Share your 3dsmax Secrets

#401

ok after reading the 27 sites :deal: only one small tip is left:

i have on F4 “display selected with edges”, not “View edged faces toggle” (its now on alt F4)
most of the time (in big scenes) i only want to see the edges of the obj I edit…

peace dD

#402

You kiddind ?:rolleyes:

#403

"i have on F4 “display selected with edges”
I CAN’T belive it!!! Man, this tool exists!!!:eek: :eek: :eek:

After almost 8 years using max, and after added to their wish list, you come with this one…

One of the best tips for sure…

Thanks a lot man!

Regards,

Jr.

#404

Exploring your own custom hotkey layout is also a plus. :rolleyes:

#405

I can’t review al the thread, but i hope this tip could be interesting for someone.

Lately i been working in a large scene, (was a detailed pipeline in a bulding), and when i make render test i figured it out of when you make the render with objects selected, the first process of render (object counting) takes more time than the same scene with the objects unselected.

In short: for speed up your large scene make the render with the objects unselected.

#406

maybe it’s not a secret but anyways…does max have any easter eggs? :sad:

#407

After working a while with a 3Ds MAX 7 I’ve noticed a minor tweak on Plane object, it has new parameter - “Render multipliers”. With this kind of control you can make an “infinite plane” or even ground with detailed displacament map (by using density value) without affecting perfomance of viewports. It’s realy long awaited tweak, so if you didn’t noticed it, it’s time to do so :bounce:

#408

If you are having problems with zooming and the viewport clipping in perspective view:
Many solutions are to manually use the viewport clipping (right click viewport label), this still doesn’t help the fast zooming on small objects. Or switch to user view.

Erase the 3dsmax.ini in the 3dsmax root.
I was having problems with objects that are 5", which isn’t small at all. After erasing 3dsmax.ini and restarting I can now smoothly zoom into objects smaller than .25" w/o problems. This might have something to do with scene scale / world scale. (I still don’t know why user view zooms perfectly while perpective does not).

#409

I think many people won’t like to erase this file, because it contains some parameter they’ll have to define again. Yet I bet you can find there the lines that trouble you and treat them.

user view, as a 2d view after all, zooms perfectly because it’s a 2d view, ahm, while a prespective view, doesn’t zoom, but draws the cammera near and away from a point - the computer doesn’t necessary know what’s the object you’re working on and what the scale of it (or of the details that are interest you). - If i remember right, choosing the object you’re working on and pressing z, may solve your problems.

#410

Few things I get asked a lot:

how to get particles to look really fine in the viewport. I use heidi opposed to hw for particles, it’s slightly faster and my particles are 10’s smaller with dots, so you can see really fine particle passes.

Everyone asks me what kind of super computer I’m using, it’s only just occurred to me recently what they’re referring to. I usually turn off real time with particles, by right clicking on the play button and turning real time off it’ll not force the playback to keep up with the real time (24fps etc.) but rather as fast as it can go. So that works great for particles since if they get exponentially slower it still shows all the particles, it stops it from causing crashes and stuffing up, and also means you see everything going on, rather than it skipping frames and freaking out.

I use the script listener a lot, keep it open even if you don’t script, you can enable the listener and then pay attention to what it’s doing. If you have 50 increments of particle systems or even bones, you can select them all and apply the same lines in the command line to all of them with a few wildcards to save you time in the long run. Just basic stuff there.

fx wise I don’t always use fancy solutions, I’ll use little boxes or tetra’s when necessary, hell I’m working on a movie right now which one of the big money sequences I’m not using any in house fluids software (well for this bit anyway) or any fancy raymarchers, just lots of lilttle boxes for water foam and other crap like that. A lot of old school stuff gets overlooked. I was amazed when I first went to Blur Studios that some of the coolest effects they were pulling out that looked Aura’esk were just parray’s with spheres. Sometime’s I’ll render non anti-aliased little squares (heaps of them) and mess with them in 2D to get kickass fire or smoke, that renders almost real time.

Build things to scale… not necessarily real world scale… but max SUCKS when it comes to scales. FX especially, wind turbulences etc. are very sensitive. It’s good to set a default generic scene scale for everyone with your team to work with, otherwise you’re screwed when everything goes through past animation to you and you’re suddenly realizing that the characters are 200’ tall and you can’t size them down easily. Usually good to work out your scale and then create a generic human model or spline that you use as a reference whenever working with scenes. I usually work in meters and treat 5 or so default spheres (like type sphere() in the listener) as the size of a human, turbulence works perfectly at that scale. Where I work now we’ve scripted a default human we can drag out as a primitive when checking scales etc.

There’s a lot that can be done in 2D, so don’t f## with things in 3D more than they need to, and it’s also good to comp your own stuff so you can see how it’s going to look, it also means you can pick up errors quicker that might be encountered… so as forgetting to check that your scene’s timing isn’t on NTSC when everyone else is working at 24fps :wink: Which is also another point about rendering, it’s always good to check you’re rendering to the right dir, you haven’t got some giant teapot accidentally unhidden etc. I’ve had people work under me who show me stuff in dailies the next day oblivious to the fact there’s a giant pink cube right in front of the camera and think that it was part of the scene that was meant to be rendered… !!.. anyway so much stuff can go wrong with rendering, it’s always good to stick around those 15 mins and check 2-3 frames (and yes not just 1) render… you never know what kind of crap could pop up.

There’s dozens of other stuff that can go wrong, so always good to keep that in mind.

more to come next time I have a min

#411

Allan Mckay Everybody. Thanks Man.

:applause: :applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause::applause:

#412

  • To boost your workflow, as ppl already said,try putting all shotcuts on your mind. BUT, to have it faster, try putting all of them on the keyboard in a way that you don need to move your hand away from the mouse (or else your shortcuts won’t be that useful, you would spend the same time that if you clicked the tool button).
    so, ctrl+alt+shift are your friends when customizing your max.

  • I read here that someone had alt+1 - 5 the coordinates systems. I’d advise ctrl+alt 1-5 (alt+ 1 = parameter editor; alt 2 = parameter collector. VERY usefull for rigging)

  • a real basic one: DARK THEME FOR MAX! I’ve been in max for 2 years, but only 6 months were productive. From these 6 months, my work has been much faster since the day i’ve changed to that dark theme! eyes don’t get tired, you are able to stay much more time working, your eye won’t get tired.

  • Non-max - Walk around the place every 1 - 2 hours of work. You wouldn’t like your kidneys or your heart to get wrecked just because you are a hard working person.

#413

Hey csDevil was agreat tip, that’s about the Max dark scheme, your are rigth!, Oh! my poor eyes sorry for all those years with the brigther scheme.:thumbsup:

#414

This isn’t heavy scripting or anything… useful command for writing quick shortcuts to other apps inside of max is shelllaunch…

Basically if you wanted to make a buttom to view your preview in framecycler, or load photoshop from inside max, notepad for writing notes, bring up your schedule or whatever you need, you can do all of this fairly easily. Just means you don’t need to minimize all your work to find and run something.

so for instance lets say you wanted to use mediaplayer2 instead of the chunky mediaplayer 10 to view your preview, simple and easy to just adjust with assosiations but again it might just be a more max specific thing…

lets just say it was located in C:\windows\mediaplayer2.exe…
write a quick line in the script listener…
shelllaunch “C:\windows\mediaplayer2.exe” “C:\3dsmax7\previews_scene.avi”

you can put any additional flags or your location of your preview file etc. in the additional “” quotes, so if it were to loop -r could be an additional flag on top of that. anyway just useful little bits of info, so you can load apps or do whatever you needed. Lets say you’re low on space you could tell a button to clear your glu3d cache or something :wink:

So just thought I’d throw another one in.

Cheers,

-AM

#415

i want to know why when i move the vertices of a model clone…then i set it as a morph target the target doesn’t work

#416

Great post!

My 2 cents:

Using the layer manager and object propertie menu it’s possible to get more than one shading type at the same time in the viewport. Like a modelsheet in shade mode and the model in wireframe.

Just go over a layer on layer Manager, and enter on the layer properties. There you will find a Display parameter, where you will choose from a list the display type desired for that group. To see the result in the viewport, make sure that your objects have the display properties (over object properties), set to: “by Layer”

Hope this is undestandable!
Sorry for my english!

#417

This problem also bugged me. I found a macro script (can’t recall where) that sets the Viewport FOV to 1. Save the following code as a .ms file in your Max\Scripts folder and then create a button to point to the .ms. Works for me :slight_smile:

 macroScript FovTo1_toggle
 category: "FOV Reset"
 
 (
 cursel = $
 Vfov = getViewfov()
 Cam = Freecamera isSelected:on
 actionMan.executeAction 0 "40249"
 if Vfov == 1 then Cam.fov =45 else Cam.fov = 1
 actionMan.executeAction 0 "40068"
 max vpt camera
 delete Cam
 if cursel != undefined do select cursel
 )

A warning though, its best to use this only on the Persp view, otherwise the active viewport will become a Persp.
#418

actually, animators have lots of friends in max. but if you are tweaking an animation, and maybe you want to tweak the position of many keyframes, you can do it easily in the motion panel, trajectory button and select sub-object keys (or press “1” to enter/exit first sub-object level).

you can even select multiple objects and edit as many keys you want of them simultaneously. (you´ll get a bit messy viewport but easily it´s doable :)).

   eks

PS: binding a key to “show trajectories toggle” is obviusly very helpfull anytime you are animating.

#419

I’ve just finished reading all 28 pages… WOW so much useful info!!! (rubs eyes) Thanks all

This is not so much a secret, but a tip for re-locating the posts you read here (or elsewhere)

Here’s how to add them to the Assest browser favorites so you can relocate easily and view them in max:

  1. Highlight and copy the url for page one of this thread by highlighting and pressing CTRL+C (copy)
  2. Click the Utilites tab (hammer), then the [Assest Broswer] button.
  3. Click in the Assest browser address bar to locate the cursor there and press CTRL+P (paste)
  4. Once the page has loaded, click the “Add to favorites bar” folder icon (left of address bar)
  5. In the custom label section name the shortcut “Max Secrets” or whatever you like.
  6. Now as you read through the thread, if you see a post you want to remember, right click on the post number eg #312, open in new window (iexplorer)
  7. Copy the url and paste it to the assest browser address bar and add to favorites
  8. Name it something useful, eg SpeedyNav

This way you can quickly relocate the tips/secrets from within max and makes them a lot easier to find if you have heaps of favorites in your normal web broswer.

You can also use a local html file, i.e one stored on your hard drive or network.

Re-read them from time to time so as to see if you’ve remembered to use them.

If you want to delete one because you’ve mastered it, right click on the tab for the shortcut and select delete, careful not to select delete all.

I wish I had done this from the start, lol, oh well page one here I come!

Just one last tip, you won’t know how much you need a second monitor till you’ve got one! You can float all your toolbars on to the second monitor and just have the viewport, menu bar and trackbar etc on your main monitor. 3 monitors are even better!!!

#420

hi, I’m a total rookie so sorry if i’m asking questions in the wrong place…

Got a problem been bothering me in a short animation i’m doing:

All i want to do is make a box do a really small hop forward, bounce a couple times and rest again.

How come when i bounce the box on a flat (plane like) secondary box (using dynamics), when it settles it starts to sink!!!

It’s really annoying me, so any assistance would be appreciated

Cheers,
Alan