3DS Max Questions
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Hay guys, im new here, I've recently been learning 3ds max over Maya for the past 3 months or so, I highly prefer the ease of modelling that this program provides, but not so much the UV Mapping, i tend to throw my models into Maya just to UV Map it and then go from there. I have a few questions that having been playing with my head for the past few weeks, Iv looked online to try and find answers but had no luck. Here goes, ill try to keep it pretty straight forward...
1) Mayas Shaded UV Display - has max not got this feature as this is one of the main things I liked with Mayas UV Editor, I would stack appropriate UV Shells which would take up the same texture maps and then offset the shells by UV of 1, the Shaded UV Display let me see the overlapping uv's I had to do this with very easily. Iv looked everywhere online for maxes alternative but had no luck, im very suprised if there isn't something similar to this for max as how the hell would someone remember which uv shells to offset?
2) UV Editor stack uv shells - is there an option to stack uv shells?
3) UV Editor straighten edges - is there an option to straighten edges on a uv island, in Maya there is this option in NSUV's UV Editor, very handy
4) Pivot point snapping to another objects vertice - in Maya its very easy to snap an objects pivot to another objects vertice, this is very useful for modular building but with max i find the pivot snapping very difficult, I have a script to make it snap to a vertice on the same object, but not another one.
5) Pivot point snapping in-line with another vertice, this may include the same object or other objects vertices
6) grid snap vertically and horizontally off the actual grid - in Maya the grid snap applies to the world, not just the actual grid on the floor, how can you achieve this in max?
7) snap vertice in line with another vertice, In maya there was the toggle snap which allowed me to do this, I would use it frequently to align vertices inline with other vertices which needed to be at a particular XYZ.
7) snap vertice in line with another vertice, In maya there was the toggle snap which allowed me to do this, I would use it frequently to align vertices inline with other vertices which needed to be at a particular XYZ.
8) Quick combine - is there a quick combine like in maya instead of manually attaching like 10 objects at once
9) Freeze Transformations - is there a way to freeze transformations like in maya so I could just reset the XYZ co-ordinates to put it back in its original place
10) Something strange I noticed, with 3ds Max sometimes when I copy an XYZ co-ordinate across vertices, sometimes they arn't aligned even though the XYZ is the same value, I dont understand this, It was very easy to achieve in Mayas Component Editor.
Thanks guys!
9) Freeze Transformations - is there a way to freeze transformations like in maya so I could just reset the XYZ co-ordinates to put it back in its original place
10) Something strange I noticed, with 3ds Max sometimes when I copy an XYZ co-ordinate across vertices, sometimes they arn't aligned even though the XYZ is the same value, I dont understand this, It was very easy to achieve in Mayas Component Editor.
Thanks guys!
Replies
2) Not inside of 3dsmax, I wish it was. The closes you can get is to select overlapping faces. The newest version of max seems to have a much better multi-tile workflow, it might be worth checking out.
3) Check out the "align tools" it seems like they gave them an upgrade in 2017, but they had more primitive versions in older releases. There are a bunch of scripts floating around that do similar tasks.
4-7) Short answer: 3D/2D snaps, Custom grid objects incremental move and a lot of head on keyboard pounding.
Longer answer:
There are scripts up on scriptspot.com that help with specific operations but really this workflow really needs an overhaul.
8) With the edit poly modifier, you click the box next to "Attach" this brings up the scene explore and lets you pick everything that you want to combine. Again there are scripts that let you combine based on selection and they aren't that hard to write.
9) Go to the Hierarchy tab and under "Reset" click, transform and scale. It will clear out the transform and scale data. You can also use the Utility "reset xform" but this will realign the object's pivot to the world grid, so usually I go after just the data and reset that.
10) It really depends on the object's transform history, if it's parented to something and if you are in sub-object mode or not. It even depends on your selection and what your gizmo is set to. I would need to know more about what you're doing before I could offer a solution or insight...
4 - 7 : Max's snapping is more powerful than Maya's, it's a little inconvenient when you're used to holding down a key to turn it on and it does take a little time to get your head round it but persevere and you'll be cursing Maya for it's snapping ineptitude in no time. I usually keep the snapping floater open while I'm working so I can switch them quickly. I've also bound the affect pivot only command to insert which makes life a lot easier.
It's worth bearing in mind that you actually don't need to move the pivot around half as much in Max as you do in Maya because the align and snap tools are that much more flexible.
8 : utilities tab > collapse, works on selected objects
9 : alt+right click has all the transform manipulation options