Silly question about evenly scattering or array an object

[danb4026]

I have a large rectangle within which I want to place 9 evenly spaced smaller rectangles.

 

I have tried using a plane the same dimensions of the larger rectangle and then using scatter to distribute the small rectangles evenly on faces, vertices, edges, etc. but nothing gets the simple result that I want.

 

I know there are workarounds, but there has to be a simple command that accomplishes this quickly and I want to know what it is!

Edited March 21, 2009 by danb4026
edit

[rmccoy]

I may be totally off here. but are you talking about trying to array an object?

[danb4026]

All I want is to array or distribute the small rectangles inside of the larger rectangle completely evenly.

[WAcky]

Play with the array tool. Under the tools menu.

 

or you could possibly make the plane have 9 even segments and continue to use the scatter tool with some sort or face centre distribution?

Edited March 22, 2009 by WAcky

[SandmanNinja]

agree with the above

 

array has 2D array options - "x" across and "y" down...

 

or

 

use scatter for each face

 

I think array would be the easiest

[Dave Buchhofer]

http://andklv2.narod.ru/maxscripts/ak-maxscripts.html

 

look for Grid Scatter partway down.

[rmccoy]

the above plugin is also on script spot. it looks pretty useful.

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/gridscatter

[LuckyST]

create 9 rectangles (3x3)..

 

select them, and "align" them to be in the center of the larger box.

 

another option is constructing it in autocad, if you want it to be "perfect".

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Create plane with correct number of divisions.

Conver to Poly.

Select faces.

Inset per polygon.

New polys should be only ones selected.

Detach to new object or shift clone or whatever.

 

Possible issue is that the outside gap is half the distance of the between gaps.