Manipulating X, Y, Z coordinates with external midi controller?

[Anonymous]

Hi legends!

Not sure if it's possible, but I'm wondering if there's a way to manipulate the X, Y, Z figures corresponding to Move, Rotate or Scale (depending on which is selected) using a simple external 3 knob midi controller.

I want to be able to click "Move", then select and object (or sub-object) then use an external controller (besides the mouse or keyboard) to move the selected item along X, Y or Z Axis, depending on which knob I adjust. Attached is an example of what I'll be using but a 3x3 (not a 5x5)

If so, this would be so extremely handy and efficient to move, rotate or scale selections.

Please lie to me and tell me it's possible 😄

Thanks in advance folks

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

Interesting question.  I haven't done this myself, but there is a Position (Motion Capture) Controller that Max has built in for external devices (including MIDI).  

See Max documentation here: 

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2017/ENU/3DSMax/files/GUID-89367E0E-8D43-48A5-ABC1-BD1119B25F77-htm.html

Play around with this and see if you can get what you need. 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply.

I've briefly looked into that but that only seems to work when an object is selected then the motion tab is clicked and the x,y,z parameters are set. That's not quite what I desire. I want to have the external midi xyz controller always active (like the mouse/keyboard) all the time, especially while I'm modelling, not so much after I've made the model and then want to set the motion parameters for animation.

[jon79info]

I think I just figured out how this could be done. I have midi controller keyboard with knobs. I want to avoid using Motion Capture , but still control 3ds max parameters using midi device.

3ds max interoperates with Python. I just learned some basics. Max has Python in it.

http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/16/ENU/3ds-Max-Python-API-Documentation/index.html

So I added to 3ds max'es Python a module called Pygame (for making games and uses MIDI)

https://www.pygame.org

in Pygame you can receive all midi inputs, it works for me in 3ds max.

You can even run python games in 3ds max .

You can transfer MIDI to MaxScript using variables, or save them into 3ds max file and read using Maxscript.

Below a python+pygame script that reads MIDI (go to "solution"):

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64818410/pygame-read-midi-input

Then you can transfer it to 3ds max. This module also lets you read all keyboard keys, joystick, mouse.

List of events

https://riptutorial.com/pygame/example/18046/event-loop