• Set up 3Ds Max

    You’ll be up and running in no time!

Work faster with custom preferences, UI, scripts and modifiers.

You’ll learn how to set preferences, customise your UI, install scripts and create a script toolbar, set up gamma, set up your favorite modifiers and save this down for the future.

Custom UI & Defaults Switcher

Install 3Ds Max & Vray as per install instructions.
Once Max & Vray are installed:
Customize / custom UI & defaults switcher /
initial settings for tool options: Max.vray
UI Scheme:ame-dark.
Restart Max. VERY IMPORTANT!!
customise / save UI / create a location on your server (eg. “UI MASTER”), and add your name and max version to the file name. ie Workspace Tim.UI
customise / units set up / System Unit setup: Meters,
Display Unit Scale: Meters, or mm if you like, however the 3Ds Max units must be meters to avoid rounding and display errors.

Set System Units – Meters

customise / units set up / System Unit setup: Meters.
Display Unit Scale: Meters, or mm if you like, however the 3Ds Max units must be meters to avoid rounding and display errors.

Preferences

Customise > Preferences
General
Leave ‘Scene Undo’ at 20, it is a good compromise. Each operation is stored in memory and too many intensive actions stored in the RAM can lead to a Max crashing (ie. attaching many objects)
‘Scene Selection’, tick Auto Window crossing: Right>Left
Files:
Number of Autobak files: 10
Backup Interval (minutes): 20-25 mins
To save hard drive space you can choose compress on save, however this will slow down the save time and could impact on the opening and reading of the file during animation.
Gamma and LUT
Tick Enable Gamma/LUT correction
Gamma: 2.2
Materials and Colors:
Don’t tick Affect Colour Selector.
Tick Affect Material Editor.
Input Gamma: 2.2
Output Gamma: 2.2 (this does not exist any more)
MAXScript:
Memory
Initial heap allocation (MBytes): 1000 (Helps FBX import from Revit)

Configure modifier sets

Customise > Preferences
Click on Modifiers tab (blue arch)
Configure modifier sets (icon on bottom right of window):
Tick Show Buttons
Click ‘Configure modifier sets’ at top of list
You can then drag and drop any modifier from the list – A quick way of applying your most commonly used modifiers (Can increase Total Buttons to 12)
Edit mesh
Edit poly
Edit spline
UVW map
Sweep
Extrude
Shell
Push
Vray displacement mod

Scripts

SCRIPTS
Scripts are utilities and tools people have written to make tasks faster and easier. For instance, ‘Object dropper’ will drop your objects to a ground plane, ‘Object replacer’ does just that, ‘Relink bitmaps’ will greatly speed up the monotonous task of pathing missing assets. They are a God send!

Close Max if it’s open.
Create a ‘Scripts’ folder in your 3D drive.
This is where all downloaded scripts will be saved from the internet, (Which may be disorganized or mis-named)
Go to scriptspot.com and download: (max 2014 version)
Soulburnscripts by Neil Blevins. http://www.neilblevins.com/

Create a new folder in your scripts folder and name it ‘copy to max Root’
Extract the zipped files into this folder.
you should have a few folders:
MacroScripts, scripts, UI_In, etc

Open another explorer window.
Copy the folders in your ‘copy to max root’ into the max root! c:\program files\autodesk\3dsmax2014\
windows will ask if you want to merge folders, say yes.

Note
When scripts are installed, they are copied (placed) within folders of the 3DMax root directory. These script files must be organized correctly within folders with names matching those of
**Some scripts require a manual instal, but this is a far more complicated task**

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    Troubleshooting.

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