is Lua going to be available on 3dmaxplugin and others? Tweet

[acc24ex]

- question in the title - is Lua going to be available in 3ds max plugin.. ?

[abstrax]

- question in the title - is Lua going to be available in 3ds max plugin.. ?

I think it would be possible to make it available. For now we didn't wee a reason to do it. So, why would you need it?

[grimm]

I think he means that it would be nice to have the ability to run Octane scripts through the plugin? If not, sorry, but I would still like to have that ability.

Jason

[abstrax]

I think he means that it would be nice to have the ability to run Octane scripts through the plugin? If not, sorry, but I would still like to have that ability.

Jason

Again, why would you want it? For what would you use it?

[grimm]

At one point while testing the Blender plugin I wanted to do a quick turntable animation. I could have figured it out in Blender but it would have been easier to just do it in Octane stand alone.

I can see that supporting the scripts in the plugins would be very painful to do and may not be a good reason to spend resources for. But maybe support for scripts without a GUI would be easier to do, then users could get access to some of Octane's script resources from the plugin?

This is just an example, eventually there will be script resources in Octane that don't have a direct correlation with in the app that the plugin is connecting to.

[stratified]

In the standalone, the node system is right in your face and it's intuitive what the script does. The node system is exposed differently in each host application so it's a bit tricky. I don't know if each host app for example has explicitly exposed a render target node.

We have to think about it some more.

cheers,
Thomas

[acc24ex]

.. yes the point is I would love run octane scripts in 3ds max plugin (in my case)

- furthermore - it was said that the octane plugin are going to have the same functionality as octane standalone

- I saw that texture paint script you did (didn't manage to run it though, don't know what the prob was ..) - and remembered I tried an identical 3dsmax feature - which works nicely in standard materials, but not with the octane ones (maybe I could do some scripting around that - basically only needs to convert to octane materials to work)

- anyway - recently started doing scripting in 3dmax (thanks to Oguz doing his stuff and getting my attention) - started doing basic stuff like adding buttons for most common tasks, like switch to octane plugin,open octane viewport, add sun, add a studio backdrop, playing with convert materials from wirecolor to octane materials - stuff missing or developer not having enought time to implement, or because it suits my workflow cause I am lazy - the standard reasoning why to use scripts in the first place
.. I'd also scripts that do neat stuff like gradients through objects, random colurs.. all the stuff that works with standard material or vray and not with octane..

- also aiming towards a one click automagic button, so I can just jump into rendering (like when you use GoZ from zbrush to 3dmax, you get an empty scene, or it changes default render to standard every time you upload to the scene.. I need the automagic button there - also this could be used for noobs to get instant octane magic .. not that difficult once you figure out the patterns through examples on the net, just requires organizing

.. so it got me thinking what could be achievable also going through the octane Lua scripting - making custom textures, for example - the one that was featured here to paint your own texture - is almost ideal for what I had in mind.. some basic geometry patterns would be nice -

.. also that could prove to be a good way to do some automatic conversions to say, blender, c4d, modo octane plugins .. other then alembic.. maybe some feature specific stuff (I was using c4d a lot before, and still like some of its features)

- I'm just thinking this through since I just realized how much more you can control via all the scripting (neat way of manipulating stuff the way you feel you need)

-this is like an alpha version.. got big pretty quickly - added scripts from other users (with credentials of course)

- been using that Oguz obj visibility all the time.. cheers to him

- like once you start rendering out, you only manipulate a few things that sometimes require three clicks instead of one (so you do not get distracted a lot) - and aimed towards two monitor setup

- I am not using the octane standard software almost at all since I got it as a plugin my host app - and I would love the neat features from Lua - you could give it a go - at least something, one thing to play around - like enabling that paint texture script to run inside 3dmax - that could be a potential way to add new functionality to max maybe .. they did open a pipeline for python scripting

further on .. some script eyecandy to prove some points
gradient to octane glossy material (or diffuse or specular)

random black white octane material selected objects - and spinner to add marble texture and manipulate its power randomly..

- this from plugin that manipulates the wirecolor with rgb or hsb or .. a lot of those in scriptspot.com (sketchup and 3ds max scripts) .. to defualt color of object..whatever - and did some basic scripting to turn them all to octane materials (with eyes turning blood red deep into the night)
featuring

- see how pictures make you enable you point

--also I stared adding -- marks to posts since this is the script thing for when you want to block out a comment Or Uncomment (that word doesn't even comply in the spellchecker) next /* what are you even talking about */

1 delete $

pics or it didn't happen:

gradient and marble texture

voronoi frag modifier (from scriptstop) and gradient to octane specular and glossy via Octane toolbox (automagic)

- this was the motivation to get me thinking what can octane scripting do to extend even more on this? .. like add bump from Lua scipt - I think this should require something like a Lua texture node - like turbulence or marble

[face]

It is fact, that each plugin can do the same things which you can do in lua scripting.
The difference is only, that maximal 3 man writing one plugin.
With scripting, everyone can do it.

But i don´t know how to make the lua scripting available to each user in the plugins.
The problem is, you need a feedback in the host application.
As example, generate an UI in lua, how the plugin should show and access it?
How the plugin should know, what you want with the UI?
Should it generate a texture, then the plugin must convert the lua code in a shader, which can be used in the host app.
When you want to generate a geometry, the plugin must also create the geometry in the host app to have a visual feedback.
You must also connect the lua script with the generated object to make changes possible.

With other words, you must implement the lua script as a (additional) language in the host app.
It isn´t enough that the plugins can have access to lua.

face

[Proupin]

Well, that kind of sucks then. Lua will keep bringing new features that will only be available to standalone, such as new procedural maps if that was the case. Maybe if Lua scripts could be compiled in a way that extended Octane and revealed in the plugins?