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.

[Anonymous]

@Alfred.DeFlaminis; I have made a screencast. It is in attachment. Let me know if you can play this video.

Best Regards

[Anonymous]

AD!? Don't be a lazy, make at last normal classic UI/icons for 2017max

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

Thank you very much, the movie is very clear and straightforward.  For me, the same problem exists on the Command Panel buttons with Geo, Shapes, Lights, Cameras, etc.  (Did you just search the icons folder for those ones?)   I will log this into the bug tracker to see what can be done.  I will include your video in the report.  

@mitviz,

There's a little checkbox toward the bottom that says "Apply to All Views", hopefully that would take care of it for you.  If you want to make a thread specifically about the selection issue I'd be happy to investigate the problem, offer a workaround, or log it as a bug if it is one.  I'm not 100% sure what the problem is there but I am down to help.  This thread may not be the best place for it, but let's take a look.  I have a large volume of posts right now to handle, so it may be a few days before I get to that thread but I eventually get to all of them in the general forums.  

@kris,

that is truly bizarre.  I have packaged up my icons below, the entire Icons folder.  Can you please backup your current folder and copy this folder into "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2017\UI_ln"?  This is just a test to make sure the pathing is correct.  All other readers should use @Anonymous's .zip.  

@Anonymous and @Anonymous,

2017 redid the UI with QT which was a major overhaul.  One of the results was that the viewport tabs now share the color with the contents of the tab, as shown below.  It is not clear if that will change in the future, but I don't think so.  

@Anonymous,

The functionality to customize Max is there, you're going to need to take responsibility for your own UI preferences.  I realize you don't like that answer but it's not going to change.  If you just need the old icons I can zip up the old folder for you, but replacing them is up to you.  

@Anonymous,

I think those sound like cool ideas, but if you want to flush them out a new thread would be a good idea, and I highly encourage all to use the new Feature Request board.  

To all,

Let's try to keep this about the icons, if you have other issues please start a thread and I will be there to answer it as soon as I can.  Thank you.  There are some great ideas in this thread about other areas and they won't get the discussion started buried this deep into this thread, from my experience.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

@Alfred.DeFlaminis; Yes, I have the same problem. For Geo, Shapes, Lights, Cameras, etc. it doesn't work. I found a correct path by a process of deduction. CustomControlsOptions.PrintIconPaths=true for Create icon gave me:

Path of this control's QIcon: [D:\Program Files (x86)\3ds Max 2017\UI_LN\IconsLight.rcc] CommandPanel\Create
IconSize: 20x20 (native) IconState: off
Available Files: Create_20.png, Create_25.png, Create_30.png, Create_40.png

But name of original icons set was CreateTypes_16i.bmp

I changed name of folder with separated icons to CreateTypes and after restart they were correctly replaced.

Best Regards

[kris]

@Alfred.DeFlaminis, bingo, that worked.  My light folder was in the root of UI_ln, not in the icons sub folder.  Why it worked at all is beyond me...

Kris.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

I made an improvement request about this in the tracker.  It might be that that command isn't working with nested icons, so I asked for the help file to list pathing information about the icons if possible.  Bugs take priority but it's in there now.  Thanks for the information.

@kris,

I had the same issue at first, but it looks and works great for me now.  Thanks for the confirmation!

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

@Alfred.DeFlaminis; Great idea. This kind of list will be very helpful. I'm waiting impatiently.

Best Regards

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Understood @Anonymous.  It looks like my request was moved along to the documentation team and will be addressed at some point in the future, but when exactly that is I am unsure.  Thank you for reporting it.

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Dear 3ds Max Technical Support Specialist! Tell AD lets they open source code of max, maya or at least xsi and people show you how to work

[Anonymous]

If you suggest make yourself old icons, why you do not suggest coding yourself 3d package? Just open source code at least Softimage(killed by you AD)

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous; I don't understand you. I checked it just now.  Making of one icon takes on average of two minutes

 There are around 650 icons. It means, that for dark theme you need aroun 22 hours to do that. Don't waste time whining.

I will show you my workflow:

1.Create copy of Light folder which I prepared.

2.Rename it to Dark (...\3ds max 2017\UI_LN\Icons\Dark\...)

3.Choose icon.

4.Use snipping tool to capture screenshot. I use OneNote but there is also tool in Windows.

5.Paste it to 16x16 pixel empty Corel file (Gimp or other) .

6. Set Magic Wand Mask tolerance to 2 and choose Subtracton Mode.

7.Select background.

8.Cut (CTRL+X)

9.Create second empty 16x16 pix file without background (to have alpha) and paste it.

10.Align (sometimes object is smaller than 16x16 and you have to align)

11.Use CustomControlsOptions.PrintIconPaths=true function to find path.Open right folder, select light version icon and overwrite it. You don't even need to write.

12. Go to action number 3 and repeat this process 650 times for rest of icons. That is it... Simple, isn't it?

Best Regards

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous; Especially for you I prepard Dark folder and cleaned up useless icons ( around 70 icons with word "kopia" in name, in my country it means copy).

It will help you to select right icon faster.

Best Regards

[Anonymous]

I have prepared several icons (those that can be seen when the program starts) for dark theme. Have a nice day.

Unzip it here ...\3ds max 2017\UI_LN\Icons\...

 Best Regards

[Anonymous]

Small update 😉

Scene Sets Toolbar is unchanged, because of problem with CustomControlsOptions.PrintIconPaths=true function. Dear @Alfred.DeFlaminis do you have any news about solution for this problem?

Best Regards

 .

[3d-labor]

You don´t have to go that far: AutoCAD as the initial product of AutoDESK has a great import function for all user adjustments, which works great. You will be asked during the first start of AutoCAD 2017 wether you want to use the user settings of AutoCAD 2016 and thats it. Nothing more. All works, same Icons, same position of everything, same colors, same integration of Lisp-routines (like scripts) and so on.

Needed two days to find out how to update the mental ray plugin and today, on Sunday, I try to get the same colors of my 3dsMAX2016 into 2017. Just now I found out with a text editor, that the colorfile *.clrx of 2017 has another format as the one of 2016. Still searching the ressources for other users with the same problem...

[3d-labor]

Thanks to Zaluski there was a lot of work saved for me. Zaluski, you are great!

I have only one icon which doesnt work. This is the "ToggleRibbon" command. The icon is blank, but the comand works, when I click on it.
When I use "CustomControlsOptions.PrintIconPaths=true" in the MAXscript listener I get the following message when I move the mouse over this blank icon:

"Path of this button's Icon: Could not find icon path
Bmp Icon Index: 0
Icon Index when button is pressed (if any): -1"

The curious thing is, that I can´t find a command "Toggle Ribbon" or "Ribbon Toggle" in the "Customize User Interface-->Toolbars" Window. I have compared this to MAX2016 where it is the same.

In the *.cuix file of MAX2016 i found the line
"<Item typeID="2" type="CTB_MACROBUTTON" width="0" height="0" controlID="0" macroTypeID="4" macroType="MB_TYPE_ACTION_CUSTOM" actionTableID="60545" imageID="0" imageName="Ribbon" actionID="26914" tip="Toggle Ribbon" label="" />"

It is also tha same in my 2017 installation, because I imported the settings from 2016.

In the clean install of 2017 there is this line:
"<Item typeID="2" type="CTB_MACROBUTTON" width="0" height="0" controlID="0" macroTypeID="4" macroType="MB_TYPE_ACTION_CUSTOM" actionTableID="60545" iconName="MainToolbar/ToggleRibbon" actionID="26914" tip="Toggle Ribbon" label="" />"

But in this case MAX2017 gets the icon out of the file "IconsLight.rcc"

Because I can´t find the command for "Toggle Ribbon" I´m not able to change the Icon in the Main Toolbar. Do you have any idea?

Here is an image to illustrate my further wishes to get the old icons for the scene explorer

:
The scene explorer also has new "designed" icons. I don´t know if AutoDESK has shown these icons to any user before launching MAX2017. I fear they didn´t. Look at the camera icon for example. It´s amazing, isn´t it.

I was late with the installation of MAX2017 this year. But if I had seen how much work AutoDESK did to create new icons and how much work thousands and thousands of users worked to restore the old icons I would have waited for 3dsMAX2018, where they will use the old icons again, for sure!

Best regards,

Holger

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

I do have an update, but it's incomplete.   I gather that it was intended for internal use only during development, but it got out via the support team when one of us found that info and made an article.  I've asked for the pathing information to be included in the documentation in the future.  

Hello @3d-labor,

I would bookmark this thread.   Thousands of users may be reading it, but only 13 voted for the icon replacement process to be streamlined.  Generally, that means there is little community interest.  Or, it means that method isn't universally liked and another suggestion might be needed in the feature request board.

Best Regards,

[3d-labor]

Hello Afred,

yes, you´re right. I voted for it just now. I´m afraid that only a fraction of users use the forum and a fraction of these come to the idea-page to see, what other users ideas are or to post an own idea. And some of them vote. To be honest, I also look to the idea-page very seldom. The average voting for a feature wish seems to be about 50 Voters. I don´t know the number of 3dsMAX users worldwide, but I assume you can multiply these 50 Voters with 100 to get the users, which have the same wishes...

Best regards,

Holger

[mitviz]

yes alot of people i know does not even know there is a page to vote, well they really don't care, i hardly go myself to tell you the truth, they simply think the few people who go to make wishes are enough to make changes happen, its not only on this forum but on others as well, few people request features when actually so many want the feature but just can't be bothered to request it, maybe it should be flashing on their screens on some side when they login or so, or else not many will really go

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @3d-labor and @mitviz,

Perhaps the problem is on my end in that case, I need to find a way to increase awareness of the importance of that board.  I will consider this and start thinking of a better method to get the word out for things of this nature.  Ideas welcome.

Best Regards,