Shortcuts for Next and Previous Keyframe

That's one super simple script, but one that I use all the time to animate. In Max, you have a Key Mode Toggle button to switch between 'Previous/Next Frame' and 'Previous/Next Key'.

After using Motionbuilder I found that having two different sets of shortcuts for each function was much more handy, so I wrote these very simple scripts.

Instancer for Maya

I shared my instancer for Max not long ago, so while I'm at it I should share the one I wrote for Maya! It works pretty simply, by replacing the shape inside the object.

How to use Python Scripts for Maya

We covered the basics for Max, here comes the same for Maya !
There are two main ways (there are many more, but the result's the same) of running scripts in Maya, whether they are MEL or Python.

Change an attribute on multiple objetcs

That's something pretty common, you sometime want to change something on multiple objects, but 3dsMax doesn't support this through the interface. Generally you end up changing the parameter on each object... when you could write a single line of script that does it for you !

There's a very common keyword, in most programming languages, that goes through a collection of things (like the list of the selected objects): for

Resize Dummies/Points

After the Instancer, another example of function only available through scripting!
You can use the .boxsize property on dummies to change their size, and it's a point3, so it doesn't have to be a cube. Using this attribute, I wrote a simple script that allows you to resize your dummies without having to scale them, isn't that fantastic?
I personally prefer using points rather than dummies, so the script also resize the selected points!

A simple Instancer

Have you ever thought that Max (or any other software for that matter) lacks some super basic functionality? Well sometimes the functionality is there, but only available through scripting!
That's one of those cases : you copied objects and later realise that you should have instanced them. There's no way (that I know of) to do that afterward in Max interface, but there's a simple command that does just this : instanceReplace

How to use the MAXScripts !

Now for the little explanation on how to use the scripts that I'll post !

Most of them will be MaxScripts, so there are two possibilities:

• .ms are plain scripts that do a certain action when you evaluate them, open through MAXScript -> Open Script and launch with Ctrl+E
• .mcr are macroScripts, which can be dragged and dropped (one at a time) in the viewport and added to the UI from Customize->Customize User Interface. They'll appear in the category 'Vin'