Autodesk 3ds Max 3ds Max - 2010 User Manual

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2010

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Certain materials included in this publication are reprinted with the permission of the copyright holder.
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Autodesk® 3ds® Max 2010 Software

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The following are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk Canada Co. in the USA and/or Canada and other countries: Backburner,
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Contents

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

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

3ds Max Documentation Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

About MAXScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Copyrights and Trademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Project Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Setting Up Your Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Modeling Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Using Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Placing Lights and Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Animating Your Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Rendering Your Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

The 3ds Max Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Special Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Managing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Importing, Merging, Replacing, and Externally Referencing

Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Using the Asset Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Startup Files and Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

The Initialization File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Backing Up and Archiving Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

iii

Crash Recovery System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Chapter 3 Viewing and Navigating 3D Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

General Viewport Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Home Grid: Views Based on the World Coordinate Axes . . . . . . . . . 68

Understanding Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Setting Viewport Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Controlling Viewport Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Controlling Display Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Using Standard View Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Zooming, Panning, and Rotating Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

ViewCube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

ViewCube Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Change the View of the Scene with the ViewCube . . . . . . . . . 89

Change the Current View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Set the View Projection Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Define the Home View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

SteeringWheels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Wheel Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Navigation Wheels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

View Object Wheels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Tour Building Wheels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Full Navigation Wheels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Navigation Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Center Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Forward Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Look Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Orbit Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Pan Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Rewind Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Up/Down Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Walk Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Zoom Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Using Walkthrough Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Navigating Camera and Light Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Adaptive Degradation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Grab Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

View-Handling Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Undo View Change / Redo View Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Save Active View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Restore Active View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Viewport Background Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Select Background Image Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Update Background Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Reset Background Transform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Show Transform Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

iv | Contents

Show Ghosting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Show Key Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Shade Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Show Dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

Create Camera From View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Add Default Lights to Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Redraw All Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Show Materials in Viewport As . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Update During Spinner Drag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Diagnose Video Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Expert Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Controlling Object Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Display Color Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Hide By Category Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Hide Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Freeze Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Display Properties Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Link Display Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Chapter 4 Selecting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Introducing Object Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Basics of Selecting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Selecting by Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Using Select By Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

Using Named Selection Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Using Selection Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Selecting with Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Selecting with Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Freezing and Unfreezing Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Hiding and Unhiding Objects by Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Hiding and Unhiding Objects by Category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Isolate Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Introduction to Sub-Object Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

Selection Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Select Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Select From Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Selection Floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Selection Region Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Selection Filter List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Filter Combinations Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Named Selection Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Named Selection Sets Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Edit Named Selections Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Select All . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Select None . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Select Invert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Contents | v

Select Similar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Select By . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Select By Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Select By Name (Edit Menu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Select By Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Rectangular Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Circular Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Fence Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Lasso Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Paint Selection Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Select Region Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Select Region Crossing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Window/Crossing Selection Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Edit Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Undo/Redo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Hold/Fetch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Groups and Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Using Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Using Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Character Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Group Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Ungroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Explode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

Detach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Attach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Assembly Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Assemble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Open Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Close Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Disassemble . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Explode Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Detach Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Attach Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Assembly Head Helper Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Assembly Head Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Luminaire Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Character Assembly Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Create Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Destroy Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278

Lock/Unlock Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

vi | Contents

Insert Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Save Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Skin Pose Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Chapter 5 Object Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Object Properties Dialog Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

General Panel (Object Properties Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Advanced Lighting Panel (Object Properties Dialog) . . . . . . . 295

mental ray Panel (Object Properties Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . 300

User Defined Panel (Object Properties Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . 303

Rename Objects Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Custom Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Parameter Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Parameter Collector Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Notes Dialog (Parameter Collector) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Expression Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Trigonometric Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

Chapter 6 Creating Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Basics of Creating and Modifying Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358

Using the Create Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Identifying the Basic Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361

Creating an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Assigning Colors to Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Object Color Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Color Selector Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Color Clipboard Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

Adjusting Normals and Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Viewing and Changing Normals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Viewing and Changing Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

Geometric Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Creating Primitives from the Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Standard Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Box Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Cone Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

Sphere Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

GeoSphere Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Cylinder Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Tube Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Torus Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Pyramid Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Teapot Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Plane Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Extended Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

Contents | vii

Hedra Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Torus Knot Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

ChamferBox Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

ChamferCyl Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

OilTank Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Capsule Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Spindle Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

L-Ext Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Gengon Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

C-Ext Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

RingWave Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Prism Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Hose Extended Primitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Architectural Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

AEC Extended Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

Working with AEC Design Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Foliage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Railing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Stairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

L-Type Stair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

Spiral Stair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514

Straight Stair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

U-Type Stair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522

Doors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525

Pivot Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535

Sliding Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

BiFold Door . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539

Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

Awning Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

Casement Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 552

Fixed Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

Pivoted Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556

Projected Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Sliding Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

mental ray Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

mr Proxy Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562

Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572

Splines and Extended Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Line Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 584

Rectangle Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588

Circle Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590

Ellipse Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591

Arc Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592

Donut Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

NGon Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597

viii | Contents

Star Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599

Text Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600

Helix Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605

Section Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

Extended Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611

WRectangle Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611

Channel Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

Angle Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615

Tee Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

Wide Flange Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618

Editable Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620

Editable Spline (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630

Editable Spline (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634

Editable Spline (Segment) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Editable Spline (Spline) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655

Shape Check Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665

Compound Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667

Morph Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667

Scatter Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Conform Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688

Connect Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695

BlobMesh Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701

ShapeMerge Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

Boolean Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713

Material Attach Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728

Terrain Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

Loft Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742

Creation Method Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745

Surface Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

Path Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750

Skin Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

Deformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770

Path Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790

Shape Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790

Mesher Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 794

ProBoolean/ProCutter Compound Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . 799

ProBoolean Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 801

ProCutter Compound Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

Quad Meshing and Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831

Dynamics Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 841

Damper Dynamics Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 842

Spring Dynamics Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 849

Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 856

Bones System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 857

Using Objects as Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 870

Bone Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 871

Contents | ix

Ring Array System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 880

Chapter 7 Moving, Rotating, and Scaling Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 885

Using Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 886

Using Transform Gizmos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 889

Transform Type-In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 899

Animating Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 902

Transform Managers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 904

Specifying a Reference Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . 906

Choosing a Transform Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907

Using the Axis Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 910

Reset XForm Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 912

Transform Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 913

Select and Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914

Select and Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 915

Select and Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 917

Select and Uniform Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 918

Select and Non-Uniform Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 919

Select and Squash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 920

Transform Coordinates and Coordinate Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922

Reference Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922

Use Center Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930

Use Pivot Point Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 931

Use Selection Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933

Use Transform Coordinate Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 934

Transform Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 935

Transform Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 936

Mirror Selected Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 940

Array Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 943

Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 944

Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 950

Spacing Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 953

Clone and Align Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 961

Align Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 966

Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 967

Quick Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 972

Normal Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 973

Place Highlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 976

Align Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 978

Align to View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 979

Chapter 8 Creating Copies and Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 981

Overview of Copies, Instances, and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . 982

Techniques for Cloning Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 985

Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992

x | Contents

Clone Options Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992

Using Shift+Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996

Cloning with Shift+Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 998

Cloning with Shift+Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000

Cloning with Shift+Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003

Animating Shift+Rotate and Shift+Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1005

Cloning Objects Over Time with Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . 1007

Arraying Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1009

Using the Array Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1012

Creating Linear Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1018

Creating Circular and Spiral Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1022

Mirroring Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1026

Using the Spacing Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1027

Chapter 9 Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1031

Transforms, Modifiers, and Object Data Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1034

Using Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040

Using the Modify Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1041

Using the Modifier Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1045

Editing the Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1049

Edit Modifiers and Editable Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1052

Modifying at the Sub-Object Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1054

Using the Stack at the Sub-Object Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1057

Modifying Multiple Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1059

How Instanced Modifiers Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1063

World-Space Modifiers (WSMs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067

Camera Map Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1067

Displace Mesh Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1068

Displace NURBS Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1071

Hair And Fur Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1073

Selection Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082

Tools Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1084

Styling Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1095

Quad Menu for Hair Styling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1109

General Parameters Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . 1111

Material Parameters Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . 1118

mr Parameters Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . 1125

Frizz Parameters Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . . . 1126

Kink Parameters Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . . . 1131

Multi Strand Parameters Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . 1134

Dynamics Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136

Display Rollout (Hair And Fur) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1143

LS Colors Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1145

MapScaler Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1147

PatchDeform Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1150

PathDeform Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1150

Contents | xi

Point Cache Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1156

Subdivide Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1156

Surface Mapper Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1156

SurfDeform Modifier (World Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1159

Object-Space Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1159

Affect Region Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1159

Attribute Holder Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1163

Bend Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1165

Bevel Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1169

Bevel Profile Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1176

Camera Map Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1180

Cap Holes Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1185

Cloth and Garment Maker Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1187

Cloth and Garment Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1189

Cloth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1204

Garment Maker Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1266

CrossSection Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1299

Delete Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1305

Delete Patch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1307

Delete Spline Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1308

Disp Approx Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1310

Displace Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1313

Edit Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1321

Edit Normals Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1322

Edit Patch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1329

Edit Poly Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1332

Selection Rollout (Edit Poly Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . 1346

Edit Poly (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1357

Edit Poly (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1359

Edit Poly (Edge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1368

Edit Poly (Border) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1389

Edit Poly (Polygon/Element) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1395

Edit Geometry Rollout (Polymesh and Edit Poly) . . . . . 1409

Align Geometry Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1422

Detach Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1423

Edit Spline Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1424

Extrude Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1425

Face Extrude Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1428

FFD (Free-Form Deformation) Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1431

FFD (Box/Cylinder) Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1436

FFD (Free-Form Deformation) Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . 1441

Fillet/Chamfer Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1442

Flex Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1445

Spring Option Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1462

HSDS Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1464

Adaptive Subdivision Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1472

xii | Contents

Lathe Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1474

Lattice Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1479

Linked XForm Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1484

LS Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1486

MapScaler Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1487

Material Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1490

MaterialByElement Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1492

Melt Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1496

Mesh Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1500

MeshSmooth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1505

Mirror Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1516

Morpher Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1518

MultiRes Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1537

Noise Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1544

Normal Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1551

Normalize Spline Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1554

NSurf Sel Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1555

Optimize Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1557

Patch Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1562

PatchDeform Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1567

PathDeform Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1569

Point Cache Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1574

Poly Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1582

Preserve Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1590

Projection Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1596

Selection Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . 1598

Reference Geometry Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . 1601

Cage Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1603

Selection Check Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . . 1607

Projection Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . 1608

Project Mapping Rollout (Projection Modifier) . . . . . . 1610

Projection Holder Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1614

ProOptimizer Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1614

Optimization Level Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1616

Optimization Options Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1619

Symmetry Options Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1638

Advanced Options Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1639

Push Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1640

Quadify Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1641

Relax Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1643

Renderable Spline Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1647

Ripple Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1650

Select By Channel Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1654

Shell Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1655

Skew Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1664

Skin Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1667

Contents | xiii

Load Envelopes Dialog (Skin Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . 1693

Weight Tool Dialog (Skin Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1697

Weight Table (Skin Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1704

Skin Morph Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1706

Skin Wrap Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1717

Skin Wrap Patch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1726

Slice Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1727

Smooth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1733

Spherify Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1736

Spline IK Control Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1738

Spline Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1741

Squeeze Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1744

STL Check Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1746

Stretch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1749

Subdivide Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1756

Substitute Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1759

Surface Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1763

SurfDeform Modifier (Object Space) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1774

Sweep Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1776

Pick Shape Dialog (Sweep Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1796

Extract Shape Dialog (Sweep Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . 1798

Merge File (Sweep Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1799

Symmetry Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1803

Taper Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1807

Tessellate Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1812

Trim/Extend Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1815

TurboSmooth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1818

Turn To Mesh Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1825

Turn To Patch Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1827

Turn To Poly Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1830

Twist Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1833

UVW Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1837

Unwrap UVW Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1837

UVW Map Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1932

UVW Mapping Add Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1954

UVW Mapping Clear Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1954

UVW Mapping Paste Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1955

UVW XForm Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1955

Vertex Weld Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1957

VertexPaint Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1959

VertexPaint Paintbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1969

Adjust Color Dialog (VertexPaint Modifier) . . . . . . . . 1982

Color Palette (VertexPaint Modifier) . . . . . . . . . . . . 1984

Painter Options Dialog (VertexPaint Modifier) . . . . . . 1989

Volume Select Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1992

Wave Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2000

xiv | Contents

Welder Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2004

XForm Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2010

Chapter 10 Surface Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2013

Subdivision Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2013

Soft Selection Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2014

Collapse Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2022

Graphite Modeling Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2025

New Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2026

The Ribbon Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2030

Using the Ribbon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2030

Modeling Ribbon Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2036

Graphite Modeling Tools Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2045

Polygon Modeling Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2045

Modify Selection Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2063

Edit Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2075

Geometry (All) Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2088

[Sub-object] Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2099

Loops Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2130

Additional Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2147

Freeform Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2155

PolyDraw Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2156

Paint Deform Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2165

Selection Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2180

General Selection Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2180

Select By Panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2186

Editable Mesh Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2192

Working with Mesh Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2196

Selection Rollout (Editable Mesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2198

Editable Mesh (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2200

Editable Mesh (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2203

Editable Mesh (Edge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2209

Editable Mesh (Face/Polygon/Element) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2216

Edit Geometry Rollout (Mesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2220

Attach Options Dialog (Editable Mesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2233

Cut and Slice (Editable Mesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2235

Editable Poly Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2240

Selection Rollout (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2245

Editable Poly (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2256

Editable Poly (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2258

Editable Poly (Edge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2269

Editable Poly (Border) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2289

Editable Poly (Polygon/Element) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2296

Edit Geometry Rollout (Polymesh and Edit Poly) . . . . . . . . 2311

Subdivision Surface Rollout (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2325

Subdivision Displacement Rollout (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . 2330

Contents | xv

Paint Deformation Rollout (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2333

Editable Poly Settings Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2337

Bevel Polygons Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2337

Bridge Borders/Polygons Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . 2339

Bridge Edges Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2341

Chamfer Vertices/Edges/Borders Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . 2344

Connect Edges Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2345

Extrude Polygons Along Spline Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . 2347

Extrude Polygons Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . 2349

Extrude Vertices/Edges Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . 2350

Hinge Polygons From Edge Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . 2352

Inset Polygons Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2353

MeshSmooth Selection Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . 2354

Preserve Map Channels Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . 2355

Relax Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2357

Tessellate Selection Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . . 2358

Weld Vertices/Edges Dialog (Polymesh) . . . . . . . . . . 2359

Patch Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2360

Editable Patch Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2360

Selection Rollout (Editable Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2366

Editable Patch (Object) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2370

Editable Patch (Vertex) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2373

Editable Patch (Handle) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2380

Editable Patch (Edge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2382

Editable Patch (Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2385

Editable Patch (Element) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2391

Geometry Rollout (Patch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2394

Patch Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2408

Quad Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2410

Tri Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2413

NURBS Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2416

NURBS Models: Objects and Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . 2417

Creating NURBS Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2419

Working with NURBS Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2419

NURBS Surface Trimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2420

Modifying NURBS Models and Creating Sub-Objects . . . 2423

Quad Menu for NURBS Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2424

Using the NURBS Toolbox to Create Sub-Objects . . . . . 2426

NURBS Sub-Object Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2428

CV Sub-Objects and Point Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . 2429

Dependent Sub-Objects (NURBS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2433

Rigid NURBS Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2436

NURBS and Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2436

NURBS and Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2439

NURBS Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2440

NURBS Tips and Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2444

xvi | Contents

NURBS Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2454

Point Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2456

CV Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2460

NURBS Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2464

Point Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2466

CV Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2473

Creating NURBS Curve and Surface Objects . . . . . . . . . . . 2480

Creating Independent Surfaces from NURBS Curve

Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2480

Creating NURBS Curves from Splines . . . . . . . . . . . 2481

Creating NURBS Surfaces from Geometric Primitives . . . 2483

Nonrelational NURBS Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2484

Display Controls for NURBS Models . . . . . . . . . . . . 2486

Display Line Parameters for NURBS Surfaces . . . . . . . 2489

Creating and Editing NURBS Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . 2490

Attaching and Importing 3ds Max Objects . . . . . . . . 2490

Common Sub-Object Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2494

Editing Point Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2496

Editing Curve CV Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2503

Editing Surface CV Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2509

Editing Curve Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2518

Editing Surface Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2530

Soft Selection Rollout (NURBS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2541

Material Properties Rollout (NURBS) . . . . . . . . . . . . 2544

Creating Curve Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2549

Creating Surface Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2603

Creating and Editing Point Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . 2694

NURBS Editing Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2708

NURBS Curve and Surface Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . 2736

NURBS Curve Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2736

NURBS Surface Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2737

Advanced Surface Approximation Dialog (NURBS) . . . . 2747

Surface Approximation Utility (NURBS) . . . . . . . . . . 2748

Tools for Low-Polygon Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2760

Show Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2760

Level of Detail Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2762

Optimization Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2767

Batch ProOptimizer Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2768

Batch ProOptimizer Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2770

Batch Optimization Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2771

Chapter 11 Precision and Drawing Aids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2781

Tools for Precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2782

Using Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2784

Using Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2785

Using the Home Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2787

Contents | xvii

Using Grid Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2789

Viewing Grid Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2791

AutoGrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2792

Grid Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2796

Show Home Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2796

Activate Home Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2797

Activate Grid Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2797

Align Grid to View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2798

Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2799

Aligning Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2799

Aligning Normals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2803

Using Snaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2804

Snap Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2807

2D Snap, 2.5D Snap, 3D Snap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2807

Angle Snap Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2810

Percent Snap Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2811

Spinner Snap Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2811

Ortho Snapping Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2812

Polar Snapping Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2814

Setting Snap Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2816

Grid and Snap Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2819

Snap Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2819

Snap Override . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2826

Snap Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2828

Home Grid Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2833

User Grid Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2836

Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2837

Select And Manipulate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2838

Standard Helper Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2839

Dummy Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2840

Expose Transform Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2841

Grid Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2847

Point Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2853

Tape Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2855

Protractor Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2858

Compass Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2860

Manipulator Helper Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2861

Cone Angle Manipulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2861

Plane Angle Manipulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2865

Slider Manipulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2868

Drawing Assistants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2873

xView . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2873

Measuring Distances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2878

Measure Distance Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2881

Measure Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2882

Rescale World Units Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2884

xviii | Contents

Chapter 12 Space Warps and Particle Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2887

Space Warp Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2887

Bind to Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2893

Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2893

Push Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2894

Motor Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2898

Vortex Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2903

Drag Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2908

PBomb Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2914

Path Follow Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2919

Gravity Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2923

Wind Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2926

Displace Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2930

Deflectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2935

POmniFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2935

PDynaFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2941

SOmniFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2946

SDynaFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2948

UOmniFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2948

UDynaFlect Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2951

SDeflector Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2953

UDeflector Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2956

Deflector Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2959

Geometric/Deformable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2962

FFD(Box) Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2962

FFD(Cyl) Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2969

Wave Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2979

Ripple Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2983

Conform Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2987

Bomb Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2991

Modifier-Based Space Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2995

Particle Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2997

Particle Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2997

What's New in Particle Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2998

How Particle Flow Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3000

Particle Flow User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3015

Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3046

Non-Event-Driven Particle Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3292

Particle System Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3295

Spray Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3306

Snow Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3310

Super Spray Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3315

Blizzard Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3319

PCloud Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3324

PArray Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3331

Contents | xix

Chapter 13 Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3367

Animation Concepts and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3368

Animation Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3368

Using Auto Key Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3373

Using Set Key Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3376

Spinner Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3380

Viewing and Copying Transform Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3382

Controlling Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3385

Setting Time Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3387

Moving Through Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3388

Choosing a Frame Rate and Playback Speed . . . . . . . . . . . 3390

Working with Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3391

Understanding Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3392

Changing Controller Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3395

Assigning Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3397

Specifying Default Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3400

General-Purpose Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3401

Special-Purpose Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3403

Explicit Axis Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3404

Float Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3405

Controlling Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3406

Controlling Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3407

Controlling Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3408

Controlling Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3409

Morph Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3410

Motion Panel Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3411

Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3411

PRS Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3416

Key Info (Basic) Rollout/Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3418

Tangent Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3420

Key Info (Advanced) Rollout/Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . 3422

Animation Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3424

Audio Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3425

Audio Controller Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3426

Barycentric Morph Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3429

Barycentric Morph Controller Key Info Dialog . . . . . . 3431

Bezier Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3432

Block Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3436

Attach Controls Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . . . . . . 3442

Block Parameters Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . . . . . 3444

Master Block Parameters Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . 3444

Slave Parameters Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . . . . . 3446

Track View Pick Dialog (Block Controller) . . . . . . . . . 3448

Boolean Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3449

Color RGB Controller (Point3 XYZ Controller) . . . . . . . . . 3451

Euler XYZ Rotation Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3453

xx | Contents

Expression Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3456

Expression Controller Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3463

Layer Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3465

Animation Layers (Layer Controller) . . . . . . . . . . . . 3467

Layer Properties Dialog (Layer Controller) . . . . . . . . 3482

Create New Animation Layer Dialog (Layer Controller)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3483

Limit Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3484

Linear Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3496

List Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3497

Local Euler XYZ Rotation Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3501

Look At Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3502

Master Point Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3505

Master Track Key Info Dialog (Master Point

Controller) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3507

Motion Capture Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3509

Noise Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3519

On/Off Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3522

Position XYZ Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3524

PRS Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3526

Reaction Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3527

Reaction Manager Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3533

Using Manipulators with Reaction Controllers . . . . . . 3548

Scale XYZ Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3550

Script Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3552

Smooth Rotation Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3558

Spring Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3558

TCB Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3563

Waveform Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3566

XRef Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3570

Animation Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3574

Attachment Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3575

Link Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3580

LookAt Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3585

Orientation Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3592

Path Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3596

Position Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3602

Surface Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3607

Wire Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3610

Parameter Wiring Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3612

Hierarchies and Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3618

Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3618

Linking Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3623

Linking and Unlinking Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3630

Adjusting Pivots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3633

Viewing and Selecting Hierarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3638

Contents | xxi

Animating with Forward Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3642

Using Dummy Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3651

Animating Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3653

Adjusting Object Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3656

Locking Object Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3657

Animating Attachment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3658

Changing Link Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3659

Link Inheritance (Selected) Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3660

Inverse Kinematics (IK) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3661

IK Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3665

Inverse Kinematics Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3667

Joint Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3753

Hierarchy Panel Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3761

Pivot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3762

IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3772

Link Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3787

Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3790

Working with Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3794

Track View Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3795

Curve Editor Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3804

Dope Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3805

Time Ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3810

Track View Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3810

Track View Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3817

Track View Hierarchy Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3824

Hierarchy Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3825

Properties (Track View Hierarchy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3832

Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3833

Track View Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3849

Modes Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3849

Controller Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3849

Tracks Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3853

Keys Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3853

Curves Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3855

Time Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3856

Options Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3856

Display Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3862

View Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3867

Utilities Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3867

Track View Quad Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3870

Track View Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3873

Curve Editor Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3873

Dope Sheet Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3879

Name Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3883

Controllers Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3884

Tools Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3885

xxii | Contents

Ranges Toolbar (Dope Sheet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3886

Extras Toolbar (Dope Sheet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3887

Filtering Track View Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3888

Filters Dialog (Track View) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3889

Managing Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3894

Copy Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3894

Paste Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3895

Assign Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3897

Delete Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3899

Ignore Animation Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3900

Respect Animation Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3901

Make Controller Unique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3902

Note Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3903

Add Note Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3903

Remove Note Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3906

Editing Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3906

Edit Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3906

Snap Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3907

Lock Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3909

Align to Cursor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3909

Add Visibility Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3910

Move Keys (Dope Sheet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3913

Slide Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3914

Scale Keys - Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3916

Add Keys (Dope Sheet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3917

Properties (Track View Key Window) . . . . . . . . . . . 3918

Track View Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3919

Randomize Keys Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3921

Create Out of Range Keys Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3923

Select Keys By Time Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3925

Euler Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3926

Soft Selection Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3927

Current Value Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3928

Edit Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3929

Select Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3930

Delete Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3932

Cut Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3932

Copy Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3933

Paste Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3934

Reverse Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3936

Insert Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3937

Scale Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3937

Exclude Left End Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3938

Exclude Right End Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3940

Reduce Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3941

Edit Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3943

Contents | xxiii

Position Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3944

Recouple Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3945

Editing Tracks: Copying, Pasting, and Handling Instances and

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3946

Copying and Pasting Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3946

Copying and Pasting Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3948

Making Instance and Reference Controllers and Objects

Unique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3950

Curve Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3951

Move Keys (Curve Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3953

Scale Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3954

Scale Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3955

Add Keys (Curve Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3956

Draw Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3957

Show Tangents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3958

Lock Tangents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3960

Parameter Curve Out-of-Range Types . . . . . . . . . . . 3961

Apply Ease Curve / Apply Multiplier Curve . . . . . . . . 3964

Remove Ease/Multiplier Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3965

On/Off (Curves) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3966

Ease Curve Out-of-Range Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3966

Multiplier Curve Out-of-Range Types . . . . . . . . . . . 3968

Freeze Non-Selected Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3970

Status Bar and View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3971

Track Selection Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3971

Key Stats Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3981

Navigation Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3984

Managing Track View Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3989

New Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3989

Delete Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3990

Saved Track Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3991

Customizing the Track View Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3992

Track View Toolbar Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . 3999

Motion Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4001

Using the Motion Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4002

Adding Tracks to the Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4007

Importing Clips to the Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4011

Working with Clips in the Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4015

Filtering Mixer Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4018

Adjusting Clip Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4023

Working with Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4026

Adjusting Track Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4032

Adding Time Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4034

Adjusting Biped Balance in the Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . 4038

Exporting Animation to the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4043

Using the Reservoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4047

xxiv | Contents

Motion Mixer Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4051

Motion Mixer Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4052

Motion Mixer Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4061

Motion Mixer Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4080

Trackgroup Filter Dialog (Biped Object) . . . . . . . . . . 4086

Trackgroup Filter Dialog (Non-Biped Object) . . . . . . . 4088

Motion Mixer Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4090

Reservoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4095

Mixer Preferences Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4099

Mixer Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4102

Saving and Loading Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4103

Load Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4107

Map Animation Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4110

Motion Mapping Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 4112

Map Track to Track Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4115

Retargeting Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4117

Save Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4122

Merge Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4126

Animation Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4134

Follow/Bank Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4134

Motion Capture Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4137

MACUtilities Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4156

Camera Tracker Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4158

Requirements for Camera Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . 4163

Camera Tracker: Movie Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4163

Camera Tracker: Movie Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4165

Camera Tracker: Motion Trackers Rollout . . . . . . . . . 4168

Camera Tracker: Movie Stepper Rollout . . . . . . . . . . 4173

Camera Tracker: Error Thresholds Rollout . . . . . . . . . 4175

Camera Tracker: Batch Track Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . 4176

Camera Tracker: Position Data Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 4179

Camera Tracker: Match Move Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 4180

Camera Tracker: Move Smoothing Rollout . . . . . . . . 4183

Camera Tracker: Object Pinning Rollout . . . . . . . . . . 4185

Camera Tracker: Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4189

Dynamics Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4190

Edit Object Dialog (Dynamics Utility) . . . . . . . . . . . 4205

Edit Object List Dialog (Dynamics Utility) . . . . . . . . . 4211

Skin Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4213

Chapter 14 reactor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4219

Introducing Dynamics Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4227

Special Features in reactor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4235

reactor Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4246

Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4248

Rigid Body Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4249

Contents | xxv

Rigid Body Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4249

Compound Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4259

Rigid Body Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4261

Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4264

Constraint Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4265

Simple Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4268

Cooperative Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4281

reactor Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4337

Plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4338

Motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4339

Toy Car . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4342

Fracture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4349

Fracture Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4356

Storing and Accessing Collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4358

Deformable Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4363

Cloth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4364

Cloth Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4365

Cloth Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4372

Soft Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4374

Soft Body Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4375

FFD Soft Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4381

Soft Body Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4384

Rope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4386

Rope Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4387

Rope Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4392

Deforming Meshes (Skin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4394

Deforming Mesh Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4396

Constraining Deformable Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4398

Fixing Vertices in World Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4401

Keyframing Vertices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4402

Attaching Vertices to a Rigid Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4404

Attaching Vertices to Deforming Meshes (Skin) . . . . . . 4406

Soft Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4408

Water Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4411

Water Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4412

Rendering Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4415

Wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4416

The reactor Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4420

Preview & Animation Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4422

Havok 1 World / Havok 3 World Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . 4424

Collisions Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4427

Display Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4430

reactor Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4432

Properties Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4435

The Real-Time Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4436

Scripts and Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4440

xxvi | Contents

Frequently Asked Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4447

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4452

Chapter 15 character studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4465

What Is character studio? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4466

What You Should Know to Use character studio . . . . . . . . . . . . 4467

Understanding Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4468

Understanding Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4470

Understanding Track Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4473

Understanding the Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4475

Understanding Motion Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4476

Understanding Crowds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4478

Understanding character studio Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4480

Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4487

Creating a Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4490

Understanding Biped Anatomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4492

Changing Initial Biped Anatomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4494

Naming the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4494

Posing the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4496

Scaling Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4505

Rubber-Banding Arms and Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4507

Biped Display Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4510

Deleting a Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4510

Linking Character Body Parts to the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . 4511

Saving and Loading FIG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4513

Footstep Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4515

Creating Footsteps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4522

Editing Footstep Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4537

Footstep and Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4564

Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4571

Creating Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4575

Freeform and IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4598

Editing Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4618

Working with Biped Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4631

Working with Euler Curves on Biped Animation . . . . . 4631

Working with XRef Bipeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4635

Loading, Saving, and Displaying Biped Motion . . . . . . . . . 4636

Working with Biped Motion Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4636

Loading and Saving BIP Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . 4638

Importing and Exporting Animation Data . . . . . . . . . 4640

Motion Mapping: Retargeting Biped Motion . . . . . . . 4640

Merging and Cloning a Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4642

Combining BIP Motions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4645

Loading and Saving STP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4646

Using Motion-Capture Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4647

Correcting Posture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4648

Contents | xxvii

Copying and Pasting Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4649

Repositioning the Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4651

Previewing Biped Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4654

In Place Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4656

Trajectory Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4657

Display Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4659

Biped User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4661

Motion Panel (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4662

Center of Mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4663

Motion Panel Rollouts (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4666

Track View (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4801

Biped Color-coded Keys and Trajectories . . . . . . . . . 4806

Biped Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4811

Working with the Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4816

Navigating the Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4818

Selecting Workbench Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4821

Analyzing Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4822

Fixing Curves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4823

Workbench User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4823

Working with Motion Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4848

Placing Motions on the Motion Flow Graph . . . . . . . 4850

Creating Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4853

Creating a Motion Flow Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4858

Saving, Loading, and Appending Motion Flow

Graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4861

Customizing Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4865

Creating Random Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4868

Unifying Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4873

Sharing Motion Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4876

Setting Up Paths for Motion Flow Files . . . . . . . . . . 4883

Motion Flow Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4886

Working with Motion-Capture Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4916

Importing Motion-Capture Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4918

Filtering Motion-Capture and Marker Data . . . . . . . . 4919

Sliding Footsteps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4923

Prop Bone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4924

Motion Capture Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4925

Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4944

Using Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4946

Creating a Skin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4946

Using Physique with a Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4956

Using Physique with 3ds Max Bones . . . . . . . . . . . . 4958

Using Physique with 3ds Max Objects . . . . . . . . . . . 4963

Applying and Initializing Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . 4966

Previewing Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4968

Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4970

xxviii | Contents

Bulges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4990

Tendons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4995

Saving and Loading Physique Data . . . . . . . . . . . . 4997

Reinitializing Physique Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4998

Working with an Initial Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5000

Improving Interactive Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . 5001

Scaling a Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5002

Facial Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5003

Combining Physique with Other Modifiers . . . . . . . . 5010

Physique and Free-Form Deformations (FFDs) . . . . . . . 5011

Physique User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5013

Physique Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5013

Physique Level of Detail Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5018

Floating Bones Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5021

Physique Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5022

Physique Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5023

Physique Sub-Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5059

Crowd Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5104

Creating a Crowd System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5105

Creating Crowd Helpers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5110

Adjusting Delegate Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5115

Assigning Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5115

Directing Delegates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5120

Obstacle Avoidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5123

Changing Delegate Orientation and Speed . . . . . . . . . . . 5128

Solving the Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5129

Linking Objects to Delegates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5131

Cognitive Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5133

Using Motion Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5136

Biped Crowds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5136

Non-Biped Crowds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5148

Crowd Animation User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5152

Crowd Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5153

Delegate Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5154

Crowd Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5162

Vector Field Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5258

Motion Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5268

character studio File Formats and Index of character studio

Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5299

character studio File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5299

Index of character studio Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5300

Chapter 16 Lights and Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5313

Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5314

Name and Color Rollout (Lights) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5317

Using Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5318

Contents | xxix

Working with Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5319

Properties of Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5322

Lighting in 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5328

Guidelines for Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5330

Positioning Light Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5334

Previewing Shadows and Other Lighting in

Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5335

Animating Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5339

Light Include/Exclude Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5341

Light Lister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5343

Photometric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5348

Target Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5351

Free Light (Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5354

Rollouts for Photometric Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5355

Standard Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5398

Target Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5399

Free Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5402

Target Directional Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5405

Free Directional Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5407

Omni Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5410

Skylight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5412

mr Area Omni Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5418

mr Area Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5421

Rollouts for Standard Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5424

Common Lighting Rollouts and Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5445

Exclude/Include Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5445

Shadow Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5448

Atmospheres and Effects for Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . 5453

Add Atmosphere or Effect Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5455

Advanced Effects Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5457

mental ray Indirect Illumination Rollout (for Lights) . . . 5461

mental ray Light Shader Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5464

Shadow Types and Shadow Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5466

Advanced Ray-Traced Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . 5468

Area Shadows Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5472

Optimizations Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5479

mental ray Shadow Map Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5482

Ray-Traced Shadow Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . 5484

Shadow Map Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5486

Sunlight and Daylight Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5491

Daylight System Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5500

IES Sun and Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5505

mental ray Sun & Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5513

Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5545

Free Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5554

Target Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5556

xxx | Contents

Using Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5558

Characteristics of Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5558

Exposure Control in Real-World Cameras . . . . . . . . . 5561

Common Camera Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5570

Using Transforms to Aim a Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . 5581

Using Clipping Planes to Exclude Geometry . . . . . . . 5582

Using the Horizon to Match Perspective . . . . . . . . . . 5583

Animating Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5585

Multi-Pass Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5587

Depth of Field Parameter (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . 5589

Multi-Pass Depth of Field Parameters for Cameras . . . . 5590

Multi-Pass Motion Blur Parameters for Cameras . . . . . . 5594

Walkthrough Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5599

Camera Correction Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5607

Camera Match Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5609

CamPoint Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5615

Chapter 17 Material Editor, Materials, and Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5619

Designing Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5620

Sample Slots and Material Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5621

Choosing a Material Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5623

Lights and Shading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5625

Applying a Material to an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5626

Using Maps to Enhance a Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5627

Mapping Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5636

Saving a Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5638

Material XML Exporter Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5638

Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5641

Copying and Pasting: Right-Click Menu for Materials, Maps,

Bitmaps, and Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5647

Sample Slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5650

Sample Slot Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5654

Dragging and Dropping Maps and Materials . . . . . . . 5657

Drag and Drop Sub-Object Material Assignment . . . . . 5659

Creating a Custom Sample Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5660

Material Editor Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5663

Material Editor Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5666

Reflectance and Transmittance Display . . . . . . . . . . 5669

Sample Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5673

Propagate Materials to Instances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5674

Backlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5674

Sample Slot Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5675

Sample UV Tiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5676

Video Color Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5678

Make Preview, Play Preview, Save Preview . . . . . . . . . 5679

Material Editor Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5681

Contents | xxxi

Select By Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5686

Get Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5687

Put Material to Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5689

Assign Material to Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5690

Reset Map/Mtl to Default Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5691

Make Material Copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5692

Make Unique (Material Editor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5692

Put to Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5694

Material ID Channel Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5694

Show Standard/Hardware Map in Viewport . . . . . . . . 5696

Show End Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5701

Go to Parent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5702

Go Forward to Sibling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5702

Material/Map Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5703

Pick Material From Object (Eyedropper) . . . . . . . . . 5705

Name Field (Materials and Maps) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5706

Type Button (Materials and Maps) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5706

Animating Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5707

Creating and Playing Animated Material Previews . . . . 5708

Synchronizing an Animated Bitmap with the Scene . . . 5709

Material Editor Subdialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5710

Copy (Instance) Map Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5710

Copy or Swap Colors Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5711

Create Material Preview Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5711

Duplicate Name Dialog (Material Library) . . . . . . . . . 5713

Merge Dialog (Material Library) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5715

Merge Material Library Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5716

Put to Library Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5717

Render Map Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5718

Replace Map Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5721

Replace Material Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5721

Update Scene Materials Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5722

Material/Map Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5724

Material Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5734

Scene (Upper) Panel (Material Explorer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5736

Menu Bar (Material Explorer Scene Panel) . . . . . . . . . 5740

Toolbar (Material Explorer Scene Panel) . . . . . . . . . . 5743

Display Buttons (Material Explorer Scene Panel) . . . . . 5745

Columns (Material Explorer Scene Panel) . . . . . . . . . 5747

Material (Lower) Panel (Material Explorer) . . . . . . . . . . . . 5751

Menu Bar (Material Explorer Material Panel) . . . . . . . 5753

Columns (Material Explorer Material Panel) . . . . . . . . 5755

Types of Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5758

SuperSampling Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5759

mental ray Connection Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5763

DirectX Manager Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5771

xxxii | Contents

mental ray Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5772

ProMaterials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5772

Arch & Design Material (mental ray) . . . . . . . . . . . . 5858

Special-Purpose mental ray Materials . . . . . . . . . . . 5921

Standard Material and Related Materials (Not

Photometric) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5960

Shading Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5960

Standard Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5962

Raytrace Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6064

Matte/Shadow Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6099

Compound Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6106

Ink 'n Paint Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6132

Photometric Materials (Non-mental ray) . . . . . . . . . . . . 6148

Architectural Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6148

Advanced Lighting Override Material . . . . . . . . . . . 6166

Materials to Support Hardware Shading and Rendering to

Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6174

Shell Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6174

DirectX Shader Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6175

XRef Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6183

Maps and Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6185

Real-World Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6188

Output Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6192

Missing Map Coordinates Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6198

UVW Remove Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6200

2D Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6200

Coordinates Rollout (2D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6201

Noise Rollout (2D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6211

Bitmap 2D Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6213

Checker Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6227

Combustion Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6229

Gradient Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6253

Gradient Ramp Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6258

Swirl Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6266

Tiles Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6269

3D Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6278

Coordinates Rollout (3D) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6278

Cellular Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6279

Dent Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6286

Falloff Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6294

Marble Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6300

Noise Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6303

Particle Age Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6306

Particle MBlur Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6308

Perlin Marble Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6310

Smoke Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6313

Contents | xxxiii

Speckle Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6315

Splat Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6316

Stucco Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6318

Waves Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6320

Wood Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6322

Compositor Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6331

Composite Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6331

Mask Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6338

Mix Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6339

RGB Multiply Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6343

Color Modifier Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6345

Color Correction Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6346

Output Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6351

RGB Tint Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6354

Vertex Color Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6355

Reflection and Refraction Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6358

Flat Mirror Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6358

Raytrace Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6364

Reflect/Refract Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6375

Thin Wall Refraction Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6382

mental ray Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6385

mental images Shader Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6388

Shaders in the LumeTools Collection . . . . . . . . . . . 6391

Connect Parameter to Shader Dialog (mental ray) . . . . 6392

3ds Max Custom Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6393

Production Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6434

Normal Bump Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6450

Camera Map Per Pixel Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6452

Material, Mapping, and Vertex Color Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6455

Viewport Canvas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6455

Object Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6464

Render Surface Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6466

Bitmap Select Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6475

Assign Vertex Colors Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6477

Channel Info Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6486

Clean MultiMaterial Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6492

Instance Duplicate Maps Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6497

Chapter 18 Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6505

Render Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6506

Rendered Frame Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6513

mental ray Rendering Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6524

Render Output File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6529

View Image File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6535

Rendering Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6538

Render Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6539

xxxiv | Contents

Area to Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6542

Render Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6547

Render Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6548

Render Iterative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6548

ActiveShade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6549

Rendering with ActiveShade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6550

ActiveShade Floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6556

ActiveShade Viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6557

ActiveShade Commands (Quad Menu) . . . . . . . . . . 6558

Preset Rendering Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6561

Render Last . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6564

Print Size Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6564

Common Panel (Render Setup Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6568

Common Parameters Rollout (Render Setup Dialog) . . . . . . 6568

Configure Preset Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6577

Email Notifications Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6578

Scripts Rollout (Render Setup Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6580

Assign Renderer Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6582

Choose Renderer Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6584

Renderers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6585

Renderer Panel (Render Setup Dialog) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6585

Default Scanline Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6588

Default Scanline Renderer Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6589

Advanced Lighting Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6600

Raytracer Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6666

Using Multi-Pass Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . 6672

mental ray Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6675

Rendering with the mental ray Renderer . . . . . . . . . 6678

Getting Good Results with mental ray Rendering . . . . . 6680

3ds Max Materials in mental ray Renderings . . . . . . . 6683

Enhancements to Standard Features . . . . . . . . . . . . 6686

mental ray Messages Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6689

mental ray Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6690

mental ray Renderer Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6730

VUE File Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6805

Rendering Elements Separately . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6806

Render Elements Panel and Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6807

Render Elements Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6818

Render Element Output File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6819

Individual Render Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6824

Blend Element Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6824

Diffuse Texture Element Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6825

Hair And Fur Render Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6825

Illuminance HDR Data Element Parameters Rollout . . . . 6826

Lighting Texture Element Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6827

Luminance HDR Data Element Parameters Rollout . . . . 6828

Contents | xxxv

Matte Texture Element Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6829

mr A&D Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6830

mr Labeled Element Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . 6835

mr Shader Element Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . 6837

Object ID Element Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6839

Velocity Element Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 6840

Z Depth Element Parameters Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . 6842

Render to Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6843

Baked Texture Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6848

Target Map Slot Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6855

Creating and Using Normal Bump Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6856

Troubleshooting Normal Bump Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6858

Render to Texture Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6869

Render to Texture: General Settings Rollout . . . . . . . . 6871

Render to Texture: Objects to Bake Rollout . . . . . . . . 6872

Render to Texture: Output Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6878

Render to Texture: Baked Material Rollout . . . . . . . . . 6882

Render to Texture: Automatic Mapping Rollout . . . . . . 6885

Render to Texture: Add Texture Elements Dialog . . . . . 6887

Render to Texture: Projection Options Dialog . . . . . . . 6888

Rendering Previews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6894

Make Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6894

View Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6897

Rename Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6897

Panorama Exporter Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6898

Panorama Exporter Render Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6900

Panorama Exporter Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6903

Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6905

How Network Rendering Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6907

Basic Procedures for Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6909

Starting Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6922

Troubleshooting Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6927

System Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6933

Checking Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6933

Setting Up for Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6935

Setting Up TCP/IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6935

Configuring TCP/IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6938

Creating a Special User Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6944

Setting Up Rendering Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6946

Setting Up Directories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6947

Sharing a Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6949

Mounting a Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6950

Using Configure User Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6951

Network Job Assignment Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6953

Job Dependencies Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6963

Notifications Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6965

xxxvi | Contents

Strips Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6967

Advanced Settings Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6970

Manager and Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6974

Initial Setup for Manager and Server Programs . . . . . . 6974

Installing Network Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6976

Logging Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6978

The backburner.xml File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6981

Network Rendering Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6982

Network Rendering Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6989

The Queue Monitor Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6995

Module Info Report Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7006

Queue Monitor: Job Settings Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . 7008

Viewing Jobs and Servers with the Queue Monitor . . . . 7013

Job Report Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7014

Job Archives Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7016

Activating and Deactivating Jobs in the Queue . . . . . . 7017

Activating and Deactivating Servers in the Queue . . . . . 7018

Managing Jobs in the Queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7019

Week Schedule Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7020

Batch Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7021

Quick Start Batch Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7022

Using Backburner for Batch Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7023

Batch Rendering: Batch Render Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7026

Batch Render Tool: Batch Render Warning Dialog . . . . . . . . 7033

Command-Line Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7035

Command-Line Rendering Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7039

Backburner Command Line Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7052

Chapter 19 Effects and Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7055

Environment and Effects Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7056

Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7057

Rendering Effects Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7058

Effects Panel and Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7058

Merging Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7060

Hair And Fur Render Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7061

Lens Effects Rendering Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7068

Glow Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7073

Ring Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7080

Ray Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7090

Auto Secondary Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7097

Manual Secondary Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7105

Star Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7112

Streak Lens Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7119

Lens Effects Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7126

Blur Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7141

Brightness and Contrast Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . 7149

Contents | xxxvii

Color Balance Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7151

File Output Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7152

Film Grain Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7155

Motion Blur Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7157

Depth of Field Rendering Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7159

Environment and Atmosphere Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7162

Environment Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7163

Fire Environment Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7171

Fog Environment Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7182

Volume Fog Environment Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7188

Volume Light Environment Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7196

Exposure Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7207

Automatic Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7210

Linear Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7212

Logarithmic Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7215

mr Photographic Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . 7219

Pseudo Color Exposure Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7228

Lighting Data Exporter Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7234

Atmospheric Apparatuses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7236

Add Atmosphere Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7236

BoxGizmo Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7237

CylGizmo Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7240

SphereGizmo Helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7243

Chapter 20 Video Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7247

Video Post Queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7248

Video Post Status Bar / View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7250

Troubleshooting Video Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7252

Useful Video Post Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7255

Video Post Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7271

New Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7271

Open Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7272

Save Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7273

Edit Current Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7273

Delete Current Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7274

Swap Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7275

Execute Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7276

Configure Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7278

Edit Range Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7279

Align Selected Left . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7280

Align Selected Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7281

Make Selected Same Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7281

Abut Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7282

Add Scene Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7282

Add Image Input Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7288

Image Input Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7292

xxxviii | Contents

Add Image Filter Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7295

Add Image Layer Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7298

Add Image Output Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7302

Add External Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7305

Add Loop Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7308

Filter Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7311

Contrast Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7311

Fade Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7312

Image Alpha Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7313

Lens Effects Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7314

Animating Lens Effects Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7315

Lens Effects Flare Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7316

Lens Effects Focus Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7339

Lens Effects Glow Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7343

Lens Effects Highlight Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7354

Lens Effects Gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7370

Negative Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7377

Pseudo Alpha Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7379

Simple Wipe Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7379

Starfield Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7381

Layer Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7385

Alpha Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7385

Cross Fade Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7385

Pseudo Alpha Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7386

Simple Additive Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7387

Simple Wipe Compositor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7388

Chapter 21 Managing Scenes and Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7391

Container . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7395

Container Workflows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7397

Working With Containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7415

Container Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7423

Container Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7428

File-Handling Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7431

New . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7432

Reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7433

Open . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7434

Open from Vault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7438

Save . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7440

Save As . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7441

Save Copy As . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7443

Save Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7444

Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7445

Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7446

External References (XRefs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7447

Missing XRef Paths Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7449

Contents | xxxix

XRef Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7450

XRef Objects Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7456

XRef Record List Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . 7466

XRef Entities List Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . 7469

XRef Merge Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7471

XRef Object Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7474

Proxy Object Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7475

XRef Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7477

XRef Scenes Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7485

File Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7491

Working with Drawing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7492

File Link Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7495

Interpreting Layer Data from AutoCAD, AutoCAD

Architecture, and Revit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7500

Scale Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7501

Working with AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, and Revit

Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7501

Instanced Objects, Elements, Blocks, and Styles . . . . . . 7526

File Link Manager Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7538

File Link Settings Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7549

Basic File Link Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7549

Advanced File Link Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7553

Spline Rendering File Link Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . 7561

New Settings Preset Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7564

Rename Settings Preset Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7566

Preset Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7567

Differences Between Layers and Blocks in AutoCAD and

3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7568

Select Layers Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7568

Resolve External Reference File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . 7569

Select Linked Objects Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7571

Merge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7572

Merge File Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7577

Replace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7578

Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7581

Export Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7583

Set Project Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7583

Asset Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7585

Asset Tracking Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7586

Global Settings and Defaults for Bitmap Proxies

Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7601

Prompts Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7604

Asset Tracking Dialog Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7605

Summary Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7607

File Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7609

Exit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7612

xl | Contents

Missing External Files Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7612

File-Handling Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7614

Asset Browser Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7614

Preferences Dialog (Asset Browser) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7625

Internet Download Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7626

Favorite Location Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7628

Bitmap/Photometric Path Editor Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7629

Bitmap / Photometric Path Editor Dialog . . . . . . . . . 7630

Resource Information Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7633

MAX File Finder Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7634

Resource Collector Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7637

Fix Ambient Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7639

Bitmap Pager Statistics Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7642

Internet Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7643

i-drop Indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7644

Geometry File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7645

Importing Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7645

Working with MAX Files from Autodesk VIZ . . . . . . . . . . 7647

VIZ Render (DRF) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7650

Working with DRF Files in 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . 7653

3D Studio Mesh (3DS, PRJ) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7655

Importing 3DS Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7655

Importing PRJ Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7657

Exporting to 3DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7659

Importing SHP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7660

Adobe Illustrator Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7661

Importing Adobe Illustrator 88 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . 7662

Exporting to Adobe Illustrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7662

Exporting to ASCII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7663

AutoCAD (DWG) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7665

Importing AutoCAD Drawing Files . . . . . . . . . . . . 7666

DWG/DXF Import: Geometry Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . 7670

DWG/DXF Import: Layers Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7680

DWG/DXF Import: Spline Rendering Panel . . . . . . . . 7682

Legacy AutoCAD Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7685

Exporting AutoCAD DWG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7690

AutoCAD Interchange (DXF) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7693

Importing DXF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7693

Exporting to DXF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7694

Importing Autodesk Inventor Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7695

Exporting 3D DWF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7700

FBX Files: Data Sharing with Maya, MotionBuilder, Revit,

Softimage, and Toxik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7706

OpenFlight (FLT) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7707

Importing OpenFlight (FLT) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7712

Exporting OpenFlight (FLT) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7714

Contents | xli

Flight Studio Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7716

IGES Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7727

Overview of IGES in 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7727

IGES Log Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7729

Importing IGES Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7730

IGES to 3ds Max Import Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7732

Exporting IGES Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7734

3ds Max to IGES Export Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7736

JSR-184 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7737

JSR-184 Object Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7741

JSR-184 Texture Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7746

JSR-184 Log Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7747

JSR-184 Standalone Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7749

LandXML (XML, DEM) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7752

Importing LandXML/DEM Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7752

LandXML/DEM Model Import Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . 7753

Lightscape Files (LP, LS, and Other Formats) . . . . . . . . . . . 7756

Lightscape Materials Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7759

Motion Analysis Files (HTR/HTR2, TRC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7762

Importing HTR/HTR2 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7762

Importing TRC Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7765

Exporting HTR/HTR2 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7766

Exporting to Shockwave 3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7769

Shockwave 3D Scene Export Options Dialog . . . . . . . 7770

Shockwave 3D Export Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7777

Shockwave 3D File Analysis Window . . . . . . . . . . . 7779

Stereolithography (STL) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7781

Importing STL Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7781

Exporting to STL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7784

Wavefront (OBJ) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7785

Exporting Wavefront Object (OBJ) Files . . . . . . . . . . 7786

Importing Wavefront Object (OBJ) Files . . . . . . . . . . 7789

Map-Export Dialog (OBJ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7796

VRML Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7798

Importing VRML Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7798

Exporting to VRML97 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7800

Image File Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7831

AVI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7832

BMP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7834

CIN (Kodak Cineon) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7834

CWS (Combustion Workspace) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7835

DDS Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7836

EPS and PS (Encapsulated PostScript) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . 7839

GIF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7841

IFL Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7841

Image File List Control Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7844

xlii | Contents

IFL Manager Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7845

IMSQ Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7847

JPEG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7848

MOV (QuickTime Movie) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7849

MPEG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7850

OpenEXR Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7850

Saving OpenEXR Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7852

Opening OpenEXR Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7857

PIC Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7861

PNG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7862

PSD Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7863

Radiance Image Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7866

RLA Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7873

RPF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7875

RGB (SGI Image) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7877

TGA (Targa) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7878

TIFF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7880

YUV Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7882

RAM Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7882

RAM Player Configuration Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7886

Scene Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7888

Using Scene Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7891

Scene Explorer Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7896

Scene Explorer Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7900

Scene Explorer Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7904

Manage Scene Explorer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7908

Advanced Search Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7909

Advanced Filter Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7912

Scene States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7915

Manage Scene States Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7917

Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7922

Using Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7926

Schematic View Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7930

Schematic View List Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7934

Schematic View Preferences Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7936

Schematic View Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7942

Schematic View Display Floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7946

Schematic View Selection Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . 7949

Schematic View Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7952

New Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7952

Delete Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7952

Saved Schematic Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7953

Using Layers to Organize a Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7953

Layer Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7956

Layer Properties Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7966

Layer List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7974

Contents | xliii

Create New Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7975

Add Selection to Current Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7976

Select Objects in Current Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7976

Set Current Layer to Selection's Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7976

Chapter 22 Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7977

List of Available Utilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7977

Chapter 23 User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7981

Additional Keyboard Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7982

Toggling Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7983

Starting 3ds Max from the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7985

Caption Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7988

Application Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7989

Quick Access Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7995

InfoCenter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7997

Menu Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7998

Edit Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7999

Tools Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8001

Containers Submenu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8003

Align Submenu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8003

Grids and Snaps Submenu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8004

Group Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8005

Views Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8006

Create Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8008

Modifiers Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8016

Animation Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8023

Graph Editors Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8027

Rendering Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8028

Customize Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8029

MAXScript Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8031

Help Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8032

Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8034

Main Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8035

Axis Constraints Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8039

Layers Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8040

reactor Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8041

Extras Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8041

Render Shortcuts Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8042

Snaps Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8043

Animation Layers Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8044

Container Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8044

Brush Presets Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8044

Brush Preset Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8047

Right-Click Menu for Scripted Toolbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . 8051

xliv | Contents

Quad Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8052

Additional Quad Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8057

Animation Quad Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8058

Snaps Shortcut Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8062

Tools 1 Quadrant for Light Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8063

Status Bar Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8064

Prompt Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8065

MAXScript Mini Listener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8065

Status Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8068

Time Slider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8068

Track Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8071

Selection Lock Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8079

Coordinate Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8081

Adaptive Degradation Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8083

Grid Setting Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8084

Time Tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8084

Add Time Tag Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8085

Edit Time Tag Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8087

Animation and Time Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8089

Auto Key Animation Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8090

Set Key Animation Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8093

Default In/Out Tangents For New Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8098

Go To Start . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8101

Previous Frame/Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8101

Play/Stop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8102

Next Frame/Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8104

Go To End . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8104

Current Frame (Go To Frame) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8104

Key Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8105

Time Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8106

Viewport Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8113

Viewport Label Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8117

General Viewport Label Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8117

Point-Of-View (POV) Viewport Label Menu . . . . . . . . 8122

Shading Viewport Label Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8130

Viewport Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8135

Controls Available in All Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . 8138

Walkthrough Controls for Perspective and Camera

Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8139

Perspective and Orthographic Viewport Controls . . . . . 8141

Camera Viewport Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8154

Light Viewport Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8165

Command Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8181

Object Name and Wireframe Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8182

Create Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8182

Modify Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8184

Contents | xlv

Modifier Stack Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8187

Modifier Stack Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8200

Make Unique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8206

Modifier Sets Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8209

Configure Modifier Sets Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8210

Hierarchy Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8213

Motion Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8215

Assign Controller Rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8216

Display Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8217

Display Floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8218

Utilities Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8223

Utilities Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8225

Configure Button Sets Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8225

MAXScript Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8228

New Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8228

Open Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8228

Run Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8229

MAXScript Listener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8229

Macro Recorder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8230

Visual MAXScript Utility (See MAXScript Help) . . . . . . . . . 8231

MAXScript Debugger Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8231

Running Scripts from the Command Line . . . . . . . . . . . . 8232

Chapter 24 Customizing the User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8235

Useful Customization Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8235

Customize Display Right-Click Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8239

Show UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8241

Lock UI Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8242

Plug-In Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8242

Custom UI and Defaults Switcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8244

Market-Specific Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8246

COM/DCOM Server Control Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8248

Customize User Interface Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8249

Keyboard Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8250

Toolbars Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8252

Edit Button Appearance Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8258

Quads Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8259

Advanced Quad Menu Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8264

Menus Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8269

Colors Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8272

Saving and Loading Custom User Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8276

Load Custom UI Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8279

Save Custom UI Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8280

Revert to Startup Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8283

Configure Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8283

Configure User Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8284

xlvi | Contents

File I/O Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8287

External Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8289

XRefs Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8292

Configure System Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8293

System Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8294

3rd Party Plug-Ins Path Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . 8296

Network Plug-In Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8297

Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8298

General Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8299

File Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8305

Viewport Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8308

Graphics Driver Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8313

Gamma and LUT Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8330

Gamma Pipeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8341

Rendering Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8342

Animation Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8346

MIDI Time Slider Control Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . 8350

Inverse Kinematics Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8352

Gizmos Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8354

MAXScript Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8358

Radiosity Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8362

mental ray Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8363

Units Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8366

System Unit Setup Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8370

File Load: Units Mismatch Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8372

Viewport Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8374

Rendering Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8374

Viewport Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8379

Safe Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8380

Adaptive Degradation Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8384

Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8388

Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8390

Lighting and Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8392

ViewCube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8400

SteeringWheels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8402

Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8405

Defining Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8407

Reviewing and Editing Strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8412

Stroke Preferences Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8414

Strokes Utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8417

Chapter 25 Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8419

Keyboard Shortcut Override Toggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8420

Chapter 26 Find the Information You Need . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8421

Contents | xlvii

Search For and Receive Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8421

Overview of Searching for and Receiving Information . . . . . 8421

Search for Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8425

Receive Product Updates and Announcements . . . . . . . . . 8427

Overview of Communication Center . . . . . . . . . . . 8427

Receive New Information Notifications . . . . . . . . . . 8429

Save and Access Favorite Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8429

Specify InfoCenter Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8430

Learn the Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8435

Access Subscription Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8437

Overview of Subscription Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8437

Manage Files with Autodesk Vault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8438

Join the Customer Involvement Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8440

Chapter 27 Using the 3ds Max Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8441

Finding Information Fast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8442

Using the HTML Help Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8444

Searching for Help Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8446

Browsing Help Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8451

Favorites Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8452

HTML Help Viewer Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8452

HTML Help Viewer Right-Click Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8454

Keyboard Shortcuts in the Help Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8454

Chapter 28 Troubleshooting 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8459

Handling File Corruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8459

Fixing Boolean Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8463

Performance Issues While Running 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8473

Problems Caused by Unit Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8477

User Interface Problems and Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8479

Video Driver and Display Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8486

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8493

2-Sided (Double Sided) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8493

2D Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8494

3D DWF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8494

3D Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8494

3DS and PRJ Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8494

Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8495

Active Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8495

Active Time Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8496

Active/Inactive Footsteps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8496

ActiveShade Initialize and Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8497

Adapt Locks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8498

xlviii | Contents

Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8498

Adaptive Degradation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8498

Additive Opacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8499

Adjust Talent Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8501

Affine Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8501

Airborne Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8501

Aliasing/Antialiasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8501

Alpha Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8502

Ambient Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8504

Ambient Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8504

Animated Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8505

Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8505

Animation Controllers/Transform Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8506

Animation Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8507

Applied IK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8507

Area Lights (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8507

Area Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8510

Aspect Ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8511

Attachments (IK) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8513

Attenuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8513

AutoGrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8514

Avoid Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8515

Avoidance Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8515

Axonometric View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8515

B-Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8516

Balance Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8516

Balance Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8517

Ballistic Gait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8517

Ballistic Tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8517

Barycentric Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8517

Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8518

Bend Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8518

Bezier Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8519

BioVision Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8520

BIP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8520

Biped . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8521

Biped Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8521

Birth Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8521

Bitmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8523

Blend Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8524

Block Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8524

Block/Style Parent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8525

Blur/Blur Offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8525

Body Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8527

Boolean Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8527

Bound Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8528

Contents | xlix

Bounding Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8528

Bulge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8529

Bulge Angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8529

BVH Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8530

By Layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8530

Center of Mass (COM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8530

CGFX File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8530

Chamfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8531

character studio Marker Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8531

CIBSE Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8532

Clip Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8532

Clipping Planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8532

Codec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8533

Cognitive Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8534

Composite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8534

Compound Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8535

Constrained Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8535

Contact Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8536

Container . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8536

Containers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8537

Continuity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8537

Continuity Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8537

Control Lattice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8538

Control Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8539

Control Vertex (CV) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8539

Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8540

Convex Hull Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8540

Cool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8541

Coordinate Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8541

CPY Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8542

Creation Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8542

Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8542

Crowd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8542

Crowd System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8543

CSM Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8543

Curve View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8543

CV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8543

CV Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8544

CV Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8545

Deformable Envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8546

Deformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8547

Deformation Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8547

Degree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8549

Delegates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8549

Dependent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8549

Dependent (NURBS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8550

l | Contents

Depot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8550

Description Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8551

Diagonal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8551

Diffuse Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8552

Dithering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8553

Dock and Float . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8555

Double Support Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8555

Dummy Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8555

DWG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8556

DXF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8556

Dynaflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8557

Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8557

Dynamics Blend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8557

Ease Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8558

Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8559

Editable Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8559

Editable Poly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8559

Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8559

Emitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8560

End Effector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8560

Envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8561

Environment Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8561

Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8564

Event Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8566

Event Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8567

Extents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8567

Face/Polygon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8568

Faceted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8568

FFD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8569

FGM File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8569

Field of View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8569

Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8570

Figure Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8572

Fillet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8572

Filter Color / Filter Opacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8573

Filtering (Antialiasing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8574

Filtering (Character Animation) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8575

Final Gathering (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8576

First Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8578

Flat Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8579

Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8581

Fluorescence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8581

Flyout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8582

Follow Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8583

Foot States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8583

Footstep Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8584

Contents | li

Footsteps Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8584

Forward Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8585

Forward Kinematics (Bipeds) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8585

Frame/Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8585

Freeform Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8586

Freeform Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8586

Freeze/Unfreeze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8587

Function Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8588

Fusing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8588

FX File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8589

G-Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8589

Gait Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8591

Gait Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8591

Gamma Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8592

Geometric Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8593

Gizmo/Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8593

Global Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8594

Global Motion Clip Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8596

Glossiness and Specular Level Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8596

GravAccel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8597

Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8597

Grid Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8597

Head Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8598

Helper Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8599

Hide/Unhide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8599

Hierarchical Linkage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8599

Home Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8600

Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8602

Hot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8603

Hotspot/Falloff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8604

IGES (Initial Graphics Exchange Specification) . . . . . . . . . . . . 8605

IK Blend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8605

IK Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8605

IK Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8606

Illuminance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8606

Image Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8606

In Place Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8608

Independent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8609

Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8609

Initial Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8609

Initialize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8609

Inputs: Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8610

Instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8611

Instance (Motion Mixer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8611

Interactive Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8612

Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8612

lii | Contents

Inverse Kinematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8612

Inverse Kinematics (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8613

Iso Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8613

Isometric View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8614

Keyframe Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8615

Keyframes/Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8616

Kinematic Chain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8616

Knot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8617

Launch Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8617

Layer Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8617

Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8617

Layout Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8618

Lift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8618

Light Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8618

Linked Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8620

Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8620

Listener Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8620

Local Container . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8620

Local Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8621

Local Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8623

Lofting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8623

Log File (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8624

Look At Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8624

LTLI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8625

Luminance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8625

Luminous Flux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8625

Luminous Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8625

LZF Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8625

LZG Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8626

LZH Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8626

LZO Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8626

LZV Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8626

Map Channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8627

Mapped Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8628

Mapping Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8628

Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8631

Marker Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8631

Marker Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8632

Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8632

Master Motion Clip Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8632

Match Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8632

Material ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8633

Material/Map Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8634

Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8635

Matte Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8636

MAX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8638

Contents | liii

MAXScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8638

Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8638

Metaballs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8638

MFE Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8639

MI Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8639

Mirroring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8639

Mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8639

MIX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8640

Mixdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8640

MNM Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8640

Modal/Modeless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8641

Modifier Stack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8641

Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8643

Morphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8643

Motion Blending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8644

Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8644

Motion Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8646

Motion Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8646

Motion Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8646

Motion Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8647

Motion Flow Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8647

Motion Flow Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8647

Motion Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8647

Motion Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8648

MSP (MAXScript Package) Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8649

Multiplicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8649

Multiplier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8649

Multiplier Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8651

N Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8651

Network Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8651

Network Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8652

Network Rendering Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8653

Newton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8653

Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8653

Normal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8654

NTSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8654

NURBS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8655

NURBS Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8655

NURBS Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8656

NURBS Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8656

NURMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8656

Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8657

Object Instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8657

Object Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8658

Object Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8659

Object Space (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8661

liv | Contents

Obstacle-Avoidance Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8661

Object-Space Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8661

Omnidirectional Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8661

Omniflector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8663

Opacity Falloff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8663

Operand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8665

Operator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8665

Operator Icon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8665

Optical Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8666

Orientation Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8667

Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8667

Orthographic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8668

Out-of-Range Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8670

Outputs: Source / Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8671

Overshoot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8672

PAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8674

Parameter Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8674

Parameters Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8674

Parameter/Parametric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8675

Parent Particle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8676

Particle Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8677

Particle Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8678

Particle System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8678

Particle System (Particle Flow) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8678

PASS File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8678

Patch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8679

Patch-Based Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8679

Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8679

Path Follow Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8681

Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8681

Perspective View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8681

Phases of Leg Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8683

Photometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8683

Photon Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8684

PHY Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8685

Physique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8685

Pivot Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8686

Pixel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8687

Plant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8687

Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8687

PMAP File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8687

Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8688

Point Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8688

Point Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8689

Poses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8689

Positional Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8689

Contents | lv

Posture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8690

Precedence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8690

Premultiplied Alpha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8690

Procedural Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8691

Projector Light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8693

ProMaterials Library for mental ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8694

Prop Bone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8694

Quadtree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8694

Queue Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8695

Radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8695

Radiosity Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8695

Ray-Trace Acceleration (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8696

Ray-Traced Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8696

RAYHOSTS File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8697

Real Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8697

Recognize Scene-Loading Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8698

Red, Green, Blue / Hue, Saturation, Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8698

Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8699

Reference Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8700

Refine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8700

Reinitialize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8700

Repel Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8700

Reservoir . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8701

Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8701

Reveal Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8701

Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8701

Rotoscoping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8702

Rubber-Band Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8702

RVT Link . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8703

Safe Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8703

Sample Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8704

Sampling (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8705

Scale Stride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8709

Scanline Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8709

Scene Extents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8710

Scene Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8710

Schematic View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8712

Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8712

Script Editor Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8712

Scripted Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8713

Scripted Utility Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8713

Scripts (Motion Flow) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8713

Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8713

Seed Value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8713

Seek Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8714

Segment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8714

lvi | Contents

Self-Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8714

Shaders (mental ray Renderer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8716

Shaders (Standard Materials) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8716

Shadow Bias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8718

Shadow Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8719

Shapes and Splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8720

SHP Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8723

Skylight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8723

Sliding Footstep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8724

Smoothing Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8724

SMPTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8725

Source Container . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8725

Space Warp Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8726

Space Warps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8727

Spawn Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8727

Specular Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8728

Speed Vary Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8728

Splice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8729

Spline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8729

Spline Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8730

Startup Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8730

SteeringWheels Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8731

Sub-Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8732

Sub-Object Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8733

Subtractive Opacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8733

Sunlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8734

Super Black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8735

Supersampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8735

Support Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8736

Surface Arrive Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8736

Surface Follow Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8736

Synthesis, Synthesize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8736

Talent Figure Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8736

Tangents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8737

TCB (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8737

TCB (Tension, Continuity, Bias) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8738

Tendons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8738

Tension, Continuity, Bias (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8739

Terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8739

Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8741

Texel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8741

Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8741

Ticks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8741

Tile/Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8742

Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8743

Topology-Dependent Modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8744

Contents | lvii

Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8744

Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8744

Track View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8745

Trackgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8745

Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8745

Trajectory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8746

Trajectory (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8748

Transform Gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8748

Transforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8750

Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8750

Transition Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8751

Translucency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8751

Truecolor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8752

Twist Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8752

Unique Container . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8752

Universal Naming Convention (UNC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8753

UVW Coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8754

Vector Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8755

Vector Field Space Warp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8755

Vectors and Vector Handles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8755

Velocity Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8757

Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8757

ViewCube Navigation System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8757

Viewport (Interactive) Renderer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8757

VIZBlock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8758

VPX Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8758

VUE File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8758

Walking Gait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8761

Walkthrough Assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8761

Wall Repel Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8762

Wall Seek Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8762

Wander Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8762

Weight Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8762

Wire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8763

Wireframe Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8765

Wireframe Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8766

Workbench . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8767

Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8768

World Coordinate System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8768

World Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8769

World Space (Biped) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8770

World-Space Modifiers (WSM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8770

xref (AutoCAD External Reference) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8770

XRef (3ds Max Externally Referenced File) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8771

XSML File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8771

ZT File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8771

lviii | Contents

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8773

Contents | lix

lx

Introduction

1

Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 is a 3D modeling, animation, and rendering solution for design
visualization, games, film, and television.

Home Remodeling Series: Plumbing

Tim Wilbers, University of Dayton

Copyright © 2008

1

Big Diamonds

Jeff Patton

Copyright © 2008

www.jeffpatton.net

2 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Airport Lounge

Stephen Jager, JCJ Architecture

Copyright © 2008

www.jcj.com

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010

Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 is more powerful and easier to use, thanks to a wealth
of new tools and a redesign to place often-used commands at your fingertips.
File functions such as Open and Save are available at the click of a button on
the new Caption bar, and the remaining controls are more clearly organized
on the Application menu. The Graphite Modeling Tools set combines familiar
features with a host of new ones in a dynamic, innovative “ribbon” interface.
The third generation of Review technology offers viewport support for ambient
occlusion, High Dynamic Range Image (HDRI)-based lighting, soft shadows,
and more. For descriptions of these and other new features, consult the
remainder of this topic.

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | 3

NOTE This topic lists all significant new features, but does not include every change
in 3ds Max. As you proceed through the documentation, keep an eye out for the

icon, which indicates a new feature.

You can also use the index in this help to find topics that contain information
about new features. 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:

General Improvements

■ Viewport Improvements With hardware support, you can now preview

soft-edged shadows, ambient occlusion, and exposure control in viewports,
saving rendering time. For details, see Previewing Shadows and Other

Lighting in Viewports on page 5335 and Lighting and Shadows on page 8392.

Hardware-shaded viewport with shadows and Ambient Occlusion

■ The viewport label menus on page 8117 have been reorganized to improve

ease of use, and offer quicker access to more display options.

■ Appearance The 3ds Max window has been updated for ease of use. See

Caption Bar on page 7988 for a description of the most visible menu and

toolbar changes.

4 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Application button and Quick Access toolbar

Also, many graphic buttons have been redesigned for greater clarity. These
changes are reflected throughout the help.

Modeling

■ Graphite Modeling Tools on page 2025 combines a wealth of new

polygon-modeling features on page 2026, including freeform sculpting and

powerful loop-modeling tools, with the tried and true toolset in a dynamic,
configurable new “ribbon” interface.

Graphite Modeling Tools ribbon

■ The new ProOptimizer modifier on page 1614 provides a convenient way to

improve your models’ polygon count. With the Batch ProOptimizer utility
on page 2768, you can use the same controls to optimize multiple scenes all
at once. Support for optimization of explicit normals has been enhanced
in this release.

■ ProBoolean on page 801 offers two new operations: Attach, which simply

combines objects without affecting their geometry, and Insert, which
subtracts one shape from another while leaving both operands in place.
Also, the new Quadify Mesh modifier on page 1641 lets you apply the
quadrilateral tessellation feature from ProBoolean to any object, making
it easier to obtain nicely rounded edges with MeshSmooth.

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | 5

Left: Original object

Right: After applying Quadify Mesh and MeshSmooth modifiers

■ Transform Toolbox on page 936 contains functions for easy object rotation,

scaling, and positioning as well as for moving object pivots.

Transform Toolbox

■ xView on page 2873 analyzes mesh models, flags various potential problems

and errors, and displays the results in the viewports both graphically and
as text. Tests include isolated and overlapping vertices, open edges, various
UVW statistics, and more.

6 | Chapter 1 Introduction

xView menu

Scene and Project Management

■ The addition of the Containers on page 7395 toolset facilitates collaboration

and flexible workflows by giving you the ability to collect multiple objects
into a single organizing device when dealing with complex scenes. You
can place related objects, such as sections of a city, in a container and treat
them as a single element. Opening the container exposes the content,
while closing the container externalizes the data. Containers can be
temporarily unloaded from the scene, toggling data in and out as needed
to manage complexity. Such workflows can save memory, increase viewport
performance and decrease load and save times. You can also grant or
withhold editing privileges for containers, so that a scene aggregator won’t
necessarily be able to alter the contents.

■ Expanded support for the OBJ file format on page 7789 facilitates importing

and exporting 3D model data between Autodesk Mudbox and Autodesk
3ds Max 2010 as well as other 3D applications. You can now see whether
an OBJ file contains texture coordinates and smoothing groups. Also new
are options for triangulating polygons on import, choosing how normals

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | 7

are imported, and for saving presets for normal and polygon import for
future use.

■ The AutoCAD 2010 on page 7692 option for exporting DWG files includes

support for the new MESH object type as implemented in Autocad 2010
for Subdivision Surfaces workflows. This object type removes size limitations
and provides tools within AutoCAD to convert as true ACIS Solid entities.

■ The Scene Explorer on page 7888 interface has been rearranged and updated

for ease of use, and new features have been added. For instance, you can
now switch Explorer columns and change Advanced Search terms on the

fly. To see all the changes, browse the Scene Explorer topics for the
icon.

8 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Scene Explorer interface

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | 9

■ Enhanced Autodesk FBX

®

software data-translation fidelity improves
interoperability between 3ds Max and other Autodesk products such as
Autodesk MotionBuilder®, Autodesk Toxik® and Autodesk Maya® software.

Materials and Mapping

■ A new Material Explorer interface on page 5734 makes it easier for you to

browse and manage the materials in your scene.

10 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Material Explorer interface

■ Viewport Canvas on page 6455 provides tools for painting onto an object’s

texture directly in the viewport. It turns the active viewport into a

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | 11

two-dimensional canvas that you can use to paint on and then apply the
result to the object’s texture.

Viewport Canvas interface

■ Render Surface Map on page 6466 provides tools for creating bitmaps

automatically based on an object’s UVW mapping. The generated bitmaps
display surface properties of the object, including concavity/convexity
(dirt map), mesh density, facing direction (dust map), and object thickness.
There’s also a Bitmap Select function for selecting sub-objects based on
mapping attributes.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 is the first 3D package to integrate the powerful

mental mill technology from mental images. With mental mill (installed
separately), you can design, test, and maintain hardware-agnostic shaders

12 | Chapter 1 Introduction

and complex shader graphs for hardware and software rendering with
real-time visual feedback.

■ New tools on the Edit UVWs dialog on page 1856 of the Unwrap UVW

modifier significantly ease the tasks of selecting loops and rings of texture
sub-objects as well as aligning them, stitching clusters, and more.

■ New mental ray shaders are Multi/Sub-Map on page 6414, with which you

can vary the surface appearance of multiple objects assigned the same
material, and Object Color on page 6418, which lets you incorporate an
object’s wireframe color into its material.

Multi/Sub-Map randomly varies the stains on the seats in a stadium model.

■ The DirectX Shader material on page 6175 now supports shaders in MetaSL

format, the shader language that is used when you create new shaders
using the mental mill® product from mental images®.
Also, now mapped components of a DirectX Shader material can use

Radiance Image (HDR) files on page 7866 and Photoshop (PSD) files on page

7863 as maps.

Rendering

■ The Rendered Frame Window on page 6513 (Reveal) interface has been

redesigned for Autodesk 3ds Max 2010. When rendering with mental ray,
the Render button and Production/Iterative switch now appear on the
lower panel with the rest of the mental ray-specific controls; otherwise,

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | 13

they remain in their former location on the upper panel. Also, the lower
panel has been streamlined for greater ease of use. Most important, new
global-tuning sliders let you temporarily override the precision of
reflections, refractions, and soft shadows for faster or higher-quality
rendering. The latter controls are also available on the Render Setup dialog
> new Global Tuning Parameters rollout on page 6731.

■ The Photon Map and Final Gather Map controls have been enhanced and

are now available on their own Reuse rollout on page 6778. New on this
rollout are controls for reducing flickering in animations that use final
gathering.

■ Another new setting for reducing flickering in animations that use final

gathering, specific to those with a moving viewpoint, is Project Points

from Positions Along Camera Path on page 6764.

■ When rendering with mental ray, final gathering on page 6760 now provides

a fast progressive-feedback display so you can get an idea of the overall
scene lighting more quickly. This feature is automatic whenever Final
Gather is enabled.

■ Improved bitmap paging allows you to render larger images than previous

versions would support. In Autodesk 3ds Max 2010, bitmap paging is
always active, and is managed automatically.
A new Page File system path allows you to assign the area used for bitmap
paging. If you are creating large renderings and have a dedicated,
high-performance disk you can use for caching, this option can greatly
improve render time. See System Paths on page 8294.

■ Changes to how 3ds Max handles gamma correction on page 8330 improve

its ease of use. The new topic Gamma Pipeline on page 8341 gives additional
information on using this feature, especially with the mental ray renderer.

Animation

■ PFlowAdvanced, a collection of new Particle Flow tools, makes it easier to

organize particles, place them precisely in the scene, customize the system,
and more. For details, see What's New in Particle Flow on page 2998.

14 | Chapter 1 Introduction

New features in Particle Flow

PFlowAdvanced also includes the new PFlowElements library with at least
100 samples created by an industry-leading effects artist. You’ll find them
on the Sample Files DVD included with Autodesk 3ds Max 2010.

■ You can now lock animation tracks on page 3826 and animation layers on

page 3467 to prevent inadvertent changes.

■ The Link constraint on page 3580 has been enhanced so that assigning a link

target creates a key that you can manipulate on the track bar and in Track
View.

■ ProSound on page 3835 is a real-time, multitrack audio solution for 3ds Max

that includes full support for and integration with Track View. Features
include up to 100 independent audio tracks and PCM audio in both AVI
and WAV files with up to six output channels.

Hair Improvements

A new spline deformation option on page 1090 lets you control hair shape by
matching the hair to a spline object.

What's New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | 15

A spline (at the left) used to deform Hair

Cloth Improvements

Enhancements to the Cloth and Garment Maker modifiers enable a range of
new effects:

■ A new Inherit Velocity toggle makes it easier to create Cloth animations

one portion at a time. When this toggle is on, a simulation can begin where
the previous one ended. See Cloth Properties on page 1225.

■ A closed volume of cloth can now behave as if it were filled with gas. You

can control the pressure within the volume. See Pressure group on page

1233.

■ You can now tear cloth. The interface provides a few different ways to set

up cloth tearing. See Tearing Cloth on page 1207.

■ New group-level on page 1249 functions let you shrink and grow vertex

selections, select rings and loops of vertices, and select all vertices in an
element.

Character-Animation Improvements

The new Knuckles on page 4768 feature allows you to create detailed, more
subtle hand animation.

16 | Chapter 1 Introduction

A standard biped hand. This setup doesn’t allow for finely
detailed hand animation.

A biped hand with Knuckles turned on. The hand has a small
base and individual bones for all its digits, allowing for detailed
animation.

3ds Max Documentation Set

The documentation set for 3ds Max® comprises online material only. Most
documents are available from the Start menu > Programs > Autodesk >

3ds Max Documentation Set | 17

[program folder] > Help folder, as well as from the Help menu within 3ds Max
or the Additional Help dialog.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 Installation

Guide: Contains complete installation, configuration, and troubleshooting
instructions, including system requirements. Also includes information
on uninstalling and maintaining 3ds Max, as well as descriptions of the
full install documentation set. View the Installation Guide in the Installation
Wizard.

NOTE The complete installation documentation set is found on your install
DVD in the \Docs folder at the root of the DVD. If you are deploying 3ds Max
over a network, refer to the Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 and Autodesk 3ds Max
Design 2010 Network Administrator’s Guide instead of the Installation Guide.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 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 2010 Installation Wizard.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 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 > Autodesk 3ds Max Help.

■ Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 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 scene files required to do the tutorials are installed by default.

■ MAXScript Help: Describes the MAXScript scripting language on page 21.

Check out the “Learning MAXScript” chapter there if you're new to
MAXScript.
Access the MAXScript Help by choosing Help > MAXScript Help.

■ Additional mental ray

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. You’ll also find PDF files documentating various
mental ray shader libraries.

18 | Chapter 1 Introduction

®

Help Files: Documentation from mental images

®

NOTE The Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 Help documents most 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 Additional Help as well as from
the Start menu location described in the introduction of this topic. The
two documents related to Autodesk Backburner are called:

■ Backburner Installation Guide

■ Backburner User’s Guide

NOTE For information on installing Autodesk Backburner, see the Autodesk
3ds Max 2010 and Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2010 Installation Guide.

■ FBX Plug-in Help: Access the FBX Plug-in Help from the Additional Help

menu. You can also click the ? (Help) button on the FBX Importer/Exporter
dialog.
The FBX plug-in changes often, with the result that Autodesk updates it
more frequently than it does this program. Be sure to check regularly for
updated versions by clicking the Web Updates button on the dialog.

How to Print from the Online Help

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 opens.

3ds Max Documentation Set | 19

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.

20 | Chapter 1 Introduction

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.

With MAXScript, you have 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.

About MAXScript | 21

For detailed information about Visual MAXScript, open the MAXScript Help,
available from Help menu > MAXScript Help.

See also:

■ MAXScript Menu on page 8031

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
Help, available from Help menu > MAXScript Help.

Copyrights and Trademarks

Autodesk® 3ds® Max 2010 Software

©

2009 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by
Autodesk, Inc., this publication, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in
any form, by any method, for any purpose.

Certain materials included in this publication are reprinted with the permission
of the copyright holder.

The following are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in
the USA and other countries: 3DEC (design/logo), 3December, 3December.com,
3ds Max, ADI, Alias, Alias (swirl design/logo), AliasStudio, Alias|Wavefront
(design/logo), ATC, AUGI, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Learning Assistance, AutoCAD
LT, AutoCAD Simulator, AutoCAD SQL Extension, AutoCAD SQL Interface,
Autodesk, Autodesk Envision, Autodesk Insight, Autodesk Intent, Autodesk
Inventor, Autodesk Map, Autodesk MapGuide, Autodesk Streamline, AutoLISP,
AutoSnap, AutoSketch, AutoTrack, Backdraft, Built with ObjectARX (logo),
Burn, Buzzsaw, CAiCE, Can You Imagine, Character Studio, Cinestream, Civil
3D, Cleaner, Cleaner Central, ClearScale, Colour Warper, Combustion,

22 | Chapter 1 Introduction

Communication Specification, Constructware, Content Explorer,
Create>what's>Next> (design/logo), Dancing Baby (image), DesignCenter,
Design Doctor, Designer's Toolkit, DesignKids, DesignProf, DesignServer,
DesignStudio, Design|Studio (design/logo), Design Web Format, Discreet,
DWF, DWG, DWG (logo), DWG Extreme, DWG TrueConvert, DWG TrueView,
DXF, Ecotect, Exposure, Extending the Design Team, Face Robot, FBX, Filmbox,
Fire, Flame, Flint, FMDesktop, Freewheel, Frost, GDX Driver, Gmax, Green
Building Studio, Heads-up Design, Heidi, HumanIK, IDEA Server, i-drop,
ImageModeler, iMOUT, Incinerator, Inferno, Inventor, Inventor LT, Kaydara,
Kaydara (design/logo), Kynapse, Kynogon, LandXplorer, LocationLogic, Lustre,
Matchmover, Maya, Mechanical Desktop, Moonbox, MotionBuilder,
Movimento, Mudbox, NavisWorks, ObjectARX, ObjectDBX, Open Reality,
Opticore, Opticore Opus, PolarSnap, PortfolioWall, Powered with Autodesk
Technology, Productstream, ProjectPoint, ProMaterials, RasterDWG, Reactor,
RealDWG, Real-time Roto, REALVIZ, Recognize, Render Queue, Retimer,Reveal,
Revit, Showcase, ShowMotion, SketchBook, Smoke, Softimage, Softimage|XSI
(design/logo), SteeringWheels, Stitcher, Stone, StudioTools, Topobase, Toxik,
TrustedDWG, ViewCube, Visual, Visual Construction, Visual Drainage, Visual
Landscape, Visual Survey, Visual Toolbox, Visual LISP, Voice Reality, Volo,
Vtour, Wire, Wiretap, WiretapCentral, XSI, and XSI (design/logo).

Trademarks

The following are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk Canada
Co. in the USA and/or Canada and other countries: Backburner, Multi-Master
Editing, River, and Sparks.

The following are registered trademarks or trademarks of Moldflow Corp. in
the USA and/or other countries: Moldflow MPA, MPA (design/logo), Moldflow
Plastics Advisers, MPI, MPI (design/logo), Moldflow Plastics Insight, MPX,
MPX (design/logo), Moldflow Plastics Xpert.

clothfx™ is a trademark of Size8 Software, Inc. Havok.com™ is a trademark or
registered trademark of Havok.com Inc. or its licensors. Intel is a registered
trademark of Intel Corporation. mental ray is a registered trademark of mental
images GmbH licensed for use by Autodesk, Inc. All other brand names,
product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Disclaimer

THIS PUBLICATION AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS MADE
AVAILABLE BY AUTODESK, INC. "AS IS." AUTODESK, INC. DISCLAIMS ALL
WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED

Copyrights and Trademarks | 23

TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE REGARDING THESE MATERIALS.

24 | Chapter 1 Introduction

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.

25

See also:

■ Working with AutoCAD, AutoCAD Architecture, and Revit Files on page 7501

■ Quad Menu on page 8052

■ Customize Display Right-Click Menu on page 8239

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 7985.

26 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

NOTE 3ds Max is a single-document application, meaning you can work on only
one scene at a time. You can run 3ds Max several times and open a different scene
in each instance, but doing so requires a lot of RAM. For best performance, open
only one instance and work on one scene at a time.

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 33. Also, you can learn a good deal
about modeling from the tutorials available from Help menu > Tutorials.

Project Workflow | 27

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 5641. Tutorials
especially helpful for learning about materials include "Overview of Creating
a Scene: Still Life" and "Using Materials."

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 6615 provides incredibly accurate light simulation
in renderings. See Lights on page 5314. You can learn more about lighting by
following the Introduction to Lighting tutorial.

28 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

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 5545.

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 40 and from most of the tutorials.

Project Workflow | 29

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 3790 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.

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 41. The tutorials can help you learn about rendering.

30 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

When you use the default scanline renderer, a radiosity solution on page 6615
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 6706.

If your workstation is part of a network, network rendering can distribute
rendering jobs over multiple workstations. See Network Rendering on page

6905.

With Video Post on page 7247, 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 32

Modeling Objects on page 33

Using Materials on page 34

Placing Lights and Cameras on page 36

Animating Your Scene on page 40

Project Workflow | 31

Rendering Your Scene on page 41

Setting Up Your Scene

You start with a new unnamed scene when you open 3ds Max. You can also
start a new scene at any time by choosing New or Reset from the Application

menu on page 7989.

Choosing a Unit Display

You choose a system of unit display on the Units Setup dialog on page 8366.
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 7572.

■ Use XRef objects on page 7450 or XRef scenes on page 7477.

Setting the System Unit

The System Unit setting, in the Units Setup dialog on page 8366, 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 2833. You can change grid spacing at any time.

See Precision and Drawing Aids on page 2781 for information about the system
unit, unit display, and grid spacing.

32 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

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 8374
to change viewport layout and display properties.

See Viewing and Navigating 3D Space on page 65 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 61.

Modeling Objects

You model objects in your scene by creating standard objects, such as 3D
geometry and 2D shapes, and then applying modifiers to those objects. 3ds
Max includes a wide range of standard objects and modifiers.

1. Modify panel

2. Create panel

3. Object categories

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

Modeling Objects | 33

parameters. 3ds Max 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. 3ds Max 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 358.

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 171, Moving, Rotating, and Scaling Objects on
page 885, and Precision and Drawing Aids on page 2781.

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 358.

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.

34 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

A variety of materials in the Material Editor's sample slots

Room on left uses the a neutral, gray material.

Room on right uses a realistic materials, including transparent glass and a snowfall..

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 Materials | 35

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.

3ds Max also includes a raytrace material and map for creating accurate
reflections and refraction.

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 5620.

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.

36 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

Lights and cameras placed to compose a scene

Placing Lights and Cameras | 37

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.

3ds Max 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 5330.

38 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max

Photometric Lights

Photometric lights on page 5348 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 5376, CIBSE on page 8532, LTLI on page 8625) 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 6615, 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 5491 combines sunlight on page 8734 and skylight
on page 8723 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 7215.

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 150 found on the Views
menu. Just adjust your Perspective viewport until you like it, and then choose

Placing Lights and Cameras | 39

Views > Create Camera From View. 3ds Max creates a camera and replaces the
Perspective viewport with a Camera viewport showing the same perspective.

See Common Camera Parameters on page 5570.

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

3ds Max 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 8068. You can also open the Time Configuration dialog on page

8106 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, 3ds Max creates an animation key on page
8616 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. 3ds Max calculates the values for all of the frames in between.

See Animation Concepts and Methods on page 3368.

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.

See Track View on page 3790.

40 | Chapter 2 Getting Started with 3ds Max