Max: edge extrusion not following along Move gizmo's axis

pablohotsauce

Weird problem I can't figure out. I'm posting a series of screenshots. So I've got this hole in the side of a cylinder selected, and I've got the ref coordinate system set to local. I should be able to Shift-drag the Z-axis of the gizmo and extrude along that axis...




Except, instead, it looks like it extrudes along the world's X axis? I can't figure out why it's doing this. I don't have snapping or axis constraints on, and I don't have constrain to edge on. I tried resetting the XForm, didn't help. The bordering polys are facing the right way: outwards (not that it should make a difference?). And why does the gizmo reorient in this bizarre configuration after this extrusion? Am I not understanding something about the "Local" ref coord system?




If I cap that hole and start an extrude, that works fine, but why doesn't the Shift-extrude work here?

spacefrog

Yeah - this works really strange when you are in local mode. Essentially the border SO is just a collection of edges and for some reasons Max has no idea how to find the average of all those edge's local axis. When there is the cap, it simply uses the caps normal. It works better in View reference coordinate system though

Funny thing that this issue was introduced somewhen in Max 9/2008/2009 as far i remember, previous versions handled the avareging of a group of subobjects much better

Noors

Yeah, incredible that Max doesn't handle this simple thing by itself.

You might want to install Funky Bunnies FB Sub-Obj Pivot
http://www.funkybunnies3d.com/tools.php
The script align a working pivot to a sub selection. Very useful.
You could then select top and bottom vertice of the hole, align, then shift extrude the edges.
For this case it might be more simple to just cap and extrude tho.

pablohotsauce

Thanks for the replies, good to know it's not just me.

@Noors: that script looks like it does what I want. Seems like there are SO many scripts to fix/enhance Max. Do people just install craploads of scripts, and keep track of all of them? Or do they only have a small handful?

Noors

I just can talk for myself. I'm a generalist and my projects vary a lot. Yes, I have shitload of scripts, i make some too, sometimes very basic and specific to one project, to speed up boring tasks.
Imo, every artist must know how to install scripts, and should have a bit of scripting basics. Maxscript, melscript, python whatever...
Sometimes a simple loop made in 10 sec can save you 30min of work.

cptSwing

^ Yes. I'd slow down to a crawl without scripts. FB_SubObjPivot is a necessity, most of miauu's scripts (Scriptpack 1 & 2; Workplane) are very helpful, and for more specific needs there's always scriptspot.com

WarrenM

Max, Maya, Modo ... they're all greatly enhanced by the addition of scripts. It's just how it is.

monster

I got tired of making MacroScripts for Max for every small script I made so I made myself a script that runs other scripts. Similar to this one:

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/scriptrun