3ds Max scene scale adjustments
polycounter lvl 8
So, I'm finalizing the proportions of the scene I'm working on in Max before moving on to the optimization stage, and for some time I was fighting with Max's grid snapping.
I had originally set my grid spacing to 16 units (or so I thought), with Major Lines set to 8. It was only after struggling to force Max to behave that I discovered I had in fact, been using feet and fractional inches as my unit setup, not Max generic units. :poly127:
So now I'm faced with the task of rescaling the scene, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be punished for my error and forced to manually adjust the scale and dimension of all my modular, structural pieces to fit the now-corrected grid spacing. Is this the case? Has anyone else ever made this mistake?
As stated in my WIP thread, this is my first true attempt at building a modular environment, and so far it's been a fantastic lesson on how not to do things....
Thanks in advance.
I had originally set my grid spacing to 16 units (or so I thought), with Major Lines set to 8. It was only after struggling to force Max to behave that I discovered I had in fact, been using feet and fractional inches as my unit setup, not Max generic units. :poly127:
So now I'm faced with the task of rescaling the scene, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll be punished for my error and forced to manually adjust the scale and dimension of all my modular, structural pieces to fit the now-corrected grid spacing. Is this the case? Has anyone else ever made this mistake?
As stated in my WIP thread, this is my first true attempt at building a modular environment, and so far it's been a fantastic lesson on how not to do things....
Thanks in advance.
Replies
However if you are already quite far into your project then you should probably just stick with the units you've got. It'll be less work putting up with the units you're using than it is to re-scale you're pieces to fit another scale.
I've got my snapping settings to grid points and verteces, but when I try and align the pivot to the corner of a floor section, for example, even zoomed in to near-microscopic distances, I can't seem to get the damn pivot to snap to the vertex - it's very close, but not right on the vert.
It's also snapping the center of the pivot handles to the vert, not the corner of the pivot gizmo itself - is there a setting I need to change somewhere?
As such, not only am I having to fight with Max's wacky tendencies to veer off wildly into space when moving something along a supposed-axis, but even when I do manage to get it roughly in position, it's still off by a few pixels from the grid, or the nearby verts.
/rage
You can fix this by going to you Grid and snap settings -> Options tab and select the:
use Axis center as start snap point. Then it will use the vertexes position instead of where
you click with the mouse.
Hope this helps:)
[ame]
That makes snapping a joy to use. just grab a axis constraint and drag to the grid/vertex point to want to snap to and it does it for that axis(s)
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1098044&postcount=22
Pivot snapping doesn't seem to work very well. I personally just don't use it. I always use snaps to align a vertex to the grid.
If you want to precisely place your pivot try using numeric entry. Right click on the move tool to bring up the numeric entry box and type some numbers in.
That's interesting to know. I think for my next project I'll be much more vigilant and model to the grid much more closely, but for the sake of progressing with the office scene, I think I'll get things as close as I can without giving myself a migraine and tweak things in UDK if need be - thanks for the input!
Man, thanks so much! That's solved most of my problems with snapping right there, can't believe I missed that all-important checkbox!
Thanks, Vig - some great info in there!