Scene Inspector script (CheckMate Tools Contest)

- Denys Almaral

- Script file name: pX Tools-SceneInspector.mcr

- Tested with 3ds Max 9.0 sp2

Installation:

Option 1: (Easiest with max runing)

- Go to MAXScript -> Run Script

And choose the provided file: pX Tools-SceneInspector.mcr

Max automatically will create a copy of this macro in your user macros directory permanently.

Option 2: (need max restart)

- Look for your user macros directory (Configure System Paths-> Additional Macros)

- Copy there the provided file: pX Tools-SceneInspector.mcr

- Restart max application.

Once installed you can find the menu shortcut called SceneInspector within category pX Tools, drag and drop it to your desired menu group or tool bar.

Current scene inspection

Open your max file and click your shortcut to SceneInspector macro, then click START/UPDATE button.

Selection only (check box): Check Selection only if you want to run the inspection only for selected objects.

Save Report (button): After completed process allows to save reports as HTML, XML, CSV.

Restore Modifiers(button) restores all modification needed for inspection so the scene objects back to its original states.

Wait until completed process, and examine the Results in the following tables:

Summary report:

Lists total and summarized values (Value), percent from total (Perc) and amount of objects affected (Objs). The Description part (Desc) will show in red for problematic values, black for neutral or green for ok.

Clicking Select Objects button will select all the affected objects by the current selected item in the list. The same action occurs using Double-Click.

ViewMissing button shows all missing files for current scene.

Show Images button displays rendered scene image and Viewport captures.

Objects Info and Mesh analysis reports:

Objects Info lists all inspected objects properties and polygon counts, tris, NGons. This info is obtained quickly without too much computing calculations. Mesh analysis lists only geometry objects and its mesh analysis results. These are most computing expensive calculations for detecting problems like overlapping faces/vertices and flipped faces.

Problematic values are shown in red color.

Objects names (ObjName) color legend is defined as follows:

Red object name: At least one problem listed in this table.

Bold-red object name: At least one problem including: default object name problem.

Black object name: No problem in this table, but has problem in the other .

Green object name: No problems found in any of the two tables.

Double-click select the associated object with current item, you can also check Auto Select for select associated object with a single click.

Open Face/Verts Selector: (Sub-Object Selection mini-tool)

After finished processing scene this Sub-Object Selection mini-tool is automatically opened, or you can manually open it clicking Open Face/Verts Selector button. This is a very useful feature to go object by object selecting problematic faces or vertices as results from the recently processed scene.

It automatically updates when some object is selected, showing a list of the possible selections you can highlight, just try clicking Select Vertices/Faces button.

Since is uncomfortable to select another object when a sub-object face/verts is selected a second button will help you going back quickly to the top of the object Stack so you can select another object from the scene.

Remember, also you can invoke single object selection directly from Object Info and Mesh analysis tables double-clicking them.

Batch Processing (Multiple scene files)

The second section of this tool is Batch Processing, use Scan folders button to search for .MAX scenes inside subdirectories recursively starting by an specified folder.

As button names indicate can be added single files, remove selected, remove all and click Open file to load the scene into max.

Click START button to process all listed files.

NOTE: The process can’t be paused, if you want to abort hold ESC key a few seconds. Maxscript didn’t support multithreading or any solution to refresh user input from visual controls while running intensive calculations code.

Batch processing results/auto save reports:

After finished processing all files a message is shown with a beep alert.

If Auto save checkbox checked reports will be saved automatically with the chosen format (HTML|CSV|XML), if you like to save the reports after using choosing another format, select it and click Save now button, reports will be generated again with the desired file format.

File names are created automatically with the following format:

“siRep_” + FileNumber + MaxFileName + “.html|.csv|.xml”

For example scene test08_allfeatures.max report file name will be: siRep_1_test08_allfeatures.html

Table Results by scene file shows processed scenes with a minimum info: objects count, quantity of problems found and processing time in seconds.

Select an item from this list and click Show scene info button. This fills the Inspector Reports section above with all test results, scroll up to check Summary, Object Info and Mesh Analysis.

If want to open any scene from the list click Open max scene button.

Missing references show lists any missing file/DLLs/XRefs detected when opening each scene file.

Options

Check/uncheck options in order to disable Mesh Analysis tests and set the Tolerance values.

Specify if you want to generate Render and Viewport captures, and want to save them with reports.

The tool will remember this options for all the current session of Max application.

Denys Almaral