Max is awesome in all area's! Personally I love the idea of the listener window, whatever you do the window will record it as a maxscript so it is very handy indeed.
Ha never tried this attach teapot or box or whatever, don't seem to get into that kind of trouble very often but when I do I add a reset x form utility and then an stl check (which is probably one of the more hopeless modifiers) if there's still a problem I check every single vertice and usually find a double one or a dodgy polygon that needs deleting, hole capping etc.
Saving, damn it I don't rely on autosave, that is last chance saloon for uber noobs or for people who don't really value their work/give a crap. Pro's increment on save and save every 5-10 mins to be sure, so what you end up with a shitload of files but you can always trace your steps back if a disaster occours.
Do you REALLY want to reset?
HA HA! The animator I sit next to pointed this one out a few days ago when I heard him swearing at Max.
Apparently, every frame you scrub through, counts as an Undo. So, if you tweak the angle of a bone, and then scrub through the animation, then hit undo, it goes back one frame. Hit undo again? Another frame. . . 1, 200 frame animation, scrubbed through, and you will have lost ALL of your undos.
Uh, are you sure you're not talking about Maya?
I just tried this in Max... Max does not count scrubbing the time slider as an undo operation. As far as I'm aware, there's not even an option to make it count frame stepping as an undo operation.
I'm calling BS on this, either your animator has some weird setup, or he's done something else. Scrubbing the time slider (or even using the buttons for frame/keyframe stepping) adds nothing to the undo list.
Unfortunately, Maya does do this by default (and AFAIK no way to turn it off). It was one of the things in the "I hate Maya" list... precisely because Max does not do this.
With XSI...the freaking program records every movement you do to the damn object. Move vert one, and it keeps growing and growing and growing.
Work in Immediate mode, (Immed).
edit: sorry, didn't realize every other user has already pointed that out to you. you know, the button that's easily seen at the front of the UI, and not hidden behind several tabs, and menus, and pop ups. That reminds me of something I freaking love about Max. And I love how powerfully accurate the 3D snap tools are.
HA HA! The animator I sit next to pointed this one out a few days ago when I heard him swearing at Max.
Apparently, every frame you scrub through, counts as an Undo. So, if you tweak the angle of a bone, and then scrub through the animation, then hit undo, it goes back one frame. Hit undo again? Another frame. . . 1, 200 frame animation, scrubbed through, and you will have lost ALL of your undos.
I've never hit that issue in 3dsmax and I animate/scrub all day every day for the last 4 versions of 3dsmax. It would be interesting to see know what version of 3dsmax and what plug-ins he's running as well as any settings he's changed. I'd like to avoid that in the future if I can, sounds horribly debilitating.
I've had Maya wipe out my undo history before not sure what caused it might have been scrubbing, I just chalked it up to general bugginess? With the limited functionality of the history stack they really should not f-around with the undo, especially if it is scrubbing that adds to it. Thats just insane and there has to be a work around.
hm, yeah maya saves time-changes as an undo step, but not one for each frame. So if you scrub through your 1200 frame animation, taht's still just one undo....
Max is awesome, because it has a f*ed up transform gizmo, and the material editor is limited to 24 material slots :P
I don't rely on autosave, that is last chance saloon for uber noobs or for people who don't really value their work/give a crap. Pro's increment on save and save every 5-10 mins to be sure, so what you end up with a shitload of files but you can always trace your steps back if a disaster occours.
Max is awesome in all area's! Personally I love the idea of the listener window, whatever you do the window will record it as a maxscript so it is very handy indeed.
Ha never tried this attach teapot or box or whatever, don't seem to get into that kind of trouble very often but when I do I add a reset x form utility and then an stl check (which is probably one of the more hopeless modifiers) if there's still a problem I check every single vertice and usually find a double one or a dodgy polygon that needs deleting, hole capping etc.
Saving, damn it I don't rely on autosave, that is last chance saloon for uber noobs or for people who don't really value their work/give a crap. Pro's increment on save and save every 5-10 mins to be sure, so what you end up with a shitload of files but you can always trace your steps back if a disaster occours.
Do you REALLY want to reset?
That is very sarcastic or very idiotic. My guess is on the former (my hope is on the former).
I would post some Max awesomeness but since all I do is scripting, it'd sound very Greek and very nerdy and wouldn't be very useful. I'd also probably crash the boards with how much I'd write.
hm, yeah maya saves time-changes as an undo step, but not one for each frame. So if you scrub through your 1200 frame animation, taht's still just one undo....
Max is awesome, because it has a f*ed up transform gizmo, and the material editor is limited to 24 material slots :P
And by f*ed up he means more options then he knows how to use.
The material editor is more like a work bench for you to "work" on your materials. Its not the warehouse. Once the material is assigned to an object and you're no longer working on them you can put a new material in that slot. It won't over write your material. All materials in the scene can be accessed though the "get material" button or eye dropper.
If you plan to create materials and not assign them to objects you can save them as material libraries.
Do everyone who will work on your files in the future a HUGE favor and reset your material editor before you archive it. That way it only grabs the materials used not all the other crap you've collected in the "limited 24 slots".
I've seen some huge archives 1-2gb. I'll open them, reset the material editor (takes forever because they like to use all 24 slots) and re-archive. They drop down to 15-20mb. Thanks for killing the servers and cluttering up my HDD guys... thanks a lot...
The gizmo isn't screwed, it is just that they broke selection when they implemented it.
The material editor sucks- aside from its archaic workflow, the idea of 24 meditmaterials at a time is something that really needs to die. Max stores an array of what are called 'scenematerials', that is, all materials in your scene- that doesn't include the 24 meditmaterials, though, except if they are in your scene. The entire material system makes sense only when you look at it is the product of conflicting ideas and systems that evolved over time. It has caused me and everyone I know countless hours of confusion, it is time for a new material editor, a new material editor workflow and interface, but it will never happen. Whatever one may decry about Maya that is a product of its node-based workflow, its Hypershade functionality is still top of the line, even if its UI is growing outdated.
lol Tumerboy, that was my week last week where I got very disgruntled at it. I'll say this it has a pretty good autoback system, but it'd be nice if I didn't have to rely on it.
I was just responding to the above, I mean who actually relies on autoback and doesn't save until critical points or completion = :poly128: cmaaan!
Professor420 - so your hoping that I was being sarcastic when trying to say that saving often is a good idea?! Hmm, not so, I have seen so many projects ruined and peoples work destroyed by not putting a split second aside and backing up (to a new file) as much as poss.
You can control the functions of the whole program through scripting (as you must know) so I would love to hear some awesome tips.
Hypershade, in 3dsmax would be amazing! I've drooled over it ever since I first laid eyes on it. Too bad it will never happen... sigh they are the same company and the only thing they want to force on everyone is the view cube...
Prof, when you archive a scene it grabs all materials in the scene and in the material editor used or unused. I use that feature to save copies of my psd's when I archive. My psd's are all in multi sub object material that is not linked to anything.
I have a script that searches the applied materials and looks for any psd's with the same name and adds the psd to the multi material, but never links it to anything. As long as its in the material editor, it gets archived, linked or not. If not properly checked it can lead to gigs of files being archived that aren't being used.
I've also seen people attach a bunch of object and not realize that a multi material was created and leave the dozen or so textures sitting out in the material editor eating up space.
file -f -save -options "v=0" -type "mayaBinary";
// Error: line 0: File contains unknown nodes or data. To preserve this information, the current file type cannot be changed. //
Fuck !!! hahah I can't believe that!! and what he wants fif I want toobtain the list of this sutpid nodes or datas?
haha just .... just.... hmm I'm don't have words have the right word in english, someone know which one ?
ElysiumGX maybe you should of read my posts about why I don't used Immed mode. What is especially funny is we have talked about this before on IM. But I'll save you the reading.
As mentioned, I don't use immed because I rather freeze my history in XSI than need it to make changes and not have access to it. Cheers... XSI is also very good at hiding useful things in tabs like it's history. I think it's a very crappy way of finding it. But his is about describing how great Max is so I won't comment further.
Prior I wish copy and pasting modifers just worked all the time. If you try and copy and paste a set up uv map mod from one object to another it really doesn't work. Also is there a way to edit uvs of a cube with one of the uv coords like you would when you first add a cube mapping to an object for example. Like say if you were trying to keep seamless textures aligned in a certain way and keep the tileing. Nothing fancy, it just freaking annoying to have to do the same shit over and over. Going in with an unwrap modifier seems way too involved.
Professor420 - so your hoping that I was being sarcastic when trying to say that saving often is a good idea?! Hmm, not so, I have seen so many projects ruined and peoples work destroyed by not putting a split second aside and backing up (to a new file) as much as poss.
You can control the functions of the whole program through scripting (as you must know) so I would love to hear some awesome tips.
I was hoping you were sarcastic when you said:
Max is awesome in all area's! Personally I love the idea of the listener window, whatever you do the window will record it as a maxscript so it is very handy indeed.
Ha never tried this attach teapot or box or whatever, don't seem to get into that kind of trouble very often but when I do I add a reset x form utility and then an stl check (which is probably one of the more hopeless modifiers) if there's still a problem I check every single vertice and usually find a double one or a dodgy polygon that needs deleting, hole capping etc.
1) The listener is a PoS, it works like crap. I wonder what sort of scripts you were writing if it gave you something useful- for anything beyond a very introductory level, it simply does not work correctly if at all.
2) Again, you are very lucky if you rarely run into box/xform fix problems. 'Checking every single vertex' is not a good workflow and something you REALLY should NEVER have to do- if that is what a program requires, something is wrong- and a number of times Max has done that to me. Simply unacceptable.
And to your request for tips: you cannot control the whole program through scripting. In fact, every single day I run into some limitation that I have to work around, sometimes they are fatal (like no Gimbal coordinate system on a controller that isn't Euler_XYZ), sometimes inconveniences (like having to register a postfileopen callback that creates a timer that ticks to launch a function that shouldn't require a double-workaround). But I'd rather control less of the program, and what I do control doesn't accidentally destroy the IK transforms on a rig so you have to stay extra hours re-rigging and transferring over animation so the animator working on it doesn't lose work (bug starting in Max 9).
Vig: That's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the way the materials are organized internally is crap. You should be able to see all your materials in the scene and you shouldn't have any 'hidden' materials in the scene, and you shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get there. And by 'see' I also mean 'see' through script. Trying to sync up meditmaterials and scenematerials is a pain...
I will say this, even though the skinOps in Maxscript completely suck (which means scripting skinning is a whole lot harder than it should be), Skinning in max is nice. Also, the modifiers are great for modeling (though for animation they aren't as useful).
I also wish Max didn't crash when I tried to write a file to a directory that doesn't exist, and would give me an error. That is awesome. Or trying to delete an object through script one by one with a DX9 Shader applied- but if I add them to an array and delete the array, it works. And so on and so on.
EDIT: I like maxscript as a language, but its interfacing with Max blows hard, because Max is an extremely buggy and hacked-together program. All these programs have bugs to some degree, but Max, being as old and closed and re-designed but not re-coded as its been, has it the worst.
sama.van:
That usually happens when you have nodes that are not Maya-nodes. Like exporting-assets or special nodes created by plug-ins. Look through your outliner (turn off "Show DAG objects only") to find them.
Also, try deleting history on your objects before saving.
@vig how do you work with temporary materials? i mean something which isnt always assigned to an object but you want to keep - as the scene grows the material slots gets messy and I cannnot reset the material editor because this will kill the temp stuff. i know quite a few work arounds (mat libs, assigning to some dummy objects etc) but find them annoying...
My temp materials hardly ever spill over 24 slots. Personally I don't reserve slots for applied materials. That cuts down on quite a bit of the clutter.
I also use the get material menu system to browse libraries and the scene materials. I also use the material browser (not the same as the material editor) to jump around inside the materials themselves, its much faster then clicking and scrolling around. This is where naming things logically comes into play so they are easy to spot. Scripting can help with that but its all a personal choice.
Maybe I'm weird but I tend to work on one material and when its finished I move onto the next. Most materials aren't that complex or require a lot of tweaking. Diffuse, spec and normal set to standard settings and most of the work is done with the maps in PS so I don't have a bunch of temp materials hanging out all over the place.
I also use a layer management tool called the onion, it allows switching between two textures with a click. Useful for when I'm unwrapping and I want to bounce between my custom checker pattern and the actual texture. All done without opening the material editor.
Material libraries are a good way to go for stock materials. I use them to apply base procedural materials that I bake down to a base diffuse so I can start painting on. I have a lib, for metal, wood, concrete bla bla bla. I personally used them quite a bit for environment work. On my second monitor (when I get to the texture phase) I dock the Get Material window to the left of the material browser.
I couldn't work in 3dsmax with only one monitor...
Or You can do what I do with PSD's and create a multi material for your temps. It takes up one slot and you can drag/drop from it as you need them.
Need to apply the temp material to something? Drag it out of the multi onto a worker slot, apply it and then you can remove it from that slot if you need to.
Also if you need more slots, I'm pretty sure there are scripts out there that will increase that number, but it starts to effect performance at some point. I dislike opening a file from someone else and having it take 30s for the material editor to load. Since we swap files back and forth quite a bit we all try to keep the scenes as clean as possible.
I'm not making excuses for autodesk not overhauling the material editor system. I'm not trying to get everyone to suck it up and just use it as is. It could use a big overhaul but since that's not likely to happen I feel compelled to make sure people know some of the in's and out's so they can make the best of what they have.
Honestly the only way I see things getting changed is if someone spends the R&D time and makes it on their own. Then autodesk either steals it or buys it.
I'd really like to see 4 things rolled into one.
Asset Browser, asset tracking, layers, material editor. It all seams disjointed and clunky with it as separate pieces. But if the new selection menu is any indication of how they redesign things, I'd rather see them wait for someone else to do it.
I'm not making excuses for autodesk not overhauling the material editor system. I'm not trying to get everyone to suck it up and just use it as is. It could use a big overhaul but since that's not likely to happen I feel compelled to make sure people know some of the in's and out's so they can make the best of what they have.
You are right, these tips will be useful for some people. Thanks for them.
Unfortunately there are no scripts that extend the material editor to more than 24 slots, it is very hard-coded into Max. It would really take writing an entirely new material editor, which would require a LOT of work (including writing a preview renderer for the materials, I'd assume). There is an incomplete node-based material editor using Kees' Helium plugin, don't know what happened to it,but it doesn't get around the matlibrary limitation.
Honestly the only way I see things getting changed is if someone spends the R&D time and makes it on their own. Then autodesk either steals it or buys it.
Indeed! Look at many of the recent additions to Max, they are just integrations of plugins, such as Guruware obj exporter in max 9, or AVG maxscript extensions. Not to say this is a bad thing, especially for the scripting stuff, but people should just be aware where many of these 'features' come from.
I'd really like to see 4 things rolled into one.
Asset Browser, asset tracking, layers, material editor. It all seams disjointed and clunky with it as seperate pieces. But if the new selection menu is any indication of how they redesign things, I'd rather then wait for someone else to do it.
One fortunate thing is that with DotNet integrated with MXS, you can see some really nice UI's and replacements.
One way to set up as many materials and still see cute orbs as you want would be to make a multi subobject to just hold temp materials. I have found myself making several multi sub objects before and need them anyway so it just helps a little. Although navigating through multisubojects can be a pain in the butt. If I'm not using a material anymore I just replace it also if I have one object that is using several materials I make a multisubobject.If you click with the eyedropper on anyobject, the orb in the material editor eill create a multisuboject with the materials the object had.
...we have talked about this before on IM. But I'll save you the reading.
As mentioned, I don't use immed because I rather freeze my history in XSI than need it to make changes and not have access to it.
You mentioned something that annoys you about XSI, while you are already aware of two options that stop that annoyance. And they're easy to find. It's just part of the workflow. I have to say, most of what you post about XSI makes no sense, or is entirely inaccurate. After all the conversations we've had, I have reason to believe you are doing it wrong. Just use Max instead.
ElysiumGX your right XSI is perfect as is and if anyone doesn't like it they shouldn't use it. It's UI isn't a waste of space, there is no need to have a mirror tool because symmetrize does everything, creates clones as well. Also having to type in negative scales in x, y or z to mirror clones is much much faster than a mirror tool that actually lets you create clones if wanted or mirrored duplicates without options ( copy option in Max). To clarify because I don't make any sense at all, unless it was changed in 6.5 which I have never used, symmetrize doesn't create clones, it does mirror your object similar to symmetry in Max but it doesn't let you see updates in real time as you work on half the object. I have been able to mimic the results you get when working in epoly with a symmetry modifer in the stack, without using show end result however. Now I know it sounds like I'm selling this tool short but it does some nice things that Max doesn't do. Moving on... You can create conditional scripts with the information provided by the xsi script editor( has a listener built in can't describe it any other way). My goal was to create a toggle, I wanted to use on shortcut to turn a property of the camera on and off. I was told by several people on XSI base that this had to be scripted using the XSI object model and not with commands, which is what xsi script editor gives you when you use it as a listener. I should look up the exact name XSI uses or it won't make sense. Too lazy to though. Also I guess asking to have a dedicated command to align components quickly is too much to ask because it sooo much faster to tag the points (ohh xsi lingo), edges or faces and then switch to COG and scale by 0. It was soo much faster that I found a way to make scripts to do this because I got sick of wasting my time doing all these steps, and just started to press a button instead. I'm being sarcastic, I wouldn't want to come off as being inaccurate or not make sense.
Maybe opening an explorer window to freeze part of the history is not annoying to you, but I feel it should be more streamlined than that. Also just because the program has some way to do things doesn't mean that I don't find them annoying. Any program that has an inefficient way of doing certain things annoy me. The developers of XSI have been very good at fixing most of these things I find annoying, so maybe when I was pissed every time I needed to zoom in XSI 4.2 in the texture editor (xsi unwrap editor) like I could in the viewports, it was fixed in version 5. Because wanting this standard throughout the application doesn't make any sense. I'll elaborate a little, In XSI pretty much you use the same navigations tools throughout the programs, you press and you have several options depending on the mouse button you used. But for the texture editor in 4.2 the niest and most controled way to zoom (called doly the camera in the viewports) was not available. Instead you had this awesome hit or miss way to zoom in to the uv coord, pretty much a freaking waste of time. After a long time of practice you sort get the hang of it. Of course this got fixed in version 5, I guess I wasn't the only one that thought the zoom in the texture editor sucked the big one.
How about hiding and unhiding objects. It awesome. You press H to hide and unhide all objects. That sounds like a toggle to me, but when you unhide all objects you get a surprise. XSI like Maya, has this BS idea that the viewports need to be cameras that the user can mess with. Also it has default lights that it has set up that show up when you hit unhide all objects. To make things more interesting when you hide an object it stays selected, and you must deselect or else... And to only unhide objects you want to unhide, minus all the camera and light garbage, you have to select them first. How do you do that. Well you open the explorer, press 8 or you can click on the big button that says selection, wait my mistake, scene in the UI and then you can select them that way and press H. This is soo much faster than an unhide all that exist in Max that doesn't let you screw directly with viewport cameras, because they are not cameras. I mean it must be really hard to create a camera from scratch that you are going to use for animation so XSI gives use plenty to choose from, one from every view. Awesome workflow, I just fail to see the point of it.
And telling someone to not use XSI because they don't love everything about it as is, really makes sense. I really love that attitude, that's why I hang out at XSI base so much. By that logic I shouldn't use Max either and use XSI instead because there is plenty that XSI does better than Max. Oh wait, does that not make any sense either? It would put me in and endless loop of sorts if I followed that logic.
You are right about a few things though, Max snaps are awesome, like filing taxes awesome, and there are plenty of times I do things wrong in XSI, and you usually tell me you don't know what I am doing.
I did rewrite this several times to not sound as much as and as, as I did, but in a nutshell that's all got against XSI. Okay there are a few other things I had but I think I found a solutions I can't complain about.
I found away around the having the viewport cameras and light appear. If I make a new layer and just put the geometry there and make the layer that had the garbage as i call it, unselectable when i hit H it doesn't unhide the unwanted objects. Actually I found out a few things I didn't know about XSI and Max so this was rather useful. And to clarify, I do like Max's stack I just think it could be nicer. Likewise for XSI.
Maybe opening an explorer window to freeze part of the history is not annoying to you, but I feel it should be more streamlined than that.
Also just because the program has some way to do things doesn't mean that I don't find them annoying. Any program that has an inefficient way of doing certain things annoy me.
I was pissed every time I needed to zoom in XSI 4.2 in the texture editor (xsi unwrap editor) like I could in the viewports, it was fixed in version 5. Because wanting this standard throughout the application doesn't make any sense. I'll elaborate a little, In XSI pretty much you use the same navigations tools throughout the programs, you press and you have several options depending on the mouse button you used. But for the texture editor in 4.2 the niest and most controled way to zoom (called doly the camera in the viewports) was not available.
How about hiding and unhiding objects. It awesome. Blah blah blah...
I found away around the having the viewport cameras and light appear. If I make a new layer and just put the geometry there and make the layer that had the garbage as i call it, unselectable when i hit H it doesn't unhide the unwanted objects.
Awesome workflow, I just fail to see the point of it.
And telling someone to not use XSI because they don't love everything about it as is, really makes sense.
...and there are plenty of times I do things wrong in XSI, and you usually tell me you don't know what I am doing.
Okay there are a few other things I had but I think I found a solutions I can't complain about.
Actually I found out a few things I didn't know about XSI and Max so this was rather useful.
Whoa there killer. I think you miss the point entirely. This thread was originally about the pains people receive from using Max. From my experience, Max has many features that do not work as they're intended, or give erroneous results. You've made no mention of tools in XSI that do not work as intended, or give bad results. The tools in XSI work as they're described. Your arguement is one of opinion, describing the methods you dislike in COMPARISON to Max. That is the source of your annoyance, not XSI itself.
You think the interface is a waste of space? Autohide it. It's in Layouts. Are the main command panels taking too much space? Right click them to collapse.
I don't tell people to use Max instead of XSI if they have a problem. just you. Because, from the beginning, you were one of the users that would say to me "well, in Max, it's done this way". And you continue to search for ways in which it can be done similar to the Max method, only to find it annoys you. Just use Max. If XSI irritates you so much (see the length of your post), stop using it.
Opening the Explorer is not annoying for me. Often times I leave it open in an unused viewport, instead of a new window. Or just press 8. Otherwise I press Scene. Why Scene? Because you're Exploring the Scene, as oppose to other areas it gives easy access to. If you want to get more specific, you just pless Explore>Operators. There are all the operators for you to adjust, or freeze. Sounds very streamlined to me. If you want more, just press Freeze, or Freeze Modeling only. If you want to Freeze Transforms, select from the Transforms Panel, Freeze all Transforms. All easily found in the Main Command Panel. Makes sense to me. Lots of options for customizing how you work. Sorry that annoys you.
You want a standard consistency for the Zoom tool? Press Z. Z stands for Zoom. Now, in the Texture Editor (not the Unwrap Window, because XSI uses the term projections, not unwrap...projections can be created FROM the "edit uv" window) use the Z key with your mouse buttons. You get the options to zoom in and out, with the handy option of panning. Now repeat in the Perspective viewports. Same actions. There is your standard. What you wanted was for the 2D Texture Editor to share the same commands as the Dolly function. Dolly is a term used in film to move the camera...not Zoom, which is a lens function. This makes more sense for artists who work on films. But, in the end, they've fixed this for you, so what's the point in mentioning it? Softimage updates their software with options...but this is a Max thread.
Scripting...if you want to spend time writing scripts in your language of choice for functionality that already exists and can be found and used in ways that is useful for many, that's your choice. The alternative being, you could learn an application specific language for scripting functionality that doesn't already exist.
Hiding...I'm glad you found the usefulness of layers. So why write a hole paragraph on hiding? XSI places a new light in scenes for rendering. One step you don't have to take, because it's generally needed. Don't like it, delete it, use headlight, never render. Want to render something quickly...oh crap, put that light back in. Don't like the camera? Move it away, select User view instead. All trivial complaints.
There are options for working on a mirrored object. Clone, Symmetrize Polygons, as you mentioned. You didn't mention Symmetry Map. It's easy to find. I don't use the workflow you desire. And it hasn't stood in the way of my productivity. So I don't see it as a flaw.
You make a lot of points that can easily be remedied with several easily available options...and you are aware of these options, but you dislike them by choice.
Please don't post so much again. I have work I should be doing. I'm not trying to offend you. Just make you aware of your position. There are valid points detailing how XSI can be frustrating to new users...but you haven't mentioned them.
Many people use XSI by choice. Many people use Max by salary. Sorry for the long post.
Alright, so for the Mod Facade challenge, I upgraded to Max 2009, because I wanted to be able to unwrap multiple objects at once. That part is very cool, but now I've been completely gimped.
Did they outright REMOVE the "clone in place by shift clicking a handle" thing? It's driving me batty. I can shift drag to clone, but I used to be able to hold shift, click a direction handle (WITHOUT DRAGGING) and it would clone it in place. . . now I can't seem to do that.
I've tried working with CTRL-V in order to clone the objects in place, and that works to some degree, but I can't clone polys within an object with that.
Anyone have any bright ideas to get this back? or better methods to get around it?
Sage- The Viewport as Camera thing that Maya and XSI do actually makes a ton of sense, and allows consistency with scripting, etc. Viewports ARE cameras, it is only Max that doesn't treat them as such. It creates a real pain when you try to script viewport stuff, because they aren't treated like cameras, they should be. All a viewport is is 'what are you looking through' and 'what is the FOV/is it orthagonal.' That is exactly what a camera is as well. Why they would be thought of as different is beyond me, but it is a very peculiar thing to Max- it fits right into the Max way of doing things, though, because instead of thinking of the architecture of the program in an object-oriented way where the systems all work together and can be handled with similar methods and techniques and work together, everything in the program is handled differently. You obviously prefer this approach, so I think Elysium is right in his suggestion for you to just use Max. But I think if you approached XSI or Maya not coming from a Max viewpoint, you'd see that this methodology actually affords you more power, though the initial learning curve (much having to do with understanding the methodology and possibilities) is steep.
Tumerboy: They took that out in Max 2k8, the modelers here are STILL complaining a month later since we upgraded (with reason, I guess). I thought they put it back in for Max 2k9, but I guess they didn't. Search around on The Area and CGTalk max forums and see what you can find, I know there is no workaround for 2k8, but something might have changed in 2k9.
Professor the problem I have with the viewport camera's and default lights showing up isn't so much with XSI or Maya per se. I have used software in the past that if you accidentally moved one there was no way to get them back to their default position, or settings easily. You had to reinstall the software to get them back. I never considered what you mentioned, about scripting because that's not what I do, I model and texture and sometimes animate. I don't need or want the default cameras and lights to show up when I'm trying to unhide objects I'm modeling and the comment wasn't directed towards the camera's or lights themselves. What bugs me is how hide and unhide all object works. There isn't an option to just unhide meshes. There is an option to unhide polygons but that only works for the polygons inside an object not the object itself. But I found a way around it so I won't be fighting with this problem anymore.
Elysium GX I guess you missed my point as well. Cheers man. The reason I mentioned Max when I asked you how something worked was to give you a context where I was coming from, had it been using Maya, Raydream, Silo or whatever 3d app instead I would of used that name instead.
Tumerboy they did indeed remove it. You can use detach though. Just make sure when you do use it you select the detach as clone to element option. I loved to click the handle to clone in place, of course that annoying pop up would come up. I hate Autodesk.
There isn't an option to just unhide meshes. ... But I found a way around it so I won't be fighting with this problem anymore.
I'm sorry such a trivial option bothers you so much. Even as you say you've found a workaround for it using layers. It's not a workaround...it's what everyone does, or should be doing. If you don't like Unhide All, don't Hide All. Set your selection filter to Polygon Mesh. Press Ctrl-A to select all using Filter. Hide. In the Explorer, select one or all meshes, and Unhide them.
In conclusion, I've made scripts simply using commands from the listener, so your statements are misleading. The "magic box" trick has never been needed for XSI. There are too many options easily seen on the main command panels for you to miss them. Stop speaking for an application unless you understand how and why it works. It frustrates those of us who do. I understand why Max is different, and I accept that it hasn't changed much since DOS. I expect the functions for it to do as they are labeled without causing error.
ElysiumGX the problem is the cameras and lights getting unhidden do to how unhide all object works. Also having to do several steps instead of one is unproductive. So I guess again you missed the point of why I find it annoying. The fact is pressing one button is faster than having to do several steps. That's what it comes down to. But I guess you are too in love with XSI to see reality and it's default workflow is great.
I guess you missed the point again. Maybe you should stay objective instead of trying to take cheap shots at me. Making comments like this is exactly that. I'm sorry such a trivial option bothers you so much. Even as you say you've found a workaround for it using layers. It's not a workaround...it's what everyone does, or should be doing...
This wouldn't be necessary if the program had an option to just unhide polygon objects instead it just unhiding everything. So yes its a limitation made by the dev team because they can't imagine people wanting to just unhide all polygon objects at once in the scene. According to you it's faster to press 8 to open the explorer window or go into the scene button and navigate to the objects select it and press H. Yeah that is soo much faster than pressing one button. Hiding is easy you select all you want to hide and press h no problem with that. Unhiding you have to select all the hidden objects first then hit h because if you do unhide all everything gets unhidden which blows. The problem is you need to open a new window to do this. I can see that being needed when doing an unhide by the name type deal but I guess it's too much to ask for XSI to have a more efficient way of doing things. Also considering how many options XSI has to do everything makes it worse that they don't have a few more options to unhide certain things only. Sorry my views on XSI piss you off so much and don't make any sense at all and are soo trivial.
Dude the magic box trick is exactly that, an quick and dirty way to reset xforms if you don't know any other way of doing it.
And to be honest no one here speaks for any software, they speak of their experience with it. I don't speak for Autodesk or Avid. I expect software to have useful tools, when the only way to do something easy involves several extra steps it's annoying. I have made many scripts with XSI to address the lack of simple features that it should already have.
The fact is pressing one button is faster than having to do several steps.
Is it faster? Let's think for a moment...
Software A has no option to do what you need to do in one step. It has, however, a Listener that you can copy and paste from to make a macro that does what you need to do in one step. To do this, though, may require an initial investment of a half hour if you want to be fancy. However, this half hour investment becomes a couple minutes as you make more and more 'one button push' simplifications.
Software B has an option to do what you need it to do, but in order to do it, they needed to break logic and code different components that do almost the same thing. The result is a broken Listener, and a system much more difficult to code in because there is far less reusability of code and concepts. There are, however, undoubtedly still areas where you can do the 'one button push' simplifications- but in order to create them and support them requires a much larger continued investment of time.
I never considered what you mentioned, about scripting because that's not what I do, I model and texture and sometimes animate.
You try to be efficient, yes? You should probably learn some very simple scripting, no matter what program and what discipline you are in. It is pretty simple in any program- Maya/XSI have a better listener, but Maxscript is very easy to pick up (and XSI has Python which is just like MXS). My vote, and this is coming from a tech guy, will ALWAYS be for the Software A. Not just on the individual level, but the enterprise level as well. The extra couple seconds you may have to spend because of software design are hours saved on the pipeline and tools end. But this is about personal preference so that probably doesn't count much here.
I'll take a software I can adjust to how I want to work and can do what I want with it and in it, to one that rather rigidly presents me with a variety of options that don't work well together, and results in a program poorly equipped to adapt with changing times.
ElysiumGX the problem is the cameras and lights getting unhidden do to how unhide all object works...
This wouldn't be necessary if the program had an option to just unhide polygon objects instead it just unhiding everything.
Yes, Unhide Objects works as it should. It Unhides All Objects. Cameras and Lights are objects. There was a time when I used Max, and I hid some objects. Unfortunately, I didn't save just before the action. I never got them back.
No, there is no Unhide All Polygon Mesh button. If this is such a big deal, maybe you should put serious consideration into prioritizing your workflow, as I've advised you do many times already. Use the Select All Polygon Mesh filter, and press H. Takes only a second. Even if you scripted this. You would have to consider the time it takes to first write the script, IF you know how to script, and then navigate to the script buttion once it's made. How often do you use it? Why? If the Devs aren't listening to your concerns, maybe it's because they're working on useful features like Ultimapper, Crosswalk, XNA Integrate, Migration tools, etc. If it's such a chore, have you shared your workflow optimizing scripts with the community? Have they applauded you for your efforts?
I guess I'm still missing the point. Devs should tailor their applications based on your inability to adapt. Of all the people I know who share an interest in using XSI, you are strangely difficult to converse with. Helping you doesn't seem to have any effect, because you refuse to follow advise unless it specifically aligns with your personal demands for negligible functionality.
But thank you. For a thread that can easily be filled with flaws and bugs regarding an application that most people in this industry are required to use, you have proven that XSI really has nothing critical to dispute.
This took 4 minutes to install to my Scripts panel:
'You know why scripters have no sense of humour and believe that every artist should know how to code'
(If I'm not mistaken :P)
...
...
Joke aside ... I believe that increased user friendliness is just as important as new features being added. I can't exactly explain why, but messing around in Silo gives me a happy grin, while downscaling my canvas in Zbrush to make it run smoothly feels like I am loosing a few dozen braincells on the spot. Now if only Silo had modifiers...
BTW I am wondering if anyone here personnaly knows some Max/Maya/XSI/Silo devs? I am very curious to hear insiders facts. Like, how they handle user feedback, how they come up with their objectives for the next release aso.
ElysiumGX You know you can shortcut scripts right no need to look them up anywhere? Thanks for posting that script, those commands gave me an idea and on how to solve my problem. I found this command or property looking through the guide.
SIUnhideObjects objs seems to work to unhide only hidden meshes and not all objects, I guess it was too hard for the dev team to make a unhide poly objects tool with this by default. I'll have to test. I'll add a shortcut and see. Works fine. I think we should bicker more often. I would get more things done faster. Opps I guess that negates this
helping you doesn't seem to have any effect, because you refuse to follow advise unless it specifically aligns with your personal demands for negligible functionality.
I guess this is negligible functionality as well I wonder why it's used in Photoshop.... Hmmm Oh wait that's inverse not invert selection, silly me , my bad.
select invert (poly meshes only)
script command= InvertSelection (PolyMeshFilter)
after quick testing it inverts selections of components as well.
Another tool apparently to hard to implement by default. No one needs to select invert things ever. There is a selection toggle which you can use to invert a selection which is useful sometimes but I wanted more.
No comment on the other stuff you said not even sure where you get it from but whatever. My scripts are not efficient so I never thought of sharing them especially to just hear how wonderful they are. I have shortcuts to all of them no need to dig to use them. They do save me plenty of time though. I could say more but you are right I'm a fool, never listen and never go out of my way to help anyone, I just nag, nag, nag, nag. I IM you 24 seven and ask for help about XSI and when we talk all I do is bitch about XSI. I can count how many times I have IMed you about anything, and when I do it's usually to ask you how you are doing. You got me figured out to the core. Spare me the bs man all software needs improving, XSI isn't any different.
Things I need to do often, invert selection, hide and un hide objects, detach, attach, unwrap. extrude, clone and duplicate, align verts, faces, edges, subdivide, bevel, add edges, remove edges. Very typical work flow if you model. I use layers if needed. Select things with ignore backfaces on(raycast mode with affect backfaces off) and off, weld, target weld.
Devs should make their software as useful as possible in everything it does, modeling, texturing, animation and scripting simple as that. We all know Autodesk never drops the ball there.
Cheers man.
Professor I'm not a programmer or technical artist so I don't share your pain when I work in Max, but I have tried doing scripts there and I'm not to fond of how the listener works there. That said if you didn't know how to script well, how would you feel when basic features you needed were missing? I mean really try to think like artist with no scripting ability do for a change. It would be annoying correct. Also it doesn't take half an hour to script new tools if you are not good at it and don't know where to start. First you have to figure out what the hell things are called, so you spend hours of digging. Then you try and try until you get something that works, and just because something works doesn't mean it's good. What's MX? My 2 cents there.
What? I made that script myself, using only the listener, then dragged the text to the script panel. It's now at the point where I have no clue what you're trying to explain. The lack of punctuating, and sarcasm don't help. I'm out.
I wasn't being sarcastic when I said the script you wrote helped me. Sorry if it came off as sarcasm. After I read it a few times a light bulb went off in my head and helped me find some things in the sdk guides. Later man.
Professor I'm not a programmer or technical artist so I don't share your pain when I work in Max, but I have tried doing scripts there and I'm not to fond of how the listener works there. That said if you didn't know how to script well, how would you feel when basic features you needed were missing? I mean really try to think like artist with no scripting ability do for a change. It would be annoying correct. Also it doesn't take half an hour to script new tools if you are not good at it and don't know where to start. First you have to figure out what the hell things are called, so you spend hours of digging. Then you try and try until you get something that works, and just because something works doesn't mean it's good. What's MX? My 2 cents there.
Yeah Max's listener is complete crap. It will even spit out information that, if you try to execute it, fails (such as the wrong number of arguments given by the change material ID function).
If I didn't know how to script, and features were missing, and people were telling me how if I invest a couple hours to learn basic scripting how much faster I'd work, I'd learn how to script, quite honestly. I would be pissed if basic features were missing and there was no simple way to get them, but you have a (relatively) simple way to get them.
To learn 'scripting' is actually quite simple- a 'script' being just a series of commands done in order. You really don't need to know any great deal about maxscript or python, it is just automation of what you'd normally do via the UI. But you are right that it is difficult to approach it, most of us do it from necessity (and those of us that make careers of it fall in love with it). I am starting up a technical art community site that I'm going to launch next week, one of the things I have already on the Wiki are 'portals' for topics that should help people who are at all levels of experience with scripting, so it should help people begin and get over the initial hurdle (really, once you get a couple key concepts, it is really quite simple- good scripting is about good design, which is a real skill, doing the actual coding is much easier- and for your 6 line scripts, you don't really need to design anything).
'You know why scripters have no sense of humour and believe that every artist should know how to code'
If they don't, they should have someone to write scripts. There shouldn't be artists dependent for core workflow things upon the decisions of a large software companies that rarely listen to customers. If you have someone to help streamline your workflow, it will ALWAYS go faster.
BTW I am wondering if anyone here personnaly knows some Max/Maya/XSI/Silo devs?
I can only speak from second hand experience, especially from people like Kees Rijnen, Cloward, etc, with Max devs. And from what I do hear, few if any requests were EVER acted upon and even major problems were rarely fixed. While I don't know how Alias/Maya or XSI are/were, so much more of Max is hard coded that I know it has caused much grief (though I hear Maya's SDK is a real pain). Quite honestly, I know even studios like Frantic Films in Canada, which has a ton of top Max talent, have trouble getting requests listened to. Many of the stories I've heard give me the impression Max devs are either in denial, or they are aware of the situation they are in and the entire place is miserable and treading water.
"I am starting up a technical art community site that I'm going to launch next week"
I like the sound of that, keep us posted
oh wait, this is the max hate thread, better hate on something...umm, max needs to give the option to work directly on sub-d surfaces already instead of forcing you to use a cage, and I wish they'd use a more nex/silo/modo slection sceme too. beyond that and the broken scripting though don't really have any problems with it.
Well Prof that's an interesting point. I have been lucky enough to work with very talented tool/techart guys, and it has improved my workflow a whole lot. (either by using their stuff, or by requesting a whole bunch of custom tools to them myself. Like, TONS haha!). As a matter of fact I learned Maya using a heavily modified and custom scripted version of the program - without such shortcuts I would have a hard time doing anything in a fast manner. Because obviously and like every artist out there, I use some scripts I have access to through work, on my home machine.
But the twist is : these talented scripters I know, used to be artists. Animators, modelers and so on. They gradually made their own tools, figuring out the code stuff aso, and picked up this path as a career. But that's something I don't want to do, since in a game studio the more technical skill ones shows, the less *art* one does. And since 2D art, color theory and many other artsy things requires a huge amount of time and dedication, that's not a time a want to spend looking at lines of code - no matter how powerful that can be :P
The bottom line is, I'm with PolyHertz and wholeheartedly welcome the rise of a techart community where artists in need of efficient tools could post and explain their request for techart guys to work on and share their results. Especially since freelancers or remote artists don't have access to their own 'personnal scripter'.
It seems like most studios freak out when it comes to the public release of custom tools. Congrats to Insomniac for what they started recently. If all studios were sharing it could only make things faster and easier for everybody. Like, how come that many studios rely heavily on BlurScripts, yet keep their own tools for internal use...
Maybe we could have a tool request subforum here on PC ?
On the tool request forum: It is something I had planned for tech-artists.org (there, you have the web address, go and read the wiki), I don't think we really have the number of technical people at PC for one here though (maybe a dozen people that can write scripts/tools for maya or max?). I've been speaking with Adam about getting some cross promotion going on, but we'll see what happens.
But that's something I don't want to do, since in a game studio the more technical skill ones shows, the less *art* one does.
And you have the option. Someone doing freelance, or working in a studio with no tech guys (that is no excuse, though, any size studio should have a technical guy), doesn't have that option. They do have the option, usually, of customizing their workflow, tools, etc., to whatever suits them- but if they want to get things done fast, they should learn how to do simple things.
The content creation paradigm has shifted and pipeline is as important for games as it has been for movies. You are necessarily going to sacrifice some features for flexibility that you will have to add yourself, customized. When you look at the grand scheme of efficiency, a studio with 200 people using a customized program is going to save lots more time than those same people using a program less open to customization. And the freelancers are just a drop in the pond. Expecting to make top-notch art at a fast pace out of the box is not really feasible anymore, because there is such a variety and divergence of workflows. Especially with the increase in outsourcing, knowing how to do technical stuff is more and more important. I wouldn't encourage you to learn it if you don't have to (in fact I'd encourage you NOT to unless you have an interest), but if it is between inefficiency using one program, moaning about another, or taking a day to learn simple scripting, I'd suggest one to opt for the latter.
It seems like most studios freak out when it comes to the public release of custom tools.
*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* Yes. Fortunately my last studio closed so I don't have any qualms about releasing what I did work on and any 'secrets.' They were pretty liberal with stuff like that anyway. BioWare and EA, though, are pretty close-lipped, which is very unfortunate. I am always inclined to share info, but sometimes I have to be less detailed than I want or ought to be (which is still probably more detailed than is good for me). But oh well, fuck it, I will continue to do what I think is right But I do wish I could outright release lots of stuff Ben and I have written, for Puppetshop and for Max in general. And the other question is- if I rewrite this at home, from scratch, the code and ideas aren't likely to be much different (that wasn't a question). Ah well. A real sore spot of mine, this insulation of information. Maybe after a while I'll approach management about releasing some of our tools.
True about releasing stuff publicly - we've developed dozens of useful max scripts, but quite a few are going to be engine/game specific so aren't really of any use. However, I do tend to happily post functions and sometimes document my learning processes.
about the "not release scripts to public" all fun and productivity and so on aside, dont forget that your fellow coders are paid for this job. And when they boost the artist's productivity, they help the company again, which of course wants to get the best return for their investment... you
one can argue that it's sad, that this stuff isn't shared more often for the "good of all", but I think it has a lot to do with "investment" thinking of employers. Cause eventually one could argue the more open tools the better for all. But to think of paying your employees for work that can directly be used by competition isnt easy to take over.
I dont want to open the whole "opensource" can here, but the companys that make money of opensource software typically do this by "support", help material... which doesnt apply here so well.
Graciousness often comes with success, lets not forget in what position "blur" is... then again we dont see any blizzard art tools, even though they print money with wow hehe. I guess some companys will do some not. One has to be realistic about the circumstances...
while it's a bit "easier" to separate "work work" from "freetime work" when it comes to art, it is sorta harder with coding. Cause you often relate to things you have already written, helper functions libraries... now in theory you would have to strictly separate from what "pencils" you use in your off hours and at work, but somewhat tricky to achieve... Hence I think not a lot of "custom" studio helper tools getting out...
You're all assholes for never telling me Ctrl-D in max unselects things. No longer do I have to look for void to click on in order to get out of sub-object mode.
Replies
Ha never tried this attach teapot or box or whatever, don't seem to get into that kind of trouble very often but when I do I add a reset x form utility and then an stl check (which is probably one of the more hopeless modifiers) if there's still a problem I check every single vertice and usually find a double one or a dodgy polygon that needs deleting, hole capping etc.
Saving, damn it I don't rely on autosave, that is last chance saloon for uber noobs or for people who don't really value their work/give a crap. Pro's increment on save and save every 5-10 mins to be sure, so what you end up with a shitload of files but you can always trace your steps back if a disaster occours.
Do you REALLY want to reset?
Uh, are you sure you're not talking about Maya?
I just tried this in Max... Max does not count scrubbing the time slider as an undo operation. As far as I'm aware, there's not even an option to make it count frame stepping as an undo operation.
I'm calling BS on this, either your animator has some weird setup, or he's done something else. Scrubbing the time slider (or even using the buttons for frame/keyframe stepping) adds nothing to the undo list.
Unfortunately, Maya does do this by default (and AFAIK no way to turn it off). It was one of the things in the "I hate Maya" list... precisely because Max does not do this.
Work in Immediate mode, (Immed).
edit: sorry, didn't realize every other user has already pointed that out to you. you know, the button that's easily seen at the front of the UI, and not hidden behind several tabs, and menus, and pop ups. That reminds me of something I freaking love about Max. And I love how powerfully accurate the 3D snap tools are.
I've had Maya wipe out my undo history before not sure what caused it might have been scrubbing, I just chalked it up to general bugginess? With the limited functionality of the history stack they really should not f-around with the undo, especially if it is scrubbing that adds to it. Thats just insane and there has to be a work around.
For that reason highpoly in Maya suck awesome haha...
For exemple if you want to move a vertex, you have to release your edges selection... And lost 2 more minutes to selection this 1000 edges
Seriously what programmer doing on Maya...
Max is awesome, because it has a f*ed up transform gizmo, and the material editor is limited to 24 material slots :P
Huh, guess this makes me a noob. :baby:
That is very sarcastic or very idiotic. My guess is on the former (my hope is on the former).
I would post some Max awesomeness but since all I do is scripting, it'd sound very Greek and very nerdy and wouldn't be very useful. I'd also probably crash the boards with how much I'd write.
The material editor is more like a work bench for you to "work" on your materials. Its not the warehouse. Once the material is assigned to an object and you're no longer working on them you can put a new material in that slot. It won't over write your material. All materials in the scene can be accessed though the "get material" button or eye dropper.
If you plan to create materials and not assign them to objects you can save them as material libraries.
Do everyone who will work on your files in the future a HUGE favor and reset your material editor before you archive it. That way it only grabs the materials used not all the other crap you've collected in the "limited 24 slots".
I've seen some huge archives 1-2gb. I'll open them, reset the material editor (takes forever because they like to use all 24 slots) and re-archive. They drop down to 15-20mb. Thanks for killing the servers and cluttering up my HDD guys... thanks a lot...
The material editor sucks- aside from its archaic workflow, the idea of 24 meditmaterials at a time is something that really needs to die. Max stores an array of what are called 'scenematerials', that is, all materials in your scene- that doesn't include the 24 meditmaterials, though, except if they are in your scene. The entire material system makes sense only when you look at it is the product of conflicting ideas and systems that evolved over time. It has caused me and everyone I know countless hours of confusion, it is time for a new material editor, a new material editor workflow and interface, but it will never happen. Whatever one may decry about Maya that is a product of its node-based workflow, its Hypershade functionality is still top of the line, even if its UI is growing outdated.
id love to join in on a thread that bashes max but yes ... i do the box coming trick in maya as well ... alot
Professor420 - so your hoping that I was being sarcastic when trying to say that saving often is a good idea?! Hmm, not so, I have seen so many projects ruined and peoples work destroyed by not putting a split second aside and backing up (to a new file) as much as poss.
You can control the functions of the whole program through scripting (as you must know) so I would love to hear some awesome tips.
Prof, when you archive a scene it grabs all materials in the scene and in the material editor used or unused. I use that feature to save copies of my psd's when I archive. My psd's are all in multi sub object material that is not linked to anything.
I have a script that searches the applied materials and looks for any psd's with the same name and adds the psd to the multi material, but never links it to anything. As long as its in the material editor, it gets archived, linked or not. If not properly checked it can lead to gigs of files being archived that aren't being used.
I've also seen people attach a bunch of object and not realize that a multi material was created and leave the dozen or so textures sitting out in the material editor eating up space.
file -f -save -options "v=0" -type "mayaBinary";
// Error: line 0: File contains unknown nodes or data. To preserve this information, the current file type cannot be changed. //
Fuck !!! hahah I can't believe that!! and what he wants fif I want toobtain the list of this sutpid nodes or datas?
haha just .... just.... hmm I'm don't have words have the right word in english, someone know which one
As mentioned, I don't use immed because I rather freeze my history in XSI than need it to make changes and not have access to it. Cheers... XSI is also very good at hiding useful things in tabs like it's history. I think it's a very crappy way of finding it. But his is about describing how great Max is so I won't comment further.
Prior I wish copy and pasting modifers just worked all the time. If you try and copy and paste a set up uv map mod from one object to another it really doesn't work. Also is there a way to edit uvs of a cube with one of the uv coords like you would when you first add a cube mapping to an object for example. Like say if you were trying to keep seamless textures aligned in a certain way and keep the tileing. Nothing fancy, it just freaking annoying to have to do the same shit over and over. Going in with an unwrap modifier seems way too involved.
2) Again, you are very lucky if you rarely run into box/xform fix problems. 'Checking every single vertex' is not a good workflow and something you REALLY should NEVER have to do- if that is what a program requires, something is wrong- and a number of times Max has done that to me. Simply unacceptable.
And to your request for tips: you cannot control the whole program through scripting. In fact, every single day I run into some limitation that I have to work around, sometimes they are fatal (like no Gimbal coordinate system on a controller that isn't Euler_XYZ), sometimes inconveniences (like having to register a postfileopen callback that creates a timer that ticks to launch a function that shouldn't require a double-workaround). But I'd rather control less of the program, and what I do control doesn't accidentally destroy the IK transforms on a rig so you have to stay extra hours re-rigging and transferring over animation so the animator working on it doesn't lose work (bug starting in Max 9).
Vig: That's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the way the materials are organized internally is crap. You should be able to see all your materials in the scene and you shouldn't have any 'hidden' materials in the scene, and you shouldn't have to jump through hoops to get there. And by 'see' I also mean 'see' through script. Trying to sync up meditmaterials and scenematerials is a pain...
I will say this, even though the skinOps in Maxscript completely suck (which means scripting skinning is a whole lot harder than it should be), Skinning in max is nice. Also, the modifiers are great for modeling (though for animation they aren't as useful).
I also wish Max didn't crash when I tried to write a file to a directory that doesn't exist, and would give me an error. That is awesome. Or trying to delete an object through script one by one with a DX9 Shader applied- but if I add them to an array and delete the array, it works. And so on and so on.
EDIT: I like maxscript as a language, but its interfacing with Max blows hard, because Max is an extremely buggy and hacked-together program. All these programs have bugs to some degree, but Max, being as old and closed and re-designed but not re-coded as its been, has it the worst.
That usually happens when you have nodes that are not Maya-nodes. Like exporting-assets or special nodes created by plug-ins. Look through your outliner (turn off "Show DAG objects only") to find them.
Also, try deleting history on your objects before saving.
I also use the get material menu system to browse libraries and the scene materials. I also use the material browser (not the same as the material editor) to jump around inside the materials themselves, its much faster then clicking and scrolling around. This is where naming things logically comes into play so they are easy to spot. Scripting can help with that but its all a personal choice.
Maybe I'm weird but I tend to work on one material and when its finished I move onto the next. Most materials aren't that complex or require a lot of tweaking. Diffuse, spec and normal set to standard settings and most of the work is done with the maps in PS so I don't have a bunch of temp materials hanging out all over the place.
I also use a layer management tool called the onion, it allows switching between two textures with a click. Useful for when I'm unwrapping and I want to bounce between my custom checker pattern and the actual texture. All done without opening the material editor.
Material libraries are a good way to go for stock materials. I use them to apply base procedural materials that I bake down to a base diffuse so I can start painting on. I have a lib, for metal, wood, concrete bla bla bla. I personally used them quite a bit for environment work. On my second monitor (when I get to the texture phase) I dock the Get Material window to the left of the material browser.
I couldn't work in 3dsmax with only one monitor...
Or You can do what I do with PSD's and create a multi material for your temps. It takes up one slot and you can drag/drop from it as you need them.
Need to apply the temp material to something? Drag it out of the multi onto a worker slot, apply it and then you can remove it from that slot if you need to.
Also if you need more slots, I'm pretty sure there are scripts out there that will increase that number, but it starts to effect performance at some point. I dislike opening a file from someone else and having it take 30s for the material editor to load. Since we swap files back and forth quite a bit we all try to keep the scenes as clean as possible.
I'm not making excuses for autodesk not overhauling the material editor system. I'm not trying to get everyone to suck it up and just use it as is. It could use a big overhaul but since that's not likely to happen I feel compelled to make sure people know some of the in's and out's so they can make the best of what they have.
Honestly the only way I see things getting changed is if someone spends the R&D time and makes it on their own. Then autodesk either steals it or buys it.
I'd really like to see 4 things rolled into one.
Asset Browser, asset tracking, layers, material editor. It all seams disjointed and clunky with it as separate pieces. But if the new selection menu is any indication of how they redesign things, I'd rather see them wait for someone else to do it.
Unfortunately there are no scripts that extend the material editor to more than 24 slots, it is very hard-coded into Max. It would really take writing an entirely new material editor, which would require a LOT of work (including writing a preview renderer for the materials, I'd assume). There is an incomplete node-based material editor using Kees' Helium plugin, don't know what happened to it,but it doesn't get around the matlibrary limitation.
Indeed! Look at many of the recent additions to Max, they are just integrations of plugins, such as Guruware obj exporter in max 9, or AVG maxscript extensions. Not to say this is a bad thing, especially for the scripting stuff, but people should just be aware where many of these 'features' come from.
One fortunate thing is that with DotNet integrated with MXS, you can see some really nice UI's and replacements.
You mentioned something that annoys you about XSI, while you are already aware of two options that stop that annoyance. And they're easy to find. It's just part of the workflow. I have to say, most of what you post about XSI makes no sense, or is entirely inaccurate. After all the conversations we've had, I have reason to believe you are doing it wrong. Just use Max instead.
Maybe opening an explorer window to freeze part of the history is not annoying to you, but I feel it should be more streamlined than that. Also just because the program has some way to do things doesn't mean that I don't find them annoying. Any program that has an inefficient way of doing certain things annoy me. The developers of XSI have been very good at fixing most of these things I find annoying, so maybe when I was pissed every time I needed to zoom in XSI 4.2 in the texture editor (xsi unwrap editor) like I could in the viewports, it was fixed in version 5. Because wanting this standard throughout the application doesn't make any sense. I'll elaborate a little, In XSI pretty much you use the same navigations tools throughout the programs, you press and you have several options depending on the mouse button you used. But for the texture editor in 4.2 the niest and most controled way to zoom (called doly the camera in the viewports) was not available. Instead you had this awesome hit or miss way to zoom in to the uv coord, pretty much a freaking waste of time. After a long time of practice you sort get the hang of it. Of course this got fixed in version 5, I guess I wasn't the only one that thought the zoom in the texture editor sucked the big one.
How about hiding and unhiding objects. It awesome. You press H to hide and unhide all objects. That sounds like a toggle to me, but when you unhide all objects you get a surprise. XSI like Maya, has this BS idea that the viewports need to be cameras that the user can mess with. Also it has default lights that it has set up that show up when you hit unhide all objects. To make things more interesting when you hide an object it stays selected, and you must deselect or else... And to only unhide objects you want to unhide, minus all the camera and light garbage, you have to select them first. How do you do that. Well you open the explorer, press 8 or you can click on the big button that says selection, wait my mistake, scene in the UI and then you can select them that way and press H. This is soo much faster than an unhide all that exist in Max that doesn't let you screw directly with viewport cameras, because they are not cameras. I mean it must be really hard to create a camera from scratch that you are going to use for animation so XSI gives use plenty to choose from, one from every view. Awesome workflow, I just fail to see the point of it.
And telling someone to not use XSI because they don't love everything about it as is, really makes sense. I really love that attitude, that's why I hang out at XSI base so much. By that logic I shouldn't use Max either and use XSI instead because there is plenty that XSI does better than Max. Oh wait, does that not make any sense either? It would put me in and endless loop of sorts if I followed that logic.
You are right about a few things though, Max snaps are awesome, like filing taxes awesome, and there are plenty of times I do things wrong in XSI, and you usually tell me you don't know what I am doing.
I did rewrite this several times to not sound as much as and as, as I did, but in a nutshell that's all got against XSI. Okay there are a few other things I had but I think I found a solutions I can't complain about.
I found away around the having the viewport cameras and light appear. If I make a new layer and just put the geometry there and make the layer that had the garbage as i call it, unselectable when i hit H it doesn't unhide the unwanted objects. Actually I found out a few things I didn't know about XSI and Max so this was rather useful.
Later.
Alex
Whoa there killer. I think you miss the point entirely. This thread was originally about the pains people receive from using Max. From my experience, Max has many features that do not work as they're intended, or give erroneous results. You've made no mention of tools in XSI that do not work as intended, or give bad results. The tools in XSI work as they're described. Your arguement is one of opinion, describing the methods you dislike in COMPARISON to Max. That is the source of your annoyance, not XSI itself.
You think the interface is a waste of space? Autohide it. It's in Layouts. Are the main command panels taking too much space? Right click them to collapse.
I don't tell people to use Max instead of XSI if they have a problem. just you. Because, from the beginning, you were one of the users that would say to me "well, in Max, it's done this way". And you continue to search for ways in which it can be done similar to the Max method, only to find it annoys you. Just use Max. If XSI irritates you so much (see the length of your post), stop using it.
Opening the Explorer is not annoying for me. Often times I leave it open in an unused viewport, instead of a new window. Or just press 8. Otherwise I press Scene. Why Scene? Because you're Exploring the Scene, as oppose to other areas it gives easy access to. If you want to get more specific, you just pless Explore>Operators. There are all the operators for you to adjust, or freeze. Sounds very streamlined to me. If you want more, just press Freeze, or Freeze Modeling only. If you want to Freeze Transforms, select from the Transforms Panel, Freeze all Transforms. All easily found in the Main Command Panel. Makes sense to me. Lots of options for customizing how you work. Sorry that annoys you.
You want a standard consistency for the Zoom tool? Press Z. Z stands for Zoom. Now, in the Texture Editor (not the Unwrap Window, because XSI uses the term projections, not unwrap...projections can be created FROM the "edit uv" window) use the Z key with your mouse buttons. You get the options to zoom in and out, with the handy option of panning. Now repeat in the Perspective viewports. Same actions. There is your standard. What you wanted was for the 2D Texture Editor to share the same commands as the Dolly function. Dolly is a term used in film to move the camera...not Zoom, which is a lens function. This makes more sense for artists who work on films. But, in the end, they've fixed this for you, so what's the point in mentioning it? Softimage updates their software with options...but this is a Max thread.
Scripting...if you want to spend time writing scripts in your language of choice for functionality that already exists and can be found and used in ways that is useful for many, that's your choice. The alternative being, you could learn an application specific language for scripting functionality that doesn't already exist.
Hiding...I'm glad you found the usefulness of layers. So why write a hole paragraph on hiding? XSI places a new light in scenes for rendering. One step you don't have to take, because it's generally needed. Don't like it, delete it, use headlight, never render. Want to render something quickly...oh crap, put that light back in. Don't like the camera? Move it away, select User view instead. All trivial complaints.
There are options for working on a mirrored object. Clone, Symmetrize Polygons, as you mentioned. You didn't mention Symmetry Map. It's easy to find. I don't use the workflow you desire. And it hasn't stood in the way of my productivity. So I don't see it as a flaw.
You make a lot of points that can easily be remedied with several easily available options...and you are aware of these options, but you dislike them by choice.
Please don't post so much again. I have work I should be doing. I'm not trying to offend you. Just make you aware of your position. There are valid points detailing how XSI can be frustrating to new users...but you haven't mentioned them.
Many people use XSI by choice. Many people use Max by salary. Sorry for the long post.
Did they outright REMOVE the "clone in place by shift clicking a handle" thing? It's driving me batty. I can shift drag to clone, but I used to be able to hold shift, click a direction handle (WITHOUT DRAGGING) and it would clone it in place. . . now I can't seem to do that.
I've tried working with CTRL-V in order to clone the objects in place, and that works to some degree, but I can't clone polys within an object with that.
Anyone have any bright ideas to get this back? or better methods to get around it?
Tumerboy: They took that out in Max 2k8, the modelers here are STILL complaining a month later since we upgraded (with reason, I guess). I thought they put it back in for Max 2k9, but I guess they didn't. Search around on The Area and CGTalk max forums and see what you can find, I know there is no workaround for 2k8, but something might have changed in 2k9.
Elysium GX I guess you missed my point as well. Cheers man. The reason I mentioned Max when I asked you how something worked was to give you a context where I was coming from, had it been using Maya, Raydream, Silo or whatever 3d app instead I would of used that name instead.
Tumerboy they did indeed remove it. You can use detach though. Just make sure when you do use it you select the detach as clone to element option. I loved to click the handle to clone in place, of course that annoying pop up would come up. I hate Autodesk.
Alex
I'm sorry such a trivial option bothers you so much. Even as you say you've found a workaround for it using layers. It's not a workaround...it's what everyone does, or should be doing. If you don't like Unhide All, don't Hide All. Set your selection filter to Polygon Mesh. Press Ctrl-A to select all using Filter. Hide. In the Explorer, select one or all meshes, and Unhide them.
In conclusion, I've made scripts simply using commands from the listener, so your statements are misleading. The "magic box" trick has never been needed for XSI. There are too many options easily seen on the main command panels for you to miss them. Stop speaking for an application unless you understand how and why it works. It frustrates those of us who do. I understand why Max is different, and I accept that it hasn't changed much since DOS. I expect the functions for it to do as they are labeled without causing error.
I guess you missed the point again. Maybe you should stay objective instead of trying to take cheap shots at me. Making comments like this is exactly that. I'm sorry such a trivial option bothers you so much. Even as you say you've found a workaround for it using layers. It's not a workaround...it's what everyone does, or should be doing...
This wouldn't be necessary if the program had an option to just unhide polygon objects instead it just unhiding everything. So yes its a limitation made by the dev team because they can't imagine people wanting to just unhide all polygon objects at once in the scene. According to you it's faster to press 8 to open the explorer window or go into the scene button and navigate to the objects select it and press H. Yeah that is soo much faster than pressing one button. Hiding is easy you select all you want to hide and press h no problem with that. Unhiding you have to select all the hidden objects first then hit h because if you do unhide all everything gets unhidden which blows. The problem is you need to open a new window to do this. I can see that being needed when doing an unhide by the name type deal but I guess it's too much to ask for XSI to have a more efficient way of doing things. Also considering how many options XSI has to do everything makes it worse that they don't have a few more options to unhide certain things only. Sorry my views on XSI piss you off so much and don't make any sense at all and are soo trivial.
Dude the magic box trick is exactly that, an quick and dirty way to reset xforms if you don't know any other way of doing it.
And to be honest no one here speaks for any software, they speak of their experience with it. I don't speak for Autodesk or Avid. I expect software to have useful tools, when the only way to do something easy involves several extra steps it's annoying. I have made many scripts with XSI to address the lack of simple features that it should already have.
Alex
Software A has no option to do what you need to do in one step. It has, however, a Listener that you can copy and paste from to make a macro that does what you need to do in one step. To do this, though, may require an initial investment of a half hour if you want to be fancy. However, this half hour investment becomes a couple minutes as you make more and more 'one button push' simplifications.
Software B has an option to do what you need it to do, but in order to do it, they needed to break logic and code different components that do almost the same thing. The result is a broken Listener, and a system much more difficult to code in because there is far less reusability of code and concepts. There are, however, undoubtedly still areas where you can do the 'one button push' simplifications- but in order to create them and support them requires a much larger continued investment of time.
You try to be efficient, yes? You should probably learn some very simple scripting, no matter what program and what discipline you are in. It is pretty simple in any program- Maya/XSI have a better listener, but Maxscript is very easy to pick up (and XSI has Python which is just like MXS). My vote, and this is coming from a tech guy, will ALWAYS be for the Software A. Not just on the individual level, but the enterprise level as well. The extra couple seconds you may have to spend because of software design are hours saved on the pipeline and tools end. But this is about personal preference so that probably doesn't count much here.
I'll take a software I can adjust to how I want to work and can do what I want with it and in it, to one that rather rigidly presents me with a variety of options that don't work well together, and results in a program poorly equipped to adapt with changing times.
Yes, Unhide Objects works as it should. It Unhides All Objects. Cameras and Lights are objects. There was a time when I used Max, and I hid some objects. Unfortunately, I didn't save just before the action. I never got them back.
No, there is no Unhide All Polygon Mesh button. If this is such a big deal, maybe you should put serious consideration into prioritizing your workflow, as I've advised you do many times already. Use the Select All Polygon Mesh filter, and press H. Takes only a second. Even if you scripted this. You would have to consider the time it takes to first write the script, IF you know how to script, and then navigate to the script buttion once it's made. How often do you use it? Why? If the Devs aren't listening to your concerns, maybe it's because they're working on useful features like Ultimapper, Crosswalk, XNA Integrate, Migration tools, etc. If it's such a chore, have you shared your workflow optimizing scripts with the community? Have they applauded you for your efforts?
I guess I'm still missing the point. Devs should tailor their applications based on your inability to adapt. Of all the people I know who share an interest in using XSI, you are strangely difficult to converse with. Helping you doesn't seem to have any effect, because you refuse to follow advise unless it specifically aligns with your personal demands for negligible functionality.
But thank you. For a thread that can easily be filled with flaws and bugs regarding an application that most people in this industry are required to use, you have proven that XSI really has nothing critical to dispute.
This took 4 minutes to install to my Scripts panel:
I will have to use it 120 times before it can be considered a time saver. It takes me 2 seconds to navigate to the Scripts panel.
'You know why scripters have no sense of humour and believe that every artist should know how to code'
(If I'm not mistaken :P)
...
...
Joke aside ... I believe that increased user friendliness is just as important as new features being added. I can't exactly explain why, but messing around in Silo gives me a happy grin, while downscaling my canvas in Zbrush to make it run smoothly feels like I am loosing a few dozen braincells on the spot. Now if only Silo had modifiers...
BTW I am wondering if anyone here personnaly knows some Max/Maya/XSI/Silo devs? I am very curious to hear insiders facts. Like, how they handle user feedback, how they come up with their objectives for the next release aso.
SIUnhideObjects objs seems to work to unhide only hidden meshes and not all objects, I guess it was too hard for the dev team to make a unhide poly objects tool with this by default. I'll have to test. I'll add a shortcut and see. Works fine. I think we should bicker more often.
helping you doesn't seem to have any effect, because you refuse to follow advise unless it specifically aligns with your personal demands for negligible functionality.
I guess this is negligible functionality as well I wonder why it's used in Photoshop.... Hmmm Oh wait that's inverse not invert selection, silly me , my bad.
select invert (poly meshes only)
script command= InvertSelection (PolyMeshFilter)
after quick testing it inverts selections of components as well.
Another tool apparently to hard to implement by default. No one needs to select invert things ever. There is a selection toggle which you can use to invert a selection which is useful sometimes but I wanted more.
No comment on the other stuff you said not even sure where you get it from but whatever. My scripts are not efficient so I never thought of sharing them especially to just hear how wonderful they are. I have shortcuts to all of them no need to dig to use them. They do save me plenty of time though. I could say more but you are right I'm a fool, never listen and never go out of my way to help anyone, I just nag, nag, nag, nag. I IM you 24 seven and ask for help about XSI and when we talk all I do is bitch about XSI. I can count how many times I have IMed you about anything, and when I do it's usually to ask you how you are doing. You got me figured out to the core. Spare me the bs man all software needs improving, XSI isn't any different.
Things I need to do often, invert selection, hide and un hide objects, detach, attach, unwrap. extrude, clone and duplicate, align verts, faces, edges, subdivide, bevel, add edges, remove edges. Very typical work flow if you model. I use layers if needed. Select things with ignore backfaces on(raycast mode with affect backfaces off) and off, weld, target weld.
Devs should make their software as useful as possible in everything it does, modeling, texturing, animation and scripting simple as that. We all know Autodesk never drops the ball there.
Cheers man.
Professor I'm not a programmer or technical artist so I don't share your pain when I work in Max, but I have tried doing scripts there and I'm not to fond of how the listener works there. That said if you didn't know how to script well, how would you feel when basic features you needed were missing? I mean really try to think like artist with no scripting ability do for a change. It would be annoying correct. Also it doesn't take half an hour to script new tools if you are not good at it and don't know where to start. First you have to figure out what the hell things are called, so you spend hours of digging. Then you try and try until you get something that works, and just because something works doesn't mean it's good. What's MX? My 2 cents there.
Alex
Alex
Yeah Max's listener is complete crap. It will even spit out information that, if you try to execute it, fails (such as the wrong number of arguments given by the change material ID function).
If I didn't know how to script, and features were missing, and people were telling me how if I invest a couple hours to learn basic scripting how much faster I'd work, I'd learn how to script, quite honestly. I would be pissed if basic features were missing and there was no simple way to get them, but you have a (relatively) simple way to get them.
To learn 'scripting' is actually quite simple- a 'script' being just a series of commands done in order. You really don't need to know any great deal about maxscript or python, it is just automation of what you'd normally do via the UI. But you are right that it is difficult to approach it, most of us do it from necessity (and those of us that make careers of it fall in love with it). I am starting up a technical art community site that I'm going to launch next week, one of the things I have already on the Wiki are 'portals' for topics that should help people who are at all levels of experience with scripting, so it should help people begin and get over the initial hurdle (really, once you get a couple key concepts, it is really quite simple- good scripting is about good design, which is a real skill, doing the actual coding is much easier- and for your 6 line scripts, you don't really need to design anything).
If they don't, they should have someone to write scripts. There shouldn't be artists dependent for core workflow things upon the decisions of a large software companies that rarely listen to customers. If you have someone to help streamline your workflow, it will ALWAYS go faster.
I can only speak from second hand experience, especially from people like Kees Rijnen, Cloward, etc, with Max devs. And from what I do hear, few if any requests were EVER acted upon and even major problems were rarely fixed. While I don't know how Alias/Maya or XSI are/were, so much more of Max is hard coded that I know it has caused much grief (though I hear Maya's SDK is a real pain). Quite honestly, I know even studios like Frantic Films in Canada, which has a ton of top Max talent, have trouble getting requests listened to. Many of the stories I've heard give me the impression Max devs are either in denial, or they are aware of the situation they are in and the entire place is miserable and treading water.
I like the sound of that, keep us posted
oh wait, this is the max hate thread, better hate on something...umm, max needs to give the option to work directly on sub-d surfaces already instead of forcing you to use a cage, and I wish they'd use a more nex/silo/modo slection sceme too. beyond that and the broken scripting though don't really have any problems with it.
But the twist is : these talented scripters I know, used to be artists. Animators, modelers and so on. They gradually made their own tools, figuring out the code stuff aso, and picked up this path as a career. But that's something I don't want to do, since in a game studio the more technical skill ones shows, the less *art* one does. And since 2D art, color theory and many other artsy things requires a huge amount of time and dedication, that's not a time a want to spend looking at lines of code - no matter how powerful that can be :P
The bottom line is, I'm with PolyHertz and wholeheartedly welcome the rise of a techart community where artists in need of efficient tools could post and explain their request for techart guys to work on and share their results. Especially since freelancers or remote artists don't have access to their own 'personnal scripter'.
It seems like most studios freak out when it comes to the public release of custom tools. Congrats to Insomniac for what they started recently. If all studios were sharing it could only make things faster and easier for everybody. Like, how come that many studios rely heavily on BlurScripts, yet keep their own tools for internal use...
Maybe we could have a tool request subforum here on PC ?
i second that
And you have the option. Someone doing freelance, or working in a studio with no tech guys (that is no excuse, though, any size studio should have a technical guy), doesn't have that option. They do have the option, usually, of customizing their workflow, tools, etc., to whatever suits them- but if they want to get things done fast, they should learn how to do simple things.
The content creation paradigm has shifted and pipeline is as important for games as it has been for movies. You are necessarily going to sacrifice some features for flexibility that you will have to add yourself, customized. When you look at the grand scheme of efficiency, a studio with 200 people using a customized program is going to save lots more time than those same people using a program less open to customization. And the freelancers are just a drop in the pond. Expecting to make top-notch art at a fast pace out of the box is not really feasible anymore, because there is such a variety and divergence of workflows. Especially with the increase in outsourcing, knowing how to do technical stuff is more and more important. I wouldn't encourage you to learn it if you don't have to (in fact I'd encourage you NOT to unless you have an interest), but if it is between inefficiency using one program, moaning about another, or taking a day to learn simple scripting, I'd suggest one to opt for the latter.
*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* Yes. Fortunately my last studio closed so I don't have any qualms about releasing what I did work on and any 'secrets.' They were pretty liberal with stuff like that anyway. BioWare and EA, though, are pretty close-lipped, which is very unfortunate. I am always inclined to share info, but sometimes I have to be less detailed than I want or ought to be (which is still probably more detailed than is good for me). But oh well, fuck it, I will continue to do what I think is right
Great new site.
I need a beer
one can argue that it's sad, that this stuff isn't shared more often for the "good of all", but I think it has a lot to do with "investment" thinking of employers. Cause eventually one could argue the more open tools the better for all. But to think of paying your employees for work that can directly be used by competition isnt easy to take over.
I dont want to open the whole "opensource" can here, but the companys that make money of opensource software typically do this by "support", help material... which doesnt apply here so well.
Graciousness often comes with success, lets not forget in what position "blur" is... then again we dont see any blizzard art tools, even though they print money with wow hehe. I guess some companys will do some not. One has to be realistic about the circumstances...
while it's a bit "easier" to separate "work work" from "freetime work" when it comes to art, it is sorta harder with coding. Cause you often relate to things you have already written, helper functions libraries... now in theory you would have to strictly separate from what "pencils" you use in your off hours and at work, but somewhat tricky to achieve... Hence I think not a lot of "custom" studio helper tools getting out...
You're all assholes for never telling me Ctrl-D in max unselects things. No longer do I have to look for void to click on in order to get out of sub-object mode.
And here I was thinking we were friends
Ctrl-D is actually "Select None" and won't get you out of sub object mode.
Are you thinking of Ctrl-B? Which is sub object selection toggle?
That would be truly amazing.
word. An SDK would open it up quite a bit as well.