Color Code Layers for Improved Visual Organization

[RobH2]

I'm frequently turning off layers that I may not use again but want to keep them. I have to name them with a "Z_" or something to get them to sort at the bottom of the list out of the way. There are also often times that I turn off a bunch of layers and forget which ones were visible when I go to turn them back on. 

Color coding like we have in Photoshop would be helpful. I could organize so much faster and visually see instantly what I need. 

[RGhost77]

 

[RobH2]

Yea, I guess I should have explained better. My idea is more a "change" than a new feature.

The feature you point out does not work well. It's always getting truncated and we all know that those columns won't stay as you set them. They change widths and you spend more time trying to tame them that it become not worth it and give up. Each time I open Max they are different and don't have reliable memories.

They are poorly implemented and trying to manage just the width of one, you end up dragging all of them, one-at-a-time and then doing it twice more just to get them like you want them because when you get a number of them, they seem to scale from the wrong direction. When that dragging and redragging and dragging again tedium is all over, the next time you open Max, they've shifted....argggg... Again, poor implementation.  

The coloration I'm talking about would be just like Photoshops, coloration around the eyeball, on the Left side of the row so that it's visible and doesn't get lost in the right-hand columns that constantly misbehave. It's a feature that you don't have to "choose" as a column that eats up viewport space. It just works and is always accessible. 

[RGhost77]

I'm agree. Scene/Layer explorer has poor UI. Would be nice if it would be replaced with modern and fast UI. Coloring as you described also would be useful.

[JD3D_CGI]

I used a layer manager called "the onion" since before Max got it's layer manager - and I still use that script today - as long as Max has had it's ****ty, thoughtless, unresponsivehalf-assed layer manager - I've hated it.

With the Onion, you can have groups - so you can turn off whole groups of layers really quickly with a right click, change properties; rename layers - have them in an order you like, not alphabetical; quickly delete empty layers etc.

It's just so much cleaner and nicer than Max's ****ty attempt to have a layer manager like Autodesk.

[JD3D_CGI]

Look at that.

I can click a layer to turn it off... or right click to toggle the entire group. Same for setting properties etc.

[gandhics]

Well.. no thanks for "the onion". I'm all for Layer Explorer improvement. But, not like that.

[sebastian___]

I'm surprised  "the onion" still works, because I remember being very very old. I was interested in a better layer manager, but I wanted a typical one, similar with the photoshop one, with folder icons for groups and folders in folders in folders and drag and drop and so on.

Thank god for P Janssen who made Outliner and spacefrog who made it work for newer versions of max.

 JD3D_CGI what about Outliner ? It can be made super small, or big, the colors are configurable, the icons too, you can even choose the placement of the buttons and what buttons to be on the UI. 
And it has mostly everything you would need. Minus custom colors per layer or layer groups. And since it's not C++, I've heard it might be slower on huge scenes. But hopefully not slower than the native one.

[Kranos_Orphydian]

bump!