is saved in an initfile called "DataModButtons". This is located in you scripts folder. If you want to use your setup on an other computer you just have to overwrite the file with your file.

Like you may have seen in my previous post I already have changed the design to a vertical layout. Would you like tabs for switching between scripts and modifiers ?
Because I am not so sure about the mouse gesture feature.

Greetz

renderhjs

I'd like to raise my vote for a more screen space friendly size. I think the font size is ok but the background button size could be for my taste 50% less in height. The fixed width is fine but if I would use that thing to put in some scripts it would need to take up less vertical screen waste.

SimonT

Wouldnt it possible to open the menu via hotkey and have it right under the current cursor position?

Nysuatro

@renderthjs : Are you talking about the screens of Codefather or this screens ?
http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv356/Nysuatro/updateonUimod.jpg

@SimonT: That is possible. I will implement it as an option in the properties.

SimonT

I tried it by my own and must see: you can use only some keys with an event handler. It's really hard to use SPACE for example. And harder than this is to show the menu JUST during you hold the Space bar...

Nysuatro

Just set a key to the script in 'Customize User Interface'.

CodeFather

Nysuatro wrote: »

http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv356/Nysuatro/updateonUimod.jpg

For some reason I don't see the image you've uploaded.

Nysuatro wrote: »

The save and load is already in the script. Everthing is saved in an initfile called "DataModButtons". This is located in you scripts folder. If you want to use your setup on an other computer you just have to overwrite the file with your file.

Ok, that's great! 10x

SimonT

Nysuatro wrote: »

Just set a key to the script in 'Customize User Interface'.

Yeah but you can't set it to "When press DOWN space than..." and "When press UP space than..."

But that's the Maya toolbox works: it's just visible during you press space.

Nysuatro

CodeFather wrote: »

For some reason I don't see the image you've uploaded.

Can you see it now ?

CodeFather

Yes, thank you.
It look better this way. I like how you moved the "add" button at the bottom of the column.
Tabs would be really nice way to organize things, to separate the scripts from the modifiers for instance.

It would be really nice if your scripts can mimic the way that Zbrush new brush palette works. This way choosing a modifier would be really quick.In the example below, you would just activate your script , than press "B" from the keyboard.However I don't know if it is achievable in maxscript.

BeatKitano

CodeFather wrote: »

Yes, thank you.
It look better this way. I like how you moved the "add" button at the bottom of the column.
Tabs would be really nice way to organize things, to separate the scripts from the modifiers for instance.

It would be really nice if your scripts can mimic the way that Zbrush new brush palette works. This way choosing a modifier would be really quick.In the example below, you would just activate your script , than press "B" from the keyboard.However I don't know if it is achievable in maxscript.

It's not that it's not achievable, probably doable, note easily thoug, it's jsut that it eliminate the possibility to have letter shortcuts for 3ds max How could you distinguish 3ds shortcuts and uimod's shortcut ?

CodeFather

Hmmm, is it possible to freeze/disable max shortcuts temporarily when you call the script and restore them after you choose a modifier?

Nysuatro

Those shortcuts are really a pain in the ass. I already tried this many times but only alt, ctrl and enter are possible. I will look into the sdk for those shortcuts. But that means a lot of more work.

A possible way could be switching of keyboardfiles. Then you have your standard shortcutes, but when running this script you switch to an other file. I will look into this.

Nysuatro

updateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66BK-V-odYU[/ame]

Script can be downloaded on http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/uimod
Pleas let me know errors.

CompanionCube

nice update, thank you

Nysuatro

Thanks, I am glad you like it

There will be coming a better video then this. But I just wanted to show to people what it could do.

CodeFather

Nice update, Nysuatro !

There is an error popping out when you try to delete a script button. Is that only me, or everyone else got the same bug ?

Nysuatro

Can you take screen from the error pleas? Then I will try to fix it.

CodeFather

Here it is.

BeatKitano

No no Codefather, didn't have much time to post lately, i got the same problem.

Nysuatro

I will fix it tomorrow. Today my wisdom teeth were pulled out so I am not going to do it now.

EDIT: nvm, got it fixed. Download at http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/uimod for new version. Thanks for reporting this bug.

CodeFather

Thank you very much for the quick update, it is working now !

One more thing I've noticed , it doesn't recognize .mse scripts and .mzp also.