Autodesk 3ds Max 3ds Max - 2008 User Manual

Autodesk
3ds Max

Help: Volume 1

®

®

2008

©

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Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

What Was New in 3ds Max 9 Extension 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3ds Max Documentation Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

About MAXScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Project Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Setting Up Your Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Modeling Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Using Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Placing Lights and Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Animating Your Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Rendering Your Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

The 3ds Max Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Special Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Managing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Importing, Merging, Replacing, and Externally Referencing

Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Using the Asset Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Startup Files and Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

3dsmax .ini File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Backing Up and Archiving Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

iii

Crash Recovery System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Chapter 3 Viewing and Navigating 3D Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

General Viewport Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Home Grid: Views Based on the World Coordinate Axes . . . . . . . . . 58

Understanding Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Setting Viewport Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Controlling Viewport Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Controlling Display Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Using Standard View Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Zooming, Panning, and Rotating Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Using Walkthrough Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Navigating Camera and Light Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Adaptive Degradation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Grab Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

View-Handling Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Undo View Change / Redo View Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Save Active View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Restore Active View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Viewport Background Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Select Background Image Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Update Background Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Reset Background Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Show Transform Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Show Ghosting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Show Key Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Shade Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Show Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Create Camera From View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Add Default Lights to Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Redraw All Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Global Viewport Rendering Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Update During Spinner Drag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Diagnose Video Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Expert Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Controlling Object Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Display Color Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Hide By Category Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Hide Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Freeze Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Display Properties Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Link Display Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Chapter 4 Selecting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Introducing Object Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

iv | Contents

Basics of Selecting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Selecting by Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Using Select By Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Using Named Selection Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Using Selection Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Selecting with Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Selecting with Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Freezing and Unfreezing Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Hiding and Unhiding Objects by Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Hiding and Unhiding Objects by Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Isolate Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Introduction to Sub-Object Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Selection Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Select Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Select From Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Selection Floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Selection Region Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Selection Filter List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Filter Combinations Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Named Selection Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Named Selection Sets Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Edit Named Selections Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Select All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Select None . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Select Invert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Select Similar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Select By . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Select By Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Select By Name (Edit Menu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Select By Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Region Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Rectangular Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Circular Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Fence Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Lasso Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Paint Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Select Region Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Select Region Crossing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Window/Crossing Selection Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Edit Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Undo/Redo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Hold/Fetch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Groups and Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Contents | v

Using Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Using Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Character Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Group Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Open Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Close Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Ungroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Explode Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Detach Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Attach Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Assembly Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Assemble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Open Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Close Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Disassemble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Explode Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Detach Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Attach Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Assembly Head Helper Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Assembly Head Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Luminaire Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Character Assembly Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Create Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Destroy Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Lock/Unlock Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Insert Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Save Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Skin Pose Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Chapter 5 Object Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Object Properties Dialog Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

General Panel (Object Properties Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Advanced Lighting Panel (Object Properties Dialog) . . . . . . . 256

mental ray Panel (Object Properties Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . 262

User Defined Panel (Object Properties Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . 264

Rename Objects Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Custom Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Parameter Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Parameter Collector Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Notes Dialog (Parameter Collector) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Expression Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Trigonometric Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

vi | Contents

Chapter 6 Creating Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Basics of Creating and Modifying Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Using the Create Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Identifying the Basic Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Creating an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Assigning Colors to Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Object Color Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Color Selector Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Color Clipboard Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Adjusting Normals and Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Viewing and Changing Normals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Viewing and Changing Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Geometric Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Creating Primitives from the Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Standard Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348

Box Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Cone Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Sphere Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

GeoSphere Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Cylinder Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Tube Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Torus Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Pyramid Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Teapot Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Plane Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Extended Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Hedra Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Torus Knot Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

ChamferBox Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

ChamferCyl Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

OilTank Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Capsule Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Spindle Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

L-Ext Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Gengon Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

C-Ext Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

RingWave Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Prism Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Hose Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

Architectural Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

AEC Extended Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Working with AEC Design Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Foliage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Railing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

Editing Wall Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Contents | vii

Stairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

L-Type Stair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

Spiral Stair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

Straight Stair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

U-Type Stair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Doors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Pivot Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

Sliding Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512

BiFold Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516

Awning Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

Casement Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Fixed Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528

Pivoted Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530

Projected Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532

Sliding Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534

Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536

Shape Check Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

Splines and Extended Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542

Line Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551

Rectangle Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

Circle Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557

Ellipse Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559

Arc Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Donut Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

NGon Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Star Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 567

Text Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569

Helix Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574

Section Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576

Extended Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580

WRectangle Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580

Channel Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

Angle Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585

Tee Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

Wide Flange Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

Editable Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590

Editable Spline (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602

Editable Spline (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606

Editable Spline (Segment) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618

Editable Spline (Spline) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627

Compound Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 638

Morph Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639

Scatter Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647

Conform Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660

Connect Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668

viii | Contents

BlobMesh Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

ShapeMerge Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681

Boolean Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686

Material Attach Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701

Terrain Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703

Loft Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715

Creation Method Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

Surface Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719

Path Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724

Skin Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727

Deformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744

Deform Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745

Deform Twist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

Deform Teeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749

Deform Bevel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752

Deform Fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754

Deformation Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756

Path Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763

Shape Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764

Compare Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765

Mesher Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

ProBoolean/ProCutter Compound Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . 772

ProBoolean Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774

ProCutter Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 792

Quad Meshing and Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 799

Dynamics Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 810

Damper Dynamics Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 811

Spring Dynamics Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 829

Bones System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831

Using Objects as Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843

Bone Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845

Bone Tools Rollouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845

Ring Array System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 853

Chapter 7 Moving, Rotating, and Scaling Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859

Axis Tripod and World Axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 860

Using Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862

Using Transform Gizmos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 865

Transform Type-In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 874

Animating Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 877

Transform Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879

Specifying a Reference Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . 881

Choosing a Transform Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 882

Using the Axis Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 884

Reset Transform Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 886

Contents | ix

Transform Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887

Select and Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888

Select and Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 889

Select and Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891

Select and Uniform Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 892

Select and Non-Uniform Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893

Select and Squash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 894

Transform Coordinates and Coordinate Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . 896

Reference Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 896

Use Center Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 904

Use Pivot Point Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 905

Use Selection Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907

Use Transform Coordinate Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 908

Transform Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909

Array Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 911

Mirror Selected Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 911

Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 915

Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 921

Spacing Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925

Clone and Align Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933

Align Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938

Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938

Quick Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 944

Normal Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945

Place Highlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 948

Align Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950

Align to View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951

Chapter 8 Creating Copies and Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953

Overview of Copies, Instances, and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . 955

Techniques for Cloning Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 958

Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965

Clone Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 965

Using Shift+Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 968

Cloning with Shift+Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 970

Cloning with Shift+Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 972

Cloning with Shift+Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975

Animating Shift+Rotate and Shift+Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 977

Cloning Objects Over Time with Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . 979

Arraying Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 981

Using the Array Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 983

Creating Linear Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 989

Creating Circular and Spiral Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 993

Mirroring Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996

Using the Spacing Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998

x | Contents

Chapter 9 Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001

Transforms, Modifiers, and Object Data Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1004

List of Available Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1011

Using Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1015

Using the Modify Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1016

Using the Modifier Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1020

Editing the Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1023

Edit Modifiers and Editable Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1027

Modifying at the Sub-Object Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1029

Using the Stack at the Sub-Object Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1032

Modifying Multiple Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034

How Instanced Modifiers Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040

World-Space Modifiers (WSMs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1043

Camera Map Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1043

Displace Mesh Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1045

Displace NURBS Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1047

Hair And Fur Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049

Selection Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059

Tools Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1061

Styling Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1070

Quad Menu for Hair Styling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082

General Parameters Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . 1084

Material Parameters Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . 1091

mr Parameters Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . 1098

Frizz Parameters Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . . . 1099

Kink Parameters Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . . . 1104

Multi Strand Parameters Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . 1107

Dynamics Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1109

Display Rollout (Hair and Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1116

LS Colors Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1118

MapScaler Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1120

PatchDeform Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1123

PathDeform Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1123

Point Cache Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1129

Subdivide Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1129

Surface Mapper Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1129

SurfDeform Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1132

Object-Space Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1132

Affect Region Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1133

Attribute Holder Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136

Bend Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1139

Bevel Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1142

Bevel Profile Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1150

Camera Map Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1154

Cap Holes Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1159

Cloth and Garment Maker Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1162

Contents | xi

Cloth Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1163

Cloth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1178

Object Properties Dialog (Cloth) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1219

Garment Maker Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1228

Troubleshooting and Error Codes in Garment Maker . . . 1258

CrossSection Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1259

Delete Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1266

Delete Patch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1267

Delete Spline Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1269

Disp Approx Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1270

Displace Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1274

Edit Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1283

Edit Normals Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1284

Edit Patch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1290

Edit Poly Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1293

Selection Rollout (Edit Poly Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . 1307

Edit Poly (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1319

Edit Poly (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1321

Edit Poly (Edge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1330

Edit Poly (Border) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1343

Edit Poly (Polygon/Element) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1350

Edit Geometry Rollout (Edit Poly Modifier) . . . . . . . . 1363

Align Geometry Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1375

Detach Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1375

Edit Spline Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1376

Extrude Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1377

Face Extrude Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1381

FFD (Free-Form Deformation) Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1383

FFD (Box/Cylinder) Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1389

FFD (Free-Form Deformation) Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . 1395

Fillet/Chamfer Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1396

Flex Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1400

Spring Option Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1418

HSDS Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1420

Adaptive Subdivision Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1428

Lathe Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1430

Lattice Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1435

Linked XForm Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1440

LS Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1442

MapScaler Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1443

Material Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1445

MaterialByElement Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1448

Melt Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1451

Mesh Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1455

MeshSmooth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1460

Mirror Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1471

xii | Contents

Morpher Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1473

MultiRes Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1493

Noise Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1501

Normal Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1509

Normalize Spline Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1511

NSurf Sel Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1513

Optimize Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1515

Patch Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1520

PatchDeform Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1525

PathDeform Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1528

Point Cache Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1533

Poly Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1541

Preserve Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1550

Projection Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1556

Selection Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . 1558

Reference Geometry Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . 1560

Cage Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1563

Selection Check Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . . 1567

Projection Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . 1568

Project Mapping Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . 1570

Projection Holder Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1574

Push Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1574

Relax Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1575

Renderable Spline Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1580

Ripple Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1583

Select By Channel Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1587

Shell Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1588

Skew Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1596

Skin Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1600

Load Envelopes Dialog (Skin Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . 1624

Weight Tool Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1627

Weight Table (Skin Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1633

Skin Morph Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1636

Skin Wrap Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1648

Skin Wrap Patch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1657

Slice Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1658

Smooth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1665

Spherify Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1668

Spline IK Control Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1670

Spline Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1673

Squeeze Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1676

STL Check Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1678

Stretch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1681

Subdivide Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1688

Substitute Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1691

Surface Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1695

Contents | xiii

SurfDeform Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1707

Sweep Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1709

Pick Shape Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1728

Extract Shape Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1730

Merge File (Sweep Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1731

Symmetry Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1735

Taper Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1739

Tessellate Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1743

Trim/Extend Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1746

TurboSmooth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1750

Turn To Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1756

Turn To Patch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1758

Turn To Poly Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1761

Twist Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1765

Unwrap UVW Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1769

Edit UVWs Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1788

Edit UVWs Dialog Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1799

Unwrap UVW Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1807

UVW Editor Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1821

UVW Map Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1849

UVW Mapping Add Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871

UVW Mapping Clear Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1871

UVW Mapping Paste Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1872

UVW XForm Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1872

Vertex Weld Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1874

VertexPaint Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1876

VertexPaint Paintbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1886

Adjust Color Dialog (VertexPaint Modifier) . . . . . . . . 1900

Color Palette (VertexPaint Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1902

Painter Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1907

Volume Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1910

Wave Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1918

XForm Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1922

Chapter 10 Surface Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1925

Subdivision Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926

Soft Selection Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1926

Collapse Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1931

Editable Patch Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1934

Selection Rollout (Editable Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1940

Editable Patch (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1944

Editable Patch (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1947

Editable Patch (Handle) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1954

Editable Patch (Edge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1956

Editable Patch (Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1959

Editable Patch (Element) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1965

xiv | Contents

Geometry Rollout (Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1968

Patch Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1982

Quad Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1984

Tri Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1987

Editable Mesh Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1990

Working with Mesh Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1993

Selection Rollout (Editable Mesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1995

Editable Mesh (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1998

Editable Mesh (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2001

Editable Mesh (Edge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2007

Editable Mesh (Face/Polygon/Element) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2014

Edit Geometry Rollout (Mesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2018

Attach Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2031

Cut and Slice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2033

Editable Poly Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2038

Selection Rollout (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2043

Editable Poly (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2053

Editable Poly (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2055

Editable Poly (Edge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2066

Editable Poly (Border) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2085

Editable Poly (Polygon/Element) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2091

Edit Geometry Rollout (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2105

Subdivision Surface Rollout (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2118

Subdivision Displacement Rollout (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . 2123

Paint Deformation Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2125

Editable Poly Settings Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2129

Bevel Polygons Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2129

Bridge Borders/Polygons Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2131

Bridge Edges Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2133

Chamfer Vertices/Edges/Borders Dialog . . . . . . . . . . 2136

Connect Edges Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2137

Extrude Polygons Along Spline Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . 2139

Extrude Polygons Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2141

Extrude Vertices/Edges Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2142

Hinge Polygons From Edge Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2143

Inset Polygons Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2144

MeshSmooth Selection Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2145

Preserve Map Channels Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2146

Relax Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2148

Tessellate Selection Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2149

Weld Vertices/Edges Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2150

NURBS Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2152

NURBS Models: Objects and Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . 2153

Creating NURBS Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2154

Working with NURBS Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2155

Surface Trimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2156

Contents | xv

Modifying NURBS Models and Creating Sub-Objects . . . 2159

Quad Menu for NURBS Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2160

Using the NURBS Toolbox to Create Sub-Objects . . . . . 2162

Sub-Object Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2164

CV Sub-Objects and Point Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . 2165

Dependent Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2169

Rigid Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2172

NURBS and Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2172

NURBS and Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2175

NURBS Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2176

NURBS Tips and Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2180

NURBS Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2190

Point Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2192

CV Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2195

NURBS Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2199

Point Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2201

CV Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2208

Creating NURBS Curve and Surface Objects . . . . . . . . . . . 2216

Creating Independent Surfaces from NURBS Curve

Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2216

Creating NURBS Curves from Splines . . . . . . . . . . . 2216

Creating NURBS Surfaces from Geometric Primitives . . . 2218

Nonrelational NURBS Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2219

Display Controls for NURBS Models . . . . . . . . . . . . 2221

Display Line Parameters for NURBS Surfaces . . . . . . . 2224

Creating and Editing NURBS Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . 2225

Attaching and Importing 3ds Max Objects . . . . . . . . 2225

Common Sub-Object Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2229

Editing Point Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2231

Editing Curve CV Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2238

Editing Surface CV Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2244

Editing Curve Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2252

Editing Surface Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2264

Soft Selection Rollout (NURBS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2275

Material Properties Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2278

Creating Curve Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2283

Creating Surface Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2337

Creating and Editing Point Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . 2428

NURBS Editing Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2442

Curve and Surface Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2468

Curve Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2468

Surface Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2469

Advanced Surface Approximation Dialog . . . . . . . . . 2478

Surface Approximation Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2480

Tools for Low-Polygon Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2492

Show Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2493

xvi | Contents

Level of Detail Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2494

Chapter 11 Precision and Drawing Aids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2501

Tools for Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2502

Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2503

Using Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2504

Using Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2506

Using the Home Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2507

Using Grid Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2510

Viewing Grid Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2511

AutoGrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2513

Aligning Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2516

Aligning Normals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2520

Setting Standard Snaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2521

Setting Snap Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2523

Measuring Distances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2526

Measure Distance Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2529

Select And Manipulate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2529

Standard Helper Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2530

Dummy Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2531

Expose Transform Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2532

Grid Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2538

Point Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2544

Tape Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2546

Protractor Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2549

Compass Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2551

Manipulator Helper Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2552

Cone Angle Manipulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2552

Plane Angle Manipulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2556

Slider Manipulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2559

Grid Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2564

Show Home Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2564

Activate Home Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2565

Activate Grid Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2566

Align Grid to View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2566

Snap Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2567

2D Snap, 2.5D Snap, 3D Snap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2568

Angle Snap Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2570

Percent Snap Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2571

Spinner Snap Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2572

Ortho Snapping Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2573

Polar Snapping Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2575

Grid and Snap Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2577

Snap Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2578

Snap Override . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2585

Snap Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2587

Contents | xvii

Home Grid Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2592

User Grids Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2595

Drawing Aid Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2596

Measure Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2597

Rescale World Units Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2599

Chapter 12 Space Warps and Particle Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2603

Space Warp Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2603

Bind to Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2609

Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2609

Push Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2609

Motor Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2614

Vortex Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2619

Drag Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2624

PBomb Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2629

Path Follow Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2635

Gravity Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2639

Wind Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2642

Displace Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2645

Deflectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2650

POmniFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2650

PDynaFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2656

SOmniFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2661

SDynaFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2663

UOmniFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2664

UDynaFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2666

SDeflector Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2669

UDeflector Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2672

Deflector Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2675

Geometric/Deformable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2678

FFD(Box) Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2678

FFD(Cyl) Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2685

Wave Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2695

Ripple Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2699

Conform Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2703

Bomb Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2707

Modifier-Based Space Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2711

Introduction to Particle Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2713

Particle Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2713

How Particle Flow Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2714

Particle Flow User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2730

Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2758

Non-Event-Driven Particle Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2923

Particle System Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2926

Spray Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2938

Snow Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2942

xviii | Contents

Super Spray Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2947

Blizzard Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2951

PCloud Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2956

PArray Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2964

Chapter 13 Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3001

Animation Concepts and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3002

Animation Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3003

Using Auto Key Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3007

Using Set Key Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3010

Spinner Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3014

Viewing and Copying Transform Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3016

Controlling Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3019

Setting Time Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3021

Moving Through Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3023

Choosing a Frame Rate and Playback Speed . . . . . . . . . . . 3024

Working with Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3025

Understanding Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3027

Changing Controller Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3029

Assigning Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3031

Specifying Default Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3034

General-Purpose Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3035

Special-Purpose Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3037

Explicit Axis Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3038

Float Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3039

Controlling Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3040

Controlling Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3041

Controlling Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3042

Controlling Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3043

Morph Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3044

Motion Panel Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3045

Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3045

PRS Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3050

Key Info (Basic) Rollout/Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3052

Tangent Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3054

Key Info (Advanced) Rollout/Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . 3056

Animation Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3058

Audio Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3060

Barycentric Morph Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3061

Bezier Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3063

Block Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3066

Boolean Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3072

Color RGB Controller (Point3 XYZ Controller) . . . . . . . . . 3074

Euler XYZ Rotation Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3076

Expression Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3079

Expression Controller Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3086

Contents | xix

Layer Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3087

Animation Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3089

Layer Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3104

Create New Animation Layer Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . 3105

Limit Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3106

Linear Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3118

List Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3119

Local Euler XYZ Rotation Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3123

Look At Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3124

Master Point Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3126

Motion Capture Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3128

Noise Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3139

On/Off Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3142

Position XYZ Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3144

PRS Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3145

Reaction Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3147

Reaction Manager Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3153

Using Manipulators with Reaction Controllers . . . . . . 3169

Scale XYZ Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3171

Script Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3173

Smooth Rotation Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3178

Spring Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3178

TCB Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3183

Transform Script Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3186

Waveform Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3190

XRef Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3194

Controller Subdialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3198

Audio Controller Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3198

Attach Controls Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . . . . . . 3201

Barycentric Morph Controller Key Info Dialog . . . . . . 3203

Block Parameters Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . . . . . 3204

Master Block Parameters Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . 3205

Master Track Key Info Dialog (Master Point

Controller) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3207

Slave Parameters Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . . . . . 3209

Track View Pick Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . . . . . . 3211

Animation Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3212

Attachment Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3213

Surface Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3218

Path Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3222

Position Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3228

Link Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3233

LookAt Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3237

Orientation Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3244

Wire Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3247

Parameter Wiring Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3249

xx | Contents

Hierarchies and Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3255

Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3256

Linking Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3260

Linking and Unlinking Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3267

Adjusting Pivots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3270

Viewing and Selecting Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3275

Animating with Forward Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3279

Using Dummy Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3288

Animating Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3290

Adjusting Object Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3293

Locking Object Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3294

Animating Attachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3295

Changing Link Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3296

Link Inheritance (Selected) Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3297

Inverse Kinematics (IK) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3299

IK Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3302

Inverse Kinematics Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3305

Joint Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3390

Hierarchy Panel Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3397

Pivot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3398

IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3409

Link Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3424

Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3426

Working with Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3431

Track View Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3433

Curve Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3441

Dope Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3442

Time Ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3446

Track View Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3447

Track View Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3454

Hierarchy Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3461

Properties (Track View Hierarchy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3466

Sound Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3468

Track View Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3470

Modes Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3470

Controller Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3471

Tracks Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3475

Keys Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3475

Curves Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3477

Time Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3478

Options Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3479

Display Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3485

View Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3488

Utilities Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3489

Track View Quad Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3492

Track View Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3495

Contents | xxi

Curve Editor Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3495

Dope Sheet Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3500

Controller Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3505

Ranges: Dope Sheet Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3506

Extras: Dope Sheet Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3507

Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3507

Filters Dialog (Track View) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3508

Copy Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3513

Paste Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3514

Assign Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3515

Delete Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3520

Ignore Animation Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3520

Respect Animation Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3521

Make Controller Unique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3522

Parameter Curve Out-of-Range Types . . . . . . . . . . . 3523

Add Note Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3526

Remove Note Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3528

Editing Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3529

Edit Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3529

Snap Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3530

Lock Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3532

Align to Cursor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3532

Add Visibility Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3533

Move Keys (Dope Sheet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3536

Slide Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3536

Scale Keys - Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3538

Add Keys (Dope Sheet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3539

Properties (Track View Key Window) . . . . . . . . . . . 3541

Track View Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3542

Randomize Keys Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3543

Create Out of Range Keys Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3544

Select Keys By Time Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3547

Euler Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3548

Current Value Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3549

Edit Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3551

Select Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3552

Delete Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3553

Cut Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3554

Copy Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3555

Paste Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3555

Reverse Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3557

Insert Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3558

Scale Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3559

Exclude Left End Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3560

Exclude Right End Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3561

Reduce Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3562

xxii | Contents

Edit Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3564

Position Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3565

Recouple Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3566

Editing Tracks: Copying, Pasting, and Handling Instances and

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3567

Copying and Pasting Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3567

Copying and Pasting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3570

Making Instance and Reference Controllers and Objects

Unique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3571

Curve Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3572

Move Keys (Curve Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3575

Scale Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3576

Scale Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3577

Add Keys (Curve Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3578

Draw Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3579

Show Tangents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3580

Lock Tangents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3582

Apply Ease Curve / Apply Multiplier Curve . . . . . . . . 3583

Remove Ease/Multiplier Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3584

On/Off (Curves) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3585

Ease Curve Out-of-Range Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3585

Multiplier Curve Out-of-Range Types . . . . . . . . . . . 3587

Freeze Non-Selected Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3589

Status Bar/View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3590

Zoom Selected Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3591

Select By Name (Track View) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3592

Track Sets List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3594

Track Sets Editor Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3596

Key Time Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3601

Value Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3602

Show Selected Key Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3603

Pan (Track View) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3603

Zoom Horizontal Extents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3604

Zoom Value Extents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3605

Zoom Track View Key Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3606

Zoom Region (Track View) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3607

Managing Track View Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3608

New Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3608

Delete Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3609

Delete Track View Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3609

Saved Track Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3610

Track View Customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3611

Track View Toolbar Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . 3618

Motion Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3620

Using the Motion Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3621

Adding Tracks to the Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3626

Contents | xxiii

Importing Clips to the Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3630

Working with Clips in the Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3635

Filtering Mixer Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3637

Adjusting Clip Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3644

Working with Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3646

Adjusting Track Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3652

Adding Time Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3655

Adjusting Biped Balance in the Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . 3659

Exporting Animation to the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3663

Using the Reservoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3667

Motion Mixer Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3671

Motion Mixer Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3672

Motion Mixer Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3681

Motion Mixer Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3698

Trackgroup Filter Dialog (Biped Object) . . . . . . . . . . 3702

Trackgroup Filter Dialog (Non-Biped Object) . . . . . . . 3704

Motion Mixer Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3706

Reservoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3710

Mixer Preferences Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3714

Mixer Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3717

Animation Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3718

Follow/Bank Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3719

Motion Capture Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3721

MACUtilities Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3740

Camera Tracker Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3742

Requirements for Camera Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . 3748

Camera Tracker: Movie Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3748

Camera Tracker: Movie Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3750

Camera Tracker: Motion Trackers Rollout . . . . . . . . . 3753

Camera Tracker: Movie Stepper Rollout . . . . . . . . . . 3758

Camera Tracker: Error Thresholds Rollout . . . . . . . . . 3760

Camera Tracker: Batch Track Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . 3761

Camera Tracker: Position Data Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 3764

Camera Tracker: Match Move Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 3765

Camera Tracker: Move Smoothing Rollout . . . . . . . . 3768

Camera Tracker: Object Pinning Rollout . . . . . . . . . . 3770

Camera Tracker: Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3774

Dynamics Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3775

Edit Object Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3790

Edit Object List Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3796

Skin Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3798

Chapter 14 reactor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3803

Introducing Dynamics Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3811

Special Features in reactor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3819

reactor Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3830

xxiv | Contents

Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3832

Rigid Body Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3833

Rigid Body Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3834

Compound Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3843

Rigid Body Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3845

Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3848

Constraint Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3849

Simple Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3853

Cooperative Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3867

reactor Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3922

Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3922

Motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3924

Toy Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3926

Fracture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3933

Fracture Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3940

Storing and Accessing Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3942

Deformable Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3947

Cloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3949

Cloth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3950

Cloth Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3957

Soft Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3960

Soft Body Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3961

FFD Soft Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3966

Soft Body Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3969

Rope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3971

Rope Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3972

Rope Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3977

Deforming Meshes (Skin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3980

Deforming Mesh Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3981

Constraining Deformable Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3983

Fixing Vertices in World Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3986

Keyframing Vertices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3987

Attaching Vertices to a Rigid Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3989

Attaching Vertices to Deforming Meshes (Skin) . . . . . . 3991

Soft Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3993

Water Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3996

Water Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3997

Rendering Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3999

Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4001

The reactor Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4005

Preview & Animation Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4007

Havok 1 World/Havok 3 World Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4009

Collisions Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4013

Display Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4015

reactor Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4018

Properties Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4021

Contents | xxv

The Real-Time Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4021

Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4026

Frequently Asked Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4033

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4037

Chapter 15 character studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4049

What is character studio? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4050

What You Should Know to Use character studio . . . . . . . . . . . . 4051

Understanding Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4052

Understanding Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4054

Understanding Track Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4057

Understanding the Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4058

Understanding Motion Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4059

Understanding Crowds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4061

Understanding character studio Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4063

Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4069

Creating a Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4073

Understanding Biped Anatomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4075

Changing Initial Biped Anatomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4077

Naming the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4077

Posing the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4079

Scaling Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4088

Rubber-Banding Arms and Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4090

Biped Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4093

Deleting a Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4093

Linking Character Body Parts to the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . 4094

Saving and Loading FIG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4096

Footstep Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4098

Creating Footsteps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4105

Editing Footstep Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4120

Footstep and Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4148

Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4154

Creating Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4158

Freeform and IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4181

Editing Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4202

Working with Biped Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4215

Working with Euler Curves on Biped Animation . . . . . 4215

Working with XRef Bipeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4219

Loading, Saving, and Displaying Biped Motion . . . . . . . . . 4220

Working with Biped Motion Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4220

Loading and Saving BIP Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . 4222

Importing and Exporting Animation Data . . . . . . . . . 4224

Motion Mapping: Retargeting Biped Motion . . . . . . . 4224

Merging and Cloning a Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4226

Combining BIP Motions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4229

Loading and Saving STP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4230

xxvi | Contents

Using Motion-Capture Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4231

Correcting Posture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4232

Copying and Pasting Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4233

Repositioning the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4235

Previewing Biped Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4238

In Place Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4240

Trajectory Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4241

Display Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4243

Biped User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4245

Motion Panel (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4246

Center of Mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4247

Motion Panel Rollouts (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4250

Track View (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4379

Biped Color-coded Keys and Trajectories . . . . . . . . . 4385

Biped Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4389

Working with the Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4394

Navigating the Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4397

Selecting Workbench Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4399

Analyzing Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4400

Fixing Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4401

Animation Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4401

Select Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4407

Analyze Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4410

Fix Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4416

Filters Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4421

Working with Motion Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4426

Placing Motions on the Motion Flow Graph . . . . . . . 4427

Creating Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4431

Creating a Motion Flow Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4436

Saving, Loading, and Appending Motion Flow

Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4439

Customizing Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4444

Creating Random Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4447

Unifying Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4452

Sharing Motion Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4455

Setting Up Paths for Motion Flow Files . . . . . . . . . . 4461

Motion Flow Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4464

Motion Flow Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4467

Motion Flow Graph Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4468

Motion Flow Scripts Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4473

Transition Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4477

Create Random Motion Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4484

Shared Motion Flow Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4486

Transition Optimization Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4490

Clip Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4491

Working with Motion-Capture Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4493

Contents | xxvii

Importing Motion-Capture Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4495

Filtering Motion-Capture and Marker Data . . . . . . . . 4496

Sliding Footsteps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4500

Prop Bone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4502

Motion Capture Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4503

Motion Capture Conversion Parameters Dialog . . . . . . 4511

Motion Capture Batch File Conversion Dialog . . . . . . 4520

Marker Display Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4520

Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4522

Using Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4524

Creating a Skin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4524

Using Physique with a Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4533

Using Physique with 3ds Max Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . 4535

Using Physique with 3ds Max Objects . . . . . . . . . . . 4540

Applying and Initializing Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . 4544

Previewing Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4545

Envelopes and Vertex Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . 4547

Bulges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4566

Tendons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4571

Saving and Loading Physique Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 4574

Reinitializing Physique Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4574

Working with an Initial Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4576

Improving Interactive Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . 4577

Scaling a Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4579

Facial Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4579

Physique and Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4586

Physique User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4589

Physique Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4590

Physique Level of Detail Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4594

Floating Bones Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4597

Physique Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4598

Physique Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4600

Physique Modifier Sub-Object Levels . . . . . . . . . . . 4635

Crowd Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4680

Creating a Crowd System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4681

Creating Crowd Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4686

Adjusting Delegate Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4691

Assigning Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4691

Directing Delegates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4696

Obstacle Avoidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4699

Changing Delegate Orientation and Speed . . . . . . . . . . . 4704

Solving the Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4705

Linking Objects to Delegates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4706

Cognitive Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4708

Using Motion Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4712

Biped Crowds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4712

xxviii | Contents

Non-Biped Crowds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4724

Crowd Animation User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4729

Crowd Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4730

Delegate Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4730

Crowd Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4738

Vector Field Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4837

Motion Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4845

File Formats and Index of Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4876

character studio File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4876

Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4877

Chapter 16 Lights and Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4889

Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4890

Name and Color Rollout (Lights) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4892

Using Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4894

Working with Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4895

Properties of Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4898

Lighting in 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4904

Guidelines for Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4906

Positioning Light Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4910

Previewing Shadows in Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4911

Animating Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4916

Light Include/Exclude Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4917

Light Lister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4920

Standard Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4925

Target Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4927

Free Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4930

Target Directional Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4932

Free Directional Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4935

Omni Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4938

Skylight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4940

mr Area Omni Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4945

mr Area Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4948

Photometric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4951

Photometric Lights: Preset Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4953

Target Point Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4955

Free Point Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4958

Target Linear Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4960

Free Linear Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4963

Target Area Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4964

Free Area Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4967

IES Sun Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4969

IES Sky Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4973

mental ray Sun & Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4977

mr Sky Portal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4999

Using Photometric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5007

Contents | xxix

Sunlight and Daylight Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5024

Geographic Location Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5033

Common Lighting Rollouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5035

General Lighting Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5035

Exclude/Include Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5043

Shadow Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5046

Spotlight Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5051

Advanced Effects Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5055

mental ray Indirect Illumination Rollout (for Lights) . . . 5060

mental ray Light Shader Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5063

Additional Rollouts for Standard Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5065

Intensity/Color/Attenuation Parameters . . . . . . . . . . 5065

Directional Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5069

Atmospheres and Effects for Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . 5072

Add Atmosphere or Effect Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5074

Hair Light Attr(ibutes) Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5076

Additional Rollouts for Photometric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . 5077

Intensity/Color/Distribution Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 5077

Linear Light Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5081

Area Light Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5081

Area Light Sampling Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5082

Web Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5083

Rollouts for Specific Shadow Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5085

Advanced Ray-Traced Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . 5085

Area Shadows Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5089

mental ray Shadow Map Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5095

Optimizations Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5097

Ray-Traced Shadow Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . 5100

Shadow Map Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5102

Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5106

Free Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5116

Target Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5118

Using Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5120

Characteristics of Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5120

Common Camera Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5123

Using Transforms to Aim a Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . 5134

Using Clipping Planes to Exclude Geometry . . . . . . . 5135

Using the Horizon to Match Perspective . . . . . . . . . . 5136

Animating Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5138

Multi-Pass Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5140

Depth of Field Parameter (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . 5142

Multi-Pass Depth of Field Parameters for Cameras . . . . 5143

Multi-Pass Motion Blur Parameters for Cameras . . . . . . 5147

Camera Match Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5152

Camera Match Helper Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5157

Two-Point Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5160

xxx | Contents

Camera Correction Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5160

Chapter 17 Material Editor, Materials, and Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5163

Designing Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5164

Sample Slots and Material Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5166

Material Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5168

Shading Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5169

Material Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5171

Lights and Shading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5172

Choosing Colors for Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5174

Using Maps to Enhance a Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5178

Applying a Material to an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5182

Mapping Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5183

Saving a Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5184

Material XML Exporter Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5185

UVW Remove Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5188

Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5188

Material/Map Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5194

Copying and Pasting: Right-Click Menu for Materials, Maps,

Bitmaps, and Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5205

Sample Slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5208

Sample Slot Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5212

Dragging and Dropping Maps and Materials . . . . . . . 5214

Drag and Drop Sub-Object Material Assignment . . . . . 5216

Creating a Custom Sample Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5218

Material Editor Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5221

Material Editor Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5225

Reflectance and Transmittance Display . . . . . . . . . . 5228

Sample Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5232

Propagate Materials to Instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5232

Backlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5233

Sample Slot Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5233

Sample UV Tiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5234

Video Color Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5236

Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview . . . . . . . . . 5237

Material Editor Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5239

Select By Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5244

Get Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5245

Put Material to Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5247

Assign Material to Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5248

Reset Map/Mtl to Default Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5249

Make Material Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5250

Make Unique (Material Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5250

Put to Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5252

Material ID Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5252

Material ID Channel Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5254

Contents | xxxi

Show Standard/Hardware Map in Viewport . . . . . . . . 5254

Show End Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5260

Go to Parent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5260

Go Forward to Sibling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5261

Material/Map Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5261

Pick Material From Object (Eyedropper) . . . . . . . . . 5264

Name Field (Materials and Maps) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5264

Type Button (Materials and Maps) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5265

Animating Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5265

Creating and Playing Animated Material Previews . . . . 5266

Synchronizing an Animated Bitmap with the Scene . . . 5267

Material Editor Subdialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5269

Copy (Instance) Map Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5269

Copy or Swap Colors Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5270

Create Material Preview Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5270

Duplicate Name Dialog (Material Library) . . . . . . . . . 5272

Merge Dialog (Material Library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5274

Merge Material Library Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5275

Put to Library Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5276

Render Map Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5277

Replace Map Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5280

Replace Material Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5280

Update Scene Materials Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5281

Types of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5283

SuperSampling Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5285

mental ray Connection Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5289

DirectX Manager Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5297

Standard Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5298

Shader Basic Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5301

Understanding Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5303

Basic Parameters Rollout (Standard Material) . . . . . . . 5310

Extended Parameters Rollout (Standard Material) . . . . . 5312

Maps Rollout (Standard Material) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5318

Dynamics Properties Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5327

Basic Material Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5328

Basic Parameters for Standard Materials . . . . . . . . . . 5341

Specular Highlight Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5353

Mapping Standard Material Components . . . . . . . . . 5362

Raytrace Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5394

Raytrace Basic Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5397

Raytrace Extended Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 5406

Raytracer Controls Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5411

Raytrace Maps Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5414

Raytrace Dynamics Properties Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 5421

Raytracing Acceleration Parameters Dialog . . . . . . . . 5423

Raytrace Exclude/Include Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5424

xxxii | Contents

Raytrace Antialiaser Dialog: Fast Adaptive Antialiaser . . . 5427
Raytrace Antialiaser Dialog: Multiresolution Adaptive

Antialiaser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5429

Architectural Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5431

Templates Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5432

Physical Qualities Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5434

Special Effects Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5438

Advanced Lighting Override Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . 5441

Cutout Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5446

mental ray Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5448

mental ray Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5449

Arch & Design Material (mental ray) . . . . . . . . . . . . 5458

Car Paint Material/Shader (mental ray) . . . . . . . . . . 5521

DGS Material (mental ray) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5529

Glass Material (mental ray) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5533

Subsurface Scattering (SSS) Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . 5536

Matte/Shadow Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5538

Compound Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5544

Blend Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5546

Composite Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5549

Double-Sided Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5551

Morpher Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5554

Multi/Sub-Object Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5558

Shellac Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5565

Top/Bottom Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5567

Shell Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5570

Advanced Lighting Override Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5572

Lightscape Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5579

Ink 'n Paint Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5580

DirectX 9 Shader Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5596

DirectX Viewport Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5598

LightMap Shader Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5598

Metal Bump Shader Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5599

XRef Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5603

Types of Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5605

Real-World Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5609

Output Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5612

Missing Map Coordinates Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5618

2D Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5619

Coordinates Rollout (2D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5620

Noise Rollout (2D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5631

Bitmap 2D Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5633

Select Bitmap Image File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5642

Checker Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5646

Combustion Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5649

Gradient Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5673

Contents | xxxiii

Gradient Ramp Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5678

Flag Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5684

Swirl Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5686

Tiles Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5689

3D Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5698

Coordinates Rollout (3D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5699

Cellular Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5700

Dent Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5707

Falloff Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5715

Marble Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5721

Noise Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5724

Particle Age Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5727

Particle MBlur Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5729

Perlin Marble Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5731

Planet Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5734

Smoke Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5736

Speckle Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5739

Splat Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5740

Stucco Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5742

Waves Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5745

Wood Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5747

Compositor Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5756

Composite Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5756

Mask Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5759

Mix Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5760

RGB Multiply Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5764

Color Modifier Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5766

Output Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5767

RGB Tint Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5769

Vertex Color Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5770

Reflection and Refraction Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5773

Flat Mirror Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5773

Raytrace Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5779

Reflect/Refract Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5791

Thin Wall Refraction Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5798

mental ray Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5801

Custom Shaders for 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5804

mental images Shader Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5805

Shaders in the LumeTools Collection . . . . . . . . . . . 5807

Connect Parameter to Shader Dialog (mental ray) . . . . 5808

3ds Max Custom Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5810

Normal Bump Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5844

Camera Map Per Pixel Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5846

Material, Mapping, and Vertex Color Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5849

Assign Vertex Colors Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5849

Channel Info Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5858

xxxiv | Contents

Clean MultiMaterial Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5864

Instance Duplicate Maps Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5869

Chapter 18 Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5877

Render Scene Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5878

Rendered Frame Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5885

Render Output File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5892

Rendering Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5897

Render Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5898

Render Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5900

Render Bounding Box/Selected Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5907

Quick Render Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5908

Quick Render (Production) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5909

Quick Render (ActiveShade) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5909

ActiveShade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5910

ActiveShade Floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5917

ActiveShade Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5918

ActiveShade Commands (Quad Menu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5919

Preset Rendering Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5922

Show Last Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5924

Render Last . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5924

Print Size Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5925

Common Rendering Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5929

Common Panel (Render Scene Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5929

Common Parameters Rollout (Render Scene Dialog) . . . . . . 5929

Configure Preset Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5938

Email Notifications Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5939

Scripts Rollout (Render Scene Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5941

Assign Renderer Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5943

Choose Renderer Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5944

Renderers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5946

Renderer Panel (Render Scene Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5946

Default Scanline Renderer Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5949

Advanced Lighting Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5962

Raytracer Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6030

Using Multi-Pass Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . 6036

mental ray Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6039

Rendering with the mental ray Renderer . . . . . . . . . 6042

Getting Good Results with mental ray Rendering . . . . . 6044

3ds Max Materials in mental ray Renderings . . . . . . . 6048

Enhancements to Standard Features . . . . . . . . . . . . 6050

Processing Panel (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . 6053

mental ray Messages Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6054

mental ray Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6056

mental ray Renderer Rollouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6083

VUE File Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6143

Contents | xxxv

Rendering Elements Separately . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6144

Render Elements Panel and Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6144

Render Elements Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6157

Render Element Output File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6158

Blend Element Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6162

Hair and Fur Render Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6163

Lighting Texture Element Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6163

Matte Texture Element Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6164

Velocity Element Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6165

Z Element Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6167

Diffuse Texture Element Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6168

Render to Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6169

Baked Texture Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6174

Target Map Slot Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6181

Creating and Using Normal Bump Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6182

Troubleshooting Normal Bump Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6184

Render to Texture Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6195

Render to Texture: General Settings Rollout . . . . . . . . 6197

Render to Texture: Objects to Bake Rollout . . . . . . . . 6199

Render to Texture: Output Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6204

Render to Texture: Baked Material Rollout . . . . . . . . . 6208

Render to Texture: Automatic Mapping Rollout . . . . . . 6211

Render to Texture: Add Texture Elements Dialog . . . . . 6213

Render to Texture: Projection Options Dialog . . . . . . . 6214

Rendering Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6220

Make Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6220

View Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6224

Rename Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6224

Panorama Exporter Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6225

Panorama Exporter Render Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6226

Panorama Exporter Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6229

Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6231

Basic Procedures for Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6233

How Network Rendering Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6246

Starting Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6248

Troubleshooting Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6253

System Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6259

Checking Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6259

Setting Up for Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6261

Setting Up TCP/IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6261

Configuring TCP/IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6264

Creating a Special User Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6270

Setting Up Rendering Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6272

Setting Up Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6273

Sharing a Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6275

Mounting a Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6276

xxxvi | Contents

Using Configure User Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6277

Network Job Assignment Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6279

Job Dependencies Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6289

Notifications Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6291

Strips Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6293

Advanced Settings Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6296

Manager and Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6300

Initial Setup for Manager and Server Programs . . . . . . 6300

Installing Network Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6302

Logging Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6304

The backburner.xml File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6307

Network Rendering Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6308

Network Rendering Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6315

Queue Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6321

The Queue Monitor Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6321

Module Info Report Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6332

Queue Monitor: Job Settings Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . 6334

Viewing Jobs and Servers with the Queue Monitor . . . . 6339

Job Report Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6340

Job Archives Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6342

Activating and Deactivating Jobs in the Queue . . . . . . 6343

Activating and Deactivating Servers in the Queue . . . . . 6344

Managing Jobs in the Queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6345

Week Schedule Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6345

Batch Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6347

Quick Start Batch Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6348

Using Backburner for Batch Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6349

Batch Rendering - Batch Render Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6352

Batch Render Tool - Batch Render Warning Dialog . . . . . . . 6359

Command-Line Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6361

Command-Line Rendering Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6365

Backburner Command Line Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6378

Chapter 19 Effects and Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6379

Environment and Effects Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6380

Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6381

Rendering Effects Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6382

Effects Panel and Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6383

Merging Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6385

Hair and Fur Render Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6386

Lens Effects Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6391

Glow Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6397

Ring Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6404

Ray Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6414

Auto Secondary Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6421

Manual Secondary Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6429

Contents | xxxvii

Star Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6436

Streak Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6443

Lens Effects Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6450

Blur Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6461

Brightness and Contrast Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . 6470

Color Balance Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6472

File Output Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6473

Film Grain Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6476

Motion Blur Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6478

Depth of Field Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6480

Environment and Atmosphere Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6484

Environment Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6486

Fire Environment Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6493

Fog Environment Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6506

Volume Fog Environment Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6512

Volume Light Environment Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6520

Exposure Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6531

Automatic Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6534

Linear Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6537

Logarithmic Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6540

mr Photographic Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . 6544

Pseudo Color Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6552

Lighting Data Exporter Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6559

Atmospheric Apparatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6560

Add Atmosphere Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6560

BoxGizmo Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6561

CylGizmo Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6564

SphereGizmo Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6567

Chapter 20 Video Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6571

Video Post Queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6573

Video Post Status Bar / View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6575

Troubleshooting Video Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6577

Useful Video Post Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6580

Video Post Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6596

New Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6596

Open Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6597

Save Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6598

Edit Current Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6598

Delete Current Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6599

Swap Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6600

Execute Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6601

Configure Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6603

Edit Range Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6604

Align Selected Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6605

Align Selected Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6606

xxxviii | Contents

Make Selected Same Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6606

Abut Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6607

Add Scene Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6607

Add Image Input Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6613

Image Input Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6617

Add Image Filter Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6620

Add Image Layer Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6623

Add Image Output Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6627

Add External Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6630

Add Loop Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6633

Filter Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6636

Contrast Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6636

Fade Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6637

Image Alpha Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6638

Lens Effects Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6639

Negative Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6640

Pseudo Alpha Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6641

Simple Wipe Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6642

Starfield Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6643

Lens Effects Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6647

Animating Lens Effects Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6647

Lens Effects Flare Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6648

Lens Effects Focus Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6670

Lens Effects Glow Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6673

Lens Effects Highlight Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6685

Lens Effects Gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6699

Layer Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6707

Alpha Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6707

Cross Fade Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6708

Pseudo Alpha Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6709

Simple Additive Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6710

Simple Wipe Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6711

Chapter 21 Managing Scenes and Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6713

File-Handling Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6715

New . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6716

Reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6717

Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6718

Open from Vault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6721

Open Recent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6723

Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6723

Save As . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6724

Save Copy As . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6726

Save Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6727

Set Project Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6728

External References (XRefs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6729

Contents | xxxix

XRef Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6732

XRef Objects Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6737

XRef Record List Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . 6747

XRef Entities List Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . 6750

XRef Merge Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6752

XRef Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6755

XRef Scenes Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6763

XRef Object Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6769

Proxy Object Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6770

Missing XRef Paths Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6772

File Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6772

Working with Drawing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6774

File Link Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6777

Interpreting Layer Data from AutoCAD, AutoCAD

Architecture, and Revit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6782

Scale Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6783

File Link Manager Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6783

Working with AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, and Revit

Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6817

Instanced Objects, Elements, Blocks and Styles . . . . . . 6842

Merge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6854

Merge File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6858

Merge Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6859

Replace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6866

Saving and Loading Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6870

Load Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6873

Save Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6876

Map Animation Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6879

Motion Mapping Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 6882

Map Track to Track Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6885

Retargeting Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6886

Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6892

Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6894

Export Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6895

Asset Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6896

Asset Tracking Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6897

Global Settings and Defaults for Bitmap Proxies

Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6912

Prompts Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6914

Asset Tracking Dialog Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6916

Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6918

Summary Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6919

File Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6920

View Image File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6923

Exit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6926

Missing External Files Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6926

xl | Contents

File-Handling Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6928

Asset Browser Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6928

Bitmap/Photometric Path Editor Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6938

MAX File Finder Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6939

Resource Collector Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6942

Fix Ambient Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6944

Bitmap Pager Statistics Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6947

Asset Browser Subdialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6948

Preferences Dialog (Asset Browser) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6948

Internet Download Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6950

Favorite Location Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6952

Bitmap Path Editor Subdialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6953

Bitmap / Photometric Path Editor Dialog . . . . . . . . . 6953

Resource Information Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6955

Internet Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6956

i-drop Indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6957

Geometry File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6958

Importing Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6960

Working with MAX Files from Autodesk VIZ . . . . . . . . . . 6961

VIZ Render (DRF) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6964

Working with DRF Files in 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . 6967

3D Studio Mesh (3DS, PRJ) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6969

Importing 3DS Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6969

Importing PRJ Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6971

Exporting to 3DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6972

Importing SHP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6974

Importing Adobe Illustrator 88 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6975

Exporting to Adobe Illustrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6976

Exporting to ASCII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6977

AutoCAD (DWG) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6979

Importing AutoCAD Drawing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . 6979

DWG/DXF Import: Geometry Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . 6984

DWG/DXF Import: Layers Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6993

DWG/DXF Import: Spline Rendering Panel . . . . . . . . 6995

Legacy AutoCAD Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6998

Exporting AutoCAD DWG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7003

AutoCAD Interchange (DXF) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7006

Importing DXF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7006

Exporting to DXF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7006

Autodesk Inventor Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7008

Importing Autodesk Inventor Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7008

DWF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7013

Exporting 3D DWF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7013

FBX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7019

IGES Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7020

Overview of IGES in 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7020

Contents | xli

IGES Log Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7022

Importing IGES Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7023

IGES to 3ds Max Import Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7025

Exporting IGES Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7027

3ds Max to IGES Export Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7028

JSR-184 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7030

JSR-184 Object Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7033

JSR-184 Texture Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7038

JSR-184 Log Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7040

JSR-184 Standalone Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7042

LandXML (XML, DEM) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7044

Importing LandXML/DEM Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7044

LandXML/DEM Model Import Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . 7046

Exporting Lightscape Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7048

Importing Lightscape Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7050

Lightscape Materials Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7051

Motion Analysis Files (HTR/HTR2, TRC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7054

Importing HTR/HTR2 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7054

Importing TRC Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7056

Exporting HTR/HTR2 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7058

Exporting to Shockwave 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7061

Shockwave 3D Scene Export Options Dialog . . . . . . . 7062

Shockwave 3D Export Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7069

Shockwave 3D File Analysis Window . . . . . . . . . . . 7071

Stereolithography (STL) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7073

Importing STL Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7073

Exporting to STL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7076

Wavefront (OBJ, MTL) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7077

Exporting Wavefront Material (MTL) Files . . . . . . . . . 7078

Exporting Wavefront Object (OBJ) Files . . . . . . . . . . 7079

VRML Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7082

Importing VRML Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7082

Exporting to VRML97 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7083

VRML97 Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7089

Image File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7116

AVI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7118

BMP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7120

CIN (Kodak Cineon) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7120

CWS (Combustion Workspace) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7121

DDS Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7122

EPS and PS (Encapsulated PostScript) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . 7124

GIF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7126

HDRI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7126

IFL Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7131

Image File List Control Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7134

IFL Manager Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7136

xlii | Contents

IMSQ Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7138

JPEG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7139

MOV (QuickTime Movie) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7140

MPEG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7140

OpenEXR Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7141

Saving OpenEXR Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7142

Opening OpenEXR Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7147

PIC Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7151

PNG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7152

PSD Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7153

RLA Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7156

RPF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7159

RGB (SGI Image) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7161

TGA (Targa) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7162

TIFF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7164

YUV Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7166

RAM Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7166

RAM Player Configuration Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7170

Scene Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7171

Using Scene Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7173

Scene Explorer Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7178

Scene Explorer Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7179

Manage Scene Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7182

Advanced Search Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7183

Scene States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7185

Manage Scene States Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7188

Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7193

Using Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7197

Schematic View Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7201

Schematic View List Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7205

Schematic View Preferences Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7207

Schematic View Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7213

Schematic View Display Floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7217

Schematic View Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7219

New Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7219

Delete Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7220

Saved Schematic Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7220

Schematic View Selection Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . 7220

Using Layers to Organize a Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7224

Layer Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7227

Layer Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7237

Layer List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7245

Create New Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7246

Add Selection to Current Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7247

Select Objects in Current Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7247

Set Current Layer to Selection's Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7247

Contents | xliii

Chapter 22 Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7249

List of Available Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7249

Chapter 23 User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7251

Additional Keyboard Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7251

Toggling Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7253

Starting 3ds Max from the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7254

Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7257

File Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7259

Edit Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7260

Tools Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7260

Group Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7262

Views Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7262

Create Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7263

Modifiers Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7270

reactor Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7275

Animation Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7275

Graph Editors Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7278

Rendering Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7278

Customize Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7279

MAXScript Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7280

Help Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7281

Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7283

Main Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7284

Axis Constraints Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7288

Layers Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7289

reactor Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7290

Extras Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7290

Render Shortcuts Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7291

Snaps Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7292

Animation Layers Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7293

Brush Presets Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7293

Brush Preset Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7296

Right-Click Menu for Scripted Toolbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . 7300

Quad Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7300

Additional Quad Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7304

Animation Quad Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7306

Status Bar Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7308

Prompt Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7309

MAXScript Mini Listener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7309

Status Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7312

Time Slider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7312

Track Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7315

Selection Lock Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7324

Coordinate Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7325

xliv | Contents

Grid Setting Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7327

Time Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7328

Add Time Tag Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7329

Edit Time Tag Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7331

Communication Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7333

Using Communication Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7335

Configuring Communication Center . . . . . . . . . . . 7336

Refreshing the Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7341

Receive New Information Notifications . . . . . . . . . . 7342

Animation and Time Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7342

Auto Key Animation Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7344

Set Key Animation Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7347

Default In/Out Tangents For New Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7351

Go To Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7354

Previous Frame/Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7355

Play/Stop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7355

Next Frame/Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7357

Go To End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7357

Current Frame (Go To Frame) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7358

Key Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7358

Time Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7359

Viewport Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7366

Viewport Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7370

Viewport Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7378

Controls Available in All Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . 7381

Walkthrough Controls for Perspective and Camera

Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7383

Perspective and Orthographic Viewport Controls . . . . . 7384

Camera Viewport Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7397

Light Viewport Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7407

Command Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7422

Object Name and Wireframe Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7423

Create Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7423

Modify Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7425

Modifier Stack Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7427

Modifier Stack Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7440

Make Unique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7446

Modifier Sets Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7449

Configure Modifier Sets Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7450

Hierarchy Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7453

Motion Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7455

Assign Controller Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7456

Display Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7457

Display Floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7458

Utilities Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7463

Utilities Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7465

Contents | xlv

Configure Button Sets Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7465

MAXScript Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7468

New Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7468

Open Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7469

Run Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7469

MAXScript Listener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7469

Macro Recorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7470

Visual MAXScript Utility (See MAXScript Reference) . . . . . . 7471

MAXScript Debugger Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7472

Running Scripts from the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . 7472

Chapter 24 Customizing the User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7475

Useful Customization Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7475

Customize Display Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7479

Show UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7480

Lock UI Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7481

Plug-In Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7482

Custom UI and Defaults Switcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7483

Market-Specific Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7486

COM/DCOM Server Control Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7488

Customize User Interface Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7489

Keyboard Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7489

Toolbars Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7492

Quads Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7496

Menus Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7501

Colors Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7505

Advanced Quad Menu Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7507

Edit Button Appearance Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7511

Saving and Loading Custom User Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7513

Load Custom UI Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7515

Save Custom UI Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7516

Revert to Startup Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7519

Configure Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7519

Configure User Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7520

Configure System Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7523

File I/O Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7524

External Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7526

XRefs Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7529

System Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7531

3rd Party Plug-Ins Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7532

Network Plug-In Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7533

Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7534

General Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7536

File Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7541

Viewport Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7545

Gamma and LUT Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7550

xlvi | Contents

Rendering Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7560

Animation Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7564

Inverse Kinematics Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7568

Gizmos Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7570

MAXScript Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7574

Radiosity Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7578

mental ray Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7579

Graphics Driver Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7582

Configure Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7585

Configure Software Display Driver Dialog . . . . . . . . . 7586

Configure OpenGL Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7588

Direct3D Driver Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7592

Configure Direct3D Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7594

MIDI Time Slider Control Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7600

Units Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7601

System Unit Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7605

File Load: Units Mismatch Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7608

Viewport Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7610

Rendering Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7611

Viewport Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7617

Safe Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7618

Adaptive Degradation Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7622

Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7626

Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7628

Lighting and Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7630

Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7631

Defining Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7634

Reviewing and Editing Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7638

Stroke Preferences Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7640

Strokes Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7643

Chapter 25 Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7645

Keyboard Shortcut Override Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7646

Chapter 26 Using the 3ds Max Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7647

Finding Information Fast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7648

Using the HTML Help Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7650

Searching for Help Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7652

Favorites Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7657

HTML Help Viewer Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7658

HTML Help Viewer Right-Click Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7659

Keyboard Shortcuts in the Help Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7659

Chapter 27 Troubleshooting 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7663

Contents | xlvii

Handling File Corruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7663

Fixing Boolean Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7667

Performance Issues While Running 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7677

Problems Caused by Unit Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7681

User Interface Problems and Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7683

Video Driver and Display Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7690

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7697

2-Sided (Double Sided) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7697

2D Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7698

3D DWF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7698

3D Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7698

3DS and PRJ Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7698

Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7701

Active Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7701

Active Time Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7702

Active/Inactive Footsteps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7702

ActiveShade Initialize and Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7703

Adapt Locks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7704

Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7704

Adaptive Degradation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7704

Additive Opacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7705

Adjust Talent Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7707

Affine Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7707

Airborne Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7707

Aliasing/Antialiasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7708

Alpha Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7709

Ambient Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7710

Ambient Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7710

Animated Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7711

Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7711

Animation Controllers / Transform Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . 7712

Animation Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7713

Applied IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7713

Area Lights (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7713

Area Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7717

Aspect Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7718

Attachments (IK) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7719

Attenuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7719

AutoGrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7720

Avoid Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7721

Avoidance Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7721

Axonometric View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7722

B-Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7722

Balance Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7723

Balance Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7723

xlviii | Contents

Ballistic Gait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7723

Ballistic Tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7723

Barycentric Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7724

Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7724

Bend Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7725

Bezier Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7726

BioVision Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7726

BIP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7727

Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7727

Biped Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7727

Biped Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7728

Birth Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7728

Bitmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7730

Blend Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7731

Block Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7731

Block/Style Parent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7732

Blur / Blur Offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7732

Body Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7733

Boolean Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7734

Bound Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7735

Bounding Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7736

Bulge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7736

Bulge Angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7737

BVH Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7737

By Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7737

Center of Mass (COM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7737

Chamfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7738

character studio Marker Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7738

CIBSE Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7739

Clip Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7739

Clipping Planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7739

Codec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7740

Cognitive Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7740

Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7741

Compound Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7742

Constrained Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7743

Contact Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7743

Containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7743

Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7743

Continuity Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7744

Control Lattice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7745

Control Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7745

Control Vertex (CV) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7746

Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7746

Convex Hull Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7747

Cool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7747

Contents | xlix

Coordinate Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7747

CPY Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7748

Creation Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7748

Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7748

Crowd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7748

Crowd System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7749

CSM Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7749

Curve View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7749

CV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7750

CV Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7751

CV Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7752

Deformable Envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7752

Deformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7753

Deformation Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7753

Degree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7755

Delegates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7755

Dependent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7755

Dependent (NURBS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7756

Depot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7756

Description Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7757

Diagonal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7757

Diffuse Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7759

Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7760

Dock and Float . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7761

Double Support Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7761

Dummy Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7761

DWG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7762

DXF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7762

Dynaflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7763

Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7763

Dynamics Blend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7763

Ease Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7764

Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7765

Editable Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7765

Editable Poly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7765

Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7766

Emitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7766

End Effector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7767

Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7767

Environment Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7768

Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7770

Event Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7772

Event Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7773

Extents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7773

Face/Polygon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7774

Faceted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7774

l | Contents

FFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7775

FGM File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7775

Field of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7776

Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7777

Figure Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7778

Fillet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7779

Filter Color / Filter Opacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7780

Filtering (Antialiasing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7781

Filtering (Character Animation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7781

Final Gathering (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7782

First Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7785

Flat Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7786

Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7787

Fluorescence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7788

Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7789

Follow Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7789

Foot States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7790

Footstep Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7790

Footsteps Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7790

Forward Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7791

Forward Kinematics (Bipeds) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7791

Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7791

Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7792

Freeform Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7792

Freeze/Unfreeze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7793

Function Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7794

Fusing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7794

FX File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7794

G-Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7795

Gait Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7797

Gait Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7797

Gamma Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7798

Geometric Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7799

Gizmo/Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7800

Global Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7801

Global Motion Clip Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7803

Glossiness and Specular Level Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7803

GravAccel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7804

Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7804

Grid Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7805

Head Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7806

Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7806

Hide/Unhide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7806

Hierarchical Linkage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7806

Home Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7808

Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7809

Contents | li

Hot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7810

Hotspot/Falloff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7811

IGES (Initial Graphics Exchange Specification) . . . . . . . . . . . . 7812

IK Blend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7812

IK Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7812

IK Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7813

Illuminance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7813

Image Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7814

In Place Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7816

Independent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7816

Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7816

Initial Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7817

Initialize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7817

Inputs: Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7817

Instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7818

Instance (Motion Mixer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7819

Interactive Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7820

Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7820

Inverse Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7820

Inverse Kinematics (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7821

Iso Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7822

Isometric View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7823

Keyframe Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7823

Keyframes/Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7824

Kinematic Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7825

Knot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7825

Launch Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7825

Layer Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7825

Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7826

Layers (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7826

Layout Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7826

Lift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7827

Light Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7827

Linked Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7828

Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7829

Listener Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7829

Local Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7830

Local Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7831

Lofting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7831

Log File (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7832

Look At Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7832

LTLI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7833

Luminance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7833

Luminous Flux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7833

Luminous Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7833

LZF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7833

lii | Contents

LZG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7834

LZH Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7834

LZO Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7834

LZV Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7834

Map Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7835

Map Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7836

Mapped Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7837

Mapping Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7838

Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7840

Marker Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7841

Marker Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7841

Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7841

Master Motion Clip Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7841

Match Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7841

Material ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7842

Material/Map Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7844

Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7845

Matte Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7846

MAXScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7847

Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7847

Metaballs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7847

MFE Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7848

MI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7848

Mirroring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7848

Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7848

MIX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7849

Mixdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7849

MNM Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7849

Modal/Modeless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7849

Modifier Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7850

Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7852

Morphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7853

Motion Blending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7853

Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7854

Motion Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7855

Motion Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7855

Motion Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7856

Motion Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7856

Motion Flow Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7856

Motion Flow Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7856

Motion Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7856

Motion Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7857

MSP (MAXScript Package) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7858

Multiplicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7858

Multiplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7859

Multiplier Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7860

Contents | liii

N Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7860

Network Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7861

Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7861

Network Rendering Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7862

Newton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7862

Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7862

Normal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7863

NTSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7863

NURBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7864

NURBS Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7864

NURBS Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7865

NURBS Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7865

Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7866

Object Instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7866

Object Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7867

Object Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7868

Object Space (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7869

Obstacle-Avoidance Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7869

Object-Space Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7870

Omnidirectional Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7870

Omniflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7871

Opacity Falloff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7872

Operand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7873

Operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7873

Operator Icon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7874

Optical Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7875

Orientation Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7875

Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7876

Orthographic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7877

Out-of-Range Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7878

Outputs: Source / Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7879

Overshoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7881

PAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7882

Parameter Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7882

Parameters Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7882

Parameter/Parametric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7884

Parent Particle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7885

Particle Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7885

Particle Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7886

Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7887

Particle System (Particle Flow) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7887

PASS File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7887

Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7888

Patch-Based Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7888

Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7888

Path Follow Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7890

liv | Contents

Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7890

Perspective View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7891

Phases of Leg Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7892

Photometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7892

Photon Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7894

PHY Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7894

Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7895

Pivot Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7895

Pixel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7896

Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7896

Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7896

PMAP File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7897

Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7897

Point Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7898

Point Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7899

Poses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7899

Positional Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7899

Posture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7900

Precedence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7900

Premultiplied Alpha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7900

Procedural Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7901

Projector Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7903

Prop Bone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7904

Quadtree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7904

Queue Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7905

Radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7905

Radiosity Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7905

Ray-Trace Acceleration (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7905

Ray-Trace Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7906

Ray-Traced Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7907

RAYHOSTS File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7907

Real Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7908

Red, Green, Blue / Hue, Saturation, Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7908

Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7910

Reference Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7910

Refine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7910

Reinitialize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7911

Repel Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7911

Reservoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7911

Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7911

Rotoscoping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7912

Rubber-Band Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7912

RVT Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7913

Sample Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7913

Sampling (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7914

Scale Stride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7918

Contents | lv

Scanline Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7918

Scene Extents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7919

Scene Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7919

Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7921

Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7921

Script Editor Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7921

Scripted Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7922

Scripted Utility Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7922

Scripts (Motion Flow) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7922

Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7922

Seed Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7922

Seek Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7923

Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7923

Self-Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7924

Shaders (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7925

Shaders (Standard Materials) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7925

Shadow Maps (Light Objects) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7927

Shadow Map (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7928

Shapes and Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7929

SHP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7931

Skylight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7931

Sliding Footstep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7932

Smoothing Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7932

SMPTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7933

Space Warp Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7933

Space Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7934

Spawn Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7934

Specular Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7935

Speed Vary Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7936

Splice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7936

Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7937

Spline Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7937

Startup Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7938

Sub-Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7939

Sub-Object Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7940

Subtractive Opacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7941

Sunlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7942

Super Black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7942

Supersampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7942

Support Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7943

Surface Arrive Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7943

Surface Follow Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7943

Synthesis, Synthesize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7943

Talent Figure Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7944

Tangents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7944

TCB (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7944

lvi | Contents

TCB (Tension, Continuity, Bias) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7945

Tendons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7946

Tension, Continuity, Bias (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7946

Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7947

Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7948

Texel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7948

Ticks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7948

Tile/Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7949

Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7950

Topology-Dependent Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7951

Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7951

Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7951

Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7952

Trackgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7952

Track View Hierarchy Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7952

Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7954

Trajectory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7955

Trajectory (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7956

Transform Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7956

Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7958

Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7958

Transition Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7959

Translucency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7959

Truecolor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7960

Twist Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7960

Universal Naming Convention (UNC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7961

UVW Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7962

Vector Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7963

Vector Field Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7963

Vectors and Vector Handles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7964

Velocity Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7965

Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7965

Video Safe Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7965

Viewport (Interactive) Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7966

VIZBlock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7967

VPX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7967

VUE File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7967

Walking Gait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7970

Wall Repel Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7970

Wall Seek Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7970

Wander Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7971

Weight Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7971

Wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7971

Wireframe Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7973

Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7974

Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7974

Contents | lvii

World Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7975

World Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7976

World Space (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7977

World-Space Modifiers (WSM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7977

xref (AutoCAD External Reference) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7977

XRef (3ds Max Externally Referenced File) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7978

ZT File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7978

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7979

lviii | Contents

Introduction

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2008

Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 software dramatically improves artist productivity by
streamlining the process of working with complex scenes. This is achieved
through performance improvements areas such as viewport interaction,
interactive transformation, and material assignment, as well as through the
addition of new, artist-friendly UI and scene-management features.

This release also marks the launch of new tools that deliver interactive previewing
of shadows, the 3ds Max sun/sky environment, and Arch & Design material
settings. In addition, Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 delivers enhanced support for
complex pipelines and workflows: The new, integrated ProEditor makes it easier
to use MAXScript to extend and customize the software, and enhanced DWG
file-linking and data support strengthen interoperability with applications such
as AutoCAD® 2008 and Revit® 2008 software products. Finally, character
animation is enhanced by numerous Biped improvements, including new ways
of layering character motion and exporting it to game engines, as well as tools
that give animators new levels of flexibility with regard to their Biped rigs.

1

NOTE This topic doesn't comprehensively list all the changes in 3ds Max. As you

proceed through the documentation, keep an eye out for the icon, which
designates a new feature. You can also use the index in this reference to identify
topics that contain information about new features in the program. For topics that
describe new program features, check the index entry "new feature". For changes
in existing features, check the index entry "changed feature".

Following is a list of major new features with brief descriptions and links to the
relevant reference topic:

1

New Feature Movies

For introductory movies to the new features in Autodesk 3ds Max 2008, click
the following links:

■ Modeling

■ Viewport Rendering

■ mental ray

■ Data Scene Management

■ Animation

®

rendering

NOTE When you click a link, the movie opens in a Web browser. You will need
to click once to activate the window and then, to watch the movie, click the Play
button.

General Improvements

■ Enhanced Point Cache Support Improved file I/O capabilities let you

move Point Cache on page 1533 files seamlessly between 3ds Max and
Autodesk Maya software.

■ Enhanced FBX Support The integrated FBX translator now includes

improved support for animation, mesh, material and lighting data.

■ Enhanced Selection Performance Optimizations and new viewport

technology make the selecting of hundreds and thousands of objects more
than 10 times faster, boosting user productivity, particularly for those
working with large data sets.

■ Improved Transform Performance Transforming 5,000 or more objects

in Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 is up to 60 times faster, thanks to optimizations
and new viewport technology.

■ General Performance Improvements Optimizations and new viewport

technology make grouping and cloning operations, as well as array
functions, perform significantly faster.

■ Windows Vista Support Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 now supports the latest

Microsoft operating system release, giving you more OS options.

■ DirectX 10 Support A new integrated DirectX 10 driver lets game

developers view shaders that access the Microsoft latest DirectX library.

2 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 is the only 3D animation package that ships with
an integrated DirectX 10 driver, along with a driver for DirectX 9.

■ Customer Involvement Program This new, optional Autodesk program

on page 7281 enables you to help shape the future development of the
product. This feature lets you automatically provide valuable information
to Autodesk regarding frequently used workflows. It does not, however,
extract sensitive information from your files.

Materials and Mapping

■ Improved Material Assignment Material assignment in Autodesk 3ds

Max 2008 is now up to 10 times faster for scenes with 10,000 nodes, or
more, significantly improving the productivity of those working with large,
object-intensive scenes.

■ Multiple UVW Unwrap Users can now perform an Unwrap on page 1769

operation on the texture coordinates of multiple objects simultaneously.
This makes it significantly easier to organize the mapping of multiple
objects with one texture. For example, in the case of a car model comprising
various parts, all the parts can be quickly be mapped with the same texture,
with suitable UVW mapping for each part.

■ Auto-reset for Projection Modifier The Projection modifier on page 1556

now performs an auto-reset of the cage, preventing shrink-wrap behavior
that can lead to inaccurate results.

Viewport Rendering

■ Adaptive Degradation The integration of new technology into the

software's adaptive degradation system on page 7622 improves interactive
performance by automatically simplifying scene display to meet a
user-defined target frame rate. You specify how the software adjusts the
scene display, including whether small objects are hidden, distant objects
have less detail, etc., and 3ds Max calculates how best to achieve it. When
combined with the new Direct3D mesh caching that groups objects by
materials, the result is that a scene containing tens of thousands of objects
can be just as interactive as one with 10 objects.

NOTE This functionality supplants the legacy Object Display Culling command
and utility, which have therefore been removed from the program.

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 | 3

■ Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)-based shadow support The viewports

now support real-time shadows on page 4911 , including self-shadowing and

up to 64 lights simultaneously. All standard lights are supported along
with a simple UI to choose which lights are on. Users can choose between
high-quality per-pixel shadowing and fast shadowing (i.e., good and best
modes).

■ Sun/Sky Viewport Preview The mental ray Sun & Sky system lets you

create an accurate depiction of the sun and the sky at a specific time and
location. With this release, architectural and design visualization
professionals working with the Sun & Sky system can now interactively
preview their settings in the viewports prior to rendering. Reflections are
derived from the Sun & Sky system and automatically mapped onto the
surface of shiny objects. For a detailed procedure, see this procedure on
page 4983 .

■ Hardware-based Material Rendering in Viewports Architectural and

design visualization professionals can now get immediate feedback on
common mental ray Arch &Design and Standard materials settings,
allowing them to achieve their desired look by way of a fast, efficient,
iterative process. For details, see Show Standard/Hardware Map in Viewport
on page 5254 .

Rendering

■ Ambient Occlusion Enhancements (Architectural & Design Material)

The Arch & Design material for mental ray now delivers greater physical
accuracy in the light-occluded areas near objects so that the coloring of
nearby objects can affect the occlusion, resulting in more accurate,
true-to-life rendered images. See Use Color From Other Materials on page
5479 .

■ Self-Illumination (Architectural & Design Material) Also new for the Arch

& Design material is the ability to produce a realistic self-illumination
effect, with the added option of acting as a light source when using Final
Gather. See Self Illumination (Glow) rollout on page 5473 .

■ Sky Portal For mental ray users, the new mr Sky Portal on page 4999 area

light simplifies the process of illuminating indoor scenes with outdoor
lighting. You can now create an object that defines precisely where external
light enters the indoor scene, via skylights, windows, open doors, etc.
Using this technique dramatically reduces render times and improves image
quality for these lighting situations. HDRI-based lighting effects are also
supported.

4 | Chapter 1 Introduction

■ Photographic Exposure UI The new mr Photographic Exposure Control

on page 6544 with its camera-based interface for managing exposure settings
(tone mapping) greatly simplifies the process of achieving a photographic
rendering effect with physically accurate lighting. You can define the film
speed, shutter speed, etc., as with a real camera.

■ Glare Shader The new mental ray Glare shader on page 5825 creates a

realistic halo around very bright areas in the rendered image.

■ Support for DDS Floating-Point Formats When rendering to DirectDraw

Surface (DDS) format on page 7122 , you can now choose for the 64-bit and

128-bit floating-point options.

■ Output Path Dialog Box Improvements Autodesk 3ds Max 2008

streamlines the render output workflow. The Setup button on the Render
Output File dialog is now enabled as soon as you enter a file name and
type, so changing settings for the file format no longer requires closing
the dialog box, reopening it and changing the file type.

■ Presets for RTT Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 now lets game artists define

presets on page 6201 to use with Render to Texture, making this popular

mapping workflow feature even more flexible than in previous versions.

Scene and Project Management

■ Scene Explorer Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 delivers Scene Explorer on page

7171 , a powerful tool that provides a hierarchical view of scene data and
fast scene analysis and editing tools that facilitate working with even the
most complex, object-heavy scenes. Scene Explorer, which takes the form
of a modeless dialog, gives artists the ability to sort, filter, and search a
scene by any object type or property (including metadata), with stackable
filtering, sorting, and searching criteria.
You can save and store multiple explorer instances and link, unlink,
rename, hide, freeze, and delete objects, regardless of what objects are
currently selected in the scene. Users can also configure columns to display
and edit any object property, and because this feature is scriptable and
SDK extendable, callbacks can be used to add custom column definitions.

The legacy Select Objects dialog has been replaced by Select From Scene
on page 168 , a modal, read-only version of Scene Explorer.

■ Memory Management Optimization Significantly improved memory

management enables the import of large and complex scenes with multiple
objects, in significantly less time.

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 | 5

■ Normals Management DWG scenes imported from Revit 2008 products

now maintain their original normal positioning: greater data fidelity
equaling improved user-productivity.

■ Material Assignment and Naming DWG scenes imported from Revit

2008 now maintain the correct material assignment. Materials also maintain
their original names.

■ Sun/Sky Import Geographic location (including time of day and time

zone) as well as sun and sky parameters are now imported along with DWG
files. This streamlines workflows in which this data plays a role.

■ UV Coordinate Enhancements DWG UV import is now more complete

thanks to added support for Box, spherical and cylindrical mapping as well
as support for mirror texture tiling.

General Animation Improvements

■ Improved Skin Load Weights Dialog The Skin Load Weights dialog box

is now resizable.

■ New Default for Bones/IK Goals Bones and IK goals now default to a size

of two inches. The size of subsequent objects defaults to the last value set
by the user - saving set up time.

■ Improved Controller Assignment The Controllers menu now allows users

to assign controllers to multiple selected objects simultaneously.

■ Edit Trajectories CUI Item A new custom UI shortcut for edit trajectories

streamlines workflows for those using a custom UI.

Character Animation Improvements

■ Layers as Assets Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 now enables Biped users to save

and load Biped layers as BIP files on page 4333 , so you can isolate character

motion and save each layer as its own asset for export into a game. You
can use MAXScript to customize Biped layer export.

■ Xtras You can now extend biped characters with the new Xtras feature

on page 4349 . This tool, an FK chain attachable anywhere and parentable
to any Biped object, lets animators create and animate extraneous Biped
features such as wings, or additional facial bones, and save these as BIP
files. Like other BIP files, Xtras animation is supported in Mixer and Motion
Flow as well as Copy, Paste, and Layers.

6 | Chapter 1 Introduction

■ Head Relocation Biped users can now move a character's head away

from its neck on page 4340 , which helps in fitting the biped to its character

mesh.

Modeling Improvements

■ Hotkeys as Temporary Overrides Existing modeling hotkeys can now

be made to act as temporary overrides, called press/release on page 2039
keyboard shortcuts, enabling modelers to quickly move back and forth
between modes using hotkeys.

■ Working Pivot You can now override an object’ s own pivot with a global,

“working” pivot on page 3402 in order to simplify the rotating of objects

without affecting the original pivot. This helps modelers quickly pick
arbitrary points around which to rotate.

■ Sub-object Previewing The ability to preview on page 2051 sub-objects

on page 1318 streamlines the modeling workflow: Not only does it enable
you to preview and select sub-objects in one fluid motion, but it also gives
you an intuitive, natural way to switch among sub-object levels in the
viewport.

■ Constrain to Normal This new on page ? operation on page ? lets

you transform sub-object geometry along the normals of selections: the
result is a localized geometry push-and-pull operation.

Scripting Improvements

■ MAXScript ProEditor Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 marks the debut of the

new MAXScript ProEditor. This new, intelligent interface for working with
MAXScript includes multilevel undo functionality; fast, high-quality code
colorization; rapid opening of large documents; line-number display;
regular expressions in search/replace; folding of sections of the script;
support for user-customization, and many other features.

■ AVG_DLX The integration of the publicly available avg_dlx MAXScript

extension into 3ds Max reduces dependency on third-party tools while
exposing more than 100 new methods, properties, and classes to 3ds Max.
These include methods for accessing registry, the clipboard, and IK
properties on transform controllers, as well as for combining bitmaps, and
more.

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 | 7

See also:

■ What Was New in 3ds Max 9 Extension 1 on page 8

What Was New in 3ds Max 9 Extension 1

This topic is intended primarily for non-subscribers who are coming to
Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 from a version of the software earlier than the most
recent release prior to this one: 3ds Max 9 Extension 1. It covers new features
as of that subscriber-only version, which was released in the fall of 2006. Note

that these features are not indicated by the icon or the “new feature”
index entry in the body of this document.

Following is a list of major new features as of 3ds Max 9 Extension 1, with
brief descriptions and links to the relevant reference topics:

General Improvements

■ Core performance enhancements help maximize your productivity and

accelerate your creative workflow. For example, enjoy greater viewport
interactivity when working with dense meshes.

■ Also useful for interactivity is the viewport statistics on page 2493 feature,

which displays in the viewport information about the current rate and
number of polys, faces, edges, and vertices, both for the entire scene and
for the current selection. The display updates in real time.

■ The Hidden Line rendering method on page 7611 improves visual feedback

by simplifying wireframe viewport display.

■ You can set any viewport to display the Track View interface.

■ The Sample function in the Color Selector dialog on page 331 lets you

grab colors from anywhere on the screen.

■ Parameter wiring on page 3249 is made easier with the dialog's new ability

to list only nodes that are selected in the scene.

■ You can search the drop-down Modifier list on the Modify panel for a

particular modifier more easily by typing a sequence of characters, not just
single characters. For details, see To apply a modifier to an object:Select

the object.Do one of the following:Choose a modifier from th... on page

?

8 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Rendering Improvements

■ Getting a rendered image into a bitmap editor is a snap with the Rendered

Frame Window's on page 5885 new Copy Bitmap function.

■ When rendering an Ambient Occlusion element with Render To Texture,

you can choose whether or not to exclude the low-res object in a Projection
modifier from the Ambient Occlusion pass. See this note on page 6179 .

Scene and Project Management

■ The Configure User Paths on page 7520 dialog lets you set individual paths

to be absolute or relative to the current project folder.

■ Many enhancements have been made to XRefs on page 6729 . You can

reference all aspects of systems, including geometry and materials. You
can also reference controllers on page 3194 and can maintain dependencies
between XRef items. The XRef system’s dependency handling lets you
preview object relationships in both merge and XRef operations, providing
more control over how external objects are used.

■ 3ds Max supports multiple materials per object in DWG files exported as

ACIS solids from Revit Architecture/Structure/MEP 2008 and later, as well
as solid primitives created in AutoCAD Architecture 2008 (formerly ADT)
and later. See Support of Multiple Materials on Imported ACIS Solids on
page 6980 .

■ DWF Export on page 7013 supports named camera views, so you can choose

different views by name in the Autodesk Design Review program.

■ Reloading XRef items on page 6739 works correctly even when an object in

the source scene has been renamed, or deleted and then re-created with
the same name.

■ The Select Similar on page 190 command lets you select all items in an

imported or linked DWG file with the same style(s) on page 6850 , as defined
in AutoCAD Architecture. Select Similar also supports 3ds Max-native
objects with similar characteristics.

■ Thanks to a revamped interface, the DWG Import on page 6984 toolset for

geometry is significantly easier to use.

What Was New in 3ds Max 9 Extension 1 | 9

Animation Improvements

■ If you enable animation layers for an object that has animation loaded in

the Motion Mixer, 3ds Max can automatically create new map files on
page 3101 for you.

■ New Biped quadrants on the quad menu provide quick access to many

commonly used Biped tools. Just select any biped part and then right-click
the biped.

■ You can assign the same type of controller or constraint to several different

objects at once. Just select the objects and then choose the controller or
constraint from the Animation menu.

■ Visualizing and editing biped IK animation is easier thanks to color-coded

keys and trajectories in the viewports, and color-coded keys on the track
bar. Trajectories use gradients to depict transitions between FK and IK
periods. See Biped Color-coded Keys and Trajectories on page 4385 .

■ You can view and edit controller properties simply by double-clicking the

controller label anywhere it appears.

■ The Euler Filter utility on page 3548 in Track View can automatically correct

rotation anomalies caused by gimbal flipping.

■ Track View filtering options on page 3508 let you show or hide global tracks,

display only animated tracks with full hierarchies, and assign filters to
hotkeys and other custom UI elements.

■ Switch pivot points on biped hands and feet faster and more easily with

the new Pivot Selection Dialog on page 4296 feature.

■ Remapping an XAF animation file when loading it onto an object whose

animation layers status has changed is easier thanks to the new Load Into

Active Layer switch on page 6874 .

■ Animate an effect such as a curling finger with ease with Use Pivot Point

Center's on page 905 new support for accumulated rotation of linked objects

such as bones.

■ New CUI shortcuts for selecting hierarchy siblings on page 3277 make it

easier to navigate a character hierarchy when setting up animation.

■ Zooming in Track View now focuses in on the current mouse position,

rather than the center of the view.

10 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Modeling Improvements

■ Users of normal bump mapping can take advantage of export/import

functionality available on the Projection modifier > Cage rollout on page
1563 . You can convert the cage into standard geometry of the same type
and topology as the cage and modified object, which you can edit using
standard methods and then use to define a new shape for the cage. This
provides access to the full range of mesh-editing tools available in 3ds Max
for shaping the cage to your precise requirements.

■ Automatically round off chamfered edges on page 2136 of poly meshes with

the Segments parameter.

3ds Max Documentation Set

The documentation set for 3ds Max® comprises online material only.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 Installation Guide: Contains complete installation

, configuration, and troubleshooting instructions, including system
requirements. Also includes information on uninstalling and maintaining
the software, as well as descriptions of the full install documentation set.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 Readme (3ds_Max_Readme.rtf): Contains the

latest information about 3ds Max. You can access this file by clicking View
Readme in the Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 Installation Wizard.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 Help: This document covers fundamental concepts

and strategies for using the product, as well as details about the features
of 3ds Max.
Access the reference by choosing Help > 3ds Max Help.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 Tutorials: Contains tutorial information and

detailed procedures to walk you through increasingly complex operations.
This is the best source for learning 3ds Max.
Access the tutorials by choosing Help > Tutorials.

NOTE All the sample files required to do the tutorials are found on DVD 1 of
2: Software, Documentation, Videos, & Tutorials. None of these files are
installed automatically.

■ MAXScript Reference: Describes the MAXScript scripting language on

page 14 . Check out the “Learning MAXScript” chapter there if you're new
to MAXScript.

3ds Max Documentation Set | 11

Access the MAXScript Reference by choosing Help > MAXScript Reference.

■ Additional mental ray

®

Help File: Documentation from mental images

®

is available from Help menu > Additional Help. There, you'll find the mental
ray Reference, comprising the mental ray Manual, mental ray Shader Reference,
and LumeTools Collection.

NOTE The Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 Help documents all other mental ray
components available in the 3ds Max user interface. This includes
documentation for lights for mental ray and specific shadow types, controls
for adding mental ray shaders to lights and cameras, mental ray materials,
custom shaders for 3ds Max, and the mental ray renderer controls.

■ Additional Backburner Files: Procedures for using Backburner from inside

3ds Max are documented in this Autodesk 3ds Max Help File. For further
information on using and configuring Backburner, refer to the additional
Backburner documentation available from Start menu > Programs >
Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 [32- or 64-bit] > Help. The two documents related
to Autodesk Backburner are called:

■ Backburner 2007.1 Installation Guide

■ Backburner 2007.1 User’s Guide

NOTE For information on installing Autodesk Backburner see the Autodesk 3ds
Max 2008 Installation Guide.

How to Print from the Online Documentation Files

If your computer is connected to a printer, you can print single help topics
or entire chapters.

To print a topic or chapter, highlight the topic or chapter title and click the
Print button at the top of the help display. A dialog appears.

12 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Choose to print only the selected topic, or to print all topics in that chapter.
After you make your selection, another dialog appears where you can choose
your printer and other options.

The tabs available at the top of the dialog depend on the selected printer.
Choose options for the print job, and click OK to begin printing.

3ds Max Documentation Set | 13

How to Contact Us

We are also interested in hearing your views about 3ds Max. We’d like to hear
ways you think we can improve our program, features you’re interested in, as
well as your views on the documentation set.

Please send us email about the documentation set at:

[e-mail]

About MAXScript

MAXScript is the built-in scripting language for 3ds Max. It provides users
with the ability to:

■ Script all aspects of 3ds Max use, such as modeling, animation, materials,

rendering, and so on.

■ Control 3ds Max interactively through a command-line shell window.

■ Package scripts within custom utility panel rollouts or modeless windows,

giving them a standard 3ds Max user interface.

■ Build custom import/export tools using the built-in file I/O.

■ Write procedural controllers that can access the entire state of the scene.

Build batch-processing tools, such as batch-rendering scripts.

■ Set up live interfaces to external system using OLE Automation.

The MAXScript language is specifically designed to complement 3ds Max. It
is object-oriented, and has several special features and constructs that mirror
high-level concepts in the 3ds Max user interface. These include
coordinate-system contexts, an animation mode with automatic keyframing,
and access to scene objects using hierarchical path names that match the 3ds
Max object hierarchy.

The syntax is simple enough for non-programmers to use, with minimal
punctuation and formatting rules.

Visual MAXScript

Visual MAXScript is a powerful addition to MAXScript, making the MAXScript
feature easier to learn and use. With Visual MAXScript, you can quickly create
UI elements and layouts for scripting.

14 | Chapter 1 Introduction

For detailed information about Visual MAXScript, open the MAXScript
Reference, available from Help menu > MAXScript Reference.

See also:

■ MAXScript Interface on page 7280

Procedures

To access MAXScript, do one of the following:

1 On the menu bar, choose MAXScript. The MAXScript menu appears.

2 Choose Utilities panel > MAXScript.

From here, you can either write new scripts, edit or run existing scripts,

open the MAXScript Listener, or use the Macro Recorder.

To access the MAXScript Listener, you can also right-click in the Mini
Listener and choose Open Listener Window from the right-click menu.

For detailed information about the MAXScript utility, open the MAXScript
Reference, available from Help menu > MAXScript Reference.

About MAXScript | 15

16

Getting Started with 3ds
Max

You use 3ds Max to quickly create professional-quality 3D models, photorealistic still images,
and film-quality animation on your PC.

2

Image by Michael McCarthy

Before using this reference material, we highly recommend you get to know 3ds Max firsthand
by following the included tutorials. You can access the tutorials using the Help menu >
Tutorials command.

17

This section presents these brief topics designed to help you quickly start using 3ds Max.

■ Project Workflow on page 19

■ Working with AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, and Revit Files on page 6817

■ Setting Up Your Scene on page 25

■ Modeling Objects on page 26

■ Using Materials on page 27

■ Placing Lights and Cameras on page 30

■ Animating Your Scene on page 33

■ Rendering Your Scene on page 34

The 3ds Max Window on page 35

■ Special Controls on page 38

■ Quad Menu on page 7300

■ Customize Display Right-Click Menu on page 7479

Managing Files on page 44

■ VIZ Render (DRF) Files on page 6964

■ Importing, Merging, and Replacing Scenes on page 46

■ Using the Browser on page 49

■ Startup Files and Defaults on page 50

■ 3dsmax.ini File on page 51

■ 3dsviz.ini File on page 51

■ vizr.ini File on page 51

■ Backing Up and Archiving Scenes on page 53

■ Crash Recovery System on page 53

18 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

Project Workflow

Once you've installed 3ds Max (see the Installation Guide included with your
software package), you open it from the Start menu, or use any other Windows
method. The figure below shows the application window with a scene file
loaded.

Main program window

NOTE If you open 3ds Max from a Command Prompt window or batch file, you

can add command-line switches. See Starting 3ds Max from the Command Line
on page 7254 .

NOTE 3ds Max is a single-document application, meaning you can work on only
one scene at a time. However, you can open more than one copy of 3ds Max and
open a different scene in each copy. Opening additional copies of 3ds Max requires
a lot of RAM. For the best performance, you should plan to open one copy and
work on one scene at a time.

Opening multiple copies of 3ds Max is not supported in Windows ME.

Project Workflow | 19

Modeling Objects

You model and animate objects in the viewports, whose layout is configurable.
You can start with a variety of 3D geometric primitives. You can also use 2D
shapes as the basis for lofted or extruded objects. You can convert objects to
a variety of editable surface types, which you can then model further by pulling
vertices and using other tools.

Another modeling tool is to apply modifiers to objects. Modifiers can change
object geometry. Bend and Twist are examples of modifiers.

Modeling, editing, and animation tools are available in the command panels
and toolbar. See Modeling Objects on page 26 . Also, you can learn a good
deal about modeling from the tutorials available from Help menu > Tutorials.

20 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

Material Design

You design materials using the Material Editor, which appears in its own
window. You use the Material Editor to create realistic materials by defining
hierarchies of surface characteristics. The surface characteristics can represent
static materials, or be animated. See Material Editor on page 5188 . Tutorials
especially helpful for learning about materials include "Overview of Creating
a Scene: Still Life" and "Using Materials."

Project Workflow | 21

Lights and Cameras

You create lights with various properties to illuminate your scene. The lights
can cast shadows, project images, and create volumetric effects for atmospheric
lighting. Physically-based lights let you use real-world lighting data in your
scenes and Radiosity on page 5976 provides incredibly accurate light simulation
in renderings. See Lights on page 4890 . You can learn more about lighting by
following the Introduction to Lighting tutorial.

The cameras you create have real-world controls for lens length, field of view,
and motion control such as truck, dolly, and pan. See Cameras on page 5106 .

22 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

Animation

You can begin animating your scene at any time by turning on the Auto Key
button. Turn the button off to return to modeling. You can also perform
animated modeling effects by animating the parameters of objects in your
scene. You can learn more about animating in the Animating Your Scene

topic on page 33 and from most of the tutorials.

When the Auto Key button is on, 3ds Max automatically records the
movement, rotation, and scale changes you make, not as changes to a static
scene, but as keys on certain frames that represent time. You can also animate
many parameters to make lights and cameras change over time, and preview
your animation directly in the 3ds Max viewports.

You use Track View on page 3426 to control animation. Track View is a floating
window where you edit animation keys, set up animation controllers, or edit
motion curves for your animated effects. The Lip Sync tutorial covers Track
View usage.

Project Workflow | 23

Rendering

Rendering adds color and shading to your scene. The renderers available with
3ds Max include features such as selective ray tracing, analytical antialiasing,
motion blur, volumetric lighting, and environmental effects. See Rendering

Your Scene on page 34 . The tutorials can help you learn about rendering.

When you use the default scanline renderer, a radiosity solution on page 5976
can provide accurate light simulation in renderings, including the ambient
lighting that results from reflected light. When you use the mental ray renderer,
a comparable effect is provided by global illumination on page 6072 .

If your workstation is part of a network, network rendering can distribute
rendering jobs over multiple workstations. See Network Rendering on page
6231 .

With Video Post on page 6571 , you can also composite the scene with
animations stored on disk.

A Typical Project Workflow

These topics explain the basic procedures for creating scenes:

Setting Up Your Scene on page 25

24 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

Modeling Objects on page 26

Using Materials on page 27

Placing Lights and Cameras on page 30

Animating Your Scene on page 33

Rendering Your Scene on page 34

Setting Up Your Scene

You start with a new unnamed scene when you open the program. You can
also start a new scene at any time by choosing New or Reset from the File
menu.

Choosing a Unit Display

You choose a system of unit display on the Units Setup dialog on page 7601 .
Choose from Metric, Standard US, and Generic methods, or design a custom
measuring system. You can switch between different systems of unit display
at any time.

NOTE For best results, use consistent units when you are going to:

■ Merge scenes and objects on page 6854 .

■ Use XRef objects on page 6732 or XRef scenes on page 6755 .

Setting the System Unit

The System Unit setting, in the Units Setup dialog on page 7601 , determines
how 3ds Max relates to distance information you input to your scene. The
setting also determines the range for round-off error. Consider changing the
system unit value only when you model very large or very small scenes.

Setting Grid Spacing

Set spacing for the visible grid in the Grid And Snap Settings dialog > Home

Grid panel on page 2592 . You can change grid spacing at any time.

See Precision and Drawing Aids on page 2501 for information about the system
unit, unit display, and grid spacing.

Setting Up Your Scene | 25

Setting the Viewport Display

Viewport layout options

The default four viewports in 3ds Max represent an efficient and popular
screen layout. Set options in the Viewport Configuration dialog on page 7610
to change viewport layout and display properties.

See Viewing and Navigating 3D Space on page 55 for more information.

Saving Scenes

Save your scene frequently to protect yourself from mistakes and loss of work.
See Backing Up and Archiving Scenes on page 53 .

Modeling Objects

1. Modify panel

2. Create panel

3. Object categories

You model objects in your scene by creating standard objects, such as 3D
geometry and 2D shapes, and then applying modifiers to those objects. The
program includes a wide range of standard objects and modifiers.

26 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

Creating Objects

You create objects by clicking an object category and type on the Create panel
and then clicking or dragging in a viewport to define the object's creation
parameters. The program organizes the Create panel into these basic categories:
Geometry, Shapes, Lights, Cameras, Helpers, Space Warps, and Systems. Each
category contains multiple subcategories from which you can choose.

You can also create objects from the Create menu by choosing an object
category and type and then clicking or dragging in a viewport to define the
object's creation parameters. The program organizes the Create menu into
these basic categories: Standard Primitives, Extended Primitives, AEC Objects,
Compound, Particles, Patch Grids, NURBS, Dynamics, Shapes, Lights, Cameras,
Helpers, Space Warps, and Systems.

See Basics of Creating and Modifying Objects on page 317 .

Selecting and Positioning Objects

You select objects by clicking or dragging a region around them. You can also
select objects by name or other properties such as color or object category.

After selecting objects, you position them in your scene using the transform
tools Move, Rotate, and Scale. Use alignment tools to precisely position objects.

See Selecting Objects on page 131 , Moving, Rotating, and Scaling Objects on
page 859 , and Precision and Drawing Aids on page 2501 .

Modifying Objects

You sculpt and edit objects into their final form by applying modifiers from
the Modify panel. The modifiers you apply to an object are stored in a stack.
You can go back at any time and change the effect of the modifier, or remove
it from the object.

See Basics of Creating and Modifying Objects on page 317 .

Using Materials

You use the Material Editor to design materials and maps to control the
appearance of object surfaces. Maps can also be used to control the appearance
of environmental effects such as lighting, fog, and the background.

Using Materials | 27

A variety of materials in the Material Editor's sample slots

28 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

House on left uses the default standard material.

House on right uses a compound material.

Basic Material Properties

You set basic material properties to control such surface characteristics as
default color, shininess, and level of opacity. You can create realistic,
single-color materials using just the basic properties.

Using Maps

You extend the realism of materials by applying maps to control surface
properties such as texture, bumpiness, opacity, and reflection. Most of the
basic properties can be enhanced with a map. Any image file, such as one you
might create in a paint program, can be used as a map, or you can choose
procedural maps that create patterns based on parameters you set.

The program also includes a raytrace material and map for creating accurate
reflections and refraction.

Using Materials | 29

Viewing Materials in the Scene

You can view the effect of materials on objects in a shaded viewport, but the
display is just an approximation of the final effect. Render your scene to view
materials accurately.

See Designing Materials on page 5164 .

Placing Lights and Cameras

You place lights and cameras to complete your scene in much the same way
lights and cameras are placed on a movie set prior to filming.

Lights and cameras placed to compose a scene

30 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

The resulting scene

Default Lighting

Default lighting evenly illuminates the entire scene. Such lighting is useful
while modeling, but it is not especially artistic or realistic.

Placing Lights

You create and place lights from the Lights category of the Create panel or
menu when you are ready to get more specific about the lighting in your
scene.

The program includes the following standard light types: omni, spot, and
directional lights. You can set a light to any color and even animate the color
to simulate dimming or color-shifting lights. All of these lights can cast
shadows, project maps, and use volumetric effects.

See Guidelines for Lighting on page 4906 .

Placing Lights and Cameras | 31

Photometric Lights

Photometric lights on page 4951 provide you with the ability to work more

accurately and intuitively using real-world lighting units (lumens and candelas).
Photometric lights also support industry-standard photometric file formats (

IES on page 5017 , CIBSE on page 7739 , LTLI on page 7833 ) so that you can model

the characteristics of real-world manufactured luminaires, or even drag
ready-to-use luminaires from the Web. Used in conjunction with the 3ds Max

radiosity solution on page 5976 , photometric lights let you evaluate more

accurately (both physically and quantitatively) the lighting performance of
your scene.

Photometric lights are available from the Create panel > Lights drop-down
list.

Daylight System

The Daylight system on page 5024 combines sunlight on page 7942 and skylight
on page 7931 to create a unified system that follows the geographically correct
angle and movement of the sun over the earth at a given location. You can
choose location, date, time, and compass orientation. You can also animate
the date and time. This system is suitable for shadow studies of proposed and
existing structures.

Viewing Lighting Effects in the Scene

When you place lights in a scene, the default lighting turns off and the scene
is illuminated only by the lights you create. The illumination you see in a
viewport is just an approximation of the true lighting. Render your scene to
view lighting accurately.

TIP If the Daylight system appears to wash out the scene, try using the Logarithmic

exposure control on page 6540 .

Placing Cameras

You create and place cameras from the Cameras category of the Create panel.
Cameras define viewpoints for rendering, and you can animate cameras to
produce cinematic effects such as dollies and truck shots.

You can also create a camera automatically from a Perspective viewport by
using the Create Camera from View command on page 109 found on the
Views menu. Just adjust your Perspective viewport until you like it, and then
choose Views > Create Camera From View. 3ds Max creates a camera and

32 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

replaces the Perspective viewport with a Camera viewport showing the same
perspective.

See Common Camera Parameters on page 5123 .

Animating Your Scene

You can animate almost anything in your scene. Click the Auto Key button
to enable automatic animation creation, drag the time slider, and make changes
in your scene to create animated effects.

Controlling Time

The program starts each new scene with 100 frames for animation. Frames
are a way of measuring time, and you move through time by dragging the

time slider on page 7312 . You can also open the Time Configuration dialog on

page 7359 to set the number of frames used by your scene and the speed at
which the frames are displayed.

Animating Transforms and Parameters

While the Auto Key button is on, the program creates an animation key on
page 7824 whenever you transform an object or change a parameter. To animate
a parameter over a range of frames, specify the values at the first and last
frames of the range. The program calculates the values for all of the frames in
between.

See Animation Concepts and Methods on page 3002 .

Editing Animation

You edit your animation by opening the Track View window or by changing
options on the Motion panel. Track View is like a spreadsheet that displays
animation keys along a time line. You edit the animation by changing the
keys.

Track View has two modes. You can display the animation as a series of
function curves that graphically show how a value changes over time in the
Curve Editor mode. Alternatively, you can display your animation as a
sequence of keys or ranges on a grid in the Dope Sheet mode.

Animating Your Scene | 33

See Track View on page 3426 .

Rendering Your Scene

Rendering "fills in" geometry with color, shadow, lighting effects, and so on.

Use the rendering features to define an environment and to produce the final
output from your scene.

Defining Environments and Backgrounds

Rarely do you want to render your scene against the default background color.
Open the Environment And Effects dialog > Environment panel on page 6486
to define a background for your scene, or to set up effects such as fog.

Setting Rendering Options

To set the size and quality of your final output, you can choose from many
options on the Render Scene dialog on page 5878 . You have full control over
professional grade film and video properties as well as effects such as reflection,
antialiasing, shadow properties, and motion blur.

34 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

Rendering Images and Animation

You render a single image by setting the renderer to render a single frame of
your animation. You specify what type of image file to produce and where
the program stores the file.

Rendering an animation is the same as rendering a single image except that
you set the renderer to render a sequence of frames. You can choose to render
an animation to multiple single frame files or to popular animation formats
such as AVI or MOV.

See Render Scene Dialog on page 5878 .

The 3ds Max Window

1. Menu bar

2. Window/Crossing selection toggle

3. Snap tools

4. Command panels

5. Object categories

The 3ds Max Window | 35

6. Rollout

7. Active viewport

8. Viewport navigation controls

9. Animation playback controls

10. Animation keying controls

11. Absolute/Relative coordinate toggle and coordinate display

12. Prompt line and status bar

13. MAXScript mini-listener

14. Track bar

15. Time slider

16. Main toolbar

Most of the main window is occupied by the viewports, where you view and
work with your scene. The remaining areas of the window hold controls and
show status information.

One of the most important aspects of using 3ds Max is its versatility. Many
program functions are available from multiple user-interface elements. For
example, you can open Track View for animation control from the Main
toolbar as well as the Graph Editors menu, but the easiest way to get to a
specific object's track in Track View is to right-click the object, and then choose
Track View Selected from the quad menu.

You can customize the user interface in a variety of ways: by adding keyboard
shortcuts, moving toolbars and command panels around, creating new toolbars
and tool buttons, and even recording scripts into toolbar buttons.

MAXScript lets you create and use custom commands in the built-in scripting
language. For more information, access the MAXScript Reference from the
Help menu.

Menu Bar

A standard Windows menu bar with typical File on page 7259 , Edit on page
7260 , and Help on page 7281 menus. Special menus include:

■ Tools on page 7260 contains duplicates of many of the Main toolbar

commands.

■ Tools on page 7260 contains many important program functions, including

precision functions.

■ Group on page 7262 contains commands for managing combined objects.

36 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

■ Views on page 7262 contains commands for setting up and controlling the

viewports.

■ Create on page 7263 contains commands for creating objects.

■ Modifiers on page 7270 contains commands for modifying objects.

■ Animation on page 7275 contains commands for animating and constraining

objects, plus commands such as Bone Tools for setting up animated
characters.

■ Graph Editors on page 7278 provides graphical access to editing objects and

animation: Track View lets you open and manage animation tracks in

Track View on page 3426 windows, and Schematic View on page 7197 gives

you an alternate way to work with the objects in your scene and navigate
to them.

■ Rendering on page 7278 contains commands for rendering, Video Post,

radiosity, on page 5976 and the environment.

■ Rendering on page 7278 contains commands for rendering, using radiosity

on page 5976 , and changing the environment.

■ Customize on page 7279 gives you access to controls that let you customize

the user interface.

■ MAXScript on page 7280 has commands for working with MAXScript, the

built-in scripting language.

For more information about the 3ds Max menus, see Menu Bar on page 7257 .

Time Controls

The Auto Key button on page 3007 turns on animation mode. The other controls
navigate through time and play back an animation.

Command Panel

This collection of six panels provides handy access to most of the modeling
and animation commands.

You can "tear off" the command panel and place it anywhere you like.

By default, the command panel is docked at the right of your screen. You can
access a menu that lets you float on page 7761 or dismiss the command panel
by right-clicking just above it. If it is not displayed, or you want to change its

The 3ds Max Window | 37

location and docking or floating status, right-click in a blank area of any
toolbar, and choose from the shortcut menu.

■ Create on page 7423 holds all object creation tools.

■ Modify on page 7425 holds modifiers and editing tools.

■ Hierarchy on page 7453 holds linking and inverse kinematics parameters.

■ Motion on page 7455 holds animation controllers and trajectories.

■ Display on page 7457 holds object display controls.

■ Utilities on page 7463 holds miscellaneous utilities.

Status Bar and Prompt Line

These two lines display prompts and information about your scene and the
active command. They also contain system toggles controlling selections,
precision, and display properties. See Status Bar Controls on page 7308 .

Viewports

You can display from one to four viewports. These can show multiple views
of the same geometry, as well as the Track View, Schematic View, and other
informational displays . See Viewports on page 7366 .

Viewport Navigation Buttons

The button cluster at the lower-right corner of the main window contains
controls for zooming, panning, and navigating within the viewports. See

Viewport Controls on page 7366 .

Special Controls

3ds Max uses some special user interface controls, which are described in this
topic.

■ Right-click menus on page 39

■ Flyouts on page 39

■ Rollouts on page 40

■ Scrolling panels and toolbars on page 40

38 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

■ Spinners on page 41

■ Numerical Expression Evaluator on page 41

■ Entering numbers on page 42

■ Controls and color on page 42

■ Undoing actions on page 43

Right-Click Menus

The program uses several different types of right-click menus.

For object editing and ActiveShade control on page 5919 , you use the quad

menu on page 7300 . Commands on the quad menu vary depending on the

kind of object you are editing and the mode you are in.

Right-clicking a viewport label displays the viewport right-click menu on page
7370 , which lets you change viewport display settings, choose which view
appears in the viewport, and so on.

Also, the command panel and the Material Editor have right-click menus that
let you manage rollouts and navigate the panel quickly. And most other
windows, including Schematic View and Track View, have right-click menus
that provide fast access to commonly used functions.

Flyouts

1. Flyout arrow

2. Flyout buttons

A flyout on page 7789 is similar to a menu, except that its items are buttons.
A flyout button is indicated by a small arrow in the lower-right corner. To
display the flyout, click and hold the button for a moment, then choose a
button by dragging the cursor to it and then releasing the mouse button.

Special Controls | 39

NOTE You can define customized text annotations for flyouts by editing the

maxstart.cui file. See Customize Menu on page 7279 .

Rollouts

Rollouts are areas in the command panels and dialogs that you can expand
(roll out) or collapse (roll in) to manage screen space. In the illustration above,
the Keyboard entry rollout is collapsed, as indicated by the + sign, and the
Parameters rollout is expanded, as indicated by the − sign.

To open and close a rollout:

■ Click the rollout title bar to toggle between expanded and collapsed.

To move a rollout:

■ You can move a rollout in the expanded or collapsed state. To move the

rollout, drag the rollout title bar to another location on the command
panel or dialog. As you drag, a semi-transparent image of the rollout title
bar follows the mouse cursor. When the mouse is positioned over or near
a qualifying position for the rollout, a blue, horizontal line appears at the
position where the rollout will drop when you release the mouse button.

Scrolling Panels and Toolbars

Sometimes a command panel or dialog is not large enough to display all of
its rollouts. In this case, a pan ("hand") cursor appears over the inactive parts
of the panel. You can scroll command panels and dialogs vertically, and you
can scroll a toolbar along its major axis.

To scroll a panel:

1 Place the pointer over an empty area of a panel to display the pan cursor.

2 When the pointer icon changes to a hand, drag the panel up or down.

A thin scroll bar also appears on the right side of the scrolling panel. You
can use the pointer to drag the scroll bar as well.

40 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

To scroll a toolbar:

You can scroll a toolbar only when some tool buttons are not visible. This
typically occurs when the program window is smaller than full screen.

1 First, follow either of the procedures below:

■ Place the pointer over an empty area of a toolbar to display the pan

cursor.

■ Place the pointer over any part of a toolbar, then press and hold the

middle mouse button.

2 When the pointer icon changes to a hand, drag the toolbar horizontally.

Spinners

A spinner is a mouse-based control for numeric fields. You can click or drag
the spinner arrows to change the value in the field.

To change a value using a spinner, do any of the following:

1 Click the spinner's up arrow to increment the value; click the down arrow

to decrement the value. Click and hold for continuous change.

2 Drag upward to increase the value, or drag downward to decrease it.

3 Press Ctrl while you drag to increase the rate at which the value changes.

4 Press Alt while you drag to decrease the rate at which the value changes.

5 Right-click a spinner to reset the field to its minimum value.

Numerical Expression Evaluator

While a numeric field is active, you can display a calculator called the
Numerical Expression Evaluator. To display the calculator, press Ctrl+N.

Special Controls | 41

The expression you enter is evaluated, and its result is displayed in the Result
field. Click Paste to replace the field value with the result of the calculation.
Click Cancel to exit the Expression Evaluator.

The expressions you can enter are described in Expression Techniques on
page 299 . You can't use variables in the Expression Evaluator, but you can
enter the constants pi (circular ratio), e (natural logarithm base), and TPS (ticks
per second). These constants are case-sensitive: the Expression Evaluator does
not recognize PI, E, or tps.

You can also enter a vector expression or an Expression Controller function
call, but the result of the expression or function must be a scalar value.
Otherwise, the Expression Evaluator won't evaluate it.

Entering Numbers

You can change a numeric value by a relative offset by highlighting the
contents of a numeric field (not in the Numerical Expression Evaluator) and
typing R or r followed by the offset amount.

For example, a Radius field shows 70 and you highlight it:

■ If you enter R30, 30 is added to the radius and the value changes to 100.

■ If you enter R-30, 30 is subtracted from the radius and the value changes

to 40.

Controls and Color

The user interface uses color cues to remind you what state the program is in.

NOTE You can customize most of these colors by using the Colors panel on page
7505 of the Customize User Interface dialog on page 7489 .

■ Red for animation: The Auto Key button, the time slider background, and

the border of the active viewport turn red when you are in Animate mode.

42 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max