Tag Archives: tutorial

Max Tips: UI Tweaks

1

A couple of 3dsMax UI tweaks I use to make things a little slicker and quicker.

Fix view cube ‘drift’


The view cube‘s animated rotation feature can cause the scene to drift. You might notice that after clicking on a face of the cube the viewer says orthogonal when we’d expect it to say: left,or top, etc. When the view is slightly off axis, it can cause problems if I’m trying to animate or model accurately.

Also if I’m trying to work quickly waiting for the UI update is a pain so I like to turn this feature off.

  1. Right click on the view cube.
  2. Chose options and turn off use animated transitions when switching views.

Use the home button

The home button is useful for getting back to the same custom view. I find it useful to quickly return to the same point of view while I’m working on a particular feature.

To set a ‘home’ view:

Right click on the home button and pick > set current view as home.

Organised Keyframing

2

Organised Keyframing: A method for 3d animation.

A few years ago I sat down with my friends from AvP and we went through our individual approaches to animation. My hope was to pick the best ideas to create something we could teach new animators. What we discovered was that over the years and with very different backgrounds we had all gravitated to the same idea.

The idea was this…

Keep it Simple

Continue reading →

Using Stacked LUTs in Fusion

Reply

Buried in the Fusion manual is a useful feature allowing you combine (stack) image LUTs. If your working with a colourist this feature allows you to use their colour grade in a linear fusion workflow. This article shows how to set up this workflow and explains the work arounds you may need.
Continue reading →

3dsMax Camera FOV, Focal length and Film Back.

2

Introduction

This tutorial will shows the relationship between Filmback, Aperture, Field of View, and Lens size.

Understanding the 3dsMax camera filmback is useful if you want to replicate real world cameras or accurately extend the frame size and crop it later in a composite package.

The setup for the 3dsMax camera is slightly buried. To replicate real world cameras we’ll look in two areas: the render dialog and the camera dialog.

To simplify the process I have developed this MaxScript which is free to download here.

Continue reading →

Script Navigator

4

This tool simply helps organize, run, and edit your maxScripts more quickly.
Quickly create menus of your favorite scripts. Then place this menu anywhere you choose in the max.

In the newest version. To change the currently selected name in the list. Just type in the top text box and press enter. Note that the .ms file name remains unchanged if you do this.

Instructions to download all my scripts are here.

Video introduction to the Script Navigator

 

Adding a toolbar button for the script navigator.

You can also add a button to any 3dsMax toolbar using:-
‘customize user interface’ > toolbars

Find the Script Navigator action. The click and drag where it needs to go.

 

Editing Script Navigator Directories

The tool generates a new text file for each tab in the menu. It’s simply a list of paths written in plain text. The Script Navigator edits these files for you. But, if you wish, you can edit the text files by hand. They are located in a subfolder of your 3dsMax user scripts directory

Your user scripts directory is called Additional Scripts your 3dsMax system paths.

To locate this folder go to the menubar and chose:
.. Customise > Configure System Paths > select the ‘System’ tab >  ‘Additional Scripts’ path

The Script Navigator path files are located in

user scripts…\KenzorsScripts\common\Script Navigator Directories