Basic deleting objects script

By boudini · 2010-03-22

Description

Hi there,

I'm very new to maxscript and am trying to write some very basic tools to speed up some of my repetitive tasks.
Ultimately i'm hoping to create a few scripts but the first one i'd like to create is a basic 'deleting a load of objects' script.

Ive worked out how to delete a set list of objects, but the problem comes when one of those objects is not in the scene. So i created an if statement which would get rid of roughly the right stuff if exactly the right stuff isn't there e.g:

if(delete#($Sphere02, $Sphere03, $Sphere04, $Sphere05, $Sphere06, $Sphere01)==undefined)then
delete $sphere*

But this is just a rough workaround - what I really want is to delete everything from a predefined list if is in the scene.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated,
cheers, Sean.

Comments (5)

Graph · 2010-03-28

for loops through the array previously created
o is the var that holds the value of the current iteration
where is basically an if statement wich has to evaluate true or the iteration will be skipped

boudini · 2010-03-23

Wow, thanks Anubis. That worked perfectly.

I'm glad this approach worked, as I had thought I need to collect the valid nodes somehow, and then delete. So at least i'm starting to get to grips with the basics of how scripting works (although I am finding it hard to break into).

I don't really understand the 'o' after isValidNode, but I need to read up of for/where as its still a bit hazy to me.

Thanks again.

boudini · 2010-03-23

Thanks for your reply Marco - I'll read up on how to do a try catch statement. Its really helpful just to be given a pointer in the right direction as i didn't know something like that even existed.

As for storing the objects - i'm just not sure. Ive just been using: delete#($all, $my, $various, $objects). But i would understand that this is not a good way, and i should be storing them in some sort of variable or array?

Some more detail on the script may be useful - it would be more of a cleaning utility, that would clear out a certain character from a scene. The objects of the character will always be the same name, but they might not all be in the scene as they have different costumes and accessories. But i would ultimately have one button for 'delete character X' that would get rid of that character and all the possible items they could be wearing. (rather than a button for every variation of what they could be wearing - which would require quite a few buttons).

Cheers.

Anubis · 2010-03-23

Collecting to array (variable) and verify or filter out object that not exist (using isValidNode) before call delete() function, can help. For example:

objs = #($all, $my, $variaus)
-- filter out non existing objects:
objs = for o in objs where isValidNode o collect o
-- now just delete 'em
delete objs

Marco Brunetta · 2010-03-22

What method are you using to store the items that need to be deleted?

And you could always use a TRY CATCH statement. It's pretty rough and inefficient, but if it's just a personal script it might do the trick.