Hold my hand through Max, please. Haha

SouL · Oct 2005

Is there a quick way to turn off all the lights in the viewport? Something that'll turn my model into pure black. It's just something I've picked up on to check and make sure the silhouette reads well from all distances.
So far the only solution I've found is to have the color options for my specified material open... and changing it to pure black.

Fill Hole... there's a tool in Maya that quickly lets me fill an opening in my mesh. I select the surrounding edges of the open hole, click Fill Hole, and the hole is patched. I know there's the Create Face tool. But is there something more automated like Fill Hole? The 1 thing that bugs me with Create Face is that sometimes it doesn't pick up when I click on a vertex (or Max thinks I'm clicking on the vertex behind).

Oh and there's the connect tool. Works just like I want it to, but is there a way to make the newly created edge loop slide along the edge ring of origin? There's the constrain to edge movement option... but it's something you have to turn/off manually. It's a simple left click on the movement dialogue, then middle mouse drag to drag the selection up/down in Maya. Will I need a different set of plug in tools? Something similar would be great, or even an input box where I can input a numeric value to control where the edges go.

A lot of the main functions I need, I've found and are working. Now I just want to find out if there are ways to make them more efficient.

I'm getting up to speed but there still some habits I'm used to. And I often catch myself looking for a specific tool then pausing realising I don't have/know where it is. I miss the holding V down to snap to points, though. I know there's a snap to option in Max. It just works in a slightly different way.
I've noticed that Max Hotkeys are very context sensitive. F can be bound to center the current selection/scene in the viewport. But then F can be bound to something else when you're in edit poly/mesh mode. There should be an option that lets you retain manually set hotkeys over all the different modes in Max. So in this case, F would center the selection/scene no matter what mode I'm in.
I guess it's nice if you want to bind multiple functions to one key. Sadly my brain doesn't function that way. Hah

Snowfly · Oct 2005

Don't know about the turn off lights thing..

Fill hole, go to border mode, select the gaping hole, and hit 'Cap'.

Shift-x is the default hotkey for constrain to edge.

Snapping in Maya truly rocks, you're right.

Dan · Oct 2005

Ctrl+l diables the viewport's default lighting, but I think that only works when there is other lights in the scene, and they remain on.

Try turning on vertex snap for the create face thing.

thnom · Oct 2005

For a sillhouette I've just assigned an all black material. If you're still in the modelling stages you won't have a skin, but it can get irratating if you kept on switching. Maybe you could get someone to write you a maxscript. like f7 for all black and f8 to reverse.

Husch · Oct 2005

For turning off all Lights I would use the "Light Lister".
You can find it in your menu bar: Tools/Light Lister

MoP · Oct 2005

Well, if your scene just has default lighting at the moment, what you could do is make a Light of some sort, set the multiplier to 0, then just hide it - and then do as Dan said, just hit CTRL-L to enable/disable default lighting.

Cap is what you want as a replacement for Fill Hole - just go into Border mode, click once to select the edge border you wanna cap, and hit Cap. Bingo.

I'd bind the edge/face constraints to a hotkey, or for something more visual, make them into a couple of icons and add them to a toolbar wherever you prefer, then you won't have to scroll through the EPoly list every time, they'll always be in the same place on the toolbar.

For snap settings, I set up ALT-V to toggle vertex snap on or off, since whenever I need to use it, it's often for a few verts in one go, so i just toggle it on, snap the verts, toggle it off again. Just set the Snaps only to Vertex, and uncheck "Use Axis Constraints" in the Options, and I think you'll find it functions identically to Maya's vertex snap, only with a slightly different keypress.

You could maybe make use of the Keyboard Override toggle (look in max's help maybe?) if you're concerned about different commands being mapped to the same key.

pior · Oct 2005

Would that work?

Slum · Oct 2005

And one more thing. Recorded with camstudio, use the TSCC codec.

http://s13.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0X9GLRJZAQ48T16HP7C84YMWSB

Toggle back and forth through the frames via the '<' and '>' keys.

SouL · Oct 2005

Thank you!
Tons of help. That CTRL+L trick is very cool.
For some reason I'm still having trouble getting CTRL+H to hide my selections. But I can hid Faces... so there's probably something I'm doing wrong.

Cap... I never would have known that. It doesn't even occur to me to use Border selections.

TelekineticFrog · Oct 2005

Another one that I use that I didn't see posted here and this works if you're not using vertex coloring for any lighting and aren't wanting to render the model black silhouette but only see the black silhouette in the viewports easily you can select all the vertices of your mesh and change the vertex colors to black under the modifiers panel under the vertex properties rollout while in vertex sub selection mode. Then go to display panel and under display properties tab in the rollout click vertex colors. Both menus are on the far right for this stuff. Then if you want quick access to this function for on and off just go into your Customize menu at the top and under Customize User Interface / Main UI, bind the Properties command to whatever you want for your hot key. Then when in the viewport just tap your hot key and uncheck or check the Vertex Channel Display box. That's it and then you can view your meshes in silhouette fast and easy after you initially set it up.

Quick ninja edit...you have to have the mesh selected when using the shortcut for the properties command or it'll do nothing.

killingpeople · Oct 2005

for a silouette, i would have just applied a black texture and turned it's self illumination up to 100. target weilding is cool, kinda like the v snap in maya. you can target weld edges too.

TelekineticFrog · Oct 2005

Problem with placing a texture on the mesh though is that if you go to render the object to image or place them in a game or real time application then you have to worry about taking the extra step of swapping maps upon render or export. If you aren't relying on the vertex coloring of the mesh for your application then by using the black vertex coloring to silhouette you don't have to fudge with the textures and the data is not stored or used in export or rendering. This allows you to silhouette the mesh in realtime in the viewport quickly without having to worry about messing up your data or renders. Not saying it's a wrong way, just explaining why I choose to do the method I posted. It's also good to still turn on the vertex color channel to active when using a black texture to ensure you're recieving absolutely no lighting or shading from Max's default light sources.

thomasp · Oct 2005

silhouette: create instance of your mesh, move it somewhere else and color it black. that way, you don't have to fiddle with anything.

Eric Chadwick · Oct 2005

Pior's way has to be the easiest. Could trivially be scripted as a toggle too.

pior · Oct 2005

Don't we all want trivial toggle buttons!

Eric Chadwick · Oct 2005

I'm not a scripter, I don't know the toggle code, but I took the output from the Listener and made this in 10 seconds or so.

Code:<hr /><pre>
macroScript blackSilhouette
category:"MAX Script Tools"
toolTip:"Sets the Global Lighting Tint to black"
(
actionMan.executeAction 0 "40029"
lightTintColor = color 0 0 0
)
</pre><hr />

Maybe a scripter could jump in and make it pretty.

MoP · Oct 2005

Go go Chadwick power! Nice one

Ramucho · Oct 2005

there is a flat shading option in your viewport option (right click on the vieport's name and select flat) not really sure if it's what you need or if it was already mentioned but well, it's handy for checking your silhouette.

SouL · Oct 2005

Max's equivalent to Maya's Outliner is the Select by Name list, right? Is there a way to have it so that when I highlight something from the list, it also selects it in the scene?

Basically I want the highlighted object in the list, be highlighted (selected) in the viewport, also. In Max you have to double-click and basically commit to your selection.

And is there anything equivalent to Maya's Layers?

Is there an easier way of editing multiple seperate objects all at once? And editing their UVs?
I know you can group select and add a group modifier. But is that the only way?

Lots of questions, and it's probably easier to just have me look around the help tools. But I wouldn't even know what to search for half the time, because I don't know the correct term in Max for what I'm looking for.

Jhotun · Oct 2005

I think that there is no way to avoid the double-click to select objects from the selection list.

Max also have layers, and let me tell you that they are really good.

The only way to edit geometry or several objects at once is to have them as elements of the same mesh. So, attach them, edit them, and if you want, detach them later. Better than making groups by the way.

Cheers

Toomas · Oct 2005

Max has layers, i never used them tho so i dunno how they work BUT press F1 and search "layers" :P

MoP · Oct 2005

Yep Jhotun's spot on, Max's Layers (well, in max7 anyway) are very nice.

SouL, try the Selection Floater instead of Select By Name - look in Tools -> Selection Floater. It'll stay open, even if you select something. Just double-click a thing in the list and it becomes selected in the viewport.

The Layer Manager is the option directly below the Selection Floater in the Tools menu too, and it's all pretty self-explanatory. Also if you right-click in the empty space on the top toolbar, and click Layers so that the option is checked, you'll get a new floating toolbar that you can dock anywhere. I usually put it up on the top bar, it doesn't get in the way like the Layer Manager does, and you can Hide or Freeze layers from the drop-down list it contains.

Eric Chadwick · Oct 2005

[ QUOTE ]
easier way of editing multiple seperate objects all at once? And editing their UVs?
I know you can group select and add a group modifier. But is that the only way?

[/ QUOTE ]Adding a modifier is the only way of editing multiple geometries at once. You can flatten the shared modifier by using the Collapse utility in the Utility Panel (hammer icon).

Editing UVs of multiple objects can be done with a free tool. Haven't tried it myself yet.

[ QUOTE ]
probably easier to just have me look around the help tools. But I wouldn't even know what to search for half the time, because I don't know the correct term in Max for what I'm looking for.

[/ QUOTE ]There's a glossary in there. But the best thing I find is simply to dive into the reference a bit at a time, read all I can find about a topic, then get back to working. Often that approach has revealed a bunch of hidden goodies I'd never find on my own.

Once we start migrating our toolset to Maya, I'm sure I'll be hitting up these boards with queries like yours.

FatAssasin · Oct 2005

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not a scripter, I don't know the toggle code, but I took the output from the Listener and made this in 10 seconds or so.

Code:<hr /><pre>
macroScript blackSilhouette
category:"MAX Script Tools"
toolTip:"Sets the Global Lighting Tint to black"
(
actionMan.executeAction 0 "40029"
lightTintColor = color 0 0 0
)
</pre><hr />

Maybe a scripter could jump in and make it pretty.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice job. But technically, you don't need the first line. That just opens the Environment settings dialog, which doesn't need to be open for the lightTintColor command to work. And you need a way to toggle between black and white, not just set it to black. Also, the viewport doesn't refresh automatically after you change the tint color, so it would be nice to add that.

So, copy and paste these two lines into your script, overwriting the two lines already there, and you should be good to go. Or drop and drop the text onto a toolbar to make a button, which you can then assign to a hotkey. It'll show up in the "Drag and Drop" category.

Code:<hr /><pre>if lightTintColor != (color 0 0 0) then lightTintColor = (color 0 0 0) else lightTintColor = (color 255 255 255)
redrawViews()</pre><hr />
Hope that helps.

Eric Chadwick · Oct 2005

Awesome!

MoP · Oct 2005

Dammit, FatAssasin, I was trying to come up with that exact same script yesterday, but for some reason I never thought to put the color settings in regular brackets... doh!
Thanks

arshlevon · Oct 2005

here guys try this.. this one will toggle on and off when you press the key its assigned to and you can use any tint color you want.. this wont reset it to white when your done..

Code:<hr /><pre>macroScript lightsout
category:"arshlevon"
tooltip:"lightsout"

(
lightsOn = true
on execute do
(
if lightsOn then lightLevel = 0

else lightLevel = 1

lightsOn = not lightsOn
completeRedraw()

)

)
</pre><hr />

Jhotun · Oct 2005

I found this script that probably solves the question about editing multiple uvws at once. I have not used it, but looks cool

http://users.skynet.be/arketip/arketip_multiObjectUnwrapENG.htm

pior · Oct 2005

Nice one people! Can't wait to toggle

Mark Dygert · Oct 2005

[ QUOTE ]
For snap settings, I set up ALT-V to toggle vertex snap on or off, since whenever I need to use it, it's often for a few verts in one go, so i just toggle it on, snap the verts, toggle it off again. Just set the Snaps only to Vertex, and uncheck "Use Axis Constraints" in the Options, and I think you'll find it functions identically to Maya's vertex snap, only with a slightly different keypress.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can set the keyboard short cuts to whatever you want in customize/customize User Interface. It will tell you what else that key combo is set to and allow you to change/delete the other command it is bbound to. You can even set up the quad menu to be more on the fly for the tools you use. I have differnt quad menu layouts I use for different tasks like unwrapping. I use the quad menu almost like Maya's space bar menu. If you save your UI as something other than MaxStartUI.kbd you will have to go load it each time you open a new file. I suggest back up MaxStartUI.kbd by changing the name to MaxStartUI.bak and saving your new UI layout over the old so it loads by default.

If you find yourself highly customizing max like wanting a custom light or material setup to load each time max starts, just save a file to .../max/scenes called maxstart.max. If you go somewhere new, bring your MaxStartUI.kbd and maxstart.max file with you and you can spend more time decorating your cube and less time mucking around in the bowels of max.

I really wish they would add a export/import setup feature that works like the archive feature but grabs the MaxStartUI.kbd, the maxstart.max, any materials you have, any scripts & custom plugins. Then have the import feature unzip to the new default dir of max... but I'm lazy that way.

Eric Chadwick · Oct 2005

Save Custom UI helps, it saves kbd, menus, quads, colors, etc. all in one go. ALso there's an option to auto-save UI on exit, so it always stores the last in MaxStartUI.

I find it helps me to organize the 3rd-party plugins/scripts, to only load those I need. I put subfolders in \Macroscripts\ for each new script, then I simply move the folders I need in/out of there to load/unload them. Similarly with plugins... by plugins.ini points to folders inside \xtraplugins\, and I can comment them in/out of the ini. Saves a lot of ram, only loading the stuff I need. Also makes it easy to move around.

Before I set it up like that, Max took forever to load, and used way too much ram.

Hold my hand through Max, please. Haha

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