If you got used to hiding and unhiding objects, this option will definitely save you a lot of time. Unfortunately, it does not work for sub-object selections such as a group of polygons. This is a great feature for when you work with a scene or object consisting of many individual objects. Isolates the object you selected and hides all others. Don’t even think about using this unless you know your hotkeys. Z – Zooms in on the current selection CTRL-X – Toggle Expert mode For example, press the V key and then the K key for Bac k view. V – Open view shortcut menuĪllows you to pick a view from a list (using another key again of course). Viewport Hotkeys F – Switch to the Front viewport T – Switch to the Top viewport L – Switch to the Left viewport R – Switch to the Right viewport P – Switch to the Perspective viewport B – Switch to the Bottom viewport C – Switch to a Camera viewport CTRL-C – Create camera from viewportĬreates a new Camera, work only on Perspective viewports. The 7 key allows you to display a polygon counter in the upper left of the upper left viewport: move a vertex, than scale a polygons, chamfer a line, etc. These allows you to quickly change between the sub-object levels, e.g. 1 - Vertex 2 - Edge 3 - Border 4 - Polygon 5 - Element Instead of using the mouse button to select a sub-object level of an Editable Poly for example, you can press one of the following keys. This is another good example of a real timesaver. When you try to select a certain object and a different object remains selected, press the Spacebar key because you probably already hit it by accident and ‘locked your selection’. This key can be useful sometimes, but annoying more often. CTRL-A – Select all CTRL-D – Deselect all Spacebar – Selection Lock toggle When you need to attach or link objects for example, and there are many objects in the scene, selecting by name can make things a lot easier. This dialog shows a list with all visible objects in the scene. The following four keys are amongst the first I suggest you start using: Q – SelectĮnables the Select tool: W – Select and MoveĮnables the Select and Move tool: E – Select and RotateĮnables the Select and Rotate tool: R – Select and ScaleĮnables the Select and Scale tool: H – Select by Name This can become very annoying, but can easily be removed by pressing the J key. By default, 3D Studio MAX shows a selection bracket around each select object (unless the viewport is in Wireframe mode). The reason for using this key is similar to using the G key. The following two are usually the first two keys I press when starting with a default empty scene: G – Hide/Show Grid By pressing the F4 key, you can have the object display the edges of all faces, regardless of whether they are selected: Instead of right-clicking the viewport and choosing Smooth + Highlights to show the shaded object, you can simply press the F3 key to set a viewport to Smooth + Highlights as shown below, or back to Wireframe.Īs you can see in the picture above, when you switch to Smooth + Highlights, 3D Studio MAX will not show the edges of the faces. This can be very useful when you have complex models.į3– Toggle between Wireframe and Smooth + Highlightsīy default, a viewport in 3D Studio MAX will show objects as wireframes. When you press the F2 key you can toggle between the default setting and having only the edges turn red for select faces/polygons, as shown below. When you are in polygon sub-object level and select one or more polygons, they will be shaded entirely (red) by default, like this: F1 – Opens 3D Max Reference (Help)ĭepending on the feature you are currently working with, it may take you directly to the main help page regarding that feature. Click the Shapes button on the Command Panel, click the Rectangle button, and then draw a rectangle as shown in the picture below. We are going to start with modeling a single link from the chain. Let’s start with several of the main hotkeys you just can’t ignore: Step 1
#3ds max studio 8 display poly count free#
When you're modeling for example (moving, scaling, rotating, etc.), with one hand on the mouse, you will have your other hand free to press one of the hotkeys. Using hotkeys and the mouse efficiently can save you tons of time.Īt first you may need to spend some time looking up the hotkey, but once you memorize them through using them, they will allow you to produce results at least twice as fast. As you already know, or will certainly find out soon, creating 3D art is a time-consuming activity. Something that should be included in those basics, but is often left out, is using hotkeys. When you start out with 3D Studio MAX you will likely start with trying out different tools and features and the basics.