Stupid Max question

Soccerman18

I'm pretty sure that Max 6 allows you to use any object as a deflector for particles (I did a xmas tree with snow falling on it a year or so ago), but I can't remember how I did that. Anyone remember how to do that?

MoP

Go to the Create tab, select the Space Warps button, choose Deflectors from the drop down list, and use a UDeflector, UDynaFlect or UOmniFlect (I don't know what the different ones do, but they're all the Object-based deflectors).

Soccerman18

Sweet, that worked nicely, thanks. Max 5 has those too, didn't know Max 5 did that.

Oh, and another stupid question, when I rotate or move any of the views it shows the bounding box instead of the mesh, how do I change this back?

MoP

You've accidentally hit "O", which toggles Degradation Override.

Press "O" (the letter, not the number) again to fix it. And maybe remove it from the keyboard shortcuts list, it's a bloody stupid default key

Soccerman18

thanks again! it's so nice getting stupid questions answered quickly.

Soccerman18

Something must've gotten reallyt screwed up. When I select something and try to use the move/rotate/scale tools I'm not getting the tools to do anything, it's grayed out as if I was using the selectiong tool.

MoP

Hmm, have you accidentally hit "X"? That's another key to un-bind... try pressing it with the Move tool selected...

Soccerman18

That did it, stupid binded keys.

MoP

Cool. This is almost better than instant messaging!

"X" and "O" are the keys which should be removed from the default toggle buttons list in every version of Max - I've never seen them cause anything but problems.

Soccerman18

The O key, or at least the functionality of it I can see being useful when you get a lot going or have a slow comp. X just seems pointless.

FatAssasin

Actually, I use "x" all the time. When I know I'm only going to be moving or rotating in 1 or 2 axis, like when using screen mode and I'm only moving in X and Y, then I disable the gizmo.