Don't inherit parameters on object creation

[aaronfross]

Hi,

3ds Max has an annoyingly "helpful" behavior that's been a thorn in my side for 20 years. Newly created objects inherit the parameter values of the most recently adjusted object of the same type. I.e. I create a Plane, give it 1000 segments. Then I create another Plane, and it starts out with 1000 segments.

I'm sure the initial developers thought this was a time saver. In some cases, that's true. But more often, it's a time waster. And it can be a performance killer.

This behavior is something that I should be able to opt out of. Just a Preference that says "don't inherit parameters on object creation" is all that's needed. Newly created objects have factory-default parameter values.

Thanks,

Aaron

[visualist]

This is a good topic.

Although I think the functionality which you described, sometimes comes in handy.  A counterexample is, e.g. Sweep Modifier does not inherit the last value, it always starts with baked value 6 by 4, for example if working in Meters as default units, if I put a Sweep modifier onto a Spline, it always starts with 6 meter by 4 meter Angle profile. In this case, I would be more happy if it would inherit the last value I used, for example 0,1 X 0,1 m rectangle.

I think a good solution would be a tick in the Preferences tab, like "Use Real-World Texture Coordinates" has, which becomes inherited to all newly created objects. Or a bit more advanced this functionality could be, if there was a whole options tab, where you could find all the default types of objects, and their parameters, and you could override them one by one, which one to inherit, and which one not to.

I think 3ds Max has just too little customizability in these areas, and if it does not take too much effort to implement these kind of options, it would be very nice. I mean, how complex 3dsMax is? The Preference Settings Window has WAY too small amount of options!

[Jan_Brana]

Make the behaviour optional through Preferences sounds handy.

[aaronfross]

Creating primitives and adding modifiers are two different things, so they should have two different preferences, I guess.

In my opinion, disabling inheritance on new primitives to avoid performance and workflow bottlenecks should be the priority.

[aaronfross]

I just learned that this problem goes even deeper. If I even SELECT an Arnold light in the scene, then that light's parameters are inherited by the next Arnold light I create. This is just terrible design. The mere SELECTION of an object stores all of that object's parameters in memory and then applies those parameters to the next object of that type to be created.

I'm sure that in some rare circumstances that behavior might be helpful, but it most certainly is not helpful to me. It's a big waste of time to restore a bunch of parameters that never should have been changed in the first place. And since the Type of an Arnold light determines the method of object creation, the inheritance of parameters causes problems before the new object even exists. For example, if I select a Skydome light, then the next Arnold light will be a Skydome instead of the default, which is Quad. This means the method for creating the light is different. The Quad light has a target by default; the Skydome has no target. Under these conditions, the user clicks and drags expecting to see a light and a target, but only gets a light, without a target.

Please, seriously, fix this long-standing issue. I know it's not a bug, it's a feature. A super misguided feature.