the purpose of bounding box

killingpeople

why do i know "j" is the hot key for a bounding box in max? because by default max has it enabled. it's the first hotkey i learned. and the first thing i toggle off when i start a new max scene.

i was wondering if anyone used the bounding box, what are practical uses of this feature? all i can think of is visibility in complex scenes.

Cody

when my comp has problems having all my high poly stuff in one scene for normal baking i use it. thats wierd that it is the default when you start max. mine starts in the shaded with edged faces mode.

ColinR

Always wondered this as well, and would love to know exactly what it is used for. The complex scene idea with knowing what you have selected object wise seems like a feasible idea though.

PeterK

You know, You guys can create a MAXSTART.max file and put all of your settings in there, it will load them by default every time you start a new scene.

set the file up with all of your settings then put the maxstart.max in the main max folder.

MoP

I know some people who use it (*cough* spacemonkey *cough*), I think he said something about highpoly meshes and not displaying wireframes, etc. Kinda makes sense, personally I just have "edged faces on selected" and that seems to work.
Although I can understand if you're bringing in 2 million+ poly models all the time, you don't want wireframes on selected since that'll just slow the viewport down, so the bounding brackets just help indicate your selection extents.

Plus they can be handy for finding extraneous geometry if you select something and the bounds are much bigger than what you expect, usually means you have some stray geo left over from if you deleted something, etc.

Eric Chadwick

I use the J selection bracket sometimes to quickly check if the Xform is goofy... like when someone rotates the model then non-uniform-scales it, that bbox is going show up skewed.

Michael Knubben

Edged faces on selection, and Bounding boxes OFF. That it's the default is mystifying.
Just set a maxstart, and you'll never need to see them again, unless you work with someone who doesn't turn them off. Hurrr.

Sage

It's there from back in the day when having 32 megs was high end. Sorry I started modeling on a mac and all we had was shitty software render, the crappy limited mac only vid cards. Bounding box help for selection, speed shit up and be freaking annoying in Max. I sort of like em and hate them when I can't see what I'm modeling. I actually feel weird when I model if I don't see the freaking thing what a joke. I also rely on them to see what the hell I have selected at times, depends on the software in use. I would say LOL but it's freaking true. LOL I also use it to check the Xforms which is silly since I always reset it anyway, but I forget at times.

Alex

Mark Dygert

Turning on Adaptive degradation can also be helpful when working with large scenes. Especially for environment artists who have the entire map/level loaded into 3dsmax.



It works on distance from the camera. First turns off the material, then switches to wireframe, then things that are far away are turned into a bounding box. It also takes into account the objects size, which is handy when working with a scene that's high on tiny detailed like plants or rubble.

Customize menu > Viewport Configuration > Viewport Configuration dialog > Adaptive Degradation tab.

You can also use xref's (I don't recommend it until they actually fix all the bugs and improve funcationality) to display lower poly proxies meshes for high poly objects.

bounchfx

Vig wrote: »

Adaptive degradation

Also known as the hotkey 'O' I believe.

it looks like a little wireframe box on the bottom midright of the screen. you can right click it to bring up options as well

Mark Dygert

I think O is a bit different, it toggles on the bounding box when you navigate in the viewport. It turns it off when you stop. Adjusting the adaptive degradation keeps the objects far away as bounding boxes regardless of whats going on in the viewport.

O is a good use of bounding boxes for performance boosts sure but I don't think its the same thing as the lil wireframe box or adaptive degradation?

bounchfx

Vig wrote: »

I think O is a bit different, it toggles on the bounding box when you navigate in the viewport. It turns it off when you stop. Adjusting the adaptive degradation keeps the objects far away as bounding boxes regardless of whats going on in the viewport.

O is a good use of bounding boxes for performance boosts sure but I don't think its the same thing as the lil wireframe box or adaptive degradation?

that's odd then, because pressing o in max (for the past few iterations of the program, at least) changes the icon at the bottom, that when hovered over, displays as 'Adaptive Degradation' It's a lot different in max 9+ than 8 and before though if I remember correctly... at least the default settings.

demoncage

i think "o" is degradation override if i remember right.

*edit* nope, it is "adaptive degradation"