Chapter 1 AL Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 MA TE RI Welcome to Mastering Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010. Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 replaces Autodesk VIZ 2008 and benefits from the development of its sister product, 3ds Max, to give architects and other design professionals an indispensable design and visualization tool.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Figure 1.1 The new Learning Movies dialog box New Features and Essential Skills Movies/What’s New and Learning Path The new features and additional skills movies are located on the Autodesk website, and an active Internet connection is required to view them. When you no longer want the dialog box to appear as 3ds Max opens, simply uncheck the Show This Dialog at Startup option in the lower-left corner.
Introducing the New 3ds Max Design 2010 Features vertices, duplicate and flipped faces, and other geometry errors. This new feature can help you avoid potentially costly modeling mistakes before projects proceed too far down the production pipeline. ProSound Included in this release of 3ds Max Design is the new ProSound system, which allows you to work interactively with up to 100 unique audio tracks directly in your scene using the Track View dialog box.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 character is walking. This feature makes it easier to use Biped to animate characters with four feet rather than two. FBX File Format The FBX file format has been improved and can be used to exchange files between 3D programs, including 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk Mudbox, and Softimage. You will want to make sure you download and install the newest update for the FBX software from the Autodesk website.
Touring the Interface The Large Icons Option The images in this book use the Large Icons option to better display the toolbar buttons. To activate this option, choose Customize Preferences to open the Preference Settings dialog box. In the UI Display section of the General tab, check the Use Large Toolbar Buttons option, and then shut down and reopen 3ds Max for the option to take effect. At the top, you see a typical Windows menu bar and the 3ds Max main toolbar.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 3. Click the System Unit Setup button, and you will see the System Unit Setup dialog box shown in Figure 1.6. Make sure 1 Unit is set equal to 1.0 Inches. Do not change anything else in the System Unit Setup dialog box, and click OK twice to close both dialog boxes. Figure 1.3 The new Application button Figure 1.4 A typical cascading menu Figure 1.
Touring the Interface Figure 1.6 The System Unit Setup dialog box By setting the Units Setup dialog box, you ensure that you’ll be working with the same units that are discussed in this book. Reverting to the Startup Layout 3ds Max Design 2010 is something of a chameleon. It can change its appearance, depending on the focus of your modeling needs. Users of 3ds Max 2010 will see a somewhat different interface, with the tools designed more for the game and entertainment industries featured.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 The Information Center Toolbar All the way across the screen at the upper-right corner of the interface, near the traditional Windows Minimize, Maximize, and Close buttons, is the Information Center toolbar.
Touring the Interface The Rendering tools give you control over the image output of your 3ds Max scene. Unlike output from most applications, output from 3ds Max Design 2010 is most likely to be image or animation files, or real-time virtual models. The Rendering tools let you set the type and size of output, from single, large-format stills to video-ready animations.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Consider a Dual-Screen System In 3ds Max and many other graphics programs, screen space is always at a premium. You can use a two-monitor system to help unclutter your screen. Simply move items such as floating toolbars, the Material Editor, Curve Editor, Rendered Frame Window, and so forth to the second monitor, freeing up as much screen real estate as possible. Layers are like overlays that help you organize the objects in your model.
Touring the Interface | Several tools found within 3ds Max utilize a paint brush analogy in their implementation. The location and intensity of the effects are determined by how the brush cursor is dragged over an object’s surface. The Brush Presets toolbar gives you access to the standard brushes and the Brush Preset Manager so you can modify and save a brush’s parameters. This toolbar is grayed out unless a tool that utilizes it is active.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 3. Click and drag the Extras toolbar and dock it just to the right of the Layers toolbar (also just under the main toolbar), as shown in Figure 1.8. Figure 1.8 Docking the Extras toolbar 4. Right-click the two vertical lines (called the toolbar handle) on the left side of the Extras toolbar to open the context menu, as shown in Figure 1.9. Figure 1.9 Floating the toolbar 5. Select Float from the context menu.
Touring the Interface Toolbar Flyouts You may have noticed that some of the tools in the main toolbar show a small arrow in the lower-right corner of the tool’s icon (Figure 1.11). Figure 1.11 Flyout arrow That arrow indicates that the tool is one of several offered in a flyout. A flyout is like a graphical version of options in a menu bar. If you click and hold a tool that’s part of a flyout, you see a set of additional, similar tools appear.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Currently, there are four viewports named Top, Left, Front, and Perspective, as indicated by the labels in the upper-left corners of each viewport. You can also tell that the Perspective viewport is different from the others by the way the grid squares get smaller and converge in the distance. As you’ll see toward the end of this chapter, you can configure and view your model in a variety of ways, depending on your needs.
Touring the Interface 2. Click the Maximize Viewport Toggle to divide the viewport area into four individual viewports again. 3. Click the upper-right viewport, labeled Front. Notice that the border of the Front viewport becomes highlighted in yellow. 4. Click the Maximize Viewport Toggle again. Now the Front viewport fills the graphic area. Notice how you can quickly expand the view of a viewport to see more detail. 5. Click the Maximize Viewport Toggle again to return to a four-viewport layout. 6.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Using Shortcut Keys to Switch Viewports You can set the current, active viewport to display a top, front, or left side view by pressing the T, F, or L key. You can also press B for the bottom view. Pressing P will display the perspective view, and pressing U will display an isometric user-defined view. If you have added a camera, you can press C to select from a list of camera views.
Touring the Interface | Finally, to the far left at the bottom of the 3ds Max window is the MAXScript Mini-Listener. MAXScript is a programming language that allows you to create custom applications or macros in 3ds Max. A macro is like a prerecorded series of instructions. The MAXScript Mini-Listener serves two functions: the pink area displays your activity when the MAXScript MacroRecord function is turned on, and the white area provides a space where you can enter commands using the keyboard.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Floating and Hiding the Command Panel You can move the Command panel just like any other toolbar, or you can close the panel entirely by clicking the Close button (the one with the X, in the upper-right corner of the window) when the panel is floating. To bring the Command panel back, right-click on the blank area of any toolbar and then select Command Panel from the context menu.
Touring the Interface | 6. Click and drag up with your mouse. Notice that the options in the Command panel scroll up, following the motion of your mouse. This is an example of a scrolling panel. This scrolling action exposes the rest of the options in the lower portion of the Command panel. Release the mouse button at any time once you’ve seen how this scrolling action works. 7. Place the cursor on a blank area again so that the Hand cursor displays.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 bars. These bars display the titles of the rollouts. They let you open and close a set of options to get them out of the way, or to roll them out for use. Try the following: 1. Click the rollout labeled Parameters. The options below the Parameters rollout disappear. Also notice that the minus (–) sign to the left of the rollout changes to a plus (+) sign. This indicates that the rollout is in its closed state.
Touring the Interface Now you can see how easy it is to control and customize the Command panel interface. In this and later chapters, you’ll explore the rollouts that appear in the Command panel. Creating Objects and Setting Their Parameters By now, you’ve seen most of 3ds Max’s interface and how it functions. However, you will want to know about a few more tools and methods before you delve into using 3ds Max.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Figure 1.19 The rectangle so far Figure 1.20 The finished box You’ve just created your first object in 3ds Max, and in the process, you’ve seen how the dimensions of an object are reflected in the Parameters rollout. Once you’ve created an object, you can continue to modify its parameters, as the following exercise demonstrates. 1. In the Parameters rollout, locate the Width input box and click the up arrow to the right of the box several times.
Touring the Interface | 2. Click and hold down the left mouse button while pointing to the up arrow of the Width spinner. Notice that the box continues to grow in width as you hold down the mouse button. When you hold the mouse button down and move the mouse forward or backward, the rate of change on the values is accelerated. 3. Right-click the spinner arrow. The box shrinks in width to 0. Right-clicking any spinner changes the spinner value to its lowest possible non-negative value, which is 0´0.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Using the Cube Creation Method You can also create a cube directly by selecting the Cube radio button in the Creation Method rollout. If there is a series of related input boxes—such as the Length, Width, and Height boxes in the previous exercise—the Tab key lets you advance from one field to the next. You’ll find that numeric input boxes and spinners are quite common throughout 3ds Max Design 2010.
Working with Objects | 3. Click the box if it isn’t still selected. A manipulator known as the Move Transform gizmo appears, showing the X, Y, and Z orientation of the box in relation to the viewport. Selection brackets also appear at the corners of the box. 4. Place the cursor on the blue Z-axis handle of the Move Transform gizmo; the blue arrow represents the Z-axis. Notice that the Z-axis and axis label highlight in yellow and the X-axis and axis label turn back to red.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 6. Click and drag the blue Z-coordinate arrow up. Now, movement is constrained in the Z-axis, away from and toward the grid. As you may guess, clicking and dragging the green Y-coordinate arrow constrains movement in the Y--axis. The Last Axis Transformed Is Highlighted in Yellow The axis that is highlighted in yellow is the last axis constraint that was used.
Working with Objects | As you see, moving an object in 3ds Max is fairly straightforward. But what if you want to move an object a specific distance or to a known position? The following exercise demonstrates how this is done. 1. With the box still selected and the Select and Move tool still active, click the Absolute Mode Transform Type-In button at the bottom of the 3ds Max window, as shown in Figure 1.23. The tool changes to show that the Offset mode is active. Figure 1.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Just as with the spinners in the Command panel, the Transform Type-In spinners let you set values by clicking and dragging. You can also return to the default values of zero by rightclicking the spinners. When in Offset mode, the spinners automatically reset to zero because the values represent numerical values away from the current, baseline location.
Working with Objects | The Select and Rotate tool’s methods are the same as those for the Select and Move tool. You can rotate an object graphically by clicking and dragging the object, or, with an object selected, you can enter an exact rotation value in the coordinate readout. When the Absolute/Offset Mode Transform Type-In button is in the Absolute mode, you can control the orientation in relation to the object’s original orientation when it was created.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Figure 1.27 Using the Non-uniform Scale transform on the box Now, take a look at the coordinate readout. The values you see are percentages of scale. When the Absolute/Offset Mode Transform Type-In button is in the Absolute position (up), the values are percentages of the original size of the object.
Working with Objects | its original shape. This is because the values in the coordinate readout represent percentages, where 100 percent is the object’s original size. The Scale gizmo allows you to both uniformly and non-uniformly scale an object by automatically switching between scale modes. Which operation you perform depends on which part of the Scale gizmo you drag. 1. Try dragging the center of the Scale gizmo.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 3. The last operation you can perform using the Scale Transform gizmo is a non-uniform scale in one direction. To accomplish this, put your mouse directly over the axis handle at the tip of an axis. For example, put your mouse over the green dot at the end of the Y-axis and drag to scale in that direction only, as shown in Figure 1.30. Figure 1.
Working with Objects 5. Release the mouse button. The Clone Options dialog box displays (see Figure 1.31). This dialog box lets you control the quantity and type of copies you’re making as well as the name of the new objects. Figure 1.31 The Clone Options dialog box 6. In the Object group of the Clone Options dialog box, select Copy. 7. Click OK. The new chair is added to your model, as shown in Figure 1.32. Figure 1.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 In step 6, you selected the Copy option in the Clone Options dialog box. This option creates a distinct copy of the original object. The other two options, Instance and Reference, create clones that are related to the original, in such a way that changes in one object affect the other. You’ll learn more about these options in Chapter 2, “Introducing 3ds Max Objects.
Working with Objects | to here Figure 1.33 Placing the selection rectangle around the chairs Click and drag from here Notice that selection brackets (or bounding boxes) appear at the corners of both chairs, and a gizmo appears between them, indicating that the two objects are selected. You can select objects in a couple of other ways, which you’ll learn about in a moment, but first, let’s use the current selection to make a few more copies of the box. 1.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 3. When the copies are in place, release the mouse button. 4. In the Clone Options dialog box, make sure Copy is selected in the Object group and click OK. The four chairs help to demonstrate some of the other selection methods available to you. First, let’s look at another property of the selection window. 1. Click the Select Object tool, or right-click and choose Select from the quad menu. 2.
Working with Objects | Notice that the icon highlights in blue and changes to one showing a cube that’s completely within a dotted rectangle. This tells you that you are now in Window Selection mode. 3. Click on a point above and to the left of the front left chair in the foreground, as shown in Figure 1.36. Figure 1.36 Click and drag from here Placing a Window Selection window to here 4.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Figure 1.37 Adding objects to your selection set using the Ctrl key and a window Figure 1.38 Removing an object using the Ctrl key You can change the shape of your selection window to help select objects. There are rectangular, circular, polygonal, lasso, and paint Selection Region options. The next exercise explores the lasso selection region that allows freeform sketching for a selection. 1.
Working with Objects | Right now, you have only a few objects in your model, but as your model develops, you’ll find that selecting objects in a crowded model becomes more of a challenge. Knowing about the different selection modes you’ve just used will go a long way toward making your work easier. Figure 1.39 Selecting objects using a lasso selection region One more selection method will be an invaluable tool as your model becomes more complex.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 3. Click MeshChair01 and then Ctrl+click MeshChair03 in the list of object names. This list lets you select multiple names as you would in a typical Windows list box. You can Shift+click to select a group of adjacent names or Ctrl+click to select a group of individual names. Figure 1.41 shows the Select Objects dialog box with the new selection. Figure 1.41 The Select From Scene dialog box with the new selection set 4. Click the OK button.
Working with Objects 3. Type the name Sample↵. You’ve just given the current selection set a name. (You can enter a selection set name up to 15 characters long.) 4. Click in a blank area of the viewport to clear the current selection set. 5. In the main toolbar, click the down arrow to the right of the Named Selection Sets input box. Select Sample. The two boxes you selected earlier are now the current selection set.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Figure 1.43 The Named Selection Sets dialog box showing the contents of the Sample selection set 3. Click Sample in the list. Then click the Select Objects by Name button in the Named Selection Sets toolbar (Figure 1.44). Figure 1.44 Select Objects by Name 4. The Select Objects dialog box displays—this is identical to the Select from Scene dialog box that you used in the previous exercise.
Working with Objects | 5. Click the Add Selected Objects button in the Named Selection Sets dialog box (Figure 1.46). Figure 1.46 Add Selected Objects The names of the objects you selected now appear in the list of objects contained in the selection set, as shown in Figure 1.47. Figure 1.47 The expanded list of objects in the Named Selection Sets dialog box 6. Close the dialog box and deselect all by clicking off to the side in the viewport. 7.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Getting the View You Want So far in this chapter, you’ve done all of your work without making any modifications to the point of view of your model. Now let’s take a look at ways you can control your view. Understanding the viewport controls is essential for manipulating objects in your model, so take some time to become familiar with all the tools discussed in this section.
Getting the View You Want Figure 1.48 Zooming out to view a larger area Now, suppose you don’t like the last view change you made and you want to go back to the previous view. Try the following steps to return to the previous view: 1. Choose Views Undo View Change. You return to the previous view. (Alternatively, press Shift+Z.) 2. Choose Views Undo View Change or press Shift+Z again. Your view returns to the view prior to the last view. 3. Choose Views Undo View Change a third time.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 The Zoom Extents tool repositions your view so that the entire model just fits within the viewport, filling the viewport as much as possible. If you’re an AutoCAD user, you’re familiar with this tool, because its counterpart in AutoCAD performs the same function.
Getting the View You Want | physically moving closer to or farther away from the chairs. As the name implies, the Fieldof-View tool widens or narrows your field of view, much as a zoom lens on a camera does. You’re not actually changing the distance from the object; instead, you’re changing the area that your viewport displays. The Field-of-View tool has the potential to distort your view, just as a super-wide-angle fish-eye lens or a super-telephoto lens tends to distort a photograph.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 2. Place the cursor anywhere outside the circle. Then slowly click and drag in an up-anddown motion. Now the view rotates around the circle as if you were tilting your head from side to side. You may have noticed that the cursor changes, depending on whether you’re inside or outside the circle. This gives you further cues regarding the way the Orbit Selected tool affects your view. You’ve been introduced to nearly all of the Viewport tools.
Getting the View You Want Orbit on the Fly You can Orbit on the fly, without leaving the current command, by holding down the Alt key on the keyboard and dragging the wheel button of your mouse in a viewport. Don’t turn the wheel, but drag it as if the wheel were a middle mouse button. This is a huge time-saver because you’ll find that you don’t have to spend time clicking the Orbit button when you want to rotate your viewing angle.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Figure 1.52 Clicking on a corner of the ViewCube creates an isometric view. Figure 1.53 Clicking on an edge of the ViewCube creates a view adjacent to an orthographic view. Surrounding the cube is a ring with the compass directions indicated. Clicking on any of the letters switches the view in the drawing area to a view from that direction. For example, clicking the letter E on the ring displays the elevation from the east.
Getting the View You Want | Let’s explore some of 3ds Max’s display tools in the other viewports. The first item you’ll look at is the way that the Field-of-View tool changes when your active viewport changes. 1. Click the Maximize Viewport Toggle, in the set of viewport navigation controls, if necessary to display a four-viewport configuration. 2. Click anywhere in the viewport labeled Top in the upper-left corner of the display.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Although not as frequently used as the other Viewport Navigation tools, the Zoom All tool and the Zoom Extents All tool can be helpful when you need to adjust the overall view of your model in multiple viewports. Figure 1.55 The four viewports after using the Zoom Extents All tool You should be aware that the Orbit Selected tool you used in the Perspective viewport also works in the other viewports. Try it out on the Top viewport in this exercise: 1.
Getting the View You Want | 3. Click the Zoom Extents tool to center the view in the viewport. The 3D view in the upper-left corner of the display differs in many ways from the perspective view. But, as you’ll see in the next section, it’s different only because a few of the settings for that viewport are different from those of the Perspective viewport.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 Figure 1.59 The Orthographic viewport in Wireframe mode 3. Click the Orthographic viewport Shading label again, and then select Hidden Line from the context menu. The Orthographic viewport changes to reflect the contents in the Hidden Line rendering mode. 4. Zoom into the chairs to get a better look at the Hidden Line rendering mode. Your view should be similar to Figure 1.60. Figure 1.
Getting the View You Want | Figure 1.61 Two of the four viewports are now Perspective viewports. 2. Click the POV label of the upper-left viewport, select Top, and then click Zoom Extents. The view changes back to the original top view. Notice that the chairs are still in shaded mode. 3. Click the Shading Label of the Top viewport, and then select Wireframe. Three of the viewports show wireframe views of the chairs. Wireframe views are often better for many types of editing operations.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 2. Click the Layout tab. You see the current viewport layout at the bottom of the tab. Above it is a set of fourteen predefined layouts, as shown in Figure 1.63. Figure 1.63 The Layout tab of the Viewport Configuration dialog box 3. Click the layout that looks like three small rectangles stacked on the left side with one large rectangle on the right. 4. Click OK. The viewports change to the selected layout. 5.
Getting the View You Want | You aren’t limited to the canned layouts either. You may decide that you want the layout to reflect a more traditional mechanical drawing layout, with a top, front, and right side view. Here’s how you can set up such a viewport arrangement: 1. Choose Views Viewport Configuration. 2. With the Layout tab selected, click the layout showing four equal viewports, which is the rightmost layout in the bottom row of layout options (see Figure 1.65). Figure 1.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 4. Click the sample Perspective viewport in the lower-right corner and select Right from the pop-up menu. 5. Click the sample Left viewport in the lower-left corner and select Front from the pop-up menu. 6. Click OK. Now you have a layout that shows the top, front, and right views, plus a perspective view, arranged in a more traditional manner. Change the Right viewport to Hidden Line mode.
Getting the View You Want Figure 1.68 Drag a selection region around the lower chairs. 5. In the Right viewport, click and drag the green Y-arrow up. Notice how the chairs move in the front and perspective views as you do this. 6. Position the chairs so they are higher by about one-half the height of a chair. 7. Click and drag the red X-axis of the chairs to the right of the screen, so they merge with the chair to the right, as shown in Figure 1.69. Figure 1.69 Move the selected chairs along the X-axis.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 You also saw how you can right-click in a viewport to make it active. Had you simply clicked in the Right viewport in step 4, you would have lost the selection set you created in step 3. Finally, you saw how objects in 3ds Max don’t conform to one of the basic rules of physics. In 3ds Max, more than one object can occupy the same space at the same time. This characteristic can be useful in a number of ways as you build models in 3ds Max Design 2010.
Working with the Custom UI and Defaults Switcher Figure 1.71 Custom UI and Defaults Switcher settings On the right side of the Custom UI and Defaults Switcher dialog box, you’ll see a default list of UI schemes. Here, you can conveniently select which UI scheme you’d like to use. UI schemes hold in one place all the customization you can make to the keyboard hotkeys, toolbar, quad menus, standards menus, and color schemes.
| Chapter 1 Getting to Know 3ds Max Design 2010 2. Click each of the tabs at the top of this dialog box to become familiar with all the ways you can customize your user interface (changes can be made to the keyboard, toolbars, quad menus, pull-down menus, and colors). If you do decide to make any changes, simply click the Save button on the tab in this dialog box to record your specific changes to disk, as shown in Figure 1.73.
The Bottom Line The Bottom Line Navigate and configure the viewports. The 3ds Max viewports can be configured in several ways, including setting the quantity and configuration of the viewports. Master It Configure the viewports so that three small viewports are stacked on the left side and one larger viewport is on the right. From top to bottom, set the three stacked viewports to be Top, Front, and Right respectively; then set the large viewport to a perspective view. Dock and float toolbars.
