edit poly vs. editable poly hotkeys in max

Funky Bunnies

Hey all, this has been bothering me for a while. I was wondering how you all handle the different hotkeys in editable poly vs. edit poly in 3ds max.

Is there a quick easy way to transfer all your hotkeys from editable poly -> edit poly? or is the hotkey override supposed to do that and I just don't understand it? Is there perhaps tribal dance and black magic involved?

gamedev

No, you've got it right. The toggle hotkey override really only does you good in other modules (Unwrap UVW for example). This drives me nuts as well and is why I usually avoid the edit poly mod.

Yozora

gamedev wrote: »

No, you've got it right. The toggle hotkey override really only does you good in other modules (Unwrap UVW for example). This drives me nuts as well and is why I usually avoid the edit poly mod.

Isnt it best to avoid editable poly instead since with edit poly you can actually work in "3D layers" like photoshop by stacking them up?

But yes its really annoying that there are 2 sets of hotkeys for the exact same functions, almost 4 if you include edit mesh/editable mesh

I'm not sure of a quick way to transfer hotkeys to both sets, I just do it the "hard" way.. you only really need to do it once and you're sorted.

spitty

you can go to "customize user interface" and select the "edit poly" group and uncheck active. this will make you keyboard shortcuts stay the same when you add a edit poly modifier.

Funky Bunnies

yeah, that's what I'd been doing out of laziness haha but it doesn't snap back to editable poly hotkeys, just the main ui ones.

But I just tried to read the .kbd file and I think I've got it


I'll do an example - it would be written in the .kbd file as:

72=15 77 40091 1250838234

which can be broken down to:

[hotkey# (for the group)]=[modifier*] [key] [command] [Group]

so if we translate that line of jibberish, we get:

[hotkey #72]=[ctrl+shift] [M] [Bridge Settings] [Edit Poly]

SO basically, you can just

1. open your .kbd file in a text editor,
2. copy all the lines in your file that end with 369982487 (editable poly)
3. and paste them again over the lines ending with 1250838234 (edit poly),
4. then replace that last number on those lines with 1250838234 (edit poly) again

and you've copied all the hotkeys over to edit poly. super easy


*and for those interested, looks like the modifier works like this:

3 = -none-
7 = shift
11=control
19=alt

15 = ctrl+shift
27 = ctrl+alt
23 = shift+alt
31 = ctrl+alt+shift

Ryno

Yozora wrote: »

Isnt it best to avoid editable poly instead since with edit poly you can actually work in "3D layers" like photoshop by stacking them up?

As you make cuts, extrudes, etc., the vertex order is established. If you stack more modifiers that hinge on the vertex order on top of that, then go back down and weld or alter the numbered vertices in any way, it might totally destroy all Edit Poly Modifiers' edits above it in the stack.

I'd avoid using multiple Edit Poly modifiers in a stack unless you have a very specific reason for doing so. Edit Poly with Parametric Modifiers above it can be fine.

I find that more modifiers in the stack generally equates to less scene stability as well, so that's just something else to watch out for.

Rens

Once again you surprise me bunny

MoP

I like using Edit Poly only if it's for moving verts around to tweak proportions (eg. a "proportion tweak" you can turn on or off at will) - as Ryno says it's all topology dependent so you can't really use them like "Layers", since the top one is dependent on all the ones below it, and if that changes then everything is potentially ruined.

I sometimes slap an Edit Poly in between a base EPoly and Skin modifier so I can see what a proportion tweak will look like on an animation - means I can turn it on and off at will.
In general though I very rarely use Edit Poly, so I don't think I've even edited the hotkeys for it... good work deciphering the prefs setup though, Bunnies!

rooster

all this talk of modifier stacks is getting me nostalgic

Yozora

hmm I see, I recently watched the eat 3d tutorial guy using multiple edit poly modifiers so thats where I got the idea and thought it could be used as 3d layers, never actually did that myself though... I'm used to saving in loads of iterations instead

solar

Funky Bunnies wrote: »

yeah, that's what I'd been doing out of laziness haha but it doesn't snap back to editable poly hotkeys, just the main ui ones.

But I just tried to read the .kbd file and I think I've got it


I'll do an example - it would be written in the .kbd file as:

72=15 77 40091 1250838234

which can be broken down to:

[hotkey# (for the group)]=[modifier*] [key] [command] [Group]

so if we translate that line of jibberish, we get:

[hotkey #72]=[ctrl+shift] [M] [Bridge Settings] [Edit Poly]

SO basically, you can just

1. open your .kbd file in a text editor,
2. copy all the lines in your file that end with 369982487 (editable poly)
3. and paste them again over the lines ending with 1250838234 (edit poly),
4. then replace that last number on those lines with 1250838234 (edit poly) again

and you've copied all the hotkeys over to edit poly. super easy


*and for those interested, looks like the modifier works like this:

3 = -none-
7 = shift
11=control
19=alt

15 = ctrl+shift
27 = ctrl+alt
23 = shift+alt
31 = ctrl+alt+shift

Good work Funky! This is going to be very handy indeed :thumbup: