I can't stress enough how essential a reliable and versatile Cut tool is for direct modeling for which is the bread and butter along with extrude operations. This was always the case and now it's even more so with the latest developments of Interactive Smart Extrude and Snap Working Pivot. These two already made 3d Max faster and more pleasant to use for direct modeling and it's not hard to see that an updated Cut tool along with a versatile solution to rearrange selections into regular shapes (Circularize/Regularize) to replace the old LoopTools/Circle (link) can exponentially leverage the new workflows. They are complementary to each other to the level of necessity.
3ds Max Cut Tool is outdated, unreliable and bugged compared to its other software counterparts (such as Maya, MODO or Blender) and pretty much the worst out of the bunch. Autodesk should go beyond simply fixing these basic tools and take the lead in their development. In this sense, different cut-related operations such as cutting, slicing, inserting edge loops etc. could be unified, made more interactive, speed up and enhanced (more control, precision and visual feedback in the viewport) after a similar paradigm of that of Maya's Multi-Cut tool (link).
Implementation and functionalities
Here is a collage showing Maya's Mult-Cut tool implementation and functionalities (general options but also particular ones for each of its modes like Cut, Insert Edge Loop, Slice) powered by a simple and powerful combination of Keyboard/Mouse shortcuts and a robust but reasonably fast to work with context\marking menu.
Select after cutting
One annoying thing is, when you cut a closed shape, you might want to select it and therefore having to go in at polygon level and being careful to select all the polygons including the small triangles resulted from the cut operation. A non ideal workaround is to activate the Split option that will cut a separate element and use Element subobject level to select all with one click, doing your intended insets and extrusions with the selections then trying to weld back the vertices with a very small value. The new Multicut tool should have an option Select after cut to speed and automate this process. In the provided link Arrimus shows this workaround (video link watch tip no.3 from 3:20 onwards) .
The visual helpers and feedback
These are another refined aspects that could make this tool more pleasant to use. Here I gathered some of the use cases in Maya but C4D and Blender also have nice interaction with this tool.
Scripts for 3ds Max that offer a similar approach but that could be extended even further
miauu's Scalpel tool has a similar approach and functionalities but this only regards the cut and slice operations. Quoting from the script website it will allow you to:
On its website (link) there are videos showing all these features in action so I invite you to check them out. This script also has some very neat visual helpers same as Maya. I couldn't find more images but they are all visible in the tutorial videos
Blender 3.0 Knife Tool
Blender 3.0 got serious improvements on their Knife tool as a result of GSOC successfull project. Pretty much everything worthy to ask for such a tool:
GSoC Roundup Episode Three: Ahead of the Curve, On the Cutting Edge — Blender Developers Blog
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MY OTHER IDEAS
MODELING
UI AND VIEWPORT
OTHERS
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