MAYA to MAX, Hold and Release Shortcut style?

#1

coming from MAYA, we have a keyboard shortcut where you Hold a key to activate a Snap and once you release the keyboard key then the snap deactivates

is that something doable to set in MAX?

Thanks

#2

Not without scripting AFAIK, and I’m not sure maxscripts can do it without dotnet or Python stuff. You should be able to do it easily with Autoit/Autohotkey however.

#3

Not sure, but you are aware of right-clicking the snap-icon for a plethora of snap-options in Max?

You are aware that ‘s’ enables and disables snaps? It is a toggle switch though.

#4

yes i know that and has been using it as well.

it is just when some situation, Maya requires less clicks that max, for instance:

say I want to snap a vertex using snap with axis constrains.

  1. Select the vertex
  2. Activate snap (Press S)
  3. (Press space bar) to lock the object (so that u dont need to zoom in and dive into the vertex) if I dont use space bar, trying to click a vertex with snaps often misses the vertex and accidentally click other things.
  4. click the area u want to snap to (left click)
  5. Unlock selection (Press spacebar)
  6. Deactivate snap (Press S Again)

see total 5 Clicks,

compare to Maya:

  1. select the vertex
  2. middle click to the area u want to snap to while holding “V”
  3. Release the “V” and done.

basically 1 click. (hold and release shortcut doesnt requires u to click 2 times like toggle. instead when u release the key, it toggles the command automatically)

Thank you

#5

You’re overcomplicating things greatly. It can be a single click and drag operation in Max if you understand how it works. It can easily be done with zero keys and only one click and drag. It can’t possibly get any simpler or more optimized than that. Snaps in Max are much simpler and more powerful than Maya once you understand how to use them.

For snapping, select the axis’ you wan to be constrained to on the move axis tripod, which are shown highlighted in yellow. Or, using shift + right click, disable ‘Enable Axis Constraints in Snaps’ if you want no constraints(3d snapping). Now, with nothing selected, just click-hold on a vert and drag it to the vert you want to snap to.

If you want to move a selection of verts, locking can be helpful because the axis tripod can get in the way if the vert you want to snap is near the selection center(not an issue if you’re snapping unconstrained). If you want to snap from a vert that isn’t part of the selection, selection lock is needed to prevent deselection. Otherwise, same thing, make a selection of verts(or objects), hover near the vert you want to snap from so the yellow snap preview cross is visible, click-hold and drag to the vert you want to snap to. Alternatively, you can set a hotkey to toggle the axis tripod so it doesn’t get in the way. I set that to ‘x’ key and with that and ‘s’ to toggle snaps things become very easy.