Tutorial: Speed modeling tips for 3dsmax

Delaney King

This tutorial was originally on The Area. Its really hard to search through the area, and I had a few requests to see it again, so here is the youtube (aka crappy compression) version.

Part 1

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy1O2uQbIzA"][/ame][ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-9g-HUByvk[/ame]

Part 2

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4nvFWdOuJg[/ame]

Part 3

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy1O2uQbIzA[/ame]

Hope you enjoy them.

Valandar

Can a give ya a Standing Ovation?

breakneck

wow, some simple stuff that can easily be overlooked (and has by me). thanks for the fresh look.

BradMyers82

Hey, nice tutorials! It's always cool to see someone elses workflow. It makes you think more about your own and if you are really taking advantage of all the tools. I for one should really start using relax more.

Valandar

I agree with Brad - and I really need to use shift-drag on edges more. All this time I've been clicking "Extrude", dragging, clicking "extrude", dragging, etc.

man_o_mule

OMG. i just learned more in 30 mins than i have in ages. I used to do shift clicking for faces all the time. why the hell didn't i figure out how to use it for edges like that?

amazing. bookmarked this thread too. going to have to come back in here and watch these over a again soon.

[HP]

Very nice! thanks for sharing this

MoP

Thanks, Dave!

Can't believe there are still Max users out there who don't know / don't use shift-drag to extrude edges

SHEPEIRO

yep im one, doh, i blame not using max for the past few years.

thanks for the vids dave, quite a few usefull tips in there

mLichy

I started to use shortcuts alot recently for edge loops/rings, connecting edges, and welding/collapsing in the viewport and in the UV window, and its helped alot.

Irreal

Yeah, thanks for these vids. I need to relearn 3ds max for my new job ( haven't used it since version 4 ). The biggest problem I'm gonna face is not having the speed you get from working in the same package day in day out.

Mark Dygert

I missed part 3 back when you originally did these. These are great. Some really awesome tips and tricks.

Nuggets of joy I discovered this time around.
- ctrl+shift+LMB to adjust the radius on the paint brush.
- Alt reversed push/pull.
I've always used the brush menu and manually adjusted the settings, which makes using the brushes in max kind of a pain. Thanks for making it MUCH less painful!

man_o_mule

max supports config files right? can i save my UI and button config and next time i have to reinstall windows can i load this file? For some reason I never thought it did nad as such never spent much time configuring the UI.

MoP

Yes, you can save out all your layouts, hotkeys etc and back them up and load them again at any time. They even usually carry across multiple Max versions.

SHEPEIRO

Vig wrote: »

I missed part 3 back when you originally did these. These are great. Some really awesome tips and tricks.

Nuggets of joy I discovered this time around.
- ctrl+shift+LMB to adjust the radius on the paint brush.
- Alt reversed push/pull.
I've always used the brush menu and manually adjusted the settings, which makes using the brushes in max kind of a pain. Thanks for making it MUCH less painful!

theres also opacity- alt+shift+lmb...... i think use it all the time but im not sure without the package infront of me

Mechadus

Ive got a couple huge time savers I use that might be worth mentioning...

If you right-click on the spinner arrows next to any numeric field, it will reset it to its lowest value - really handy when placing objects numerically

You can drag-and-drop modifiers from one object onto another - great for deformations and uvw gizmos

-N

OBlastradiusO

I totally revamped my right click modeling and selection options because of this video. It makes a big difference in my workflow now. I was also totally unaware of Right click spinners.

Peris

wow really nice tips in this thread that i'd never know about otherwise ,
to contribute:
If you have for example selected a vertex, then hold down ctrl and click the edge icon in the selection tab in the command panel, max will select all edges connecting to that vertex, same for when you click poly, or for example if you select a poly and then ctrl click vertex it will select all vertexes connected to that, etc etc. Really really useful!

Delaney King

Thanks all.

MoP

Peris wrote: »

wow really nice tips in this thread that i'd never know about otherwise ,
to contribute:
If you have for example selected a vertex, then hold down ctrl and click the edge icon in the selection tab in the command panel, max will select all edges connecting to that vertex, same for when you click poly, or for example if you select a poly and then ctrl click vertex it will select all vertexes connected to that, etc etc. Really really useful!

Since Max's default selection modes for EPoly are on the hotkeys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... I have the "convert selection" (what you describe here) set to CTRL+1 (convert to vertices), CTRL+2 (convert to edges) and CTRL+4 (convert to faces).
Fast!

Peris

MoP wrote: »

Since Max's default selection modes for EPoly are on the hotkeys 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... I have the "convert selection" (what you describe here) set to CTRL+1 (convert to vertices), CTRL+2 (convert to edges) and CTRL+4 (convert to faces).
Fast!

ooh yeah thats really neat , might do that aswel!

SHEPEIRO

nice tip mop, use the convert tools all the time, save us a bunch of minutes that

GoSsS

Yup, this is great tip mop, it's really boring to use control+clic on the icon
Btw, does any of you found a way to assign a shortcut for : "center to object" (to center the pivot) ?... I've a shortcut to affect pivot but I haven't found the shortcut for centering it

SyncViewS

Hi guys,
here is a short list of tiny MacroScripts to access Pivot ops by shortcuts/quads/toolbars. Evaluate once, then find commands in Customize panel, under category "Pivot Tools". Use and modify as you please.

Great modeling tuts and nice tips Dave, thanks for sharing. It's a sin to see them youtubed (crappified). <shameless plug>You can try IllusionCatalyst which gives you many "deformation painters", in my humble opinion a bit better than the standard ones, to ease your work. IC provides additional and smarter conversions between Sub-Object selections too.</shameless plug>

macroScript ResetXForm
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Reset XForm"
toolTip:"Reset XForm"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                ResetXForm node
)

macroScript CenterPivot
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Center Pivot"
toolTip:"Center Pivot to Object"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                CenterPivot node
)

macroScript CenterObject
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Center Object"
toolTip:"Center Object to Pivot"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                CenterObject node
)

macroScript WorldAlignPivot
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"World Align Pivot"
toolTip:"Align Pivot to World"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                WorldAlignPivot node
)

macroScript WorldAlignObject
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"World Align Object"
toolTip:"Align Object to World"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                WorldAlignObject node
)

macroScript AlignPivot
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Align Pivot"
toolTip:"Align Pivot to Object"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                AlignPivot node
)

macroScript AlignObject
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Align Object"
toolTip:"Align Object to Pivot"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                AlignObject node
)

macroScript AlignToParent
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Align To Parent"
toolTip:"Align Pivot to Parent's Pivot"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                AlignToParent node
)

macroScript ResetTransform
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Reset Transform"
toolTip:"Reset Transform"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                ResetTransform node
)

macroScript ResetScale
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Reset Scale"
toolTip:"Reset Scale"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                ResetScale node
)

macroScript ResetPivot
category:"Pivot Tools"
buttonText:"Reset Pivot"
toolTip:"Reset Pivot"
(
    on isEnabled do
        return (selection.count != 0)

    on execute do
        for node in selection do
            if (isValidNode(node)) then
                ResetPivot node
)

MoP

Hey SyncViewS, thanks for those macros, that's awesome!

Microneezia

I find Shift-X pretty useful in tight situations, for moving verts along the mesh spline they are attached to. I dont use it all the freaking time, but I think its pretty handy in tight low-poly situations. especially when used next to that edge extrude technique mentioned below.

ArtsyFartsy

I'm pretty impressed with how comfortably you sculpt in a 3D perspective view. Whenever I try to move vertices or edges in the 3D view they always end up 5000 units away. That faceted material trick is great and certainly helps.

Sage

Pretty nice tips. Dave thanks for taking the time to post these. I thought I had a fast set up for Max, but I over looked a lot of stuff you mentioned.

Mop that was a pretty good tip, for the convert selection stuff.

GoSsS

This is perfect SyncViewS. Thanks a lot for that.