Share your 3dsmax Secrets

#121

[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=eks]two:
hold ctrl+alt and try, over the time line, dragging one of the three mouse boutons (LMB, wheel, RMB) to left or right. LMB will change the begging of current time line, the wheel will just drag foward or backwards, and RMB will change the end of current time line. y-e-s, you do not need to go open time configuration and type some numbers every time you want to go some place in time!! if this is confusing, try the ctrl+alt+ (dragging mouse button left or right) over the timeline.

• Man! you are the best! this is a real good tip!!!

• Ok, listen to this: Let’s say u have an animated object with position an rotation keyed in the same frames, for example: 0-20 and u want the rotation to start from 10-20, RMB over the timeline>filters>Current transform and you will edit the keyframes of your current transform tool, i have found this very very usefull, and I/m sure you will as well

#122

great tips so far, keep em comin :slight_smile:

#123

This isn’t really a tip but rather a workflow enhancment. When working in max, I recently customized my UI according to my needs and I found if you have the command panel floating and not docking, you have a better workflow. That’s just me, not sure if anyone else does this. I just like it how I have more room to work. Ohh and also, try expert mode. It makes max full screen except for the time slider and pull down menus at the top. I just made my own shortcut keys for like the curve editor, vpost, etc. Only thing that I don’t like about it is that theres not close,minimize, or maximize buttons on the top right.

#124

Sweet Jesus… Awesome thread, dont know how I missed it for so long…9 pages already.

Well I tried to read through it and got some good tips already. As per giving out my tips, well here’s the first contribution:

  1. “Customize-Preferences-General Tab-Scene Undo level” I keep it at 50. This way when you right click on the undo button you have 50 levels of undo available. You can go as high as 500.

  2. F9 key for quick render.

  3. “+” “-” keys for resizing axis tripod/transform gizmo.

  4. “J” key to hide/unhide bounding boxes.

  5. When working in material editor, use “X” key to change from 3x2, 5x3, 6x4 slots.

  6. In render scene dialog box, next to render button at the bottom, there’s a drop down for viewports and right next to it there’s a lock button. Lock your viewport for rendering. This way whenever you render, max knows which viewport to render regardless of the viewport you’re working in.

  7. If you use teapot for testing shaders/materials, change segments to at least 12, convert it into a editable poly, go to border sub-object mode, select the gap between lid and the body, hit cap button…

Thats it for now.
Have fun maxing…

#125

• Sometimes we need to see how light afects texturing of an specific object:

1 Save the scene with a single model (your custom model)

2 Open a new scene and open material editor (m) (or u can do this in the same scene)

3 Press (o) to bring up the options while in material editor

4 In the custom sample object load the scene with your model

5 Back in material editor, in the sample type icon press and hold and select the one with the ? sign

Now your custom model is in the materials editor samples instead of the clasic sphere, you can also select in the options to load your camera so the model doesnt appear to small or to big, You can right click the material slot and select “drag / rotate” to orbit your model.

Enjoy!

#126

Great thread! Don’t know why this hasn’t been made a sticky yet. learnt so much reading this thread, but probably forgotten most of it already. Keep 'em coming. :bounce:

#127

  • If there’s not a specifique reason to work with Editable Mesh , than always use Editable Poly, because there you don’t risk of having doubbled edges (i.e. very annoying when tweaking UVWs). Or check for doubble edges in the editMesh with the STL-Check modifier

  • Look what scripts are out there. I.e. I use my smartShortcuts for (alt+1 -> alt+5) to open AND close subobject mode (just hit it again - doesn’t work with 1 ->5 keys though). If you are working a lot with mesh and poly objects, you can reduce your number of shortcuts for i.e. cutting.

  • for those that still complain about not beeing able to weld vertices in poly - you need to have an edge between vertices you want to weld. Add it when needed.

  • just something to be aware off. the polycounter doesn’t count tri-faces in polyobject - only faces.

  • right-click on the time slider to creat a key

  • right click on thr snap icon for settings dialog, right click on any transform icon for the transform-type-in dialog

  • right click of any of the time-modifing icons for settings (i.e. play)

  • if clipping planes already enabled and you still have a too-early-clipping problem switch to orthgraphic views (user view)

#128

Try FreeFireGL driver for Radeon card to improve OpenGL performance.
http://hardwarelab.ru/forsage.php (Russian language. See links at the bottom of page)

is this driver pack reliable for ATI radeon 9600xt?

#129

[

• You can Animate a hole in a mesh with a spline using shape merge cookie cutter option of the coumpound objects panel (example a projected mouth in a character)

:thumbsup:The Climax[/QUOTE]

how is this mouth projected? with a light?

#130

Here is some Reactor Tips from a Reactor freak. :argh:

[ul]
[li]When making rope simulations, you need to set the Thickness value of the rope modifier higher than 0.0 to be effected by gravity or wind. So don’t say “why my rope isn’t swinging?” before check it out.:slight_smile: [/li][li]Here is some Mass values that I got from Max Payne 2. Which use Havoc 2 engine… [/li][/ul]ALUMINUM 2.7
CARDBOARD 0.2
CONCRETE 3.1
COPPER 8.9
GLASS 2.5
GRANITE 2.7
LEAD 11.3
STEEL 7.8
TITANIUM 4.5
WATER 1.0
WOOD 0.9
HARDPLASTIC 1.4
RUBBER 0.9
[ul]
[li]Don’t trust Reactor :p[/li][/ul]

#131

Wow…lots of good stuff in this thread!

I didn’t see this little tidbit posted so I crapped up a little pic of what I mean. I never even knew this existed until a couple of days ago. Handy little tip for a little extra speed.

Enjoy!

#132

You know my friend, that was the first action I did in 3Dsmax, by accident of course. :slight_smile:

#133

another useful thing -
use CTRL-Right click to quickly create basic primitives (and some more stuff)
use ALT-Right click to switch between pivot modes (and, as well, some more stuff)
:slight_smile:

press ‘1’ to get to modifier subobject level 1 , ‘2’ for the second etc…

#134

I didn’t dig through the whole thread and maybe my hint was posted already.
I found a tip, showing how to do a shadow-only lightsetup, but with 2 lights.

here is how to do it with one :slight_smile:

1. How to do a cast-shadow-only-light
generate a light
turn on “cast shadows”
turn multilpier color to black (leave the value on 1)
in the shadow parameters change the shadow color to white!
change the shadowdensity to “-1”

Voila!

Maybe some dudes are still on the way with max 4? I wrote a tutorial some time ago, on how to install and use meshtools and CSpolytools. It handles customizing the quad menu, so it’s not too outdated, I guess :slight_smile:

2. How to install Meshtools:
http://www.ground-studios.de/stuff/meshtools/meshtools_eng.htm

cheers
Michael

#135 
• Create a Sphere and a spline to be projected (im1)

• Select the sphere and go to compound objects>ShapeMerge>Pick Shape
and select your Spline, then check the cookie cutter option (Im2)

• The projected curve is by default an instance of the original Spline,
so you can animate the vertex to get the shape u need in the correct
frame to make for example a “Lip sync” with audio

Also use a Double sided material on the sphere for the inner side.

Have phun!

#136

When modeling, add a material to the model and set a key on frame 1. Go to frame 10, reduce the material’s opacity to 0, and set another key. Instead of using X-Ray visible or transparent, you now have 10 levels of opacity by scrubbing the time slider.

#137

here a lil’ tip by me:

if you want to delete an edge but you don’t want to create a hole, press <backspace> not <delete> and the edge is deleted without to create a hole in the mesh.

hope its new and helpful to know for someone. ^_°

#138

first come to here.
i can study all kinds of things about 3ds.
thanks everyone

#139

Good tips everyone!
As you can see I made this thread sticky. Better late then never! :slight_smile:

  • Martijn
#140

Adding a Mesh Select modifier to the top of the stack speeds up Editable Polys and Meshsmooths in the viewport.

-Martin