> the rest have everything linked to nothing or linked to something called DUMMY and i have no idea what this means. i really need 3dsmax users to tell me quickly what it means, what is it for? am i wasting my time coding for a 3ds feature that 3ds users don't want to use?


A dummy is an object that does not consist out of polygons. It is like a fake object.
Its use however can be very helpful, especially when animating. By linking one or more object to a dummy, you can manipulate several object at once.

for example:
The animation of a rotating earth round the sun: you put a path controller on dummy so it follows the circle around the sun. Link the earth to the dummy so it also orbits the sun. now apply a rotation animation on the earth its self. This would be impossible to do without the dummy as once an object has a “path controller”, you no longer can animate the axe rotation..

Look at a dummy as a sort of "manipulator" object...