Change Drawing Plane When Modelling

[TomA]

It would be very useful if you could change the plane of working in Max when modelling, in a similar (but ideally more intuitive way) to AcuDraw in 3D Microstation.

This would be extremely useful for modelling anything at an angle.

In addition, I often import, merge and reference models and drawings in from other packages and work on live projects where ongoing models are constantly updated, and it would be very helpful if you could change the working plane when editing and adding to geometry imported in a non-orthogonal arrangement, especially when working with complex models.

This could work in a similar way to the ViewCube in Max, and could be easily turned on and off, or, could simply be an 'Align and lock to Selected Plane' shortcut, but would quickly change the whole model and lock it into a particular plane relative to all viewports, without changing the global origin or alignment.

[Corey Beaulieu]

Have you ever used the "Grid" Helper? It sounds like what you are looking for except that the viewport won't align to it.

 

If you haven't, place one in your scene, rotate it to your desired construction plane and then right click and hit activate grid. With this on, all new objects will draw on this plane's x, y, z and then you can lock the gizmos by switching the CP drop down from view to grid.

 

Another way to do this is to draw a box in the standard CP. Then normal align is to a flat object in your scene. You can then link everything in your scene to the box and zero out its rotation transform. This way you can always return the scene back to its off-kilter axis and plug it back into larger scenes.

[TomA]

Thanks for your suggestions. The Grid Helper works up to a point, but the other solution seems a little involved.

 

I still think an 'align drawing plane and viewports to selected face' command would be very useful.

[Bruce Hart]

Perhaps I'm not understanding what you're after - can't you do this in Max simply by turning on "Autogrid" on the creation panel? this means that when you hover the cursor over a face, the construction axis will align to the face normal temporarily.

[TomA]

Autogrid is very helpful, thanks, but what I am suggesting is that as well as being able to align the construction axis to a chosen face normal, you would also have the option for all of the viewports to adjust in relation to it.

 

For instance, if you were to draw a box on a plane which is angled in two directions, you could then choose to see the top/left/right/bottom etc. views perpendicular to the sides of that box, rather than at oblique angles to it.

[TomA]

Just to add that this technique would also be very useful when working with blueprints and reference files that are at an angle to the working plane / origin in Max.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

http://miauumaxscript.blogspot.com/p/commercial-scripts.html Check Miauu's Workplane.