3dsMax - How to get rid of "show cage"?

FelixL

This. How do I get rid of it? Permanently? I don't ever want to see the cage :poly127:

kurt_hectic

Save it as a script and hook up with some shortcut:

macroscript showcage category:"HowTo"
(
if $.showcage==off then
$.showcage = on
else
$.showcage = off
)

SuperFranky

Is there any reason you don't want to ever see Show Cage? I'm curious.

Mark Dygert

I personally do the same as Kurt suggested.
For several modifiers I have buttons that I'll click to apply it and set up the settings how I like.

I went over the steps in more detail here: http://www.polycount.com/2011/05/16/maxscript-for-newbies/#more-5510

But basically you turn on the maxscript listener, toggle show cage off to see what the command is, then drop that in a script and run it once. Which will add it to the Main Menu > Customize > Customize UI menu. From there you can assign it to a keyboard shortcut, menu button or a quad menu.

A script that applies edit poly and toggles off show cage would look like this:

macroScript ShowCageOff [COLOR="SeaGreen"][I]--unique name of the script[/I][/COLOR]
Category:" MyTools" [COLOR="SeaGreen"][I]--the category in Customize > UI[/I][/COLOR]
toolTip:"ShowCageOff"[I][COLOR="SeaGreen"] --The text displayed in Customize UI  [/COLOR][/I]
buttonText:"CageOff" [I][COLOR="SeaGreen"]--text in the button[/COLOR][/I]
(
	max modify mode [I][COLOR="SeaGreen"]--set the command panel to the modify tab[/COLOR][/I]
	modPanel.addModToSelection (Edit_Poly ()) ui:on [I][COLOR="SeaGreen"]--apply the edit poly modifier[/COLOR][/I]
	$.modifiers[#Edit_Poly].showcage = off [I][COLOR="SeaGreen"]--turn off "show cage"[/COLOR][/I]
)

It's a pretty simple technique to get around these annoying little issues without much code experience.

martinszeme

Any reason you using subdivision surface instead of Turbosmooth? Just curious as I find Turbosmooth much faster and more convenient to use.

kurt_hectic

I think you might miss it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENA2FAF_PIc

FelixL

Thanks for the replies. So I guess it boils down to a shortcut, and there's no way to globally get rid of it?

I don't need the cage because I find it confusing and distracting. If I need to see the mesh without turbosmooth, I just hit my hotkey for show end result toggle.
And yes, I am using turbosmooth, TSpro in fact (same as opensubdiv). But the cage setting in the edit poly still displays the cage by default once you have a TS modifier on top (and use show end result).

martinszeme

So just to clarify you don't want to see the cage in edit mode (Vertex, Polygon, Element etc)? When I model I have the cage on as I need to be able to see and select polys, verts etc. To see final model its shape, silhouette etc I just go out of it. Also as you said having a shortcut for - Show end result is amazing. Made my workflow much faster.

FelixL

When the cage is turned on in edit poly, it will be visible when you have a TS modifier and show end result toggle on. I don't want that. It's distracting because it will show you both the smoothed and base mesh at the same time, albeit in different colors.
I prefer to turn it off and use show end result toggle to switch between smoothed and not smoothed. Although this only works for lighter meshes, for complex stuff show end result is too much of a slowdown. So I deselect the object and then look at the smoothed result, as you say.

monster

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2904948/MaxScript/CageOff.ms

Try putting this script in your 3ds max Startup folder, by default in this location:
C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2014 - 64bit\ENU\scripts\startup\

Requires Max 2009 and up.

The script turns off "Show Cage" when an object is converted to Editable Poly. It seems that the Edit Poly mod has it off by default so I didn't do anything with that. If it crashes for you or breaks anything you can delete the script and restart Max.

Rav3

Anyway to make it work for 3dmax 2015? Script warns about critical errors. Binding script to the key add additional Editable poly modification and doesn't turn off Show Cage option.

Mant1k0re

(It's been mentioned before I guess but if you bind it to a shortcut close to the one you have assigned to Show End Result it's really not a bother anymore - for me it's set to ctrl numpad* (and Show End Result to numpad*). It really stopped to be annoying altogether after that.)

Rav3

Mant1k0re wrote: »

(It's been mentioned before I guess but if you bind it to a shortcut close to the one you have assigned to Show End Result it's really not a bother anymore - for me it's set to ctrl numpad* (and Show End Result to numpad*). It really stopped to be annoying altogether after that.)

Thanks for reply! I tried to read once again carefully and spend a little more time to figure out how maxscript work. Now it work well and bind to a key thank you for this post!

Rav3

Ok I end up with this macros

macroScript Nurms_subdivision
category:"Nurms_subdivision"
toolTip:"Nurms subdivision"
(
if $.surfSubdivide == off then
$.surfSubdivide = on
else
$.surfSubdivide = off
$.Showcage = off
$.iterations = 3
actionMan.executeAction 0 "369" --Views: View Edged Faces Toggle
)

and

macroScript CageOff
category:"Subdiv_cage_off"
toolTip:"Turn off subdiv cage"
(
$.Showcage = !$.Showcage
)

Rav3

There's another way to preview your model with turbosmooth as applying it as modifier and delete it and you can bind it to hotkey. Here's Macro

macroScript turbosmoothPreview

category:"Rav_cfg"

toolTip:"Turboosmoth_Preview"

(

actionMan.executeAction 0 "369"

b = $

c = TurboSmooth()

c.name = "Turbosmooth_Preview"

hasTurbo = false

 if $ != undefined then(

 for m in $.modifiers do

  (

   if m.name == "Turbosmooth_Preview" do

   (

  deleteModifier $ m 

   hasTurbo = true

)

 )

 )

 if hasTurbo == false do

 

 (

addModifier b c

$.modifiers[#Turbosmooth_Preview].iterations = 2

$.modifiers[#Turbosmooth_Preview].isolineDisplay = on

$.modifiers[#Turbosmooth_Preview].explicitNormals = on

macros.run "Ribbon - Modeling" "PreviousModifier"

showEndResult = true

)

)

PolyHertz

You can't work directly on a subdivision surface (unlike most other 3D apps), so I don't get why you'd ever want to completely get rid of the cage...

Rav3

@PolyHertz  Sometime cage block you to see pinches and usually you always can find right vertex to move without cage. Here's macro to turn off cage in both editable poly and edit poly. For some reason you can't bind it with standard command in customize interface  

macroScript CageOff

category:"Rav_cfg"

toolTip:"Turn off subdiv cage"

(

macros.run "Ribbon - Modeling" "NURMSShowCage"

)