[3DS MAX] Smooth Mesh Preview?

chademond

Is there a way similar to Maya or XSI, get a smooth mesh preview in Max 2009/2010, rather than just applying a turbo smooth modifier?

In Maya you can press 1/2/3/4 to increase subdivision/smoothing, in XSI you can press +/- to preview as well.

Is there a way to get this functionality in Max?

monster

If you have an Editable Poly Object you can enable Nurm Subdivision in the Subdivision Surface rollout. One of my scripts cycles the nurms level between off, 1, and 2 subdivisions.

Script Here

MoP

I have set "S" as a hotkey for "Show End Result Toggle", then just with a TurboSmooth sitting on top of the stack you can toggle display on or off.

Not entirely sure why you'd want to toggle increase/decrease sub-d level, surely you have a "target" subd level that a mesh is going to end up at? No point previewing at sub-d level 1 if sub-d level 2 is the correct smoothness, for example.

There's also the EPoly specific subdivision stuff (bottom of the rollouts in the modify panel) but I don't use those so I don't really know how they work. Dunno if anyone else uses them either.

It wouldn't be too hard to script a command that increased/decreased Turbosmooth iterations, but if you don't know maxscript then that's out of the question, unless you know a friendly person who does
Edit: Or monster...

Show End Result toggle with Turbosmooth in the stack is your friend.

glib

^ I prefer tilde, personally: ~ . Well actually it's the ` key without shift pressed, but everyone calls that one tilde.

Mark Dygert

I have too many KB shortcuts to remember and sometimes there are other modifiers above the one I'm working in that I want to also preserve, so I toggle off the turbosmooth by clicking the little light bulb next to it's name in the modifier list.

monster

For MOP,

Place the MS file in ...\3ds Max 20XX\ui\MacroScript\
Look in the monsterBlues category after you restart max to bind to a hotkey.

Assign this macro to a hotkey, also assign Shift + the hotkey.
For example, if you assign the script to the "D" button. Also assign Shift+"D".

Pressing the key will add increments to your selection. Pressing shift + hotkey will reduce increments. Also I set an upper limit of 5 and a lower limit of 0. You can open the script in a text editor and increase the upper limit.

Martinez_Macro_IncrementTurboSmooth.zip

lefix

i have set nurms toggle to n (replaced autokey toggle which i don't need that often :P)
unless i have several fancy modifiers on my editable poly object it works fine. in that case i have to add a turbosmooth to whatever level in stack i want to smooth and use the bulb

MoP

Cheers monster

chademond

Monster, thanks for the script, it's exactly what I'm looking for, but you'll have to forgive me, how do I actually use the script? When I run it, nothing happens. Is there a way to hotkey it?

chademond

Never mind I figured it out