COM/DCOM Server Control Utility

Command entry:

Utilities panel

Utilities rollout

More button

COM/DCOM Server Control

The COM/DCOM Server Control utility supports plug-ins and third-party programs that use the COM (Component Object Model). The idea behind the COM is to expose the core of 3ds Max so applications can invoke 3ds Max to generate images.

The COM facility is intended for application developers. For more information about applications development with 3ds Max, see the description of the COM object interface in the help file (3dsMaxSDKFull.chm) for the 3ds Max Plug-In Software Development Kit (SDK).

Procedures

To register 3ds Max as a DCOM server:

Start 3ds Max and go to the Utilities panel. Click More, choose COM/DCOM Server Control, and then click OK.
If the button in the COM/DCOM Server Control rollout says Register, then click it. If it says Unregister, then do nothing, as 3ds Max is already registered.
Now 3ds Max is registered as a DCOM server and an instance of it can be created from any COM client.

NoteNot all products include this utility. You can build it from the source located in \maxsdk\samples\utility\comsrv\. Copy the resulting comsrvui.dlu to the 3ds Max \plugins directory.

It is also possible to register and unregister from the command line. There are two command-line options that can be passed to 3ds Max:

3dsmax -RegisterMAXRenderer

3dsmax -UnregisterMAXRenderer