How can I change UI of 3DS max 2017 to look like 2014?

[twelin]

I've tried unsucessfully to change the UI scheme of 2017 to resemble something I'm used to working in. Posted are screen shots from 2014 & 2017. Is this as close as I can hope to get? Exporting & importing UI theme did not seem to work. Thank you for any insight.

[keyner.chavarria]

Hello twelin,

You can change to ame-dark:

1. In the main menu choose Customize > Custom UI and Defaults Switcher.

2. Go to the UI Schemes window that appears on the far right.

3. Select another UI scheme such as ame-dark.

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

it really seems sometimes that support is not even reading the question and just reply random stuff.

how on earth should switching to dark UI help the OP at all? 

@twelin: it seems that you brought it as close as you can get. only thing different is the viewport grid colour and gradient.

[twelin]

Thank you! Yes switching to dark would only make it worse. I really dislike how muddy all of the selection buttons are now. Seems the developers didn't have 'mature' eyes in mind when they designed them.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes i wonder why they even bother to do a documentation on 3dsmax, because it seems no one reads it:

http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2017/ENU/?guid=GUID-4DAB2887-8436-4AAF-8081-81C32A3DEDA2

[twelin]

As a dutiful user who pays their subscription charges I feel I shouldn't have to go into scripts to change the interface. Software shouldn't be changed just to 'change something'.

[Anonymous]

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@twelin wrote:

As a dutiful user who pays their subscription charges I feel I shouldn't have to go into scripts to change the interface. Software shouldn't be changed just to 'change something'.

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They changed it probably to be consistent with their other DCC applications, Maya and Stingray. If you don`t like it, you can change it with this option provided.

And paying your subscription fees entitles you to only one thing: To stop paying if you are no longer satified with what provided.

[spacefrog_]

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@twelin wrote:

As a dutiful user who pays their subscription charges I feel I shouldn't have to go into scripts to change the interface. Software shouldn't be changed just to 'change something'.

---

I for one prefer the dark scheme over the light scheme. I know there are many people out there who do the same. It's just far less stress on the eyes. Regarding UI redesign: what you ask for is similar to asking for windows UI to still look the same as it did with Windows 95 or even Windows 3.1. And just give UI changes a bit time, they tend to be far easier to get acustomed to than one may think at the first glance

I do not say that Autodesk should jump to each and every current UI trend ( if they did, they would have made the new icons totally flat and colorless like the Windows 10 icons ). I really hate the new cyan colored icon scheme though, this is one of the ugliest UI brand coloring schemes in my opinion...

But such things are Autodesk wide decisions,, so one can't really blame 3ds MAx UI desginers ...

A warning regarding importing the Max 2014 UI configuration in Max 2017: you will destroy the menu and button structure for the new features when doing this, thus you NEVER should do that between different Max versions. Importing colors would be okay, but as the whole UI tech changed with Max 2017, an imported color scheme from Max 2014 or even Max 2016 certainly would make the Max 2017 UI totally unreadable

[lightcube]

I'm in the camp who dislikes the new colors and icons. It's the one aspect of 2017 that I'm disappointed with. (Otherwise, I think 2017 is definitely the best release to-date).

The new icons are actually really bad in my opinion. As everyone in my circles complains, gray on gray is hard to see... and the lack of overall color contrast in the icons forces your brain to pause longer while trying to distinguish different icons. Take, for example, the Loop and Ring icons in the Edit UVW window. In the old dialog... those icons are all very distinguishable right-away. In 2017, you have to focus and decide which is which.

But even worse, the icons have created a new batch of confusion. Take the new snap icons in the snaps toolbar. I asked several people who do not use Max to guess the meaning of the snaps icons in 2016. Except for Pivot, almost all guessed correctly at what they meant in 2016. When I did the same for 2017, only snap to grid was guessed correctly.

Worse still, the new icons add inconsistency. The new snaps icons now completely reverts many years of Snap to Edge to now be Snap to Face. Other icons actually baffle me, like snap to midpoint, etc. But it gets worse because other icons inside Max still utilize the traditional meanings... like the Editable Poly sub-objects no long match (Edge in Editable Poly is the Face icon for snaps. New Edge Icon in Edit UVW window is more like traditional edge, etc).

I absolutely love Max 2017 in general. But my personal opinion is that some really poor decisions were made with the icons and colors.

I personally want to update all the icons to the legacy ones, but then again it will cause pain when making documentation, videos and screen shots for educational purposes... and students are suddenly confused because what I'm showing isn't the Max they are using. So I'm going to trudge along in the new UI... but I'm crossing my fingers that enough people complain about it to make a classic icon view a standard option.

[I_Megaman_i]

I dont like the new icons and color scheme either, it hurts my eyes badly. why youre not giving user a choice, so that instead of working normally, i have to adjust to the new UI and waste precious time....

[Anonymous]

changing icons works fantastic. completely reversible and non destructive.

thanks for the tip. 

[Anonymous]

The new icons are terrible and user UNfriendly. Hard to see what's what. Not only colors have problem, the design of icons do not represent their function properly. Grey on grey?  An intern designer would understand the basic rules of colors better! 

As a user, I wish you don't break the good stuff and instead, create useful functions and increase the stability.  Thanks!

[Anonymous]

My way: save the buttons from 2016 in a seperate file, save the buttons from 2017 in a seperate file

When loading the buttons from 2016 inside 2017 you will get the old icons, when loading the 2017 UI buttons you'll get the new ones

What's so difficult about that? It only takes a second

[Anonymous]

What's difficult about it is you state in theory how it would work but fail to explain the procedure.

There are 2 new files in the 2017 icon folder:

IconsDark.rcc & IconsLight.rcc

These are not present in 2016, so how can switching the entire icon set be as straight forward as you suggest ?

[mythicalmuse]

In AutoCAD there are about 80 new icons to learn each year plus all the other Autodesk programs...a waste of brain memory space. The official change icons routine is painful.

[doug_bowker_3D]

This is not a solution by any means. The article you point to requires potentially dozens of steps to re-work even a small number of icons. How is this even considered a valid method of customizing a UI? We are expected to make custom scripts just to change the icons back to what they were?
Why not have AD just have a "2014 Style UI" CUI file to load? Or write their own damned script for us?

The UI is so convoluted and so badly designed it's insane! The bad parts have stayed that way since R4, and the good parts they mess with for no reason at all! Each new release of Max I have to go through and customized dozens of little and big aspects, with no way of saving it from version to another. And while we're at it, why are so many floating menus so clunky and impossible to re-size? It's like they don't even bother to adhere to the general Windows spec.

You don't see Adobe making their UI so hard to alter. You can set up a really complex custom layout in After Effects (that fills 3 screens up) in no time flat, quickly save it, do another, save it again.  And anyway- they settled on easy to understand icons along time ago and don't screw with them every couple of releases! 

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to chime in and say that I also feel the new icons are very unclear. I've attached a image that pretty much speaks for itself - I'm surprised this was approved into release at all.

[lightcube]

Those icons are some of the ones that I've specifically point out as prime examples of very bad while testing before release. Another prime example are the Snap Icons in the Snaps toolbar. Almost none of the icons actually make geometric sense. Attached is a graphic I'd made to point out 1) the new inconsistency between icons now and 2) how the snap icons themselves are just confusing (Vert Snap has just as many edges as vertices, Mid Point isn't even accurate, etc).

I know that for the older users, change can be hard. So I'm counting some of the frustration with that simple fact and personally trying to force myself to adapt to the newer UI. But I really do think that the new icons themselves are very often not designed with usability in mind.

[Anonymous]

The new look is not so bad and good refreshment. true to change it readable regardless of icons. The worst thing is that the rollup not change the color of the title. Featured titles are visually shared all the elements.
I think it was all bearable but it is something that needs to urgently provide.
IF I MISSED THAT THIS CAN BE, I WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL FOR YOUR HELP.

[bob.bernstein]

Just saw 2017 max for the first time.  Hate the new icons.  After years of developing habits, I find it UNACCEPTABLE to have me relearn my workflow just because of _____________  (no reason at all?)

In SP1, PLEASE make an update so we can have our old icons back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!