Max Tip : Select Similar

[BrianKitts]

did you know max has a "select similar" option in the quads?

 

I'm posting this because as simple as it is I've never seen it!! And it's SO useful! I'm absolutely dumbfounded that in over ten years of max usage I had never used it, now I use it probably half a dozen times an hour. grabbing mullions that came in from a revit model.... deleting furniture from a revit model..... grabbing trees, grabbing anything that's instanced..... brilliant!

 

Funny part is I learned it from a coworker that I'm currently teaching max to, he's been using max for about a month.....

 

great feature... I'm half inclined to go home and see if I still have a copy of my max2 disc somewhere to see if it's been in there that long!

Edited April 27, 2010 by BrianKitts

[Koper]

never ever noticed that before, thats crazy, what trickery is this or what max are you using?

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Nice one. I never noticed it before either.

 

Maybe we are overdo for a Max Tip thread. I'll throw in another.

 

Is the large button in the top corner of Max a bit frustrating? Not quite as quick as the old File menu item that was in Max2009 and earlier versions.

Edited April 27, 2010 by Crazy Homeless Guy

[BrianKitts]

never ever noticed that before, thats crazy, what trickery is this or what max are you using?

 

I noticed it first in 2011.... but went back to 2009 (earliest release I still have installed) and sure enough it was there!

Edited April 27, 2010 by BrianKitts

[Koper]

I'll have a look in 2008 tmrw

 

Nice one. I never noticed it before either.

 

Maybe we are overdo for a Max Tip thread. I'll throw in another.

 

Is the large button in the top corner of Max a bit frustrating? Not quite as quick as the old File menu item that was in Max2009 and earlier versions.

 

ha, no more excuses for the 10 people in our office refusing to use 2010.

 

do you guys know how to get back the viewport switching as it was in 2008, it switched between top view (or any other view) to perspective view without creating a new perspective (and vice versa) but instead it kept the previously drawn perspective. In 2010 it re-draws the view

[Justin Hunt]

Been using it since 2009, its great. Thing to look out for though is that it also looks at material assignments when deciding if something is similar.

Short cut key is Crtl+Q

 

Select instances is also great, Edit->Select Instances, you'll have to assign your own shortcut key.

 

jhv

[Bruce Hart]

yeah Select Similar is good. Ctrl-Q is the hot key. From memory I think it's only been in there from 2009.

 

Another hotkey tip: Ctrl-n in a number field to input an equation.

 

Also:

Manage scene states with "Light transform" only selected is a way to save and call up sun positions, which can be used in the batch render dialog.

 

 

Edit: Sorry for the repeat there - must have posted at roughly the same time

Edited July 2, 2010 by Bruce Hart

[Dave Buchhofer]

Been using max's select similar for a while, along with this script: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/select-similar which also selects by number of verts / bounding box size with a user settable tolerance.

 

between those two, and the blurscripts select instances / make instance / make unique it makes it pretty decent to clean up slop models.

[Koper]

dumbstruck - "select similar" is in max2008, now how did i miss this function

 

oh the little things we miss

 

gotta love learning something new:D

[Dave Buckley]

yep been using it for a while, it has an order of working though

 

for example, make 10 teapots, choose 1 and then go to select similar, it selects all the teapots.

 

then apply the default a&d chrome material to 5 of them, select one of the chrome teapots, right click - select similar, it just selects the 5 with the chrome material.

 

however, it doesn't working on all geometry in the respect that if you add a couple of boxes into the equation and apply them the same chrome material, then redo the select similar with one of the chrome teapots, it will still only select the chrome teapots and NOT all objects with that chrome material

[Koper]

so, got a couple of people here nagging that they don't like the new icons so here is what you do

 

1. go to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\ui and make a duplicate copy of the "Icons" folder and call it Icons.bak - this is for backup

2. the go to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2008\ui\Icons and copy everything in the folder

3. go back to the 2010 icons folder C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\ui\Icons and paste everything into there, if asked to overwrite click YES

 

If you just plainly overwrite the icons folder you will miss some icons as showed in the diagram

[MegaPixel]

When "Select Similar" doesn't work, I tend to go with "Select by Material" from the Material Browser which tends to do the trick.

 

Also, don't forget to take advantage of the new Auto-Renaming feature which allows you to rename all objects in a scene to your liking.

[Chad Warner]

so, got a couple of people here nagging that they don't like the new icons so here is what you do

 

1. go to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\ui and make a duplicate copy of the "Icons" folder and call it Icons.bak - this is for backup

2. the go to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2008\ui\Icons and copy everything in the folder

3. go back to the 2010 icons folder C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max Design 2010\ui\Icons and paste everything into there, if asked to overwrite click YES

 

If you just plainly overwrite the icons folder you will miss some icons as showed in the diagram

 

That's a good tip. I'm still having problems with making sure I click on the correct icon.

[boomtown.cowboy]

Does anyone know how to select all editable poly objects in scene. Or just select edit. meshes... Select dialog recognize just "geometry" term, not type of geometry

[Dave Buchhofer]

Boom, look up Bobo's 'Next Please' script

[boomtown.cowboy]

Exactly that, thanks man !