Share your favorite tips, tricks, workflows, and secrets in 3ds Max.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello Everyone!

I wanted to make a thread about sharing your favorite tips, tricks, or secrets found within 3ds Max.  From awesome hotkey combos to those really essential tools that everyone may not know about, this is the place to share!  I've started the ball rolling below with some really cool tidbits on the particle flow presets that people may not be aware of.  

Please, share yours too! 

Best Regards,

[Swordslayer]

Well, here you go: there are several 'hidden' button functions in max:

• Rightclicking the Undo/Redo buttons on main toolbar shows the command history (most people know that)
• Rightclicking Snap buttons opens Grid/Snaps preferences.
• Rightclicking Spinner snap button brings up the main Preferences dialog (unexpected, right?).
• Rightclicking Move/Rotate buttons activates the Transform Type-In dialog
• Rightclicking the lower right viewport navigation buttons brings up the Viewport Configuration dialog

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

I might as well put another couple tips in here as well.  

Since it's sort of hard to find, I think a lot of folks don't know about the Perspective Match tools so you can more easily put 3D objects into an image or backplate.  Cool stuff!  

One more is that you can use an FFD spacewarp deformer to have a non-spherical eye that keeps the eye distorted but rotates normally.  Kinda neat.  Attached it to the post.

Best Regards,

[loganfoster]

I am a bit late to the game on this thread but one useful command that I find people overlook when modeling is "Repeat Last" (;) which will perform the last tool UI command such as Extrude, Remove, Connect, Bevel, etc. when using an Edit Poly class object. Obviously this is extremely useful when doing repetitive modeling tasks.

Some other useful modeling tips would be things such as:

- extruding open edges by holding Shift while using the Translate (move) tool, which will create a new set of connecting edges and polygons

- reuse the last command from a quad on the quad menu by pressing the 'colored square" at the quad menu origin for that quad. This is max global, so if you need to use Collapse to Poly on various objects you can do it quickly from your viewport with two clicks.

- Don't forget you have other quad menus to use if you hold CTRL (creation tools), ALT (reference coordinates such as World vs Local,, and SHIFT (snap settings) and CTRL + ALT

- many people ignore the ribbon because it takes up space, but there are some exceptionally awesome modeling tools hiding in here like swift loops, faster access to constraints, flow connect, and so forth. Even better is you can undock panels from the ribbon to make them float.

- There are some great tools in the Polydraw ribbon such as Topology which can be utilized to get a tricky shape or edge flow going properly.

- Never forget that the snapshot tool is your friend for when you want to grab a copy of your mesh at a particular frame to work from, you can get some really fantastic results by utilizing animation tools to assist with modeling through snapshot

- Learn to love the working pivot as a method help you move, or clone/duplicate a mesh without breaking the models pivot point

- Make tubes or railings easily by using the "renderable" component of the Editable Spline shapes while also leaving them as something you can easily adjust and change on a whim (and no need for complicated lofts).

[loganfoster]

The FFD modifiers are also a great tool to consider modeling with as well. They are non destructive and quite useful if you need to help rough in a shape faster in the boxing in stage or to create a nice taper later on. People should keep in mind as well that you can apply the FFD to a sub-object selection that you pass up the stack should you only want/need to affect a certain area.

[Swordslayer]

You can even apply the FFD modifier to the camera (max has 3x4 transformation matrix compared to the usual 4x4 where camera transforms are additionaly stored, so those additional transforms used to be achievable via modifiers like Skew - no longer needed but fun nevertheless).

And when you're applying modifiers to selection, you want to apply a new instanced modifier but don't want the gizmo to be stretched over the whole selection (think FFD again with an individual cage for each object), check the Use Pivot Points switch in the Modifier List dropdown first:

[melissa.lax]

Thank you 🙂 There's a whole lot of right-clicking going on? What if we left-clicked?

[melissa.lax]

Hi @loganfoster

Come on in! the party is just getting started. Make sure you've got your right-clicking down...

So I see you're from Edmonton, I guess I shouldn't complain about our -12c here in Montreal. 

Happy you joined us, please share away.

Best,

Melissa

[melissa.lax]

@Swordslayer we asked you to bring it on and you most definitely did. Thank you!

However, somehow I feel like they're may be an @AdrianWise8371 storm coming on... 

Unless we've got some hurricane action coming from @irishman_team_kilber @bob.bernstein @Ihno @StephenMF

[Swordslayer]

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@melissa.lax wrote:

Thank you 🙂 There's a whole lot of right-clicking going on? What if we left-clicked?

---

In the left-click department, there are no big surprises hidden.

But there's one that can be easily overlooked and it's the 2D Pan Zoom which is availabe if the active viewport is Perspective or Camera View:

It activates the 2D viewport zoom and switches to the Pan tool at the same time.

[AdrianWise8371]

So as I spend most of my days modelling, I thought it time I showed some of my go to moves to do the simple stuff really quickly

To start with a nice easy beginners "how do you put a hole in something" for sub divisional modelling 

[AdrianWise8371]

Do you ever create products that have cables, hoses or ropes? Here's how I quickly create rigged splines [shapes] for use as hoses and cables for products, and they're animateable  too!

[Swordslayer]

There are multiple commandline switches that you can use when running 3ds max (or when making a shortcut for it). To pick just a few:

-l: opens the last opened file
-h: shows a Display Driver Selection dialog on start
-q: quiet start, doesn't show the splash screen

[Swordslayer]

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@AdrianWise8371 wrote:

Do you ever create products that have cables, hoses or ropes? Here's how I quickly create rigged splines [shapes] for use as hoses and cables for products, and they're animateable  too!

---

Save yourself the time of doing it manually and use SplineIK for that:

[jibijib]

Using the brilliant DirectFolders application in Windows,

http://www.codesector.com/directfolders

and link it directly to the Autoback folder for when Max crashes, you will be able to pick up the recovered file before it is overwritten by Max on it's next crash. Assigning the middle button brings up bookmarks of folders - this is also a good replacement for Max's ancient file navigation which is still using Windows 98 file dialogue system by the looks of it.

[Anonymous]

Not sure if anyone has posted this one yet... 

If you import a lot of meshes from other scenes, splines, CAD, stp files etc - they quite often end up with odd properties or strange behaviour, particularly with regard to pivot centre etc.

If you draw a new box, spline etc and then attach it to the imported/problem object, it usually starts to behave itself again. 

[Swordslayer]

CTRL+ALT+LMB/MMB/RMB for sliding/scaling the timeline has already been mentioned, but there's more to the Track Bar and Time Slider. By right-clicking the Time Slider, you can add a new keyframe based on values from another frame (right-click dragging it specifies the source frame as the frame where you started dragging the slider). In the Track Bar right-clicking menu you can hide the frame numbers and show Selection Range where you can scale/reverse the selected keyframes (be aware that keyframe tangents won't get scaled properly this way, though). Copying a key is done the same way as copying other things in max, SHIFT-drag the key to its new position. You can also edit keys directly in viewport when Trajectory Key Mode is active.

[eric.paris]

Reset attributes to default

You can right click on some values (not the spinners) and select "Set to Default" or the shortcut is Ctrl+RMB (on the spinners).

[Swordslayer]

You can use any particle system within Volume Select modifier instead of the mesh node, when you enable Soft Selection:

[AdrianWise8371]

What is an LOD? what do they do and how do I use them ?

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

This is my favorite thread of all time.  Nice work everyone!  I was away a week on vacation and I come back to some amazingly great tips here.  Thank you all for contributing!  Once I catch up on my swarming inbox I will post another myself.  You are all very appreciated, this thread delivers.  
Best Regards,