Together with a mate I've been thinking about making a (free, open-source) script browsing/management tool for 3dsmax. It should provide a standard, central framework for browsing, installing, uninstalling and most importantly updating scripts and plugins. Think Eclipse software update or an app-store with automatic update notifications. It is aimed both at end-users (easily getting & installing updates) as well as developers (easily pushing out updates).

We've been doing some experiments and basically have been pondering it over the course of a year. Now, we think that it would be a good idea to make it multi-platform (or at least prepare it for it). So we could easily make a version for maya, c4d, xsi, and so on as well. Since we've both mainly been 3dsmax oriented in our work, I thought it would be good to ask around for some input. So here are a few main questions!

1. What is your 3D software package of choice?
2. Do you think it would be useful to have a tool like this for your answer to 1?
3. What would be requirements and must-have features?
4. What is currently your main source for scripts from other devs?
5. How do you keep track of updates of scripts you use?
6. Any other thoughts on this project?

Thanks!

I think Norman3D did something similar for 3dsmax so i would probably not make one for max ;)

Yeah I am aware of his project. It seems we independently started with a similar concept at about the same time. We discussed collaboration with him quite a while ago, but ended up having slightly diverging goals it seemed. For us 3dsmax will still be the initial target platform though.

1. What is your 3D software package of choice?
3ds max 2010
2. Do you think it would be useful to have a tool like this for your answer to 1?
I am used to my current workflow. But it could always be better!
3. What would be requirements and must-have features?
- Update
- Reverse
- Core information
- Categories/Labels
4. What is currently your main source for scripts from other devs?
scriptspot
5. How do you keep track of updates of scripts you use?
rss,twitter,scriptspot
6. Any other thoughts on this project?
- Keep it as simple as possible!
- Reuse known functionality + UI elements
- Make it visual
- Enough Interaction for the user!

1. Max, sometimes XSI

2. Yes! Though, as already mentioned, there are a couple of competitors for Max (MaxScriptManager, which i've used in the past; and MaxScript Navigator, which i've yet to try out)

3. Ummmm.. Norman's MSM is a pretty good guide on what to implement, really. It has update notifications via scriptspot, for instance. I'd like it to be more customisable, the ability to group scripts, rename them and their entries in 'Main', possibly even bind keys to them from within the management tool. There's probably a million different things that'll come to mind later.

4. scriptspot and polycount

5. Some have builtin update notifications, such as your very own Outliner, which is very neat. Others you check regularly on scriptspot (i subscribe to their posts). Most code snippets posted here don't get updates on a regular basis, so..

6. Instead of doing it all over again, maybe you guys could team up with Norman3D? I think he has a lot on his plate, development on the Maxscriptmanager and on his MZP authoring system has been slowish, from what i gather. Also, cross-app functionality sounds like helluva complicated task..!

Maybe I should clarify a little bit: I'm mainly trying to figure out whether this tool would be useful in packages other than 3dsmax. For max we know what we're going for and how it should work, since this is the package we have most experience with. So for example cptSwing, do you think it would be useful in XSI too?

As for a collab with Norman: like I said, I was up for it and we discussed it with him a while ago. But it didn't work out, unfortunately.

Though i didn't use maya for years, keeping mel scripts organized and up to date is the same pain as in max. So i'm pretty sure it would be useful there too. By then the ultimate ressource for melscripts was highend3d which is now www.creativecrash.com

I would be very interested in some more thoughts from Maya users. I'm guessing that together with 3dsmax it's the most popular 3D package, so that would be an obvious second candidate to make support for. But only if it is going to be a useful tool of course.