3dsmax 2010 Rant

[Michael J. Brown]

Perhaps this particular issue has been discussed already, but sometimes you just don't care what has or has not been talked about previously on the forum. Sometimes you just need to rant. Well this is one of those times.

 

I'm a late adapter - I just started using 3dsmax 2010 two days ago, and I cant stand what they've done with the coloring of the icons throughout. It wasn't bad enough that in every single version prior to 2010, short of looking at the tool parameters roll-outs, you couldn't determine at a quick glance which of the six function tabs were active at any given time (Create, Modify, etc.) Because no matter which one you are active in, each tab retains the exact same color and tone.

 

But to make matters even worse, the brilliant people at Autodesk come along with 2010 menus whose GUI icon and button colors are so muted that they almost don't exist. What the hell is this! When I'm in my Material Editor I want to know when an active slot is an original or duplicate material without having to strain to see the barely distinguishable difference in shades of light grey between an active "Put Material To Scene" button and an inactive one.

 

Its like every GUI has been bled dry of 85% of it's color. Why is this display so muted?

 

I wouldn't mind this if it were Microsoft Word or Excel, or some other software I don't make my living with. But I've gotta look at this interface all day, every day. And this ain't cool!

 

Is there a way (besides cracking open each individual GUI icon in Photoshop) to return the former glory to these icons? Because this muted, understated, conservative look is complete and utter cow dung.

 

And yeah, yeah, yeah...."You'll get used to it". But I don't want to get used to it. If there's one thing I detest it's blandness. And that's how this GUI layout is begining to look with the colors all muted, washed out and barely distinguishable.

[Dave Buckley]

customize > custom UI and defaults switcher

 

should be a 2009 option in there (unless that's exclusive to 2011)

 

failing that:

 

customize > customize user interface

 

then there should be a tab at the top of that dialogue called 'colours'

 

in there you can go for your life and create an interface that looks like an ad for joseph and his amazing technicolour dreamcoat

 

would love to see it if you do haha

[Chad Warner]

The other option, that I learned here, is to copy all of your icons from the ui folder in 2008 or 2009 into the icons folder in 2010. Make sure to copy the icons only, and not the whole folder because 2010 has some icons that 2008 doesn't.

[Michael J. Brown]

Thanks Dave, I'll try these out and see what comes of them.

[molson]

To "return the former glory to these icons" go to Customize>Customize user interface

- Select the color tab

- In the scheme list box select Icons: Enabled

- Make sure Saturation, Value, Transparency and Contrast are 100

[molson]

And Gradient map should zero

-Invert should be off

[Michael J. Brown]

to "return the former glory to these icons" go to customize>customize user interface

- select the color tab

- in the scheme list box select icons: Enabled

- make sure saturation, value, transparency and contrast are 100

 

disco !

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Ooo, that almost fixed the anti-aliasing on the icons. Nice.

[LuckyST]

Perhaps this particular issue has been discussed already, but sometimes you just don't care what has or has not been talked about previously on the forum. Sometimes you just need to rant. Well this is one of those times.

 

I'm a late adapter - I just started using 3dsmax 2010 two days ago, and I cant stand what they've done with the coloring of the icons throughout. It wasn't bad enough that in every single version prior to 2010, short of looking at the tool parameters roll-outs, you couldn't determine at a quick glance which of the six function tabs were active at any given time (Create, Modify, etc.) Because no matter which one you are active in, each tab retains the exact same color and tone.

 

But to make matters even worse, the brilliant people at Autodesk come along with 2010 menus whose GUI icon and button colors are so muted that they almost don't exist. What the hell is this! When I'm in my Material Editor I want to know when an active slot is an original or duplicate material without having to strain to see the barely distinguishable difference in shades of light grey between an active "Put Material To Scene" button and an inactive one.

 

Its like every GUI has been bled dry of 85% of it's color. Why is this display so muted?

 

I wouldn't mind this if it were Microsoft Word or Excel, or some other software I don't make my living with. But I've gotta look at this interface all day, every day. And this ain't cool!

 

Is there a way (besides cracking open each individual GUI icon in Photoshop) to return the former glory to these icons? Because this muted, understated, conservative look is complete and utter cow dung.

 

And yeah, yeah, yeah...."You'll get used to it". But I don't want to get used to it. If there's one thing I detest it's blandness. And that's how this GUI layout is begining to look with the colors all muted, washed out and barely distinguishable.

 

 

I dont want to spoil it for you, but wait till you get to max 2011.

I just recently got to it, and boy... you wont be happy