Scripts

The scripts here are mostly small little time savers, but hopefully you might find something useful! They are a mixture of MaxScript and Python for Nuke.

Nuke Pointcloud to 3ds Max – Python – It should be pretty self explanatory – select a relevant BakedPointCloud node, run the script, tell it where to save the .csv file and you’re good to go. You’ll then have a .csv file that can be loaded into Max using Thinkbox/Krakatoa’s PRT Loader, and it’ll store all the colour information as well as location. The only thing you’ll need to do is rotate the PRT Loader 90 degrees, since Max is Z-Up. When you do that, any cameras or geometry you move between Nuke and Max will align perfectly (since the FBX exporter – as well as the great Max Script Nuke’em – automatically re-orient). Click here to see a video of it in action.

VRay Export Script – This tool (on hitting ‘Publish’) will generate a VRay Proxy and a low-poly version of all of the geometry and renderable splines in the scene, attached. This file will not be automatically saved, so you need to ensure you do so! The most effective use of this file is to use Max’s Object XRef dialogue to reference the VRay Proxy object. You can then set the low poly version as the viewport proxy. This way you get a high detail rendered version, but a low-detailed viewport version, which saves RAM and improves viewport performance. The other tools (Converting all objects to Edit Poly, Deleting all hidden objects and Ungroup objects safely) are there to help with larger scenes, which may benefit from deleting the hidden objects, removing groups etc. You may need to experiment with these options on larger scenes. Obviously this requires VRay.

A Few Small Scripts – These are the best part of a decade old, but I still have them because remarkably some people I’ve worked with still found them useful, so perhaps you will too. I’ve put them all into a github repo now, so I can ignore them there rather than ignoring them on my backup, but the code makes me wonder how I ever even got it to run honestly. It paints me in a pretty poor light which, if you think about it, makes me incredibly brave.