Transform and view shortcuts

[Tim Saunders]

My co-worker and I have a difference of opinion about the keyboard shortcuts for the transform and views.

My thought is, keep them at defalt: q=select, w=move, e=rotate, r=scale.

l=left view, vr=right view, vk=bavk view, t=top view, etc. the reason I like to keep them at defalt, is, say you work at a college lab (like me) and you work on another workstation, you don't type the wrong shortcuts such as r=scale an you were expecting r=right view because you customized it. I just figure if you get in the habit of the defalts, you won't be thrown off when your on another computer. Custom shortcuts are fine, but don't mess with the defalt transform and view shortcuts. He disagrees. I just wondered how many poeple were on my side.

[Horhe]

Yep, i keep all of the shorts on default (isolate selection, maximise viewport blah blah blah). Carrying a set of shortcuts with me everywere, just in case ill have to work on another machine somewhere isnt such a blast for me.

Anyway people are stingy about messing with their settings on computers for one, even with the option of reverting to their previous settings - thats to do with working somewhere else than on your own workstation. Nevertheless i dont tend to run of and make use of other machines in the neighbourhood, only to help some ppl in 3d i guess.

The shortcuts are spot on in 3dsmax unfortunately many functions are left out and for those its inevitable to make your own.

 

Timothy so you work on other cpu's... i would worry more about all of my libraries that i use than the shortcuts, when it comes to changing machines, since depending on what you buy most libraries are on a per cpu licence basis... how do you manage this?

 

Anyways working with shortcuts cuts down on time spent on the modeling process and rendering the final image. Dissagree with me? Just count how many seconds or mili seconds it takes you to scroll your mouse down to maximise your viewport... 10 minutes in total? Well thats a solid coffee break if you ask me!

 

Cheers

[Tim Saunders]

We're on the same track. I wish more people would respond so we could have a solid bet (even thought there is no wager on the line lol). As far as libraries, at the office we just store it on the network. And at the school I work at, there are no libraries.

[vizwhiz]

i use a mouse left-handed even Tho i am right-handed

because 18 years ago i worked for 2 bosses who could NOT

 

agree upon anything (absolutely nothing) so i had To keep Track

of all info (per boss) and compare what They said in The morning

 

To what They were asking for in The afternoon (very confusing)

 

so (using autocad here) i learned To make all of my shortcuts or

command aliases into numerical keypad entry, cause my right hand

 

was naturally resting near The numeric keypad on The keyboard

 

and

 

i have asked previously, (To discreet/now autodesk) is There a way

To have numeric keystrokes as 'command aliases' or is it 'aliai'?

 

This is extremely FAST

 

The right-hand can enter The 'command' and Then enter The numeric values

if necessary or when it is useful, just an idea somewhat off-topic from The main

 

gist of This Thread

 

but

 

it would be so nice for Those of who use our left-mind left-handed

To not be left out of The keyboard short-cut conversation. am i right?

 

Thanks

 

Randy

[Brian Cassil]

Poor Javier, he can't even customize his shortcuts without you giving him the smackdown!

 

I use the defaults mostly with a couple of minor exeptions and one major one. I desable all the edit poly shortcuts because they override most of the others when in edit poly or editable poly mode (yes, they are considered different and have to be disabled in two different places). You can save the custimized setup and send that to different workstations (like the one at school) and load and uload peoples preferred customizations.

 

I'm very much into letting people work how they are comfortable so long as it doesn't interfere with productivity. A certain degree of standardization is needed in any team atmosfere but I often see it go too far and it ends up being counterproductive. My 2 cents.

[CookiE]

Poor Javier, he can't even customize his shortcuts without you giving him the smackdown!

 

I use the defaults mostly with a couple of minor exeptions and one major one. I desable all the edit poly shortcuts because they override most of the others when in edit poly or editable poly mode (yes, they are considered different and have to be disabled in two different places). You can save the custimized setup and send that to different workstations (like the one at school) and load and uload peoples preferred customizations.

 

I'm very much into letting people work how they are comfortable so long as it doesn't interfere with productivity. A certain degree of standardization is needed in any team atmosfere but I often see it go too far and it ends up being counterproductive. My 2 cents.

 

 

Im on the line with this

Minor customization i believe is good but yeah when your working in a group environment i think its best to keep them all simular, so when (and as much ppl say it wont happen it does) someones pc is down or something that person can go to any other pc and work without it slowing them down, also when teaching new things it makes it easier when everyone the same.

I atm am the only one in the company so set it how i like but i was with a company of about 20 and it worked much better when we kept them all the same. And im still using the config now

[Tim Saunders]

Ah Brian,

Your making me out to sound like a dick. Granted, I usually come across that way all on my own. I'm with the consensus that some customization is good, but only some. I am a mentor for Javier and am showing him how to model at least 3 things a day. I will do it on his computer and have him do it after me, and when need to scale something and suddenly I am in my right view, or I need to turn my snaps on and suddenly the scale tool is active, it becomes really frustrating. Some things just shouldn't be touched such as the transforms and the views as the title of the thread indicates, unless of coarse you work completely on your own, and only on your own workstation for that matter. It's a good thing Javier has a good sense of humor. It was quite amusing for us to read through the responses. He is changing his settings as we speak.

[Brian Cassil]

I hope the jest in my post was clearly understood by all. You are only occasionally a dick.

[Koper]

everyone have their own way of doing things, I have my windows start-bar at the top of the screen, cause i work more on the bottom. As for the customization of the max shortcuts, (and color schemes), you can actually email it to yourself, then you know you always have it (i doubt there are many pc's today without internet (excluding africa;) )), but if you change the settings for max on someone elses pc to suit yourself then you should be kind enough to change it back when finnished.

[Justin Hunt]

There are a few short-cuts that just dont make sence, like "H" for select floater. I have chaged it to Hide selected and SHIFT-H for unhide. Also the zoom controls are clumsy. I have changed them to ALT-Z of zoom region over CTRL-W

 

I have a bigger issue when short-cuts are changed with every new release.

 

JHV

[anvaraziz]

i keep everything default execpt for maximise viewport, i changed it to "space bar" ya im from maya fans club hiiiiiii....

[Andrew1]

I do have to agree with you Tim, but at the same time I feel that costumizing you shortcuts and menus is an advantage, for example at my station for right view I have it set to SHIFT + R and it does not interfere with anything in max, and it is absolutely logical as R refers to Right, with exception of adding the SHIFT key, now when you hit L for left view it makes perfect sense.

Now hitting vr for right view when left view you just hit L is quite annoying and kills the logic.

That's my 3 cents regarding the shortcut issue,

 

Now Horhe is talking about saving time while zooming, what about the Tool Bar that used to be in max 4, 5 ? would that not increase your time efficiency while in use ? I don't get it why they took it away from higher versions of max, I understand it maximizes your viewport by .5 of an inch, but hey I work on a 21" and 19" monitor so do I really care about the .5" when back in days I used max 4 with a 14" monitor and with the TOOL BAR !! .

 

Well for those that would like to have the same old tool bar with a black standard Icon color setup I will share the file that I grabbed from somewheres that I can't recall.

Amazingly it works with max 8 , and 9 aswell. :D

 

Cheers guys and ALT + F4 - OUT;)

[Horhe]

Now Horhe is talking about saving time while zooming...

 

To be exact i gave an example of "maximising viewport" prior to zooming. Zooming saves you some time sure.....but i guess there is no need for a shortcut cause you have yer ol' nifty scroll wheel on your mouse... (im talking about zooming in user and the other views - excluding the camera and perspective view - there obviously you mix your pan zoom shortcut and the use of the mouse wheel...

[Fran]

With max you can save customized UI's to a file. If people share work stations, they can simply load their custom UI when they're on that station and set it back to the default when they're done. It's the polite thing to do and everyone is happy. Maybe?