where can i get smh 2 polychain? (related to cageman's tutorial)

#1

hi i’m late to the discussion, i just came across cageman’s water wake tutorial. i want to attempt the animation featured in the wake tutorial but one of the required items smh 2 polychain no longer exist in the lightwave database. does anyone know where i can get the 2 polychain plug in. thanks.

#2

Several Google searches for that name showed me you asking about it – and little else. I’m not sure if you eventually found your plugin, but I’m not surprised there are no replies. Finding this baby requires either having read the tutorial from five years ago…or having mad Google Jedi skills. :slight_smile:

Here’s why: Searches for smh 2 polygon, smh_2_polygon, smh_polygon, smh2polygon, or even just smh, lead only to frustration. Searching for cageman, however, got me the original tutorial, archived though it is. Said tutorial includes the following line:

SHM_Polychain (http://www.chromecow.com/downloads/lscript/)

SHM…spelling counts, especially with file names! Before you go clicking that link, however, you’re right – the site is dead and most direct links fail. Back to Google. The correct filename lead to a page on the database you may have referred to:

http://lwplugindb.com/plugin/shm-polychain/

That page has an updated link and thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, (one of the best sites on the planet, btw,) the original host site of the plugin (until around 2009) lives on in zombie/clone form. The link below includes downloads, with the SHM_PolyChain that I think you’re looking for. (It makes a chain of two-point polys and was made by a fellow named Sean Hyde-Moyer, the source of the “SHM.”)

http://web.archive.org/web/20090208212209/http://www.chromecow.com/downloads/lscript/

Hope that helps…and thank you, by-the-way, this plugin does look useful. I’m going to give it a try in 8.5.

This guy had very useful toys…and all the download links I’m trying still work! Check out the Sean’s Dial Ticks plugin…wow.

#3

Hrm. Most of the plugins are working, but the script for the Dial Ticks seems to have some flaws – object position controls (ctlposition) with three numbers that should be two or four, giving me errors. Playing with it…I’ll post if I can get it working.

#4

Well, further research into other plugins I found last week has lead to a little disappointment but somewhat of a solution. Most of those plugins are a bit buggy in anything higher than LW 8.0 or 8.2, having been made for 7.5 and given a couple minor updates since.

The only sure-fire solution offered was to use a lower version. Luckily I did start with 7.5 and upgraded, so I’ll have to give it a go on my XP computer with the lower version. Hurrah for portable license keys!

Wouldn’t it be awesome if more programs supported backward-compatible API’s? Sigh… No question that new plugins may need new features and not work in old programs, but if a plugin worked in last year’s version, it should work in the newfangled program, too, darnit. (Not even expecting more than two back versions…just one!)

#5

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