Advanced Topics
See Also: Must Read Sections by Plug-In Type, Must Read Sections for All Developers.
This section presents detailed information about key concepts in using the 3ds max APIs. This section contains more explanation than is available in the reference section. The topics presented here cross class boundaries and are instead based on specific concepts developers need to understand when creating 3ds max plug-ins.
For a list of these topics important to read when creating a specific plug-in type see Must Read Sections by Plug-In Type. For those sections which should be read by everyone see Must Read Sections for All Developers.
Action Tables
Creating a New Plug-In Project
Computing Face and Vertex Normals
Custom User Interface Controls
Custom Node Properties and App Data
DLL/Lib Functions and Class Descriptors
Foreground / Background Planes.
Getting and Setting User Preferences
Interactive Renderer: Graphics Window
Keyboard Accelerators and Dialog Messages
Keyframe and Procedural Controller Data Access
Loading and Saving Plug-In Data
Matrix Representations of 3D Transformations
Node and Object Offset Transformations
Parameter Editing in the Command Panel
Parameter Blocks and Maps in Release 3
Plug-In Directory Search Mechanism
Style Guidelines for Creating Pipeline-Friendly Meshes
Working with Character Strings