Getting used to Max from Maya

nome_sane

I've returned to using 3DS max after having switched, exclusively to Maya for a long time. Last time I used Max was something like version 3.0 and I don't know it anywhere near as well as Maya.
I'm trying to get into some good workflow habits early on so I don't do everything the slow way for too long.

• One thing I find the most frustrating is the view port controls. There not to bad to use on a mouse but I tend to use a tablet for everything I do nowadays and to zoom with a tablet in Max I seem to need to use the touch strip on my Wacom? And even then it's stepped and pretty loathsome.

So can anyone let me in on their preferred way to navigate in Max?
Anyone use the gestures or stroke? Whatever it's called.

• In Maya you can hold Ctrl whilst grabbing a translate axis which will constrain movement to the other two.

Is there a way to do the same in Max?

• I use the outliner all the time in Maya and I found Max has the select by name window but that seems to be all it does? And it's got the schematic view wich looks similar to Maya's Hypergraph.

So is the schematic view the best place for grouping and ordering stuff?

Sorry if these questions are old and tired.

Also I have been trying out the dRaster switcher plug-in which is awesome but I thought it would be better to try and get used to the Max way of doing things so I don't become dependent upon it.

Also they do a DVD of Transition training which I am considering getting but I get the impression it is designed for going Max->Maya not the other way.
Has anyone watched it/ knows if it will be helpful before I shell out?

Already loving a lot of things in Max with regards to modeling and snap / pivot point options :cool:

Yozora

yea I missed outliner when I went from maya to max too, the default object list thing is ok for selecting objects, but the seperate layer manager is surprisingly useless. Cant select any objects or really do much with the layer manager. So then I found this;

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/outliner

I also use draster's switcher, I find alt+3 mouse buttons for navigation is perfectly logical and I'm glad I bought it.
I didnt get the dvd so I dont know how helpful it is, but I really dont think its that necessary.

Mark Dygert

Yep outliner is great. But can be a little slow with long lists of things, like selecting all the bones in a character or a lot of misc objects.

You can get by with the layer manager... if you know a few tricks.
- Right click brings up a menu to select. You can also use the icon at the top that's called "Select Highlighted Objects and Layers".
- Hold ctrl or shift while right clicking to select more then one object.
- Highlight a few objects and toggle on/off their visibility/freeze with one click.
- Which ever layer has the check mark next to it, that is the layer new objects will be created on.
- From the right click menu you can choose "Add selected objects" or use the + icon in the upper menu to do the same thing.

glib

I'll also throw in my love for the draster switcher. It's made the process far less painful. My whole experience also got a lot better when a took a solid 2 days to gut every hotkey and set them up in a way that made sense to me. My hands would automatically hit my old maya hotkeys which were set up to do strange operations in max by default, which I then couldn't always figure out how to turn off.

Mark Dygert

Now that they are owned by the same company they really should spend a week and have each team set up some defaults for people switching back and forth between both apps. Knowing them they'll probably just buy switcher...

spitty

i switched the top button on my wacom to be middle mouse instead of double click.

hold down top button, ctrl and alt and move the pen up and down to zoom.

the wacom control panel allows you to change buttons per application btw.

nome_sane

Aha awesome! That was a key thing I was missing "Ctrl+alt+MMB to zoom"

Thanks for the help everyone. I installed the outliner plug-in and it does indeed deliver the goods!

And I have been messing with my hot keys to get stuff how I like it. But find it's a bit of a head fuck sometimes with all the context based override business!! I'm sure i'll work something out. So glib did you literally un-assign all the hotkeys then put your own back in?

And they should defiantly give you an option now of which control scheme to use or just pick one and unify them across Maya, Mudbox and Max. Also one system for z-up or y-up would probably be a good idea.

warby

i use draster switcher at work and i am very happy with it !

glib

Aye an option for Y-up would be nice.

I went through every override and unchecked them all, then only turned on the ones I needed (thusfar, only UVW unwrap and edit poly) and set those keys. I've been finding that sometimes you'll set a hotkey in the mainUI list, but it won't always work. It always seems to work if you turn on the override and set a hotkey in there though. Very strange, but once it's set and working, who cares right?

What still kills me is moving a pivot around. Max's snapping is nicer in many ways, but I miss being able to click an axis then snap one point to another on only one axis.
ex. I'm working on half an object with a symmetry modifier. This object has a circle which is bisected by the symmetry (so I'm only working on half the circle at any time). Now say I want to scale this circle. Selecting the points will give me a pivot in the center, which isn't what I need. I need a pivot that's centered up-to-down, then on the far right side. In maya I would select my points/edges, then hold D to affect the pivot, then click on the horizontal axis, hold V and click on a point on the right side of the object. In max I seem to be manually futzing with the 'working pivot' stuff. It's slow and inaccurate.

sprunghunt

There are several options for moving the pivot around in max. To the right of the scale tool you can find the coordinate type and coordinate center setting. Combinations of these two determine the position and orientation of the pivot.

The default setting is "view" for coordinates and "local" for the coordinate center. To move your pivot over I suggest trying using "parent" and "transform coordinate center" (this is the one with the dot away from the bars).

This should place the pivot where the parent object's transform is. If you've made a cylinder the transform should be in the middle of the radius on the bottom face. You should now be able to scale your edges towards the center of your object.

If you want to move your object independent of the pivot try using "screen" for the coordinate type and "transform coordinate center". This will fix your pivot in the center of the screen.

I have these two settings bound to toggle shortcuts so I can switch between the various coordinate types and pivot positions as I model.

Yozora

sprunghunt, I just tried with a edge loop at the top of the cylinder, while the pivot was at the base - the edges scaled downwards into the pivot. Of course you could move the edges up afterwards, but it'd be more handy if you can scale towards the center and not have the edges scaling up or down.

Rob Galanakis

You switched from Maya to Max? Noooo!!!!

OH, THE HUMANITY!

sprunghunt

Yozora wrote: »

sprunghunt, I just tried with a edge loop at the top of the cylinder, while the pivot was at the base - the edges scaled downwards into the pivot. Of course you could move the edges up afterwards, but it'd be more handy if you can scale towards the center and not have the edges scaling up or down.

You need to only scale in two dimensions - not three.

If you look at the scale gizmo you'll see some diagonal lines inbetween the two axis lines. If you click on those to scale you'll constrain the scaling to two dimensions and it won't scale your edges up and down but only towards the center.

Mark Dygert

hahaha Rob. Maxscript is waiting for yOOoooOOouuu... With all of its deliciously nasty outdated and redundant code... Its calling to you: ROOOoooOoob... come baaaaAAaahhcck. Please try to script something for biped, we dare yoooouuu...

Ahem.

Yep if you hover your mouse over the center yellow line it will highlight a different part of the spinner showing you that you can scale in just that direction. If you select in the triangle nearest the center of the pivot point it will scale in all directions.

It will scale it all toward the center dragging your right most edges into the center. To get around that, what you can do is:
Go to the hirachy tab
Turn on "Edit Working Pivot"
Move the working pivot to where you want it
Turn off Edit Working Pivot, turn on, Use Working Pivot
Scale and enjoy!
Don't forget to turn off working pivot.

fr0gg1e

might want to try scripts! Scriptspot is gonna become your best friend if you re switching from maya to max.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/pivot-by-2-vertex
Select vertices, press key and tadam, pivot aligned to those.