HI, need help.... counter....

Im not sure on how you want the formatting of your text to look. but here is a method that will help you out i think.

Making a Dynamic TextShape in 3DS Max

1. Create a TextShape object in the front viewport

2. Add a extrude modifier to the TextShape, with the amount set at about 5.0. This makes your object visible in your render.

3. With the TextShape selected goto the main toolbar and select Graph Editors --> Track View - Dope Sheet.

4. When the Graph Editor shows on the screen, click on the + sign to the left of Text01.

5. When the menu has collasped click on the + sign to the left of Modified Object.

6. When this menu has collasped click to highlight kerning. Then right click it and select assign controller.

7. When the diolog appears select float script by double clicking it.

8. Now this is where we add our script to modify the TextShape on each frame of our animation. Copy the following text into the script section of Script Controller diolog box.

-- This Line Tells the Float Script to change the text of the object on 

-- each frame that is played in your animation

$'Text01'.text = (SliderTime as Integer) as String;

-- This Single 0 character Close the script

0

9. Close The FloatScript Editor and Dope Sheet View and Hit Play Hopefully this helps you out.

Hi Paul.

I've a had a deeper look into you question and I don't think it would be entirly possible to try and add content to your scene during the render, which is shame, cause that's where it would be most useful.

Any way, I've thrown a VERY quick script together that will create a series of text shapes numbering from 0 to the end of the active animation and have them cut in and out during the lifespan of the animation.

Again, the only trick is to have the text align to the camera.  I used a simple helper object to align and position the text on the screen.

You will need to investigate the text-shape object further to determine the best font and size for your project.

I've included the script, animation and max file in the included attachment.

Have fun

Shane 

There's probably a million ways to approach this
issue.  Straight off the top of my head, the biggest issue you might have
is aligning the "text" to the camera, so that they appear properly
aligned. You could do this yourself.

If you use a text shape object, you can modify the object
accordingly using the properties of the object, namely, the “text” property.

You can also evaluate the time value using time.frame or
time.ticks depending on what you want.

You might want to look at the callbacks.addScript #preRenderEval and "How To ... Change Objects At Render Time" in the max script help files...

I've heard of it been done, but never had the need to do so.

Cheers

Shane