Handy Max keys

[Wolf]

There are a few keys that i use almost everyday in max, and most of them are not even documented,

so i thought id list a few of them:

 

BACKSPACE

when creating a line, and you misplace one, Hit the backspace to undo your last vertex.

 

[ ]

The bracket keys interactively zoom in and out when you are creating a line

 

I

Stands for Interactive Pan, lets you pan the screen when creating a line

 

r(number)

When you need to add or subtract a value in a typefield, just type r and the number you need,

and it will add or subtract

for instance... i have a wall thats extruded 1.385m high

and you have to add .285 to it,

just type r.285 in the field, and it will automatically calculate the result

to subtract type r-.285

 

Anyone else got any shortcuts in max that theyd like to share?

[nisus]

Hi wolf,

 

I like the 'r'-thing

 

Here are a few other tips:

 

ALT+A for align (use it a lot to model accurately)

 

SHIFT+Z this gets you back to your previous viewport (after a zoom, or rotate in perspective mode)

 

X to toggle the translation axis on/off

 

Q to hide the modify/create panel

 

SHIFT-I for the spacing tool

 

and the most important one: RC (rightclick) on the spinners to get the value to zero!!!

 

rgds

 

nisus

[Erik Lund]

And yet the best time saver is a mouse that has a scroll wheel. With the scroll wheel you can zoom in/out, pan and rotate. Even when drawing splines! If you don't have one yet get one! You'll wonder how you ever got by without it.

[quizzy]

NO WAY!!! Its my biggest problem I have with MAX that you can't zoom and pan with the scroll button while drawing splines... How is this done??? TELL ME PLEASE!!!!!!!!

 

(A little desperate...)

[furystylee]

The most addicting for me is the right-click undo. i try to use it in every program...

[bluebox]

As for drawing splines in MAX , there's onther handy thing - hold down shift while creating a spline and you turn on something like an ortho- mode.

I'm using MAX 4 and the backspace thing (undo vert creation) didn't work for me, so I guess it's not a deaufalt setting.

[plastic]

Originally posted by quizzy:

NO WAY!!! Its my biggest problem I have with MAX that you can't zoom and pan with the scroll button while drawing splines... How is this done??? TELL ME PLEASE!!!!!!!!

it's possible with the mouse wheel. simply roll it to zoom. panning is a bit tricky, you have to zoom to pan (since pressing the mouswheel will cancel spline creation)

say you want to pan to the right, place the curser at the left side of the view and Zoom OUT, then place the cursor at the right side and zoom IN.

 

the 'I' and '[' ']' keys are new to me, thats cool when using a tablet, with the mouse i prefer my method, its faster...

 

[ September 03, 2002, 04:48 AM: Message edited by: Marc Lorenz ]

[Guest saturnfive]

Quizzy- As wolf said: for drawing splines, when you approach the screen edge, 'I' will pan for you, use [ and ] to zoom in / out and backspace to go back to the previous vertex. (I didn't know those, thanks wolf)

 

If you're using straight line splines you can just draw any old rubbish with the correct no. of points, then convert to editable spline, go to vertex mode and just drag them where you want them.