Common Tools Toolbar>> Download

INFO>> This tool bar script should be placed in this folder C:\3dsmax7\scripts\startup (or similar). The toolbar is set up to automatically dock itself on the left hand side of your UI, however, it can be pulled off and used as a floating toolbar. The script was made to support my own workflow. It does not have catches in the code if a tool is used improperly on an unsupported object. It is all very simple code and will likely not cause any damage to your scene files, but of course I'm gonna throw in a little disclaimer just in case. So use at your own risk.

Here is how it works.

The Colors rollout is just a bunch of color swatches similar to the color clipboard found under the utilities tab. I just liked having one that was permanetly docked on the side for me. The "Reset" button will clear out all the colors and set them back to grey.

The Materials rollout contains a few preset materials that I often use when setting up scenes for rendering passes. When each button is pressed it will place the defined material into the currently selected material editor slot. Here is a breakdown of each material...

ShellMatte>>Contains a "shell" material...The original material is a matte mateial set to not recieve shadows, and the baked material is also a matte material but it IS set to recieve shadows. This is a nice way of having two types of materials in one. At work I use this material in combination with a post script to switch from original material to baked material when I load a render element (using Blur's Render Elements Tool).

Matte>>Contains a regular matte material set to recieve shadows.

Modeling>>Contains a material I like to put on my objects while modeling. Just keeps everything looking nice and tidy.

Plaster>>Contains a flat white material for use on ambient occlusion passes, or to set up lighting.

White>>Contains a self-illuminated White material

Black>>Contains a solid black material.

The "Img Blur All" button on the Mo Blur rollout selects all geometry and shapes in the scene and assigns image motion blur to them. This is a quick and brainless way to just make sure all objects in your scene get motion blur applied to them. Be carefull...If you have objects that you want to have Object motion blur this tool will set it to image blur.

The "OpenPath" button on the Misc rollout will open explorer in the folder where your currently opened max file is located. If this tool does not work for you the path in the script is probalby not pointing to the correct location on your computer where your "Explorer.exe" file is located. I have marked in the script itself where to change this and what to do.

The Render rollout has some nice tools to help when working on rendering sequences. I'm going to start by explaining the 100%, 50% and 25% buttons.

The 100% and similar buttons work like this. If you were going to render out a sequence in max you would set your frame range and output path in the render dialog...But if you wanted to test render a certain frame only without saving it you would have to change these values in the render dialog everytime. These three buttons will automatically switch all the values to the current frame, disable the "save file" checkbox and start a test render, then set everything back to how it was. The percentage refers to the frame size that is currently in your render dialog...So if your frame was 640x480 and you hit 100% your test render will be that size, if you hit 50% it will be 320x240 etc.

The "Sv_Frm" button stands for "Save Frame". This works just like the % buttons mentioned above, but this will actually save the current frame that your rendering. This is handy for picking up a few frames here and there that might have gotten dropped or messed up when rendering over a network. You can just scrub the timeline to that frame and press this button to render just that frame again and automatically save it as part of the frame sequence.

The "S lights" checkbox when checked will turn off all lights in the scene EXCEPT the currently selected lights. This is handy when setting up your lightrigs and want to see how a single light (or group of lights) is affecting the scene. You would check this box, select the lights you want to render and hit one of the % buttons. When your finished testing uncheck it....duh

The "Atmosphere" and "Effect" checkboxs just enable or disable atmospherics or effects in the scene.

The "Copy" and "Paste" buttons are handy tools when your updating several files at once. Like if you got a new prop object that needed to be put into several shot files. Pressing the "Copy" button will perform a "Save selected" and will automatically save all selected objects to this path "C:\Temp\Junk.max". You would then open another max file or have two sessions of max open at the same time is how I usually do it and press the "Paste" button which will merge all the contents your copied into the currently opened file. It will propt you if you have duplicate object names. Everytime you hit "Copy" it will overwrite that "C:\Temp\Junk.max" file. This is just a simple way of getting objects from one file to another without having to browse around your hard drives to find them.

The "1", "2" and "3" buttons will take the currently selected EDITABLE POLY object and set its subdivisions to either 1, 2 or 3. "ModMat" will apply a material to the currently selected objects which I like to use when modeling. It will also make the wirecolor of those objects black. This is just how I like to work. The many color squares will change the currently selected objects wirecolor to the color shown on the button. Again this is how I like to work. I'll just grab a bunch of similar objects and give them all the same wire color. Helps to keep the file looking neat and tidy. The "Origin" button will move the currently selected objects to the origin.

The X, Y and Z radio buttons control the two arrow buttons as well as the "Random" button. The X,Y and Z radio buttons control which axis the currently selected objects will rotate around. The two arrow buttons control which direction the objects will be rotated. The spinner which defaults to 90 is the number of degrees the objects will be rotated. The "Random" button will randomly rotate each selected object around the defined axis.

 

If you have questions or requests feel free to send me an email... seraph@ca.rr.com