Must Read Sections for All Developers
See Also: Must Read Sections by Plug-In Type, Advanced Topics.
The following sections in the help file should be read by all developers. These are fundamental issues every programmer needs to understand to write plug-ins for MAX.
DLL/Lib Functions and Class Descriptors
All 3ds max Plug-Ins must implement these DLL and Library functions.
This section discusses how plug-ins are allocated and deallocated in memory.
Intervals are an object in 3ds max that describe a range of time. They are a key concept in understanding animation in MAX.
The Geometry Pipeline is a system used by all plug-ins that deal with geometry.
The hierarchy of animatable items that appears in Track View is referred to as the sub-anim hierarchy. This section documents how a plug-in provides access to it's sub-anims.
The concept of a reference is what allows parts of 3ds max that relate to one another to communicate to manage the relationship. This section presents information on how this works.
Nodes are the items in the 3ds max that have a one to one correspondence with objects in the scene. This section provides information on nodes.
Custom User Interface Controls
This section describes the custom controls developers may use in their user interface design.
Parameter Blocks are the objects in 3ds max that help to manage the variables that a plug-in uses to store animated values.
Parameter Maps are used to simplify the programming effort required to manage the user interface of a plug-ins parameters.
Matrix Representations of 3D Transformations
Matrices are used in 3ds max to represent various transformation. This section explain how they work.
This section provides information on some of the classes that deal with rotation.