Misc 3dsmax questions
polycounter lvl 7
Okay over time I have gathered some minor "issues" with 3dsmax, wich I can't immediatly find an answer for.
1) When going from front/back/left/... view with alt drag 3dsmax always goes into orthographic mode, wich has it's uses in some cases, but 97% of the time I want to go back into perspective view.
any way to change this behaviour to be standard to go to perspective?
2) Dockable layer manager.
You can probably bind it to a key, but with how much I use it, I would prefer it to be docked somewhere so I always have access to it, and not floating around somewhere.
3) Hotkey for "Connect" tool in edge mode that brings up the actual little dialogue box with the slider.
I found in the hotkeys something that said it should do it, but even with that it always just does the connect.
4) Hotkey for the bridge tool.
Either I am just looking over it, but I can't find it anywhere
(in this case, selecting 2 edges, pressing a key and it bridging a poly between them, not the "select tool, click from one edge to the other/version".
5) I guess this is maybe in the maxscript domain, but 99% of the time when I am modelling I am using a custom material, not the standard one.
And it does get tiresome to constantly open the material editor, select the material and click the little "apply" button.
So what I am looking for is a way for when I start a new project be able to bind a key that basicly applies a chosen material to the selected mesh.
Sorry for all the questions, and if some of these might have easy solutions, and I am just looking over the straight forward solution.
1) When going from front/back/left/... view with alt drag 3dsmax always goes into orthographic mode, wich has it's uses in some cases, but 97% of the time I want to go back into perspective view.
any way to change this behaviour to be standard to go to perspective?
2) Dockable layer manager.
You can probably bind it to a key, but with how much I use it, I would prefer it to be docked somewhere so I always have access to it, and not floating around somewhere.
3) Hotkey for "Connect" tool in edge mode that brings up the actual little dialogue box with the slider.
I found in the hotkeys something that said it should do it, but even with that it always just does the connect.
4) Hotkey for the bridge tool.
Either I am just looking over it, but I can't find it anywhere
(in this case, selecting 2 edges, pressing a key and it bridging a poly between them, not the "select tool, click from one edge to the other/version".
5) I guess this is maybe in the maxscript domain, but 99% of the time when I am modelling I am using a custom material, not the standard one.
And it does get tiresome to constantly open the material editor, select the material and click the little "apply" button.
So what I am looking for is a way for when I start a new project be able to bind a key that basicly applies a chosen material to the selected mesh.
Sorry for all the questions, and if some of these might have easy solutions, and I am just looking over the straight forward solution.
Replies
Here are some comments/answers/suggestions:
1) When going from front/back/left/... view with alt drag 3dsmax always goes into orthographic mode, wich has it's uses in some cases, but 97% of the time I want to go back into perspective view.
any way to change this behaviour to be standard to go to perspective?
I don't have a way to change the behavior, but since the Left/right/front/ viewports are orthographic views, when you drag/pan to spin the view, the intuitive (at least to me) behavior is to stay in ortho mode. It's a holdover paradigm from the drafting world I'm sure.
2) Dockable layer manager.
You can probably bind it to a key, but with how much I use it, I would prefer it to be docked somewhere so I always have access to it, and not floating around somewhere.
I just use the layer manager button at the top of the Max Std UI. I think it can probably also be placed in a quad menu too if needed.
3) Hotkey for "Connect" tool in edge mode that brings up the actual little dialogue box with the slider.
I found in the hotkeys something that said it should do it, but even with that it always just does the connect.
4) Hotkey for the bridge tool.
Either I am just looking over it, but I can't find it anywhere
(in this case, selecting 2 edges, pressing a key and it bridging a poly between them, not the "select tool, click from one edge to the other/version"
These are not assigned hotkeys by default, but can be assigned fairly easily. Let me know if you want instructions on how to do it.
5) I guess this is maybe in the maxscript domain, but 99% of the time when I am modelling I am using a custom material, not the standard one.
And it does get tiresome to constantly open the material editor, select the material and click the little "apply" button.
So what I am looking for is a way for when I start a new project be able to bind a key that basicly applies a chosen material to the selected mesh.
To work the way you describe, yes, you will need maxscript. However, Max does have a drag and drop functionality if it makes the manual way any easier. I believe Max requires all new geometry to be assigned a material manually, since rearely does anyone keep the default shader/material.
I hope this helps.
-Boyd
Thank you for the answers.
And yes, if you would be willing to give some quick guidelines on how to do that.
Well that is in case the option to rebind the bridge button isn't in the normal (huge) list of rebindable keys and I am just looking over it.
Go to Customize UI in the Customize pull-down menu.
Make sure the keyboard tab is selected, and select the Edit Poly in the 'Group' menu rollout. Then scroll down to the Bridge settings or Connect settings and select. The go to the Hotkey field and type the desired key sequence. If the sequence is already assigned you can remove it or select an new key sequence. If it's not already assigned it will let you know. Then click assign and save the new Max UI file to save the new hotkey. Hotkeys can be printed for reference if needed with the 'write keyboard chart' button.
Thanks a lot ^^
for me when I assign a material to slot 1 in the editor I get this: When I assign that material to a object I get this: If you drag those two bits of code into the toolbar you get a button that does those functions. If you wanted to turn that into a keybind you need to create a macroscript, which just means sticking a header ontop of that code and surounding the code in (), which is mostly done for you automatically when you created the button. Right click the button and choose edit macroscript.
It would look something like this:
macroScript Macro10 category:"DragAndDrop" toolTip:"" ( meditMaterials[1] = MatteShadow () $.material = meditMaterials[1] )To create a script that shows up in the Customize UI > Keyboard menu, change the header to look like this:macroscript MyMaterialMacro category:" MYTools" toolTip:"My Material" buttonText:"MyMat" ( meditMaterials[1] = MatteShadow () $.material = meditMaterials[1] )Run the script once (ctrl-e to evaluate it and run it) and it will show up in the Customize UI menu. From there you can assign it to keyboard shortcut, toolbar, menu or quad menu.Note: I put a space in front of the Category name so it shows up at the top of the list in the customize UI > Keyboard menu, I hate digging for my own scripts.
And thanks Mark Dygert for taking the time to write that out
Aha! it was the wonderful PEN - Paul Neale, 3ds max rigging guru:
http://www.penproductions.ca/scripts/autoMaterial/autoMaterial.htm
Take a look!
Anyway, I can't take full credit for this as a friend helped me out a lot after I explained what I was trying to do and he was done probably laughing at my original script:
( selection.wirecolor = color 0 0 0 -- define wireframe colour. local myMtl -- holds the value 'undefined' for m in sceneMaterials where m.name == "GrayLord" do ( myMtl = m exit -- no need to keep looping ) if myMtl == undefined do myMtl = standardMaterial name:"GrayLord" Diffuse:Gray -- set the material type for obj in selection do obj.material = myMtl )Where I've commented "-- set the material type" is where you'd script in your preferred material. Alternatively, this script also looks for a material called "GrayLord" (name to whatever you want), so if you had something already being used that you'd want to use again and again, just give it the same name and this script will ignore the part where it creates a new material, and will use yours instead*
As I say though, the real benefit to this is not using any of the editor slots, which is handy in not totally clean scenes.
*This is probably best utilised if you save out a "maxstart.max" file with your material in, otherwise you're probably not saving any time at all