MaxScript Release 0.2 Source for 3ds max 4
(R3 Compatible) (06/01/2002)
Copyright (c) 2001-2002 by Borislav Petrov,
Bobo's Rendert**ls.
SHORT DESCRIPTION
MAxTRIX is a Bullet Time Effect
script with the following options:
Single-camera rendering, no multiple cameras
necessary
Source Camera can be freely animated without
any limitations.
Scene Time slow-down and speed-up controlled
by a Bezier Float function curve in TrackView.
Optional clamping of negative values for single-direction
time flow.
Options to preview in viewport only, save
preview to disk, and render final animation
Saving to sequential image files
Both scene segment and user animation segment
supported..
INSTALLATION
MAxTRIX is a R3-style MacroScript
with a Floating Rollout.
Download and Unzip the distribution
file to your \Scripts directory.
Start 3ds max, select MAXScript > Run Script
and select the file
Right-click a toolbar, select Customize...,
find Category "Bobo_s Tools" and drag&drop MAxTRIX to
the toolbar.
Press the button to launch the script.
FEATURES AND USAGE
Version 0.2 (01/06/2002)
Added support for RPF/RLA channels generation
Added RPF and RLA as extension options - you
can still type any supported extension manually even if it is not on the
list of extensions in the File picker dialog...
Implemented Setup data storage in camera nodes
- each camera remembers its own MAxTRIX settings.
(Cameras could be merged from scenes to bring in their MAxTRIX settings,
too).
Sorry, no AVI/MOV support yet.
Version 0.1.2 (04/25/2001)
Instead of using a copy of the original camera,
a new camera will be used. It will inherit all animatable properties of
the source camera like FOV, Ranges etc. No support for MultiPass effects
under max 4 though.
Version 0.1.1 (04/25/2001)
Fixed a bug with using Target Cameras - caused
by another bug fix for Free Cameras :o(
Version 0.1 (04/25/2001)
IMPORTANT: Make
sure your scene time display is set to FRAME:TICKS or MM:SS:TICKS in the
Time Config. Dialog. Not showing ticks will not allow MAxTRIX to
sub-sample animations correctly and you might get ugly results with flipping
from frame to frame.
Start MAxTRIX.
If the scene has no Cameras, the "KUNG-FU"
button will be disabled.
If there are multiple cameras, all will appear
in the drop-down list.
Select the camera from the list, or press
the [>] button to pick the desired camera in the scene - it will
become selected in the list.
Press [S] to select the camera from
the list in the scene.
The Camera can be either Free or Target, and
it can be freely animated. (Position, Rotation, FOV, anythung)
In TrackView, a new Node called MAxTRIX will
be created. It will have a single Bezier Float controller with two keys
at first and last frame with values of 100.0
The values of this track will be used to speed-up
or slow-down the scene time relatively to the camera time.
A value of 100 means 100% - no changes to
the scene speed will be made.
Values bellow 100% will slow down the scene
time.
Values above 100% will speed up the scene
time.
NOTE that these
values will be used as RELATIVE increments: The Camera will perform the
same animation as when rendering normally. The scene will advance on the
same frame with the amount specified by the function curve. For example,
if there are two keys, one set to 0.0 and the second set to 100.0, the
scene will not advance at all on frame 0, then will speed up in a linear
fashion until it reaches full speed on the last frame. This is different
from the way Ease curves work in MAX. A value of 1.0 in Ease curvers means
that at that point, both the regular time and the eased time are aligned.
In the case of MAxTRIX, it means that the object's time speed is equal
to the camera's time speed, but both will not necessarily share the same
time depending on the past frames. In a way, MAxTRIX time is History-Dependent!
(wow is this complicated! :o)
The "Timing" group of controls lets you specify
the number of frames to be rendered.
By default, the Scene Segment will be used,
with every frame rendered.
Optionally, the User Range can be set within
the current animation segment with optional Nth frame option.
If you change the scene range, you will have
to restart the utility for the new settings to take effect.
The "Options" group contains some rendering
controls.
The [Clamp < 0] button limits the
Function Curve to positive or zero values only. When checked (default),
it will prevent the scene time from reversing its flow. When unchecked,
negative values will be allowed and the scene animations could be run backwards
where needed.
The drop-down list lets you set the type of
output:
Preview In Viewport Only runs the animation
in the currently active viewport. No saving to disk wil be performed.
Save Viewport Preview lets you do the
same but store the preview to disk for later scrubbing (for example in
the RAM Player).
Render Final Animation lets you render
and save the results to single frames to disk. It uses the current renderer's
size settings.
The "Output" group of controls lets you specify
the path, base file name and type of the resulting animation. Currently,
only single-frame formats are supported.
You can press the [Set Output Location]
button
to open a Save File dialog. You can specify the path and name there.
The Save File dialog will not present all
image types supported by MAX. You may write any supported extension (RLA,
RPF etc.) in the extension text field manually.
To create an animation out of the single frames,
please use Video Post and an IFL file, or a NLE package.
EXAMPLES (AVI, DIVX,
ca. 300K / example)
Full Stop - in
this example, the scene speed drops from 100% to 0% on a single frame,
the camera rotates around the frozen objects and then scene time starts
running again.
Falloff - same
scene, but this example is based on the curve shown in the trackview screenshot
above.