3DS Max Transfer ALL settings?
polycounter lvl 6
Hey all,
I am wondering if there is a magical way that I can copy my setting from max at work, and bring them home so that my max at home will then have all the same scripts/plug-ins/hot keys. I am new to max, so I am a little confused by all the .mzp, .mcp, etc. files, and have a bunch of stuff installed at work and would really like a quick solution to copy all that to my home computer, without having to manually re-install everything.
Thanks in advance
I am wondering if there is a magical way that I can copy my setting from max at work, and bring them home so that my max at home will then have all the same scripts/plug-ins/hot keys. I am new to max, so I am a little confused by all the .mzp, .mcp, etc. files, and have a bunch of stuff installed at work and would really like a quick solution to copy all that to my home computer, without having to manually re-install everything.
Thanks in advance
Replies
copy the contents of the UI folder:
I think you only really need the default.ui and the *.kbd file. But the whole folder is probably the safer option.
Personal files can be found in 2 places you need to trasfer the Scripts, UI, Plug-Ins and Scenes folders from each spot to the same places on the other machine:
3dsmax Root Dir: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2012
And in User Files: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2012 - 64bit\enu
This should copy over any custom icons and scripts that you have.
Next you need to save out the UI settings (keybinds, toolbar button positions, quad menus)
- Inside of max go to Customize > Save Custom UI (some place it doesn't matter where).
- Copy these files to the new machine (someplace it doesn't matter where).
- Load the UI into the new version, Customize > Load Custom UI.
- Close and relaunch max.
- Check the UI and make sure it stuck.
Max saves the UI when you close, if it crashes it won't save the UI and you will have to go through this hassle all over again. Anytime you make changes to the UI its wise to close max so it saves and relaunch it. Nothing more frustrating than losing work and your UI...- If it didn't stick, this normally means there is a permissions issue on your machine and to get around it, load the UI again, then resave the UI as "MaxStartUI.ui" to:
- C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2012 - 64bit\enu\UI
Note 1: Technically you don't need the "Scenes" folder from max, but you can save any max file to the scenes folder as "MaxStart.max" and that file will load each time you launch max or reset the scene. This is super helpful, I have the grid and viewports set up how I like along with a few other internal settings like Gamma/LUT that normally aren't set the way I like in the default max scene.Note 2: It's not a bad idea to regularly back up your UI files and keep track of the scripts that you install. For me we always seem to be rolling into a new version of max because we are on subscription so it's always a pain to install and sync max on several machines. With all of autodesks cloud based systems you would think that they could create a better solution than brute force micro-management.
Note 3: Some people (like myself) dig into maxscript and with a lot of help from others develop a patchwork system of using .mzp files (renamed zip files) to install custom scripts and UI elements. If you get interested in that I can help you set it up.
Good luck! Hope this helps!
Mark Dygert: Thanks a lot for the in depth response! I'm going to try this on monday, and I'll post back here letting you know if it worked or not. I just might have to bug you some time to discuss that custom script/UI business
Mark, I'd be interested in that script if you still have it.