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Discover the menus, options, tools, and controls that are commonly used in 3ds Max.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
7 min.
Tutorial resources
These downloadable resources will be used to complete this tutorial:
Transcript
00:04
A three Ds Max is a very powerful and very full featured 3D application.
00:08
And it's been around since the very early days of the industry.
00:11
There's so much that you can do with three Ds
00:13
Max and sometimes it's difficult to know where to start.
00:17
So as we start from a blank scene,
00:19
let's just take a quick look around the interface and we won't spend too much time
00:22
talking in detail because a lot of this
00:24
you'll be familiar with from other applications.
00:26
But I just want you to be aware of where
00:28
things are as we start to go through this process.
00:30
And it'll be much easier for you to kind of follow along
00:33
as we start on the top left. You'll see
00:35
at the very top there is a menu bar and
00:38
this is gonna be something that's familiar to you.
00:39
If you've used any kind of computer program,
00:41
this will contain all of the tools and interface elements that you need to access.
00:45
But it's not usually the quickest way to get there.
00:47
But you can see here we have the basic menu items that deal
00:51
with files and so forth as we move over to the right,
00:54
you can see there's your account and then on the far right is our workspaces.
00:58
And if we drop this down,
00:59
this will let us change what our workspace looks like.
01:03
So you can see
01:04
the configuration of our workspace will change based on what you want to do.
01:08
So there are different built-in workspaces here.
01:11
You can go in and manage and create your own. Let's go back to default.
01:14
If we move down directly under the menu is the main tool bar.
01:18
Here's where we can find things like undoes.
01:20
We can find some of the selection things that
01:23
we can toggle on and off transform tools.
01:26
Uh We can change some snapping options here if
01:28
we move as we're moving over to the right,
01:30
uh we can mirror uh objects and then we've got some button here
01:33
to activate some of the interface elements that we want to pop up.
01:37
So here's our material editor that we might want to
01:39
look at our render views indicated by the teapots.
01:43
You can see our current project listed here as we
01:45
keep moving to the right and then we have some buttons
01:47
on the right of that that will enable us to work
01:50
with projects and we'll talk about those a little bit later
01:52
right.
01:52
Underneath the main tool bar is the ribbon
01:55
and this is going to contain different sections of
01:57
tools that we can easily access and they are
01:60
contact sensitive based on what you have selected.
02:02
If we go ahead and click on this button here, we can expand the ribbon.
02:05
And right now,
02:06
you can see if we select on free form or selection.
02:10
We don't get any tools, but that will change based on what we have selected
02:14
under modeling.
02:14
We do have some options here, but again, not too much is available to us quite yet.
02:18
But as we go through this process,
02:19
we'll see how those tools appear based on what kind of geometry we have selected.
02:23
I'll go ahead and minimize that again
02:25
as we move down, let's go back over to the left.
02:27
And this is going to be our scene explorer on the far left.
02:31
This is going to be a list of everything in our scene.
02:34
So as we start to add objects to our scenes, you'll see those listed in here
02:39
here. We can choose what kinds of objects we're able to see in our scene explorer
02:43
and we can filter based on particular things moving to the right.
02:47
This is our 3d view port.
02:49
This is where we're going to assemble our scene where we're
02:51
gonna put all of our objects and set up our environment
02:53
and create our 3D project that we're gonna be uh looking at.
02:57
We'll take a look at navigating this and moving around in just a second
03:00
as we move over to the right.
03:01
This is the command panel and you can see at the top there are several tabs.
03:06
OK? And the first two tabs, this is gonna be our create panel with the plus sign here.
03:11
And then our modify panel is the one right
03:12
next to it as we initially create different objects.
03:15
This is where we're going to do it from in a lot of cases.
03:18
And so you can see as we come down in the create panel,
03:21
there are different sections that we can click on so we can create linds,
03:24
we can create different kinds of objects.
03:27
And there's even another drop down below that
03:29
to kind of narrow down what kinds of objects you'd like to create.
03:32
And then you can click on that and create it into your uh viewport.
03:35
In addition to create, you also have modify,
03:37
which is the panel that we'll use once we've created our objects and we want
03:41
to go in and add modifiers or uh change the object in some way,
03:45
there is a modifier list here that we'll be able to
03:47
drop down once we have some geometry in the scene.
03:49
And there are other panels as well. You can see hierarchy, motion
03:53
display
03:54
and utilities. And so
03:55
a lot of the work that you'll be doing in three Ds
03:57
Macs you can do from this command panel as we come down
04:01
to the bottom,
04:02
let's work our way back from right to left.
04:04
Now,
04:04
there are some buttons down here that we'll
04:06
look at which pertain to navigating the viewport.
04:09
Then you'll see a lot of animation related controls here.
04:13
So our playback controls our timeline,
04:15
auto, key, things like that. And we've also got our coordinates
04:18
right down here X Y and Z
04:21
and we move all the way over to the left and here's
04:23
our status line and prompts where we get information about our scene.
04:26
Now, within our 3d view port,
04:29
we obviously want to be able to navigate around our scene.
04:32
And so looking at this viewport, you can see this view cube up here at the top.
04:37
You can see I can click on the view cube and rotate it to orbit around the scene.
04:43
You can also click on particular views
04:46
to get that particular view and then he can rotate back to our perspective view.
04:51
If you'd like to go from the single view
04:53
to perhaps a quad view, you can hit alt W on your keyboard
04:58
that will allow you to have multiple view ports open.
05:01
And you can look at your model from different angles if you want to
05:03
maximize any of those hover over the viewport and hit alt W again,
05:08
that will allow us to toggle back and forth
05:10
between a single viewport and our quad view ports.
05:13
Now, in order to orbit and move around and zoom in and out of our scenes,
05:17
we're going to be using our middle mouse
05:19
button with a combination of keyboard shortcuts.
05:22
And so if I just click the middle mouse button and move around, I can see pan
05:27
around the scene like that.
05:29
If I hold down alt in the middle mouse button,
05:32
I can orbit around the scene.
05:35
If I hold down alt and control,
05:37
I can move in and out,
05:40
I can also scroll in and out.
05:42
If you have that on your mouse, you can also use some of the tools down at the bottom.
05:45
So for instance, I could use zoom
05:47
and I could zoom in and out
05:49
and you can also
05:50
zoom on particular objects or you're seen as a whole.
05:53
Now, this navigation behavior can be changed.
05:55
For instance,
05:56
if you're coming from another application and you would rather
05:58
just use the shortcuts for navigation that you're used to.
06:01
You can certainly change three Ds Max's defaults.
06:04
So if you go into file preferences
06:06
and we're gonna come over to interaction mode,
06:08
you can see there is an interaction drop down and you
06:11
can see it can set my mouse and keyboard interaction too.
06:13
Right now, it's set to three Ds Max, but we can also set this to Maya,
06:16
if we're more used to the Maya navigations,
06:19
I'll go ahead and leave mine on three Ds max.
06:20
Now,
06:21
another way that you can navigate your 3d view is to bring up the
06:23
steering wheel and you can bring up the steering wheel by hitting shift W
06:28
and you can see it's this little interface that follows along with our mouse.
06:32
If I click and drag on zoom, I zoom in and out from that position.
06:36
OK? You can see wherever my mouse is. That's where we're zooming.
06:39
I can also click on orbit to orbit around
06:45
pan across.
06:47
You can also rewind. So if you had some views
06:51
from before,
06:52
you can go back to any of those
06:54
and you can deactivate that again by hitting shift W to turn that back off.
06:59
Now,
06:59
we can go back to using our regular
07:01
keyboard shortcuts and our mouse buttons to navigate.
Video transcript
00:04
A three Ds Max is a very powerful and very full featured 3D application.
00:08
And it's been around since the very early days of the industry.
00:11
There's so much that you can do with three Ds
00:13
Max and sometimes it's difficult to know where to start.
00:17
So as we start from a blank scene,
00:19
let's just take a quick look around the interface and we won't spend too much time
00:22
talking in detail because a lot of this
00:24
you'll be familiar with from other applications.
00:26
But I just want you to be aware of where
00:28
things are as we start to go through this process.
00:30
And it'll be much easier for you to kind of follow along
00:33
as we start on the top left. You'll see
00:35
at the very top there is a menu bar and
00:38
this is gonna be something that's familiar to you.
00:39
If you've used any kind of computer program,
00:41
this will contain all of the tools and interface elements that you need to access.
00:45
But it's not usually the quickest way to get there.
00:47
But you can see here we have the basic menu items that deal
00:51
with files and so forth as we move over to the right,
00:54
you can see there's your account and then on the far right is our workspaces.
00:58
And if we drop this down,
00:59
this will let us change what our workspace looks like.
01:03
So you can see
01:04
the configuration of our workspace will change based on what you want to do.
01:08
So there are different built-in workspaces here.
01:11
You can go in and manage and create your own. Let's go back to default.
01:14
If we move down directly under the menu is the main tool bar.
01:18
Here's where we can find things like undoes.
01:20
We can find some of the selection things that
01:23
we can toggle on and off transform tools.
01:26
Uh We can change some snapping options here if
01:28
we move as we're moving over to the right,
01:30
uh we can mirror uh objects and then we've got some button here
01:33
to activate some of the interface elements that we want to pop up.
01:37
So here's our material editor that we might want to
01:39
look at our render views indicated by the teapots.
01:43
You can see our current project listed here as we
01:45
keep moving to the right and then we have some buttons
01:47
on the right of that that will enable us to work
01:50
with projects and we'll talk about those a little bit later
01:52
right.
01:52
Underneath the main tool bar is the ribbon
01:55
and this is going to contain different sections of
01:57
tools that we can easily access and they are
01:60
contact sensitive based on what you have selected.
02:02
If we go ahead and click on this button here, we can expand the ribbon.
02:05
And right now,
02:06
you can see if we select on free form or selection.
02:10
We don't get any tools, but that will change based on what we have selected
02:14
under modeling.
02:14
We do have some options here, but again, not too much is available to us quite yet.
02:18
But as we go through this process,
02:19
we'll see how those tools appear based on what kind of geometry we have selected.
02:23
I'll go ahead and minimize that again
02:25
as we move down, let's go back over to the left.
02:27
And this is going to be our scene explorer on the far left.
02:31
This is going to be a list of everything in our scene.
02:34
So as we start to add objects to our scenes, you'll see those listed in here
02:39
here. We can choose what kinds of objects we're able to see in our scene explorer
02:43
and we can filter based on particular things moving to the right.
02:47
This is our 3d view port.
02:49
This is where we're going to assemble our scene where we're
02:51
gonna put all of our objects and set up our environment
02:53
and create our 3D project that we're gonna be uh looking at.
02:57
We'll take a look at navigating this and moving around in just a second
03:00
as we move over to the right.
03:01
This is the command panel and you can see at the top there are several tabs.
03:06
OK? And the first two tabs, this is gonna be our create panel with the plus sign here.
03:11
And then our modify panel is the one right
03:12
next to it as we initially create different objects.
03:15
This is where we're going to do it from in a lot of cases.
03:18
And so you can see as we come down in the create panel,
03:21
there are different sections that we can click on so we can create linds,
03:24
we can create different kinds of objects.
03:27
And there's even another drop down below that
03:29
to kind of narrow down what kinds of objects you'd like to create.
03:32
And then you can click on that and create it into your uh viewport.
03:35
In addition to create, you also have modify,
03:37
which is the panel that we'll use once we've created our objects and we want
03:41
to go in and add modifiers or uh change the object in some way,
03:45
there is a modifier list here that we'll be able to
03:47
drop down once we have some geometry in the scene.
03:49
And there are other panels as well. You can see hierarchy, motion
03:53
display
03:54
and utilities. And so
03:55
a lot of the work that you'll be doing in three Ds
03:57
Macs you can do from this command panel as we come down
04:01
to the bottom,
04:02
let's work our way back from right to left.
04:04
Now,
04:04
there are some buttons down here that we'll
04:06
look at which pertain to navigating the viewport.
04:09
Then you'll see a lot of animation related controls here.
04:13
So our playback controls our timeline,
04:15
auto, key, things like that. And we've also got our coordinates
04:18
right down here X Y and Z
04:21
and we move all the way over to the left and here's
04:23
our status line and prompts where we get information about our scene.
04:26
Now, within our 3d view port,
04:29
we obviously want to be able to navigate around our scene.
04:32
And so looking at this viewport, you can see this view cube up here at the top.
04:37
You can see I can click on the view cube and rotate it to orbit around the scene.
04:43
You can also click on particular views
04:46
to get that particular view and then he can rotate back to our perspective view.
04:51
If you'd like to go from the single view
04:53
to perhaps a quad view, you can hit alt W on your keyboard
04:58
that will allow you to have multiple view ports open.
05:01
And you can look at your model from different angles if you want to
05:03
maximize any of those hover over the viewport and hit alt W again,
05:08
that will allow us to toggle back and forth
05:10
between a single viewport and our quad view ports.
05:13
Now, in order to orbit and move around and zoom in and out of our scenes,
05:17
we're going to be using our middle mouse
05:19
button with a combination of keyboard shortcuts.
05:22
And so if I just click the middle mouse button and move around, I can see pan
05:27
around the scene like that.
05:29
If I hold down alt in the middle mouse button,
05:32
I can orbit around the scene.
05:35
If I hold down alt and control,
05:37
I can move in and out,
05:40
I can also scroll in and out.
05:42
If you have that on your mouse, you can also use some of the tools down at the bottom.
05:45
So for instance, I could use zoom
05:47
and I could zoom in and out
05:49
and you can also
05:50
zoom on particular objects or you're seen as a whole.
05:53
Now, this navigation behavior can be changed.
05:55
For instance,
05:56
if you're coming from another application and you would rather
05:58
just use the shortcuts for navigation that you're used to.
06:01
You can certainly change three Ds Max's defaults.
06:04
So if you go into file preferences
06:06
and we're gonna come over to interaction mode,
06:08
you can see there is an interaction drop down and you
06:11
can see it can set my mouse and keyboard interaction too.
06:13
Right now, it's set to three Ds Max, but we can also set this to Maya,
06:16
if we're more used to the Maya navigations,
06:19
I'll go ahead and leave mine on three Ds max.
06:20
Now,
06:21
another way that you can navigate your 3d view is to bring up the
06:23
steering wheel and you can bring up the steering wheel by hitting shift W
06:28
and you can see it's this little interface that follows along with our mouse.
06:32
If I click and drag on zoom, I zoom in and out from that position.
06:36
OK? You can see wherever my mouse is. That's where we're zooming.
06:39
I can also click on orbit to orbit around
06:45
pan across.
06:47
You can also rewind. So if you had some views
06:51
from before,
06:52
you can go back to any of those
06:54
and you can deactivate that again by hitting shift W to turn that back off.
06:59
Now,
06:59
we can go back to using our regular
07:01
keyboard shortcuts and our mouse buttons to navigate.
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