things you miss when you never read the manual ...

danr

for the first time ever, i've just noticed the max Lattice modifier. How good is that? I've manually built shit loads of cages in the past ... probably never have call ever to use it in the future, but it's nice to know it's there ...

how many more of these things are hiding from us manual-shy types?

sinistergfx

RTFM.

Eric Chadwick

The x and o hotkeys! Yeah, rtm. Boring but enlightening.

This will probably devolve into one of those endless threads of people's fav little trix.

danr

read the manual? That reeks of effort. Anyway, i generally see manuals as reference for when you want to look something up (if i know where the bloody book is in the first place, which is unlikely), can't look up something you don't know about. Thats what other people and threads of "fav little tricks" are for

Eric Chadwick

My beef with those threads is most of the things are super-obvious.

Some people hate to read manuals, I can understand that. I never read them for new pieces of software until the software proves itself, and I've committed to seriously spend my time on it.

The way I dive in is in little chunks. If I'm using a new tool, I'll dig in and learn a bit. Saves me loads of goofing around.

The book is hidden under F1 btw.

rooster

its worth sifting through the obvious ones for the occasional gem that pops up imho, I like those threads

Ryno

Seriously, flip through the manual.

I've seen artists cut their workflow time down by 40% all because of a few stupid little controls that they had been ignorant about.

sinistergfx

Agreed.

You have this source of information right there, but you're just going to ignore it and wait around?

danr

YEAH

Ghostscape

I've personally been a big fan of the "Killer Tips for 'piece of software'" series of books, because they're pretty much full of this sort of stuff but without the really obvious ones. The 3ds Max one had a bunch of cool scripts and stuff. There wasn't a thing in the PS book I didn't know, but the Max one had some nice stuff.

sinistergfx

Yeah, the Killer Tips books are pretty handy also. I just wish they'd update them more often.

Sage

The only beef I have with manuals is that they are written well poorly. I have made it a hobbie of sitting through 300 and 400 page manuals and read them through as if they were fiction because I got sick and tired of missing the obvious. But really the writers of these manuals really need to start writing the functions and give a real world example, or as I call it put it in context. I mean people won't see the power of a function until they see why they should use it. You can argue that you can go out and explore the application but really that takes years. Also to many of the tutorials that ship with the software well suck. They are boring as well to make it worse. I really have not enjoyed at all reading through the XSI documentation it has been very unpleasant. I know this post might seem very immature and bratty but why should people have to go and spend an extra 100 bucks on a software book when the software comes with a manual. I loved the New Riders series of books that came out for Max 2.5, anytime I have an artist block I'll go read one and I get all warm and fuzzy inside.

Alex

SkullboX

The max maual is pretty awesome, the search funtion is usually very useful as well. I never understand why so few people use this, most software related questions are awnsered there perfectly, often even with a decently written tutorial on the subject.

I recently had to switch to maya because that's what they use at school (and I like it a lot better than max now I finally got the chance to really work with it, even the modeling tools aren't total shit anymore) But the helpfiles aren't nearly as good and easy to search through, which is very frustrating when learning a piece of software...

vanilla

dont know if this is just for max 8 and up but, to remove an edge loop as well as it's verts, from the edge sub-object level select your loop, then hold ctl and press remove. Or you can use this chunky maxscript and hotkey it.

(
$.EditablePoly.ConvertSelection #Edge #Vertex
subobjectLevel = 2
macros.run "Editable Polygon Object" "EPoly_Remove"
subobjectLevel = 1
macros.run "Editable Polygon Object" "EPoly_Remove"
subobjectLevel = 2
)

Slum

[ QUOTE ]
The max maual is pretty awesome, the search funtion is usually very useful as well. I never understand why so few people use this, most software related questions are awnsered there perfectly, often even with a decently written tutorial on the subject

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that's because the warez versions of Max omit the manual :P

sinistergfx

vanilla: ctrl+backspace

Sage

The Max manual is really sweet compared to others, I guess Autodesk spoiled me. The search option isn't the same in all software manuals and also you kind of have to know what you are looking for to use the search properly. I was pretty with the XSI documentation, one word lame. The other thing that kind bugs me is that showing how to do things the quickiest way in x software isn't considered in manuals. That's something that has always bugged me. XSI has several ways to add edges to a polygon object. One is subdivide, closest one to connect in Max, then they have a picking session which feels slow if you are comming from another app like Max, but it's very useful, then there is dice, which is also similar to connect.

The other thing is that when you do go to school to a Computer Art degree the students don't usually have acess to the manaul. While the help files for Max are nice other software's help files leave a lot to be desired.

I think a lot of people don't read the manual because it's overwhelming or it is plain laziness. Oh I made reference to XSI just because I hate the fact that if I want to read the manual I have to print it. Working with an eletronic manual isn't as productive for me, but I'm learning to deal with it since it seems that developers are looking to keep their costs as low as possible.

Alex

vanilla

I didnt even get a manual with my box. I got a new features booklet and a tutorial guide. Crappy distributers.
Someone needs to compile a chart of all the hidden shortcuts, like this one for photoshop: http://user.fundy.net/morris/?photoshop01.shtml

sinistergfx

"Help" > "Hotkey Map..."

You can customize them too.

Geezus

[ QUOTE ]
dont know if this is just for max 8 and up but, to remove an edge loop as well as it's verts, from the edge sub-object level select your loop, then hold ctl and press remove. Or you can use this chunky maxscript and hotkey it.

(
$.EditablePoly.ConvertSelection #Edge #Vertex
subobjectLevel = 2
macros.run "Editable Polygon Object" "EPoly_Remove"
subobjectLevel = 1
macros.run "Editable Polygon Object" "EPoly_Remove"
subobjectLevel = 2
)

[/ QUOTE ]

I was so happy the day I found out about Ctrl+Backspace. Makes my flow so much faster. I still see people using some sort of script for that though, odd. Is it only a new feature in Max 8? I only discovered it in 8, so I dunno.