3DS Max - Can't 'deselect' edges or verts
polycounter lvl 9
Hi guys, I am new to 3DS Max and am having to use it for my new job that starts next week. So I'm desperately trying to get myself as well versed with it as I can. I'm a proficient Maya user, and opted to tick on that magic 'maya mode' button in Preferences. It's great, it makes using Max a lot more fluent for me.
I noticed some issues though, one of them being that I can no longer shift and drag an edge to auto extrude it (Which is super handy, considering the extrude tool is rather rubbish, honestly).
So I went into the Hotkey preferences, into Mouse and unticked maya mode selection. Now I can shift drag edges and what not. But I face another problem, I can no longer deselect vertices or edges from my selection with Alt.
My question is this, does anyone know how I can operate Max in a Maya style way, without losing important functions? Or is it one or the other?
I noticed some issues though, one of them being that I can no longer shift and drag an edge to auto extrude it (Which is super handy, considering the extrude tool is rather rubbish, honestly).
So I went into the Hotkey preferences, into Mouse and unticked maya mode selection. Now I can shift drag edges and what not. But I face another problem, I can no longer deselect vertices or edges from my selection with Alt.
My question is this, does anyone know how I can operate Max in a Maya style way, without losing important functions? Or is it one or the other?
Replies
[ame="
Ctrl becomes what shift does in maya and shift goes back to cloning and extruding.
The shift method won't ever extrude a closed edge or a polygon, it will just clone it. So you have to delete the poly, select the boarder and extrude it then cap it, or do half a dozen other crazy actions to pull off the same kind of thing. I like to call them the bullshit methods.
Personally I just use the extrude/bevel tools, bind them to keys, toggle on Keyboard Shortcut override if they don't work (toolbar, button that looks like a key with an up arrow on it).
This gets you around the deselect problem, kind of janky...
[ame="
Personally I say screw it and just learn the max nav. It will be frustrating for a while but you will get used to it and it makes following tutorials and using the help docs much easier because so many tools are built on using the max nav.
I came from Maya originally and it drove me bonkers for a few weeks but I sucked it up and pushed through. That was before NEX came out and most people that use it as training wheels say it works but is buggy and ultimate it just prolonged the inevitable, having to learn Max Nav. Now I've used max more than I've used maya so max nav is pretty ingrained and switching back and forth isn't a big issue. It's kind of like being bilingual, its just easier if you drop the translator and live in the language for a while.
I think spacebar to lock is pretty dumb, what genius thought the biggest most accessible key on the keyboard should be lock!? Anyway... so in max I set it to "Maximize Viewport Toggle" so it will min/max the active viewport, sort of like in Maya.
(Customize > Customize UI > Keyboard Tab > Category: All Commands > Maximize VIewport Toggle)
You still have to click the view to activate it before hitting space (instead of just hovering over it) but at least stuff doesn't lock on me by accident...
The right click quad menu in max is pretty much junk its no replacement for the maya marking menus that's for sure, some derpy programer who likes hiding crap in lists and flyout menus must have made it. There have been some people who have tried to recreate it in max, but most fail pretty hard. If you never used them in Maya you where missing out but that's probably a good thing, now that you're using max that doesn't have them heh.
I have to say, I miss Maya already. What idiot decided to put all of the useful commands in one long list of modifiers I'll never know. (I've taken to just pressing X and typing in the first couple of letters of what I want to use - I just can't stand clicking my mouse THAT much) The trouble is that I start a new job next Wednesday and I need to be well versed and fast in Max before I begin. So learning it without that 'Maya mode' is going to be quite frustrating.
I also find the port view Lighting is awful, I turned it from 2 lights to 1 light but you still get a really harsh shadow that at times makes it very tough to see your forms.
I'm not finding the Quad menus too bad currently. Just using Right click is giving me the ability to switch to edge, vert, polygon etc. and then Right clicking again gives me the ability to cut, weld, etc. So that's speeding my workflow up a little bit. I find the Bevel tool (Chamfer it's called?) and the Extrude tool to both be very frustrating to get the results you want. I do wonder why anyone would willingly use 3ds max when Maya just makes everything far easier, and with fewer key clicks. I love Maya for modeling, but I hear that Max is a much better modeling toolkit. Not sure what I'm missing, so far the only thing that I find better is Cut tool instead of Split Polygon.
Oh, and I find having to go between create and edit mode to deselect objects and stuff so frustrating. I've keybound those to - and + on my number pad now because I just can't stand clicking. I had wrist ache my first day of using Max, I've never had that in Maya.
By the way, sorry if it seems like I'm hating on Max a lot. I'm just putting down what annoys me in the hope that I've just been doing it wrong ^^
Isn't something you hear very often. :P
Give it some time, customize your workspace, set up your hot keys, etc. It's foreign software to you. I'm sure Maya wasn't smooth sailing from day one either.
I need to customize my Max to do basically that
You might want to enable them and see how you like em.
Under the modifier stack, click the boxy icon button on the far right and choose "Turn on buttons" this will make some buttons appear above the modifier stack.
Then click the same button and pick "Configure modifier sets". Drag whatever modifiers you want from the list on the left, to the buttons.
It's not really create and edit mode, its object "box", and sub-object "Poly, vert, edge ect...". Most people use 1,2,3,4,5 to get to the different sub-object modes and 6 to exit. You can also bind "exit sub-object mode to a key, some people like to use the ~ key.
Me personally I use a double tap script.
- Tap 1 to enter vertex sub-object model.
- Double tap to exit.
All of my sub-object modes are set that way.That takes a little deeper level of customization than you probably want to get into so stick with 6 or bind another key to "Object Level" in Editable Poly.
The part that ticks me off about the quad menu is that it can't be set up spatially, its laid out logically into 4 menus. If for example you want to convert a box to edit poly using the quad menu, you have to click a fly out and then not slip off of the path as you're moving to the menu or you lose it. Also in maya you can swipe through a button, you don't have to click it.
But thankfully that's not the only way to do things in max and it is highly customizable.
As for Maya vs Max, it's really a push they're both great packages that do the exact same thing just in slightly different ways. But after using max for so long I really do prefer it for a lot of things, modeling, particles, customization, premade rigs and tools that make blending animation clips easy.
So yea Maya does have a lot going for it, but maya has also been a hell of a lot more buggy for me over the years and the skinning tools where abhorrent for so long I'm glad they finally upgraded them a few released ago. I really don't miss building rigs from scratch and having to maintain all that junk.
One the thing that maya has going for it over max is that it's node based. Everything is a node. In max everything is evaluated from the ground up and that can lead to some serious slow downs, which can be a big deal when you're animating.
Oh also, if you used outliner in Maya you should check out the outliner script. It's swanky, I love it.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/outliner
I did this with the Maya option ticked on, but maya selection in the mouse options set off. So I think it gives me a mix of the Two. It seems to work okay. These little tricks you're giving me are amazing though, I'm going to adopt them all into my workflow. ( I just have to remember what I do, so I can replicate it in the studio - I finally just got my first video game artist gig, I'm going to be working on Train Simulator, so your advice really will go a loooooong way to making my life a lot more bearable when I start!)
Thanks again Mark.
As for the quad menu and having to click. That kinda sucks yeah. With Maya you can beat the software to the tool, before it displays the Marquee menu I mean. It's amazing to be sitting there modeling and people have no idea what the hell is going on because they don't even see you clicking anything ^^ I quite like that, but sometimes Maya got a bit buggy if you go too fast. I liked that kind of fluidity.