3ds Max Viewport

Jesse Moody

Stupid question. I can't seem to figure it out and I have done this many times in the past. I need to increase the cut off in my viewport (clipping) when I get close to a mesh because it keeps cutting it off on me.

I'm using max 9

mvelasquez

right click on the viewport tag in the top corner and hit viewport clipping

Jesse Moody

yeah i already tried that and it didn't change a thing. I know in maya it has a number setting as to how close you can get and stuff before it cuts off.

MoP

You tried moving the sliders at the left and right of the viewport after enabling clipping, right?

Jesse Moody

[ QUOTE ]
You tried moving the sliders at the left and right of the viewport after enabling clipping, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

hmmmm not sure if i know what you mean here MoP so no I don't think I tried that.

*** AHHH I found the sliders you were talking about. Thanks man. BUT when i still get close it still cuts out and the sliders are maxed out. Oh well I can get as close as I need to I think. Thanks again

MoP

man, your objects' scale must be TINY!

Jesse Moody

ahh i would scale it up but the pieces are used on multiple things and the concept art is setup in everyones max file and then given to us to model from so if we scale anything up then all hell will break loose and pieces wont fit right

Psyk0

Have you tried with a camera? you can change the clipping manually and change the lens to zoom in, well that's how i usually do it.

Just make sure the cam's target is centered on your object or you'll have wacky camera control.

Mark Dygert

I find that happens when I use middle mouse to zoom and the zoom extents button to get back out. Each middle mouse scroll moves that viewport closer to its center point causing this issue. When you zoom extents it doesn't reset the middle mouse scroll so now when you scroll/zoom again and it gets closer causing a clipping issue.

Personally I switched over to using walk-thru mode and it made zipping around in max much more enjoyable. Either way I would suggest not using middle mouse scroll to zoom. Bind the proper zoom tool to an easy to access keyboard shortcut.

Eric Chadwick

Or just press U to convert to the User view. No perspecitive, but no clipping problems either.

Mark Dygert

True you could do that, but it doesn't solve the problem if you want to go back to perspective view. Since certain things like walk-thru mode only work in camera or perspective view he might want to break the bad habit of middle mouse zooming?

It just seams like switching to user mode is just running away from the problem and not addressing it?

adam

Vig what is this walk-thru mode you speak of?

solar

Unfortunately I'm also forced to work with a TINY scale too, and there is no way around this, I pretty much always use the user view (which is horrible).

Vig that doesnt really help the zoom tool also suffers from the clipping problem when you have a small scale, and walk thru mode's zoom increments are far too large so it jumps when I try to zoom in.

Nice the way all of max's default settings for tools can't cope with a tiny scale either...

MoP

Adam, Solar:
Max Help -> Search -> Walkthrough Navigation.

The section on "Using Walkthrough Navigation" explains what it is for you Adam, is it really so hard to just press F1 and type one word?

Gordon: I'm pretty sure you can change the "step size" increment ( [ and ] keys by default) when in Walkthrough mode, so you maybe able to use it after all... true that Max doesn't cope very well with tiny scales though.

solar

That helps MoP, although it still doesn't prevent the clipping.

Mark Dygert

[ QUOTE ]
Vig what is this walk-thru mode you speak of?

[/ QUOTE ]
Turns perspective view or camera into first person shooter controls. WASD + Mouse Look FTW! You can also activate it by clicking the little feet icon down in the right corner by zoom extents. Right clicking exits. Works great for taking control of a camera and adjusting its target. Or creating a camera from a view you like. (Edit > Create Camera From View).

I would suggest binding walk-thru mode to something like Shift-C. Also bind walk/run to Q or something handy. Use [] to control the step distance/speed.

It's great, I love it for doing environments, I even use it for characters to get into those tight places.

Eric Chadwick

OK, so if you have to export to a certain scale, but you want to get rid of clipping problems just while you;re in Max, then go to the Utilities panel, choose Rescale World Units, and use 100. Should solve the clipping. Just make sure to reverse this at the end before you export, setting it to .01. Don't use this utility if anything in the world is using IK or bones, you might get odd results.