How to exclude instances from a selection?

[Anonymous]

Need some help...

I have a whole heap of objects (some instances) and want to create a new array of all the objects except the instances.

This is my attempt, but can't get it to work?

ss = getCurrentSelection()
newSS = #() -- the new array
append newSS ss --put the first object in it

for i = 2 to ss.count do -- go through all the object I have selected
(
 thecurrentNode = ss -- the selected node
 for j = 1 to newSS.count do -- go through the new array
 (
 theArrayNode = newSS -- get the object from the new array
 if (areNodesInstances thecurrentNode theArrayNode) == false then -- check if the selected node is an instance of the new array node
 ( 
 if (finditem newSS thecurrentNode) == 0 then -- check that selected node isn't already in the array
 (
 append newSS thecurrentNode -- add the selected node to the new array
 print ("not instance = " + thecurrentNode.name)
 )
 )
 )
)

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Ok, got it to work. Could trim it down a fair bit...but at least its working:

ss = getCurrentSelection()
newSS = #() -- the new array
for i = 1 to ss.count do -- go through all the object I have selected
(
 thecurrentNode = ss -- the selected node
 check = "Not in Array"
 for j = 1 to newSS.count do -- go through the new array
 (
 theArrayNode = newSS -- get the object from the new array
 if (areNodesInstances theArrayNode thecurrentNode) == true then check = "Is in Array"-- check if the selected node is an instance of the new array node
 )
 if check == "Not in Array"  then
 (
 append newSS thecurrentNode -- add the selected node to the new array
 print ("not instance = " + thecurrentNode.name)
 )
)

[Anonymous]

Also check out this pack...

http://www.neilblevins.com/soulburnscripts/soulburnscripts.htm

There's a script called sLib.ms that contains a function called sLibRemoveUnneededInstancesFromArray which will probably do what you need.

- Neil

[Anonymous]

Thanks Neil.

[Anonymous]

There is another way to do this that I use in my own tools. It takes advantage of the Instance Manager in a hackish sort of way but is quite simple:

-- Selects all objects that have no instances

myObjs = selection as array

clearSelection()

for o in myObjs do
(
 InstanceMgr.GetInstances o &instances
 if instances.count == 1 then selectmore instances
)

The reason this works is because InstanceMgr.GetInstances returns an array of only the current object even if it has no other instances. If the array size is 1 the object has no instances. If the array size is more than 1 the last object in the array can usually be considered the "original" object (even though it doesn't seem there is a way to keep track of this in the GUI).

Hope this helps!

[Anonymous]

Very smart way of doing it. I initally looked at the instanceManager and couldn't work out a way to use it for what I wanted, so went back to basics (very basic):)
Thanks for explaining

Cheers