Understanding pymxs without documentation

[Julian.Millan]

Hello! Im new to 3ds in general, but more specifically to pymxs. We little to no documentation and it is slowing me down exponentially as I dont know how the methods work, what are the equivalencies, and at the end I end up executing a lot of maxscript anyway.

The documentation says pymxs is equivalent to maxscript, but thats not the case as there is a huge amount of syntax of maxscript that doesnt have an intuitive equivalent in Python, so there is a grueling trial and error process and it slows down everything. For example, I haven't figured out how to define MouseTools in Python, because there is no syntax equivalent in Python for how is done in maxscript, and Im basically blocked. There are multiple instances like this.

Are there any suggestions, recommendations, rules you can give me to understand pymxs better given the lack of documentation.

Is there any work being done in a better documentation? 

Thanks

[attilaszabo · Accepted solution]

Hi @Julian.Millan ,

Although pymxs closely mimics Maxscript, unfortunately, it does not support creating plugins or tools. Examples of these unsupported constructs are Custom Attributes, Scripted Plugins, Scripted Tools. These will have to be written in Maxscript.

We are continuously working on improving the pymxs documentation (link), and so your feedback in this regard is highly appreciated.

Thank you for your understanding.

[Julian.Millan]

Thanks for taking the time @attilaszabo to answer. THe new topics introduced in 2022 documentation are new to me and they are a step forward.

Thank you very much.

[Julian.Millan]

Just wanted to add:

This page is not working or hasnt been created yet https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAXDEV/2022/ENU/?guid=pymxs_differences

Thanks. 

Maybe I will have some more feedback down the line.

[Julian.Millan]

WHat is broken is that particular link which is found in the introduction to pymxs

[attilaszabo]

Oh, I see, logged it and will be fixed soon. Thank you for reporting it.

[drew.avis]

Hi there, thanks for reporting this - the URL/link is incorrect, the right one is:

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAXDEV/2022/ENU/?guid=MAXDEV_Python_using_pymxs_pymxs_differences_htm...

This should be working now.

Drew

[twkzd]

Where can I found the pymxs API documentation? Like a list of methods and classes?  Not even google voodoo can help me. Please

[attilaszabo]

Hi @twkzd , 

There's no reference guide for the pymxs API. pymxs exposes the Maxscript commands, interfaces, etc to Python. So the detailed documentation about all commands and interfaces you can use in pymxs are in the Maxscript guide.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAXDEV/2022/ENU/?guid=GUID-F039181A-C072-4469-A329-AE60FF7535E7

I hope this helps,

[twkzd]

thanks for a such fast reply, but to be honest  I was hoping for more.

pymxs is maxscript wrapper, I've read as much. But unfortunately, that does not help much.

What I want to say is, maybe there could be an easier way, more user-friendly way of categorizing classes, methods and so on.

I'm writing maxscript code for over 10years and I do feel that the documentation went steadily downhill from 2011. Well, the documentation stayed almost the same, but the styling has gone from engineering to fingerpainting level.

http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/MAXScript-Help/index.html?url=files/GUID-185D4BF3-7EE1-449B-8...

vs

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAXDEV/2022/ENU/?guid=GUID-6FC81BE7-58FF-4C63-8362-0BDCFA9F904C

Maybe put the index back? And remove the massive bottom banner? Just a thought ...

I feel that even mayaApi or maya.cmds, have more accessible online help.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2022/ENU/?guid=Maya_SDK_py_ref_index_html

https://help.autodesk.com/view/MAYAUL/2022/ENU/?guid=__CommandsPython_index_html

[attilaszabo]

I fully agree with you that the index would be useful. We'll look into the possibility to bring it back.
Here's an idea; I'm curios what you think? How about a scripting language agnostic description of the 3ds Max object model (application level services, scene, scene elements and hierarchy, etc), with examples documented in both Maxscript and Python (pymxs). Additionally, we would still have docs for Maxscript specific things such as grammar, etc, and pymxs specific things.

[twkzd]

Model description would be great (language agnostic). I know it is hard to strike balance between easy to understand and too wordy. And this could provide additional options on how to search for a solution. My issue was/is an inability to search for correct term.
When I tried to jump from '$.wireframe=color 100 200 30' to 'gw' methods with Dotnet event handlers, it was 90% bruteforce, 5% forum users, and 5% API docs. What I mean is that it is hard to look for a specific thing if someone does not know where to look, to begin with.
Broader, more advanced, multilang examples would be perfect.

[holemhoracbq49]

It seems like you're lucky because I have worked with document software that supports pymxs. If you are not sure which document software to use, I think you should all of them. After that, you will be able to choose which one is better for you. One year ago I had to work on pc a lot. I have a lot of documents. Because of this, I had to switch on software. I have seen a lot of programs, and I'm still using ClickHelp. If you want to read everything about it, you can click here. I hope that I was able to help you.