What You Should KnowBefore You Begin

3D Studio Max can be an overwhelming program. It dwarfs most other programs with its hundreds of buttons, menu items and functions. Some think it has a mind of it’s own and that it’s plotting against them.

Be patient, ask for help and do your best. With time things will become clear and you’ll be creating beautiful models that you can be proud of.

In Max you work left, right, up down and in and out.

Compare working in 3-D to driving a car.

Look through all windows.

Max displays your work through windows called viewports.

Each direction (axis) in Max is assigned a letter; X, Y and Z.

An icon called a gizmo will show the different axes or directions and assign a color to each.

3D modeling is a complex task for a computer to perform

Always be contentious of ways to lighten the load on memory.

The fewer the segments the better while still achieving the desired look.

Shaded mode shows you a better representation of the object than wireframe, but it requires more work from the computer.

OMG, this program is insane!

Viewports are your windows to your project.

Drop down menus are across the top of the screen, but use hotkeys when you can.

Roll your cursor over a button on the toolbar and Max will display the name. Buttons with will display more buttons if you click and hold the mouse.

The command panel on the right is your can be you best friend or your worst enemy!

Navigation tools in bottom right corner can be helpful.

Coordinates are displayed below the time bar.

Look at your object through all the all the time.

Right clicking on the viewport name allows you to change the view displayed.

Use the mouse wheel and navigation tools to move around your object.

Max uses “generic units” which are only useful for relative proportions

You can choose metric or standard and the tolerance (smallest unit).

Choose something your comfortable with.

Snaps can control where objects move, rotate or scale to.

Right click on the snaps button in the tool bar to choose what Max will snap to.

Know what you’re snapping to!

Objects in Max will be created in relationship to the home grid or construction plane.

A helper grid can be created to allow you to create object on a plane other than the home grid.

The Autogrid button will automatically create a new grid based on existing objects.

Max allows you to customize several program features including hotkeys.

If you use a specific feature frequently create a shortcut for it in order to streamline your work flow.

Right clicking will… Cancel commands that you might be in. Drop the value on a spinner to the

minimum. Frequently used commands like

transforming, cloning or hiding. Right click to change the view angle and

the shading of a viewport.

Reset will clear all settings and allows you to start fresh.

New will allow you to clear objects, but retain settings.

Import will allow you to open files from other programs

Merge will allow you to open an object from a saved document into an existing document.

Save incrementally.

Save > Selected will allow you to save a selected model or object within a file as a separate document.

File > Archive will save your Max doc plus any associated files.

File> Publish to DWF (design web format) will display your model on any computer.

Use Edit > Hold and Fetch often.

Get in the habit of using Hold whenever you’re unsure of how the next step in a project will go.

Once you fetch you can’t go back.