What are your 3ds max hotkeys and shortcuts to work faster?
Hi guys, after maybe a decade not really touching 3d, I'm about to re-learn 3d studio max.
The problem is I don't think I've ever learned some very efficient ways to work, so this would be the perfect occasion for me to forget the old habits and learn the most efficient and productive ways professionals use, so I would really appreciate if you guys could share your favorite hotkeys and tips to work faster with me.
I'm sure the addition of the Ribbon toolbar at the time brought a bunch of very useful or improved "new" tools, which at the time I've largely ignored in favor of sticking with my old ways, so I would be really interested in knowing which of these have become your "new" favorite "go to" tools (and their hotkeys).
Feel free to share any hotkey/tips you use for everyone's sake, but for reference if you want to help me in the specific, I'm mostly interested in the modelling part of the software.
I'm interested even in the very basics, for instance right now I am of two minds between if I should keep rotating the camera with CTRL+R as I've always did or if I should force myself to get used to holding ALT+MMB. Or maybe there is some better way?
Looking forward to learn how most people works 🤗
Replies
Find what works for you is more important than what others may use (it could provide some inspiration though i guess). For a start, do some modeling and be mindful of any operations that take up a lot of time navigating, long mouse travelling, lots of clicking etc - you can then search for that operation and hot key it. Things like weld, collapse, bridge, cap, center pviot, xform are really basic and common operations that all have a lot of "mouse travel" to execute.
Bind Editpoly's connect, collapse, target weld, cut, edge constraint toggle, isolate selection, xray
Use shift-drag to extrude edges and faces
Right-click the up/down arrows on the x,y,z coordinate text fields to set them to zero
Bind the unwrap modifier and save the default settings how you like them. There's a setting that will automatically open the UV editor when an epoly mesh is highlighted; I like this.
Bind the UV stitch-and-move to quickly snap a UV element to a highlighted edge.
Bind the UV relax.
These are a few binds I like from off the cuff.
Thank for the reply guys, I've went ahead and created a custom keybinding setup based on personal experience and the feedback I've received from you 😊
I haven't added anything about the UV because right now I'm mostly focused on the modeling part so I'm not in the mood to mess up with it, I'll tackle it in the future.
Furthermore I've added the same bindings to Edit Poly and Edit Mesh as well, which are considerate separate from Editable Poly, just in case one where to use them for wathever reason.
I'll attach the keybinding file down below for anyone that might find it useful, or for my future self to find it when I inevitably lose the content of my harddisk for the Nth time xD
Hope someone will find it useful 😊
Keybindings:
@killnpc I haven't added xray because I wasn't seeying the befit from it rather than using Wireframe (F3) as I've always did. But there is also the fact I haven't ever used xray so maybe its simply that I don't know it's strengths or what I'm missing on.
Can you explain why you consider it worth binding in your setup? :)
Making your selected model/mesh transparent will simply just give you the ability to see other shapes/reference images is all :) default is alt+x
I see, makes perfect sense.
Also, I wanted to force myself to use "Expert Mode" view, but for example, how do access the modifier panel to add a Symmetry?
There is no way to bring up the modifier panel only temporarily? (going in and out "Expert Mode" is not the smoothest of trainsitions,at least on my pc)
Any reason you'd "force" yourself to use it? I agree that it's nice to have a ton of screen real estate, but UI is integral. You may be better off getting used to some interface for unavoidable/unhotkeyable things like access to the modifier stack, uv windows, ribbon tools etc :)
I think this way. It's to declutter your workspace. It will also encourage me to assign any necessary hotkeys and begin integrating it. I grew complacent after a few years of production, I never made time to fiddle with customization, which is unfortunate because having a little personalized key system muscle memorized is f*cking satisfying to say the least.
X-ray view isn't critical.
Snap will be useful.
Indeed, updated the list above and added the Snap and Snap Quad Menu, along with some other stuff.
Noticebly disabled "Keyboard Shortcut Override", which I had toggled by mistake and almost sent me insane trying to figure out why my shortcurts where suddenly broken
It's funny that is now taking me more time to go and check the .txt to see what is what rather than just clicking the icon 😂 But I think I can learn it over time 😋
The ones I like:
-remapping delete to "x"
-binding Pedro's Super Smart Create to "c"
-hotkey for going up and down the mod stack
For expert mode, you can hotkey the Command Panel, Time Slider, Ribbon, etc. to spawn/despawn as needed.
quite partial to lightwaves
"=" hide unselected
"-" hide selected
"/" unhide all