Share your 3D max Sercrets

[Vince Paske]

Depending on what you are editing, (poly, splines etc..) pressing the next number in the sequence will take you to object level. In your case, by pressing 5, you will be out of sub-object mode, and back into the object as a whole. I have not tried it with splines, but I believe it will work.

 

Sandeman

 

Oddly enough, hitting the next number - 6, 1 through 5 being vertex to element, opened the Particle View.

 

Yep, your right Travis, the Next Modifier only works if there is another one above it.

[kalmarjan]

Oddly enough, hitting the next number - 6, 1 through 5 being vertex to element, opened the Particle View.

 

Sounds like you are in editible mesh mode. I know that in Editable poly or Edit poly mode, pressing 6 will get you to the top of the object.

 

Try pressing the same hotkey as the mode that you are in. For instance, if you are in vertex mode, perhaps by pressing 1 again, it will take you back to the object mode.

 

I am sorry for the confusion, as Editable Mesh is a little outdated, and I am more familiar with Editable Poly.

 

Sandeman

[Gus_Rayvus]

Getting back out of the sub-object.

I think the confusion here is how you have your max configured.

You can either have one set of hot keys for all max commands or have revolving hotkeys depending on what you are doing. If you have your max set to having the changing hotkeys, by hitting the same number you will exit the sub-object. In order to set this click in your menu bar. Unhide extras. Click the "T" this is the toggle for both modes.

 

Edit poly switching between select verts, edges, and polys.

If you loop something on an edge and want that selection in verts, you can hold ctrl and alt while clicking the verts icon and it will change your edge selection to verts also from verts you can hold ctrl and shift and click the poly icon and you will switch you selection to polys.

 

BTW I don't really think of hotkeys as max Secrets, lets try and step it up to non-standard hotkeys secrets. For all hot key secrets hit F1

[BrianKitts]

3 cheers for chutti.... i forgot about this thread and just stumbled upon it.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/19187-max-faqs-tips.html#post133559

[AJLynn]

Here's one I started using recently, more renderer specific than 3DSMax, but most of the renderers people are using now have an AO function -

 

Use AO with a radius of a few feet and a low sampling value in the diffuse slot of a grass material with the "light" being the green grass and the "dark" being brown dirt or dead grass. Cause grass doesn't grow right up to wall edges.

[Zdravko Barisic]

do you know a way to de-select the sub-object level, and return to the object?

 

the "1" is for editable spline

"6" is as said before for edit poly (it doesnt work well if you in the edit poly modifier, just edit poly object)

[Derek Forreal]

Ive got a couple to throw in too...

 

 

When drawing a spline, hold Ctrl, and it will constrain the spline to 5 degree corner increments

 

Holding Ctrl while scrolling through max's endless roll-out menus will make them scroll 2x faster

 

If you make a new scene, and set everything you always have to set in a new scene (renderer, Unit setup, viewport settings.......) and save over the maxstart.max file in your install directory, MAX will start with the saved settings applied every time

 

 

-Nick

 

hi Nick, i am trying to save over the maxstart file but i can't find it. i've done a search and searched manually. please could you tell me the exact location of this file?

 

thanks in advance

p.s. i'm using max 2008

[Derek Forreal]

don't worry, i've found it.

[RodT]

To view your resources, ATL-ALT-DEL to task manager, then to performance. Allows you to see how your resources are handling your scene.

[Horhe]

To view your resources, ATL-ALT-DEL to task manager, then to performance. Allows you to see how your resources are handling your scene.

 

Isnt that alt+CTRL+del?

[RodT]

doh, daggon right there Horhe, sheesh, guess I really do need some sleep>

[Horhe]

doh, daggon right there Horhe, sheesh, guess I really do need some sleep>

 

For a minute there i thought your keyboard is wonky...

[Horhe]

adding the "-h" parameter to your 3dsmax.exe will let you change the display under max (software, direct 3d etc...).

 

(c:/blablablabla/blablabla/3dsmax.exe -h)

 

pretty useless huh?

[sudark]

well one thing that really helps me is customizing the quads. i can work in expert mode now to some extent because i have a lot of the functions in the quads.

 

expert mode: control-x

saves a lot of screenspace and makes working more enjoyable