Outliner 2.0 Scene Management tool

#1

The Outliner 2.0 is a fast and easy to use scene management tool. It has a wide range of features, including selecting, hiding, freezing, linking and grouping objects in the “Hierarchy Mode”. In the “Layer Mode” you can organize your scene by dragging&dropping objects from one layer to the other. What’s more, the Outliner offers support for nested layers, to manage scenes more efficiently. The interface is nimble enough to keep it open constantly.

For those of you who are familiar with previous version of the Outliner, and are wondering what changed: almost everything. Hugely increased performance, improved stability, a more compact UI, nested layer support and many tweaks to improve the ease of use.For a list of all changes, click here

Download Outliner 2.1

Video showing the main features of the Outliner 2.0

Screenshots:
Hierarchy Mode (with different icons and color scheme)

Layer Mode (with nested layers)

Material Mode (beta)

To support the development of this tool, and to show your appreciation of it, please consider making a small donation through paypal by clicking here.
After making a donation of any amount, you’ll receive a copy of the Outliner Workflow tools, which includes:

  • Viewport tools (hide toggle, freeze toggle)
  • Parent to last selected
  • Delete recursive
  • Advanced rename
  • Clone without renaming
#2

Congratulations man! Finally the whole world can enjoy working with Outliner :slight_smile:

#3

Woohoo, thanks so much for the nested layers

-B

#4

Thanx for this amazing tool!

#5

Congrats Pjanssen! You have done something amazing. Now Outliner will be my best friend for the coming cg years. Thank you very much!

#6

I watched the nested layers part and I swear I got all giddy. I’ll definitely be making a contribution.

#7

Nice! Will try out and donate if it’s cool :wink:

#8

Great tool :thumbsup:

#9

A GREAT tool. After trying it for the first time last night, I’m kicking myself that I did try it earlier :rolleyes: :cool:

I’m working on a really large scene, and was constantly having to juggle between the layer manager and the selection panel, and material management was becoming something I had to pay a LOT of attention to. Now with the Outliner it is a LOT easier, and I only need to have one panel open, not three.

Cheers mate, well worth a donation :bowdown:

BTW - I know the Material Mode is still in beta, but is there any chance future versions might explore dragging objects between different materials ?

#10

Hi,
I’ve had some trouble installing the script on Windows 7, 64 bit. To install it I had to run Max as an administrator and then go to the MAX Script menu and run the .mse from there. So if anyone has problems installing they should try this.

I also didn’t restart max after installing the script, and while it appeared to be working correctly, when I tried to dock Outliner to the left, it went blank - i.e. the objects and control icons were missing, living the space gray. I had to do an uninstall, restart, install, restart. This might be also related to Windows 7 :slight_smile:

And finally, I tried something stupid, like linking the target of a light to the light itself. This caused a dependency loop so max didn’t complete the linking, but Outliner showed there was in fact a link.
(this happens if I try to link them via Ouliner, via Max it’s OK)

Pier, this is an excellent tool, very versatile but also natural to use, congratulations for the release :buttrock:

Btw, is there some way to use shortcuts to do quick freezing of layers? Something like Shift+Click on the icon…

All the best!

#11

awesome tool man, really great…
is there any other way to make a donation a part from paypal?

#12

Finally a good layer manager for Max! Donate for sure! Some wishlist

 (*) Possibility to expand the layer manager to see the layers and nasty layers. But not the object in the layers. Now it's impossible automatically, only manually and with a lot of layers it's odd. This is because I want to see all layers in the scene in "one click solution".
(*) Button to expand/close all layers and nasty layers (but not the object).
 (*) If I select some obj in the viewport I want in the LM right click and see a new button called "new layer from selection".  Like in theonion :)
 (*) Freeze-unfreeze button directly in the LM, neat the layer icon, not with right mouse button.  Like in theonion
 (*) I click in the viewport and in the LM i want to change the layer. So I will click the second layer and we want a button to "add to this layer"
 (*) It's possible to "no highlight" or no select the object or layer in the Layer manager when i click in the viewport?

(*) Also, a function to “Delete empty layers”, like in theOnion.

It’s too difficult?

 The Onion have a lot of useful tool, directly in the interface. You can "copy" some idea from the the onion ehehh....
#13

Hi Pier,

I don’t know if you’re still taking feature request but anyway here mine :slight_smile:

I think I’m becoming addict to you’re new version, but since I’m using the old scene explorer, I’m kind of accustomed to selecting objects by click&drag, do you think this could be implemented without too much of a headache?

Another features that I think could be interesting, is to be able to delete object from the scene with different kind of filter, like delete all spline from the scene for example :slight_smile:

Ho and maybe this last one, I’ve got a very old computer that can barely run 3dsmax and I’m noticing that selecting object and updating the list add a little bit of pressure for other script that create/delete lots of objects …I know I can just close the outliner but maybe a pause function could be nice :slight_smile:

keep up you’re good work, it really becoming amassing :bowdown:
Martin

edit : hehe, sorry was not sure on which one to post :slight_smile:

#14

This is such an awesome tool , thanks a lot!

#15

hi,

i have a (small) problem installing the outliner. Its most likely my fault, because i am a very new 3dsmax-User, but here is what i get:

Installer exception:
copyScriptFiles
– Runtime error: dotNet runtime exception: Source and destination path must have identical roots. Move will not work across volumes.

Tried the install on Windows7 64bit, 3dsMax 2010 SP1 x64; with and without running 3dsMax as Admin.

I would be gratefull for any help :slight_smile:

bye e

#16

Sometime, in a heavy scene and some hours, when i right click on the LM to create a new layer, the Outliner UI disappears. I see only the “create e new later” button :frowning: . I need to restart 3ds max and all work fine in the same scene.
Nvidia 9800 GTX - 3ds max in DX node - win XP 64

New IMPORTANT wish in nasty layers. If I have the main layer named A and the nasty layer named 1-2-3-4
I click on the visibility icon on A and all disappear in viewport. Ok, perfect. Now I want unhide only layer 2. I click on the layer visibility icon on nasty layer 1. Nothing happen. In my idea, if I click the visibility for layer 1, this will be un-hide. Right now I need to make ON the visibility for the main layer and hide later 1,3,4, except my layer 2. :surprised No very useful this method.

In theonion I can hide-unhide the main layer (A) by right click on a random nasty layer (1-2-3-4), or click on single layer for visibility ON-OFF very easy and fast. This is not possible in the Outliner without loosing a lot of time and mouse click. I will stay with theOnion without this possibility. This option is VERY IMPORTANT in my opinion.

thanks :slight_smile:

#17

Lol i thought that i was the only one having this bug. When you rightclick the outliner dissapears and only the rightclick menu is there. When you create a layer the outliner appears. I had this only twice.

#18

About the layer visibility, try to see this video. In the middle on the tutorial you can see what I talk :slight_smile:

http://www.cgtraining.com/Videos/ZKTree/ZKSM03Tree2.html

#19

Thanks for your replies guys!
A quick reply for cpt-elektro: Someone at scriptspot reported the issue earlier today too. I’m guessing you’ve got your 3dsmax installation on a volume different from C ?
Either way, I’ve fixed the problem, and I’ll upload the new installer tonight and let you know.

I’ll reply to everyone else in more detail tonight or tomorrow.

#20

You are right!

bye e