The CheckMate Tools Contest challenge:

Create a MAXScript or other program that works on scenes made in 3ds Max versions prior to 2010, which checks for 3D model compatibility with the CheckMate Pro standard.

Why the CheckMate Tools Contest?

To aid CheckMate artists, TurboSquid publicly offers a suite of quality-checking tools that run within a 3D application and generate a detailed report about how well the model meets the CheckMate standard. This report enables an artist to quickly locate and fix problems in the 3D model before submitting it for CheckMate certification, delivering it to a client, or using it in an in-house pipeline.

But more CheckMate tools are needed. The reason: Many of our CheckMate artists purposely use versions of 3ds Max prior to 2010 to provide compatibility in the 3D models they create for our customers, with some going as far back as v7. We need CheckMate Tools for these artists!

The CheckMate Tools Contest calls for a tool that checks 3D scenes created in 3ds Max versions prior to 2010, checking for as many of the CheckMate Pro standard points as possible. This is a challenge because in v2010, 3ds Max introduced XView, a feature that automatically performs many of the functions required to inspect a model for CheckMate Pro readiness. This made it very easy to write a CheckMate Tool for post-2010 3ds Max models, but not so much for pre-2010.

Target Features

As contest entries, we'd like to see utilities that produce as many of these output points as possible for the 3ds Max scene. You may submit more than one entry that covers different target features.

Object Information

List information about each object in the scene. You may also add totals for the entire scene.

1. Number of ngons
2. Number of isolated vertices 
3. Number of overlapping (coincident) vertices
4. Number of overlapping faces 
5. Number of overlapping UV faces 
6. Polygon Count/Vertex Count. Count should be for base object, with no TurboSmooth/Meshsmooth modifiers. If objects have these modifiers, the tool needs to somehow get the count as if they weren't applied.

Flag objects with these problems:

1. Faces with flipped normals
2. Hidden objects
3. Not grouped or part of a hierarchy
4. Non-100% scale at the object level
5. Default object names
6. Default material names assigned to object
7. No materials assigned
8. Assigned materials are missing bitmaps; include names of missing bitmaps
9. Number of Quads in entire scene
10. Number of Tris in entire scene
11. Compute percentage of Tris to total number of Polys
12. Render camera views
13. Screen capture top/side/front views
14. Capture all messages displayed when opening the file

Scene Information

Interactive Mode

One target features is an interactive mode that allows the user to select individual objects that have problems via the tool's output. The interactive mode could allow for iterative updates of just the offending objects, so that the artist can work to repair objects and check them again without running the entire script.

Contest Entry Requirements

For the CheckMate Tool contest, the tool must meet certain requirements, as listed below.

Eligibility

Entrants must be TurboSquid members aged 18 and over at time of entry. Please see the official contest rules for more details on eligibility.

Version

The CheckMate Tool must be a program that checks models for CheckMate Pro compatibility in any earlier version of max prior to 2010.  We will test your tool on versions back to max 7. You don't have to own all these versions and test this yourself to participate. However, you must state the earliest tested version on the contest page.

Running the Script

In order for your entry to qualify for the contest, we must be able to run the script as an in-application script while the 3D model is loaded.

The script must generate a report that the artist can easily read and follow. We do this as an HTML with our tools, but your output does not have to be HTML.

Speed of script running time is of particular importance in judging entries. In general, speed is considered more important than a pretty User Interface. But ideally, we want to see both.

Header Comments

Please include this information in comments at the start of the script:

• Name of script, date created
• Brief description of what it does
• Earliest version of 3ds Max it works in
• Your name, TurboSquid member name, email
• Basic instructions on how to install and use the script and interpret the results. Ideally, once the script starts running, the user will understand it without further instruction. Tip: If your instructions are very long, you might consider simplifying or improving your script's UI or output so you don't need such long instructions.
• Whether the script supports Batch Mode
• Information the script outputs in the HTML file
• Where it puts the HTML file (how the file is named, how to find the folder)

Inline Comments

Script should be adequately commented, in such a way that another programmer can easily follow the script's flow and logic.

Creativity

We encourage creative solutions to the problem of determining these 3D model attributes. In addition to an accurate report that hits as many of the Output requirements as possible, entries will be judged on:

• Elegance of solution
• Intelligent User Interface
• Ease of Use
• Clean, readable output
• Speed of script running time

We have no preset ideas of how the User Interface should look. Ideally, a user doesn't need to read any documentation except perhaps to install the script. They should be able to simply look at the UI and know what to do.

Multiple Entries

You may submit as many entries to the contest as you like. Multiple entries must:

• Be materially different from one another, such as having a completely different User Interface or HTML format. Submitting multiple entries which are very similar will be considered "spamming" and will disqualify all your entries.
• Have different filenames, so we can tell your entries apart.

Resources

You may download our existing 3ds Max 2010+ MAXScripts from our CheckMate Tools page and use code from these scripts in your entry. In running these scripts, you can see how we formatted our HTML files. You may use the same HTML format, or improve upon it with your own design.

Aside from code from the TurboSquid scripts, the entry should be all your own work; your contest submission must not use portions of code that were written by someone else unless you have permission to do so.