Beginner: adjusting zoom to fit selected geometry

[Anonymous]

As you can see below, I am trying to find a fundamental solution for fitting tiny selections of faces/edges/vertices that I am zooming in to in the workspace. I previously made a similar post about this but, I wasn't specific enough with my question. Wanted to be as clear as I could be here in the video below (no sound).

I am trying to have this small selection zoomed in enough to fit the dimensions of the workspace window. As you can see, I try using a variety of methods: the "Z" shortcut to zoom extents, zooming in regularly (middle mouse scroll) or zooming with zoom tool selected in the bottom right hand corner of 3DS max window; I can only zoom in to an uncomfortable extent of seeing the selection from very far way. Also, the more zoomed in something is the more sensitive it is when rotating and zooming in on aforementioned faces/edges/vertices.

[PropChad]

Looks like you are running into clipping. First thing is to make sure you are modeling in a proper scale to your scene units (not display units). If you are set on meters, yet are only modeling something a few cm tall, you will run into this quite often. Zooming works at times, but to make it work better, make sure to hit Z first, this will reset your screen view, then zoom. You can also work in ortho view instead of perspective. If you don't have anything in the way, this works great as you won't zoom through any objects.

To adjust the clipping on your viewport: in the upper left part of your viewport, click on the Perspective text. A menu should appear, near the bottom is Viewport Clipping. Click that to turn on Viewport Clipping settings. Once on, you'll see a yellow line on the right hand of your screen. Near the top and bottom are triangles, these are sliders. If you slide the bottom one all the way down, it should remove the clipping you are running into. You will still get clipping at extremes, but it does solve most of those issues. These settings are also handy to clip stuff far away from you while you animate, so you can adjust the top one down until only stuff you are focused on is visible, this will help with playback speed.

The other thing you can do, instead of zooming in, is change the field of view. If you zoom, and it is so sensitive that it passes your object, change the field of view instead. Icon right next to the hand Pan button. Caution, this can get weird fast, and can reduce cursor accuracy if you go to far.

[Anonymous]

Ah, this would make sense. So, if I experience clipping again because the face exceeds the measure of unit---under system unit setup, the number of inches for each unit can be changed to see that specific selection up-close in space? Not ignoring your solutions for clipping; I am just interested in trying to wrap my head around system units and if this can be changed as well that avoids clipping.

So, image above being an example. If the system unit measurement is one inch. Polys selected that are less than one inch will have clipping involved (i.e. screen not zooming in to full extents of selected geometry) ?

[PropChad]

Scene units should match the project as a whole, not face size. It's rough, and depending on the size you may find overlap on which units you should use. So for instance, you are setup in inches. That should work for modeling products, characters, and even vehicles, as long as you are modeling to scale. If you were to do a house, use feet. If you were doing a large environment, use miles.

Though here's something I know many don't want to hear, and I'm still getting used to it. Switch to metric. Although 3ds Max defaults to inches, it's not wise to use that if you will be developing for a game engine, will be working with others from other DCC apps, working with clients or collaborate with from other countries, or will be selling assets. You can always display in inches, but have the system units be metric. It's way easier to debug scale issues in metric, work in scaled world's (think extreme closeup of tiny medical device scaled to the size of a house) and it's what the majority of developers want as a deliverable. Though there's still many here using Imperial due to legacy things (farm equipment, architecture), it's only a matter of time you'll need to switch, might as well get used to it now. I've bought a metric tape measure just to help reprogram my brain. 

[10DSpace]

@Anonymous 

Just be aware that if you change the System Units on a scene you have already been working on, Max will scale the Scene using the new measure as a scene unit.  Which means that for example, a box 48"x48"x48" when the system units were originally set to inches will now be 48 x 48 x 48 meters if you switch to meters as the system unit.    It is not hard to rescale the scene units using the Rescale the scene with the Max "Rescale World Units" utility (Utilities Panel>More>Rescale World Units),  but thought I would mention this in case you were not aware.  No problem if you are starting with a new scene and following @PropChad 's suggestion for sizing it appropriately to begin with.