Active Shade Access

The following functions provide access to the rendered image of the Active Shade feature, and a way to close Active Shade. Available in 3ds Max 2015 and higher.

<bitmap>GetActiveShadeBitmap  [wait:<bool>] [timeout:<float>] [result:&result]

If ActiveShade is active, returns a copy of the Bitmap value containing the current ActiveShade render result.

If no ActiveShade view is active, returns undefined.

If the optional keyword wait: is passes as True, the function will wait for the rendering to end before returning the bitmap. If not specified or set to False, the current bitmap will be returned immediately.

If the optional keyword timeout: is specified and wait: is set to True, the function will wait up to the specified number of seconds. If the rendering has not finished until then, it will return without waiting for it to finish.

If the optional keyword result: is specified, the by-reference out variable &result will be set to one of the following:

#done - the render completed, or if wait: was set to False or not specified, the current bitmap was returned without waiting.

#waitTimeout - the timeout threshold (if specified via timeout: keyword) was reached before completing the rendering.

#error - the rendering did not even start due to an error.

<void>CloseActiveShade()

Closes the ActiveShade window if it is open.

Does nothing if no ActiveShade window is open.

Returns OK in both cases.