y axis not up in my copy of max?

[Guest dec]

im new to max and going through a tutorial. ive run across a problem with axis. the tutorial seems to have the world axis as y up but my copy of max has z up which is throwing things off. is there any way to reconfigure the orientation of the world axis in max? like in maya you can go into preferences and change it between z and y. has something to do with the way they do it in canada.

[Ted Boardman]

>>the tutorial seems to have the world axis as y up but my copy of max has z up which is throwing things off. is there any way to reconfigure the orientation of the world axis in max?

 

Rhett,

 

World Z is always "up" in max and viz and you can't change it.

 

However, there are plenty of other coordinate systems available and it's problably one of those used in the tutorial. Check back to see where they might have changed it.

 

Check this column for more information:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/upclose/article5_TB.asp

[Guest dec]

so when i add something like a deformer to an object and it asks me on what axis i want the deformer to effect how do i know what axis to pick? are these commands based off world axis? in which case z would be up?

[Ted Boardman]

>>so when i add something like a deformer to an object and it asks me on what axis i want the deformer to effect how do i know what axis to pick?

 

Most modifiers are Object Space modifiers so the axis refer to the Local axis' of the object itself.

 

World Space modifiers and Spacewarps -in max- are based on the World Z being up from the default grid.

 

Ted