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DustinBrown
09-24-2006, 10:26 PM
How do I know whether a tool I have in mind needs to be a script vs. it needing to be a plugin?

There is a tool for 3ds max that we need made where I work. I mocked up the features and UI in Illustrator, but I have no idea whether it would be a script or a plugin. We have programmers at work, but they're web programmers. I'm not sure if this is a task I can give them or if it's something we should outsource.

I'm sure there are freelance developers who could make us a script or plugin or whatever it ends up needing to be. Not sure where to find them though.

Thanks,
Dustin Brown
erilaz
09-24-2006, 11:25 PM
I guess ultimately it depends on what you're doing. In the very general sense a plugin should only be required if you're unable to code that fuctionaility in with maxscript.

This is the way I see it:

Scripts are usually small tools that speed up tasks. In some cases they're much larger in scale (like rivendale's polyboost for example).

Plugins are required where large gaps in functionality don't exist (fluid dynamics for example), or the tasks required are too data/calculation heavy for a script to handle without taking a long time or hanging the system.
DustinBrown
09-25-2006, 02:26 PM
Thanks erilaz. We need to make a batch export plugin. There are no gaps in functionality that I can see; the file formats we need are already supported. I would, however, imagine that batch exporting geometry would be fairy calculation heavy task. It sounds, though, like a script will probably be the way to go.

Thanks again,
Dustin Brown
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