Hello fellow 3D Studio Max users! My name is Mike, I'm physically disabled, and I've been using 3D Studio Max for the better part of 15 years. Unfortunately through that time my physical disability has gotten a lot worse from where I've gone from being able to use two hands, one hand on the mouse and one hand on keyboard, to just one hand on a mouse with just the the ability to click the left mouse button. So I've come up with an idea. Although I've resorted to voice controls, macros, and shortcuts to run my favorite software there's still some issues that persist. So what does it have to do with 3D Studio Max? Well, accessibility in software is just as important as accessibility in the real world these days, because even though things may be getting more difficult for me, I still want to keep using 3D Studio Max everyday for my job...and for fun, too. I've been in the medical device field of 3D design for about a decade, I'm not the best with the software but after spending some significant time together I've come up with something that could definitely make a positive impact on the controls everyone starts out with and some, like myself, continue using their entire tenure with the software. One of the big things I noticed that I believe could have a wonderful impact for disabled users as well as new users would be to expand the Viewcube's controls. That way it would not just rotate/orbit the camera in your scene as it does now, but expanded its controls could pan and dolly your camera as well. I know what you're going to say, "but they have buttons to pan and dolly the camera already!" Yes they do, located far away from the Viewcube, where they come with a catch. The catch being that if you're in certain modes like edit poly and have the cut tool activated using the zoom/dolly button tool takes over and it deactivates the cut tool. So if you would like to make a cut around a poly model it will take substantially longer using the orbit tool button because it will constantly deactivate the cut tool, unlike using the Viewcube. The Viewcube is always active, and it doesn't deactivate whatever tools you have selected while using it which makes a big difference! The same thing happens with panning or zooming/dollying with their respective buttons, when you select them it will deactivate the tool you're using. That's why the Viewcube is so much superior to the orbit tool when editing and rotating around an object, especially if you have limited capabilities with keyboard and mouse controls. That being said, since orbit/rotate is the backbone controls of the Viewcube, it would be great if panning and zooming/dollying we're also added on. For new users it could be handy as a shortcut learning how the viewports work, but in terms of accessibility for myself for other disabled users it would absolutely increase the speed of workflow. If this explanation about using the buttons to orbit , pan and zoom while editing a model don't quite make sense I encourage you to try it yourself. Try modeling something in the edit-poly mode without using keyboard shortcuts to rotate the camera view by only using orbit, pan, and zoom buttons in the bottom right corner. And after that try doing the same thing but using the Viewcube instead of the orbit, pan, and zoom buttons. Now try to see how adding those additional controls to the Viewcube would help speed up your workflow by not deactivating the tools you're using to move the camera. If you want to make it even more snazzy maybe you can even build in another button to expand that viewport to full screen! Whoa, look out, we're getting crazy now! But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I don't want to get my hopes up... Honestly, I know that to a lot of power users this seems like a serious non-issue and disabled 3D Studio Max users represents a very small demographic. Even I've managed a way around it, it takes longer and it's annoying, but there's a way around it. And I know that other professionals, and really anybody who gets comfortable with the software does not use the Viewcube after while. But it's there, it's on by default when you install the software so it means some people are using it. When I learned about 3D software in college forever ago it was important to get the shortcuts down not just to save time but because it's more natural then hunting down a button. The Viewcube is more seen as a introductory tool for people getting used to the software, but for users like myself it does save a substantial amount of time compared to building new macros, shortcuts or hunting down the buttons even though I know they're in the same place they were yesterday. And with these simple changes it could save even more time! Believe me, I would love to be able to use the keyboard shortcuts and the mouse-wheel-click, but unfortunately my hands just don't work the way they used to. So even though we're in the future and it might be quite some time until they cure a majority of the diseases out there that will make me better at keyboard and mouse inputs, maybe in the meantime a quick fix update for this problem would just be to expand the functionality of the Viewcube!
Show More