Share your 3dsmax Secrets

#141

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

- Martijn"

AT LAST!!

thanks Magicm:) !

#142

Sorry but I couldn’t resist to say this; “do all CGTalk moderators use some kind of stick to make those threads sticky?”

LOL:D

(I know… this was the wost joke on the cgtalk)

#143

Due to the fact, that the viewport background function in max is buggy since ever (especially when you switch between single and 4 window layout) I prefer to use planes to map the blue prints on and place them in the correct scale into the scene.
The problem is you need shaded view, to see the mapping of the bluprints, but wireframemode, to adjust the mesh to them.
My workaround are two buttons, one that turn on the wireoption of the material in slot 1 of the mateditor, the other turns it off. the script behindthebuttonsis only 1 line long and easyto record with the macrorecorder. While I’m working in shaded view the whole time, I can fast and simply switch between solid and wire with these buttons.

Under Customize -> Preferences -> Viewports -> configure Driver, check “Match Bitmap as close as Possible” to get higher textur resolution in viewport.

if you didn’t get it, check the image :wink:

cheers
Michael

#144

Another solution to the problem DerPapa mentions is to make the object see-through. This is under the object properties (right click). I’ve got that on a keyboard shortcut as I use it so much. You can also turn on edged faces at the same time to see the wireframe too. Toggle ‘edges only’ to see the triangulation too.

#145

and yet another way to do it as I found out thanks to Conny, is to use layers.

Set the blueprints in a own layer, and the model in another.

In the model layer, set it’s layer properties on display to wire frame.
And on the models object properties change it’s display properties to “By Layer”

That way you can display the object as a wireframe even if you use a complex material, like multi/subobject material. And you will still be able to view your textured planes.

#146

ALT + X

:cool:

G…

#147

Hey Sigge! Nice one! but switching between wire and shaded view is not so easy this way, is it?
I personally have shade/wire toggle on Ctrl+Space (shade selected toggle on Ctrl+Alt+Space) and switch between both modes all the time during modelling.

Michael

#148

Please Delete this post

#149

In track view if you want to move a point in one axis only (ie horizontaly or verticaly) then hold CTRL and click on the point then move in the desired direction.

NOTE: CTRL is also used to select multiple point of course so make sure none are already selected otherwise you will be moving the last point selected AS WELL.

Ev

#150

Can I ask here why is it faster like this?

#151

Lots of good tips here! :thumbsup: Haven’t read them all yet, but that’ll come.

Here’s one that I discovered recently, don’t know if it’s been posted yet.

You can drag and drop image files from the windows explorer into material slots, it’ll automaticly make it a bitmap material.

#152

I have a similar script that runs through multi/sub materials to toggle that wire parameter.
But I investigated the layers briefly, and it wouldn’t be that hard to write a script for it.

These are lines one would use:

To get current active layer
layer = layermanager.current

and to set the layer display mode
layer.display = #wireframe
layer.display = #viewport

One just have to remember to set the objects display properties to “by layer”… which I forgot when first trying it out in the maxscript listener :slight_smile:

#153

Using Light Infinite (base) Shader in MentalRay light is much more faster as mr ray traced shadows and you can control area parametres normally as with ray traced shadows.
(uncheck normal shadows when using this)

#154

Check out this thread, very interesting read about all thing Epoly and Emesh:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=146797

  • R
#155

Here’s a couple of tips that I don’t think have been mentioned.

If you have viewport clipping problems, like clipping objects to early, right-click in the top-left of the viewport and turn on Viewport clipping. Now you get a slider on the right-hand side where you can reduce or increase the clipping.

Another one is if you’ve used bitmaps in your scene that reside all over your computer and network and you want to back it up, you can save a zip file with the max scene and all the maps used by clicking File-Archive-Archive.

Excellent thread btw.

#156

Just an addition to the viewport clipping thing. If you still get that damn clipping for some reason (happens to alot of users w/ the ATI Radeon Cards) go to the top of the viewport like stated before and right click> and go to Configure> and bump up your field of view. THe view may distort and it takes a little time to get just right but it does work. Great Thread BTW.

#157

Here is something I recently learned…
Do you know that actually you can use ring, loop, grow, and shrink functions to select vertices while skining a character. It really makes skinning easy, especially excluding finger vertex to each other…

All you need to is open up a new maxscript window, write the script and evulate it.(ctrl+e) Then the “ring, loop, grow, shrink” functions will appear in the “skinutils” category in the customize interface. So you may use them in quad menu.

Here are the script…

macroScript GrowSkinSel category:“SkinUtils”
(
on isVisible return selection.count == 1 and classof (modPanel.getCurrentObject()) == Skin
on execute do skinUtils.GrowSelection $
)

macroScript ShrinkSkinSel category:“SkinUtils”
(
on isVisible return selection.count == 1 and classof (modPanel.getCurrentObject()) == Skin
on execute do skinUtils.ShrinkSelection $
)

macroScript LoopSkinSel category:“SkinUtils”
(
on isVisible return selection.count == 1 and classof (modPanel.getCurrentObject()) == Skin
on execute do skinUtils.LoopSelection $
)

macroScript RingSkinSel category:“SkinUtils”
(
on isVisible return selection.count == 1 and classof (modPanel.getCurrentObject()) == Skin
on execute do skinUtils.RingSelection $
)

Very special thanks to Kelcey Privett and Borislav ‘Bobo’ Petrov for this.:slight_smile:

#158

If you have a number of instances of an object and you want to convert all of them to editable poly, don’t just right click and use the convert to poly. If you do so only the one selected will be converted. Instead, add add a modifier “turn to poly” then collapse to the turn to poly modifier. This will preserve the instance relationship.

I use instanced renderable splines a lot to rough out model proportions. Under the rendering roll out of the editable spline I make them 4 sided and angle at 45°. Once the proportions are looking good, I add the “turn to poly modifier” as described above.

#159

select a edge, click ring in e-poly, click connect… :slight_smile:

#160

above the modifier stack you can type in the first letter of the modifier you’re looking for and max proposes…