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Irregular dialogues 3DS Max

Ahrkey
polycounter lvl 18
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Ahrkey polycounter lvl 18
For the past year I have been struggling with my arm. Recently it got really bad and it felt like my arm was on fire and the pain was quite intense. I figure this is what they call a RSI(repetitive strain injury).

So to mend my arm and to be able to keep working I've started looking over things and perhaps improve my work situation. Something that I noticed is that 3ds max dialogue-windows(load a texture, open a file, merge file etc.) pop up at very irregular places and with different settings(current folder/history etc.)

I use two 19" 4:3 monitors and it seems like the pop up dialogues take turns on screens meaning that my mouse activity is extreme and moving from one screen to another all the time.

Is there any way to fix this so that all the dialogues end up on the same screen and with the same current/last/history folders etc. ?
I've tried moving the dialogue windows but they keep popping up where they always does...

It's getting frustrating having to navigate to the same folder for each texture with the dialogues going round-robin on the screens.
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  • renderhjs
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    renderhjs sublime tool
    what about keyboard shortcuts, you can save a lot of mouse movement by increasing the mouse speed and using more shortcuts.

    One of our programmers that had a medical condition (could be related) has a keyboard like this as his doctor recommended it to him.
    maltron.jpg
    but it requires that he does most things with shortcuts
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  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 14
    Might wanna consider modeling with a Wacom instead of mouse. I found the worst part of using 3DS Max with a mouse to be the use of the middle mouse button and how you really need to press that button so hard. Wacom eliminates that by being able to use your thumb for it instead.
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  • Ahrkey
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    Ahrkey polycounter lvl 18
    thanks for the tips. allthough I already have tried or already using em.

    I find the wacom too sensitive/jitterish to model with it comfortably. I got a MS Natural keyboard and a MS mouse with a soft mousewheel so I doubt it's the mousewheel.

    It's just annoying and time consuming when I try to fill in the diffuse-texture the bitmap dialogue appears on the primaryscreen and when I fill in the spec-texture the same dialogue appears on the secondary screen and the history/current folder is not what it was 5 seconds ago. There's little to no shortcuts in that dialogue either.
    It's not just the bitmap dialogue it's pretty much everything that feels messy and irregular.

    Anyways I guess I'll have to live with it. Thanks for taking the time though!
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  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    the only wise thing you can do now is stop working! don't risk your hands just for a few hours of extra work, i did that - was a very bad decision i couldn't work for months, go to a doctor and let him check your arms/wrists/hand and do whatever he tells you and if that means 2 weeks no computer, DO THAT. seriously when you already are in paint its almost too late to fix this, don't let it destroy you for a serious amount of time, a few weeks vs months or years is nothing, so give your hands a while to rest.

    when you recovered, think about ergonomy - i bought a gel pack for my mousearm, and a mouse with changeable speed, so if i have to use unreal or unity or any other tool that needs a lot of mousemovement over a few monitors i can just speed it up.
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  • Yozora
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    Yozora polycounter lvl 11
    If you hate pressing the middle mouse button in max (which you should, unless you have a 3-large button mouse), bind it to a thumb button instead.
    If your thumb button sucks, get a mouse with a decent thumb button :p Like the performance mx.

    I am not quite sure what dialogue you speak of, but I have also bound a hotkey that switches the current window to the other monitor on my mouse so any menus that open in the "wrong" monitor, I just hit that mouse button to throw it to the one I'm actually looking at. (I've bound it to that "app" button on the logitech mx, the big thumb thing beneath the actual thumb buttons)

    And for navigating commonly used folders, I use direct folders.
    This is usable in them browse-dialogue screens and it remembers last-used folder paths so it greatly reduces the navigation clicks to get through a bunch of folders again and again.
    This is also bound to my MMB (which is a thumb button).
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  • Ahrkey
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    Ahrkey polycounter lvl 18
    i*ve trIed to get in contact with doctors and or rehabdudes but they don*t have time for me until late jan/earlY FEB WHICH SUCKS:

    thanks for the tip about direct folders unfortunately it fucked my computer up completely: as you can see the behavior of the keyboard is now erratic at BesT and the same goes for tHe mOUSE:

    i tried uninsTalling the application bUt the proBlem is still there:

    this posT was written with correct english all In lOwercase:
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  • Neox
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    Neox godlike master sticky
    man seriously stop trying to work, aren't there any hospitals around? i dunno where you are but it sounds pretty bad and you should not make it worse, your hands, your eyes, your brain those are the foundation of your craft, don't waste them
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