Symmetry and Bevel questions in max
polycounter lvl 11
Hey all!
I have two questions for you all
Symmetry Question:
So sometimes when I'm moving cylinders in my scene for a character and rotating the axis I want to apply symmetry. But when I apply symmetry the mirror is applied based on the cylinder's axis and location. Instead I'd like to have the mirror go across the 0,0,0 absolute location and make sure that the rotation is zeroed as well. Is there a way (perhaps maxscript) to speed up this process? Cause normally I just have to move it and then use local rotation to rotate it to 0,0,0.
It would be much nicer if when symmetry was applied it automatically set the mirror to 0,0,0 absolute transform and 0,0,0 absolute rotation.
Beveling Question:
On the last character I worked on, I made it about 6 feet tall (using feet with decimal inches in max). However when adding details and using functions such as bevel context menu, the slider makes the bevel steps too large. Is there a way to change how much each *click* on the slider changes the value? Perhaps half the factor? Or maybe in scaling? I've tried a few things but can't figure it out.
I hope I made those clear enough.
Thanks a ton in advance,
Mike
I have two questions for you all
Symmetry Question:
So sometimes when I'm moving cylinders in my scene for a character and rotating the axis I want to apply symmetry. But when I apply symmetry the mirror is applied based on the cylinder's axis and location. Instead I'd like to have the mirror go across the 0,0,0 absolute location and make sure that the rotation is zeroed as well. Is there a way (perhaps maxscript) to speed up this process? Cause normally I just have to move it and then use local rotation to rotate it to 0,0,0.
It would be much nicer if when symmetry was applied it automatically set the mirror to 0,0,0 absolute transform and 0,0,0 absolute rotation.
Beveling Question:
On the last character I worked on, I made it about 6 feet tall (using feet with decimal inches in max). However when adding details and using functions such as bevel context menu, the slider makes the bevel steps too large. Is there a way to change how much each *click* on the slider changes the value? Perhaps half the factor? Or maybe in scaling? I've tried a few things but can't figure it out.
I hope I made those clear enough.
Thanks a ton in advance,
Mike
Replies
If you're in edit poly mode, you can select an edge and then apply a symmetry modifier, the symmetry's gizmo will then be set on the edge. That's how I've always used it.
for your beveling issue, you may want to check that things are okay in your unit settings. if you go to customize>units setup and make sure everything there seems like the default or whatever you had it on.
The main problem about the symmetry modifier is the rotational position mainly. Zeroing the transform is easy enough, but to zero the rotation i have to go into local rotation and keep zeroing the x y and z until it lines up. Usually I have to zero those each a few times because when you zero one it modifies the values of the others.
No luck with the bevel mod so far. I'll continue trying to mess with unit setup and system units.
Thanks again for your help guys
I agree those options would be cool though.
FOr the bevel, you can go to
customize>preferences>general>spinners>Use Snap and set the value as you like.
It will work if you just click on a spinner but not if you click an drag.
You can do ghetto things like create some boxes/dummies, align/position them where you want, and then align your objects' pivots to each one as you need it. It's clunky but works fine.
I'm still sad about max's bevel/extrude/inset tools though. I tried to scale everything up and reset scale, but max still treats my bevels as if the objects were as small as when I first made them. I don't wanna reset xform cause a lot of my geo is placed with that in mind. T_T.
I've tried to reimport all geo to see if the documents file had some odd scaling happeneing but nope. From what I can tell changing the system unit setup does nothing to change the scale of beveling. I made it so 1 unit = .0001 inches, and also tried 1 unit = 1000 inches.
The snap scale thing is sort of a fix, but i'd prefer to use the sliders, cause the snap that it defaults to is what I end up using instead of the sliders.
Thanks again for all your help guys
You are my hero ♥♥♥!!!!!!
yeah that's what I've been doing but when doing a lot of beveling and extruding i find that typing values every time I need to have a bevel with visual feedback breaks tempo quite a bit.