hahahahah good luck. max is a jumble of fragments without any sort of coherent organized structure, at least it seems that way from my point of view. http://www.xsibase.com/users/max2xsi/MAX2XSI.htm
that might be helpful, but it's in the other direction.
Lupus, what kind of work do you generally do most? Are you a modeller/texture guy, an animator, and FX artist? Max is a big program with a lot of tools, some of which are outdated and poorly organized, as John hinted at. If you could let us know what your typical duties are, we could steer you in the right direction. Max's help system is actually pretty solid, btw.
So that should be enough I think (and perhaps anyone else moving to max). I'd been going through video tutorials from 3D buzz and writing down hotkeys etc. but those were done in version 3.5 or something. Apparently some stuff has changed since then
Lupus feel free to PM me if you need help doing this. I started my move from Max to XSI so I know all to well the pain you might feel doing this. Good luck
OK, topics to look up would be Editable Poly, which will probably be your main modelling tool. Edge Rings, Loops, Connect, Cut, and Smoothing Groups will be the stuff to look up. Smoothing Groups is how Max handles hard edge/soft edges. Within Editable Poly you can also activate Subdivision surfaces, which is sometime referred to as NURMS.
Unwrap UVW is actually a very good UV mapper. Lots of automated unwrapping options such as Flatten and Unfold mapping. Usual gamut of planar, cylindrical, etc. mapping. Relax is great for organics, Pelt mapping can be handy as well.
The Material Editor is quite archaic, and will be the biggest shock for you even though it is quite powerful. Within the Material Editor, look up Direct X Manager, DX display to see diffuse, normal and spec maps in real time.
Other than that, the right click Quad Menu can really speed up production. It is context sensitive, depending on what you click on, and you can access the majority of tools from here. It is also customizable.
Other odds and ends to look up are Pivot Points, Modifier Stack, Snap Toggles, Render to Texture, Advanced Lighting, and Reset XForm (Erase history, force recalculation). There's a ton more, but these would be some of the basic stuff you will need.
Replies
http://www.xsibase.com/users/max2xsi/MAX2XSI.htm
that might be helpful, but it's in the other direction.
ChuggNut's UV Tools
Basically just modelling, and applying materials/textures. I do my uv mapping Blender, so that's one less thing to worry about.
I'm currently downloading things from here http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=8177392
So that should be enough I think (and perhaps anyone else moving to max). I'd been going through video tutorials from 3D buzz and writing down hotkeys etc. but those were done in version 3.5 or something. Apparently some stuff has changed since then
Cheers
Very nice tutorials here
http://forums.ego-farms.com/index.php
Also check out Poops site it's has some nice ones on Max.
www.poopinmymouth.com
Alex
Unwrap UVW is actually a very good UV mapper. Lots of automated unwrapping options such as Flatten and Unfold mapping. Usual gamut of planar, cylindrical, etc. mapping. Relax is great for organics, Pelt mapping can be handy as well.
The Material Editor is quite archaic, and will be the biggest shock for you even though it is quite powerful. Within the Material Editor, look up Direct X Manager, DX display to see diffuse, normal and spec maps in real time.
Other than that, the right click Quad Menu can really speed up production. It is context sensitive, depending on what you click on, and you can access the majority of tools from here. It is also customizable.
Other odds and ends to look up are Pivot Points, Modifier Stack, Snap Toggles, Render to Texture, Advanced Lighting, and Reset XForm (Erase history, force recalculation). There's a ton more, but these would be some of the basic stuff you will need.