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>>Download v0.955 <<

>>Video Tutorials<<

About LPM

L Pass Manager is a pass manager I created for (3ds Max 9 SP2 and above) as a personal maxscript project.

These 7 video tutorials go over the installation of L Pass Manager, all its features and 4 practical tutorials on hair rendering and also break out lights into passes.

There is also a CGtalk.com thread discussing LPM, so be sure to check it out if you have any problems.

Unlimitted number of light Sets (Controlled by a picker, named selection set, layer group, or wildcard)
-On/Off override
-cast shadows override
-Color override

Common Properties Override
--Frame range
--Outputsize
--Common properties options(Atmospherics, Effects, ..., Super Black)
--Advanced Lighting
--File Type
--Camera
--Pre Script
--Post Script

Renderer override (Scanline, Mental Ray, Vray and other 3rd party)
--Override all settings of the renderer(Antialising filters, GI settings, enviroment maps etc)
--Uses standard 3ds max menu

BackGround Override
--Background Color / Map
--Global Lighting (tint/Level)

Render Elements Override
--Choice of which render elements are active

Atmospheres Override
--Choice of which Atmostpheres are active

Effects Override
--Choice of which effects are active

Additional Features
-Load / Save Presets (Installs with a quick Ambient occlusion preset, and a quick object mask preset)
-Pass per light -(Automatically generates a pass per light)
-Pass per layer -(Automatically generates a pass per layer)
-Network rendering using backburner
-Colored Object Sets(For view which objects belong to the which group)
-Hide non renderable(Ability to hide object sets that are set to not renderable)
-Copy and Paste/Paste for all properties

All the following properties can be controlled per shot:

Common Properties Override
--Frame range
--Outputsize
--Common properties options(Atmospherics, Effects, ..., Super Black)
--Advanced Lighting
--File Type
--Camera
--Pre Script
--Post Script

Passes
--Control which pass is included in each shot.

Important Note
Users of 3ds max 9.0 should install Service Pack 2 if they plan on using this script and biped. There is a bug in biped that causes max file corruption if a preset is loaded when using biped in the original 3ds max 9 and in 3ds max 9 extension 1.

This bug is fixed in 3ds max 9.0 SP2, max 2008, and max 2009.

Thread link:http://discussion.autodesk.com/thre...ssageID=5516562

Version History:

V0.81
Vray Properties/User Properties are now supported

V0.82
-Pass Time Range / Camera Preview Button: Allows previewing of the time range and camera of the common properties node of a pass
-Advanced Lighting, Raytracer Settings are now stored for scanline
-Indirect Illumination, Processing are now stored for mental ray
-Major code restructuring, functions are now enclosed in structs
-Minor bug fixes
-Max 2009 Compatibility: Render Regions / selections are used when doing preview renders
Full frame renders are used when rendering to disk from the render dialog

V0.83
Removed Includes and replaced with filein to resolve loading error.

V0.84
Network rendering submitting to backburner is now one click.
-Minor bug fixes.

Version 0.85
-fix bug of teapot button not rendering
-fix bug of right click render not rendering.
-Rename after creating pass, object set, light set etc...

V0.86
2 new video tutorials!
-Storing of composite maps, for using 3ds Max as a compositor (check out the new video tutorial )
-Animation button (Check out the new video tutorial on how to playback passes)
-quick storing of time ranges / cameras for common properties.

V0.90
-Hardware rendering for previews
-UI Improvements
-Exposure Control override
-Toggle for splitting renders into seperate folders
Unfortunately this version is not compatible with previous versions.
However this version should be forward compatible with future versions.

V0.91
-Shots introduced: The basic idea behind shots is that passes will define the material and render properties while shots control which cameras / time ranges are used along with which passes are used in that shot.

They are very useful in complex scenes with many cameras and many passes. Since each shot can control which camera, time range and passes, instead of having to make many duplicate the pass and override the cameras/time range.
-Play button now works with shots instead of passes.
-Shots-per-camera function added to tools menu, creates a shot for each camera in the scene, all passes are added to each shot.
-Fully customizable output paths.
-Exposure Control override
-Network render settings are stored and automatically loaded, so you only have to connect to the network once (*)

V0.915
-Fixed bug with UNC pathNames, being incorrectly generated.
-Closing the LPM main dialog now closes all other LPM dialogs.
-Fixed bug with scripts not executing when using passes (*)
-Created sample pershot/perpass script: Zbuffer_getCameraClip.ms. It uses LPMData for data accress (LPMData is likely to change format in the future, once the documentation for scripting is prepared) (*)

V0.92
-Group support for object/light sets
-fixed daylight system not overriding
-removed trailing ".max" when the $max tag is used in the render dialog
-added loop button when playing shots using the play button
-fixed a bug concerning shot names and camera names

V0.925
-Fixed bug with color/hide buttons
-Fixed bug with common props giving an error in shots
-Added 2 new macroscripts:
-LPM_RenderPass which is hotkeyable and renders the active pass, or performs a default max render if there is no pass to render (F9).
-LPM_RenderPassHalf Same as above but at half resolution.V0.927
-LPM now remembers where it was last placed / its window size.
-Rendering a pass with a camera override no longer switches the active viewport to that camera.
-When rendering a dialog now pops up that shows the pass name/ shot name that is being rendered.
-Holding esc now cancels all passes/shots.
-Fixed minor ui bugs.

V0.93
- Network submit dialog now shows server state as icons. (*)
- Network submit dialog now supports groups. This is however limitted to max 2008+ due to a bug in max 9, see (http://discussion.autodesk.com/thread.jspa?threadID=605364). (*)
-Network submit dialog now shows a progress bar. (*)
-Layers inside of object Sets and light sets have a new right click menu function, add selected objects to layer.
-LPM_RenderPass, LPM_RenderHalfPass now pop up a dialog to pick a pass if it no pass is active.
-Fixed bug where the camera picker dialog would come up at the end of rendering a pass.
-Dialog for picking object/light set layers is now alphabetically organized.
-The active pass is loaded in the pass drop down list (to the left of the teapot icon) when LPM starts up.
-Pass rendertimes are now printed, hit F11 to view them.
-Middle clicking on a pass now to actives that pass and also hides nodes in the scene based on their object/light set visibility.
-Fixed a bug with lpm not closing on new scene/open file / reset.

V0.94
-Xref scene overides are now supported, this allows you to pick which xref scenes belong to a pass. This is also supported in the hide button.
-Hardware previews now hide by object sets before performing the preview, revealing the correct nodes.
-Middle clicking on a shot now changes the camera to the shot camera and the time range to the shot time range.
-Shots now have a new right click menu has an item, render shot locally.
-Support for vraysun and other lights that use .enabled instead of .on
-Sort passes/shots added to right click menu.
-Delete all passes/shots added to right click menu.
-LPM_RenderPass, LPM_RenderHalfPass now launch LPM to pick a pass if it no pass is active but lpm data is found.
-Render Menu now remembers the root path.
-NetRender Rollout is now resizable.
-Up and Down buttons can now be hit repeatitly without reselecting the nodes facilitating moving nodes around.

V0.95
New Features:
+ Drag & drop support!
Dragging a node onto a node of the same type will reorganize those nodes.
Dragging a node onto a pass will move that node to the pass.
Dragging a pass onto a shot, adds the dropped pass to the shot.
Shift dragging a node onto a pass will create an instance of the node and place it in the pass.
Ctrl dragging a node onto a pass will create a copy of the node and place it in the pass.
+ Layer picker in objectsets/lightsets is now bigger and resizable.
+ Select Objects added to right click menu of Layers, Object Sets and Lights Sets
+ HideButton no longer affects camera visibility.
+ Passes inside of shots now have a remove right click item.

Bug Fixes:
- User can no longer add more than one common prop, render prop, env prop, xref prop per pass.
- Removed up and down buttons.
- Fixed bug with LPM_RenderPass, LPM_RenderHalfPass continuously asking to pick the active pass.
- Fixed bug with frame ranges and shots.
- BugFix for copying/pasting into putting nodes into the right "zz-LPM" Layer.

V0.955
New Features:
+It is possible to change the preview size 10%,25%,50%,75%,100%,150%,200%
+Default Camera picker is added to main ui.
+Added a progress bar to the render progress pop up, it shows the percentage of passes/shots completed.
+LPM nodes in the max scene are now called LPM_theNodeName, to make it easy to tell what is LPM data, previous scene data is automatically converted.
+New Layer from selection in tools menu, creates a new layer containing the selected objects.
+Net render settings are now stored in an INI file, this is helpful because users do not need to resetup netrender for different max files.
+Window positions are now stored in an INI file, to avoid LPM disappearing onto a second monitor.
+Default Path String can now be stored in an INI file.
+Updated presets.
Bug Fixes:
-Fix for objectSet select button not picking nodes all the nodes in the objectSet.
-Object Set Layer Picker can be resized horizontally.
-Minor bug fix in netrender submit
-Major Bug fix for netrender include maps, if include maps is on a new max file is saved to a subfolder named LPM_NetworkSubmit.
This is necessary because include maps cannot be used unless the maxfile is saved to a file and newJob.submit has a "file:maxfile.max" paramater.

Future Wishlish:

-Deadline Support

Credits:

(*) - Jake Jeziorski implemented all stared items, Thanks so much!