Making Max more like Maya

[Adam H. Stewart]

I have been doing Maya classes for about 6 months and there are some things I really like. I find that when I try to do character animation inside 3ds I miss them. I am sure there are ways to do the same things within Max but I just can't figure out how.

1. Freeze transforms : If you unfamiliar with Maya this re-sets all of an objects parameters to 0,0,0 for position and rotation (in World Space) and the scale to 1,1,1 This is essential for character work as when you get keys messed up and you have to reset all you need to do is go to 0,0,0 and your back to your set pose.
2. Transformaton input - the channels box is really nice - a docked panel in Maya where you have direct axis to XYZ transform, Rotation and scale.
The inputs in 3ds X,Y,Z in Max are hard to find and they only display one tranform at a time.
3. Zoom control - The zoom control in 3ds is Ctrl + Alt +RMB in Maya it is Alt+RMB - as I go from one program to the other constantly this small difference is driving me mad. I have looked in the keyboard shortcuts but can't find where you change this setting in 3ds.
4. Co-ordinate systems. I don't know about anybody else but the mutilple co-ordinate systems in 3ds confuse the hell out of me. I would be happy with just two systems World and Local - there are just too many sytems - I don't know of an easy way to calify which system the controller is using. Countless times I have animated an object using the screen Gizmo as a guide only to find that the track view XYZ is different. After 4 years this still gets me 80 % of the time.

These are small things that maybe with your combined experience you have learned to overcome or know of a script that will make my life easier.

Thanks as always

[Dynedain]

1) I'm not sure what you're asking for here? Rest X-form?

2) try right clicking on the rotate or move tool - you also get a transform type-in at the botoom of your screen

3) i think you mean middlemouse button not right, zoom viewport in and out are (in max7) hotkeyes to [ ] and ctrl= ctrl- you can check this in the keyboard tab of "customize user interface" I'm not sure if you can snag the mouse buttons though

4) when you are working with an object, it should list which coordinate system its using in the drop down?

[percydaman]

im sorry, but this doesn't seem vray related to me. Not disparaging your thread but its rather off-topic.

[Adam H. Stewart]

As always this is the place

As always this is the place for quick concise information about Vray or 3ds.
My question was an opener for anyone who might be using Maya and 3ds and find it frustrating going from one to the other.
As the future of Vray is going to include Maya I think my future in 3D is going to include more Maya ( the native renderer in Maya is so bad it is the main reason I don't use it more often) and there are some things about Maya I really like and would like to have in 3ds.
Software is only as good as it's community and Vray rocks

Thank You

[Trapezium]

Well, the middle roller button can function as zoom in both apps so maybe get used to it for either and voilà. Though MAX has the added functionality of the roller button + ctrl to multiply the zoom factor by like 10 or something.

I've only been using Maya for a week or so now and it's not really presenting any problem after using MAX for however many years. Just focus, focus, focus

--Jon

[jujubee]

ctrl+alt+ left-mouse button while moving it up and down seems to work for me...

[DaForce]

someone should really move this to Take 5/Off topic

[trixian]

Freeze transforms have been in max since v.6 I believe. Press alt + right click your bones. Its in one of the quad menus. As for the coordinate systems.....how can having more to chose from be a problem?

[Ruairi]

Re: Making Max more like Maya

if you alt+right click an object you have the option to set skin pose and assume skin pose on any object, which makes it pretty easy to get a character back to it's default pose at any stage. also iy you are in parent space, setting rotations back to 0,0,0 will reset it to default rotation on skeletal joints...

[natty]

Anything non vray related should be keeped here .. in the off topic section ..thanks.

[joconnell]

Heya adam - Here's a run down of the coordsys types:

View - X is always right, y i always up and z is in / out of the screen. The axis will always keep at right angles to the world grid

Screen - same as above except the axis will always keep at right angles to your screen - Good for organic modelling at sub object levels

World: duh - everything relative to the main grid - Axis align to it and the position, rotation and scale values are the difference between the object and the world grid

Local: allows you to offset an object using its local orientation - The local space is pretty much always 0,0,0 for everything - as I said, use this as an offset and nothing else.

Parent: Here's the one you really need for animation - In hierarchies it tells you how much of an offset there is between an object and it's parent - this is probably closer to what you know as local mode. if an object has no parent then it's automatically parented to the world so in this case parent is the same as world space.

Grid: You can make a custom grid in 3dsmax and use that as your reference for axis orientation.

Pick:Allows you to transform an object but using another objects axis alignment.

P.s. all of this is in the online help with diagrams under coordinate systems.
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The Zoom keyboard shortcut should be under the view category in keyboard section of customize > Customize ui

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The transform type in will change as you change between move, rotate and scale so if you use shortcuts for the three, the ttf will always reflect whatever transform tool you have selected

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Freeze transform works really well - I use it in my rigs all the time. If you want to solve a lot of the animation problems in max I'd get a copy of paul neales character rigging dvds from www.cg-academy.net - They cover a lot of the annoyances in seting up hierarchies in 3dsmax and will answer most of the things you've asked above.

[mike_kennedy]

Zeroing keys can be doen with a variety of tools. The Character tools has this, but you have to start early in your rigging process to use it.
Character Studio has this built in in the form of Figure mode. You have to delete your keys though....
I think there are some scripts for this as well