3ds Quiet Mode

[Anonymous]

I was wondering if anyone knew how to go about running max locally but in a silent mode where it suppresses all dialogs.

What I want to do is a 3 step process.

1.Open Max
2.Run a script inside of this max which manipulates the objects materials in the scene to all be standard
3.Renders image to a specific location

I just want this all to happen in the background hidden.

How would I do this?

[Anonymous]

How are you launching Max?

First step would be to make sure Max is launched minimised, by right-clicking the shortcut, going to properties -> shortcut and changing the "Run" setting to Minimised.

Beyond that... what dialogs appear that you need to hide?

[Anonymous]

I was looking up how to write the launching of max in maxscript but I've been un able to find it in the help file an it doesn't help that it is all online now. It takes so long to navigate around.

[Anonymous]

Someone'll correct me if I'm wrong, but surely you can't launch Max with Maxscript? Max needs to be running already in order to run the script.

You can create a new shortcut on your desktop that launches Max with a given scene, runs a pre-render script and then renders it out to a specified location. Look up "Command Line Rendering" in Max's help or Google, or run "3dsmaxcmd -?" from the Max folder and it'll list all the options out.

[Anonymous]

Alright, ill check it out.
Thanks for the help.

Sometimes it's hard to find topics in the help file, the search/results give odd results sometimes.

I'll let you know what I find.

[Anonymous]

An example run w/o splash screen (-q),
with suppresses dialogs (-silent) and minimized (-mip):

3dsmax -q -silent -mip -U MAXScript task.ms scene.max

Command-Line Switches

-mi = Open minimized
-mip = Also minimized
(but never allows you to open the window for interactive usage)
-q = Starts program "quietly," without the splash screen
-u = Opens utility
-mxs = same as "-U MAXScript file.ms",
but avoids the need for the .ms file
-silent = suppresses all MAXScript and 3ds Max UI dialogs

Examples from the main help (3dsmax.chm):

3dsmax.exe -silent -mxs "for c in cameras do render c outputFile:(c.name + ".bmp") vfb:off " file.max
3dsmax.exe -q -mi -U MAXScript \\server1\folder\myScript.ms \\server2\folder\file.max
3dsmax.exe -q -silent -mip -mxs  "for c in cameras do render c outputFile:(c.name + ".bmp") vfb:on; quitMAX #noprompt" file.max

[Anonymous]

This is what the help file says to do but it does not seem to work?

http://www.kxcad.net/autodesk/3ds_max/Autodesk_3ds_Max_9_Reference/running_scripts_from_the_command_...

3dsmax.exe -q -silent -mip -mxs "for c in cameras do render c outputFile:(c.name + ".bmp") vfb:on; quitMAX() #nopromptfile.max" file.max

or

C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2012\3dsmax.exe -U MAXScript rendercams.ms

[Anonymous]

got it!

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2012\3dsmax.exe" -q

[Anonymous]

Yes, the expression string into third example in the help stay broken from years:
"for c in cameras do render c outputFile:(c.name + ".bmp") vfb:on; quitMAX() #nopromptfile.max"

I posted above edited/fixed version of those example,
but forget escape for string quote-marks:
"for c in cameras do render c outputFile:(c.name + \".bmp\") vfb:on; quitMAX #noprompt"