Determine object category (Generator, Deformer, etc.) via Python

[gheyret]

Hi everyone, long time no see!

I'm currently using c4d.utils.ViewportSelect.PickObject to pick the object under the mouse cursor, and then I want to determine which category it belongs to—such as Polygon Object, Deformer, or Generator. I'm referring to the kind of classification used in the Selection Filter, not the c4d.Obase type.

I thought about manually creating Python lists containing all the IDs for Generators, Deformers, Fields, etc., but that seems cumbersome and hard to maintain.

So my question is: is there a way to determine which high-level category (like those in the Selection Filter) a given object belongs to?

[m_adam]

Hey the internal function is not exposed in Python neither in C++. Sadly the function also use a function that is only exposed in C++ with no proper workaround.

Here is the C++ implementation of the function

inline cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY ObjectToCategory(const cinema::BaseObject& object)
{
	return ObjectToCategory(object.GetType(), object.GetInfo());
}

inline cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY ObjectToCategory(cinema::Int32 type, cinema::Int32 objectInfo)
{
	cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::OTHER;

	switch (type)
	{
		case Oweighteffector:	category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::DEFORMER;		break; // FIX[4850]
		case Ojoint:					category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::JOINT;				break; // FIX[4853]
		case Onull:						category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::NULLOBJECT;	break;
		case Opolygon:				category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::POLYGON;			break;
		case Osds:						category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::HYPERNURBS;	break;
		case Ocamera:				
		case Orscamera:
			category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::CAMERA; break;
		case Olight:				
		case Orslight:
			category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::LIGHT; 
			break;

		case Oenvironment:
		case Oforeground:
		case Obackground:
		case Ofloor:
		case Osky:
		case Ostage:
		case Oselection:				category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::SCENE; break;

		case Oworkplane:				category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::GRID; break;

		case 1001414: // ID_TP_PARTICLEGEOMETRY
		case Ofpgroup: // new particle group
		case Ofpmultigroup: // new particle multi group
		case Oparticle:					category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::PARTICLE; break;

		case Ovolume:
		case Osimulationscene:
		// ITEM#128166 Alembic: Viewport and Selection Filter recognizes it as Spline
		case Oalembicgenerator:	category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::GENERATOR; break;

			// ITEM#9437 MoGraph and Spline Display Filter
		case Omgcloner:					category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::GENERATOR; break; // Omgcloner
		case Ohair: 						category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::HAIR; break; // Ohair

		default:
		{
			// This function is not exposed in Python, so use objectInfo directly
			if (!cinema::C4DOS_Bo->ObjectTypeToCategory(type, category))
			{
				// ITEM#133494 Spline filter doesn't filter splines
				// i gave ISSPLINE the highest priority back and added switches for alembic and cloner generators above
				if (objectInfo & OBJECT_ISSPLINE)
					category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::SPLINE;
				else if (objectInfo & OBJECT_GENERATOR)
					category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::GENERATOR;
				else if (objectInfo & OBJECT_MODIFIER)
					category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::DEFORMER;
				else if (objectInfo & OBJECT_PARTICLEMODIFIER)
					category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::PARTICLE;
				else if (objectInfo & OBJECT_FIELDOBJECT)
					category = cinema::OBJECTCATEGORY::FIELD;
			}
			break;
		}
	}

	return category;
}

With that's said I've made a note for myself to implement this function in Python (no ETA).
Cheers,
Maxime.

[gheyret]

Thank you for the C++ code—it's been very helpful!
Cheers！