Installation

The installation of this plugin is done the same way as for all our tools. You can find a detailed explanation in the F.A.Q. page, at the section titled “How do I install and activate Spline Dynamics plugins?“.

How to use it

The use of this tool is very simple and straightforward. Additionally, every button or control in the UI has a descriptive tooltip, so you can quickly get an idea of what they do.
Here are the general steps on how to use it:

1. Execute the plugin. A small dialog will show up containing just one button with the label “Add Pro Clipping Controls”.
2. Select the camera you want to assign the special clipping controls to and press the button.
3. Go to the camera settings in the modifier panel. It will display a new rollout titled “Clipping Controls”.
   (The order in which this rollout appears may vary depending on the type of camera you are using: 3dsMax Physical camera / VRay / Corona )
4. Use the “Pick object” button in the Near / Far sections to assign an object from the scene to control the corresponding  clipping plane.
   For the Near clipping you will tipically use the object that is blocking the camera view, and for the Far clipping it could be another one in the background.
   If the object you pick has a surface (mesh  or geometry), the plugin will automatically place the clipping plane at the locatoin of the face that is closer to the camera. If not (helper, light, etc.), it will use the object pivot to calculate the distance for clipping.
5. Optionally set the Offset parameter to position the clipping plane some distance away from the picked object.
6. Since the clipping planes/s will be now bound to the object/s, you can move your camera towards or away from the target without altering the position of the clipping plane/s.
   Another way to use it is to manually move the picked object/s to change the location of the clipping.
7. If you want to preserve the framing while you move the camera, then turn on the “Auto-adjust FOV” option.
   This function will modify the FOV / Focal Length interactively while you move the camera forward or backward, so only the perspective of the objects will change but not the general framing.
   This option works only if the main FOV parameter of the camera is active. (It wont change anything if you have the focal length active, except for the Corona camera, which works in both cases.)
8. Whenever you need, you can remove one or both bound objects by using the small buttons with an “X” next to each “Pick Object” button.

Other Considerations

If you see the clipping planes suddenly jump form one place to another while you move the camera, here’s the explanation and the solution.
That behaviour it’s because the camera might not be “seeing” the picked object anymore at some point, if it’s a mesh. So it starts to use its pivot location as a reference. So a good practice is to plan first if you will need to use a mesh or better use directly a dummy to make sure the script will always use its pivot to calculate the clipping distance.

Removing Clipping Controls / Uninstallation

To remove the custom clipping controls from a camera, use the Remove Clipping Controls button in the UI.

If you don’t have this plugin installed in your 3ds Max, and you open a scene containing a camera with this special Pro clipping controls assigned – or merge one from another file -, the corresponding rollout will show a warning message and the special controllers will be automatically removed. In that case, if you want to completely remove the additional rollout, select the camera and execute this line of code on the listener: custAttributes.delete $ 1
Then, the standard Near/Far clipping parameters will keep the previous values and you will be able to change them manually.

To uninstall the script, use the unistaller.mse file that comes with the script.

That’s all! I hope you found this tutorial helpful. Enjoy the plugin!