I’ve been reading quite a bit in the forums lately and there is a lot of unrest with how 2011 looks and functions. Someone mentioned creating a thread specifically to post hacks and tweaks for Max. So, if you have a little mini tutorial or how-to advice, post it here. Anything from *.ini changes to UI appearance changes.

Dean

Max Design 2014 / Win 7 Pro
Xeon E5-2687W @ 3.10 GHz (x2); 64 GB Ram; Nvidea 4000 and GTX 570

(&%*%^£"£^"$

3Ds Max 2012+PU12+SAP / 2013+PU6, Vray 2.4, Photoshop CS6
OS - Windows 7 Pro x64 Sp1
sys1: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB 1600mhz DDR3 Ram, MSI GTX 580 (3GB) (314.22), OCZ agility 3 240GB SSD, Wacom Intuos 3
sys2: i7 2600k (OC to 4.2GHz), 16GB…

if people actually bothered to learn max more indepth, setup up some custom hotkeys, quad menus, toolbars, ribbon, got a few scripts together & actually bothered to look in the help manual. Its so customizable, the things i’ve seen/heard studios doing to max interface and the custom tools & scripts its amazing.

I believe that was the intended purpose of this thread, to help people learn how to cusomize Max to their individual liking. If everyone knew everything about Max, there would be no purpose for a forum such as this. Let’s not allow it to decend into arguments like some other threads have and make something useful and helpfull.
To start us off, Pixel Monkey’s method to get the old Material Browser Back:

Close 3ds Max, open the SME.ini in the plugcfg folder of your user settings. Set the following values:
ShowMtlBrowser=0
UseOldMtlBrowser=1

Script to alter viewport switching to the pre 1010 method.
Lots more hacks are out there, get searching.

To pin down the caddies and stop them moving enter

in the MaxScript listener.
To Make a preview in the old way, where you see it as it is created

Though that doesn’t work for me, I get an error about a codec, there must be a default set in an ini somewhere.

Samab 19 June 2010 10:08 AM

createPreview()

Though that doesn’t work for me, I get an error about a codec, there must be a default set in an ini somewhere.

Use the standard menuentry in “Tools/Grap Viewport/Create Animated Sequence File” and configure the codec + setting for your specific machine, try CreatePreview() afterwards. createPreview() uses the most recent settings, so maybe there’s something configured, your working machine is’nt quite happy with....

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free Tools (Scriptspot):
PowerPreview:  Quality Previews from Nitrous Viewports - Download
EditPolyNC: Caddieless Editable Poly/Edit Poly recompiles Download
PowerSwitcher: Enhanced Viewport Switching in 3ds Max - Download
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Home of The Frogs | Online Portfolio

It does work using the Grab Viewport from the Tools menu. I have it set there to make an AVI with the Lagarith 64bit codec, works fine. It’s just when I tried Createpreview() I got an error. I just assumed it must use some initial default setting for the codec that doesn’t work, like MOV. Still, it’s not that big a deal for me right now, just something I tried. I can get by with Grab Viewport, though I still have to think twice about where it is now, but again, easily customisable if I want to.

For those of you wanting to use 3D Connexion device but can’t…

Anna Hennequet posted this advice until they come out with a driver for 2011 later this summer.

Copy “3dxstd.dlu” to:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011\stdplugs

Copy “3DxStudio.ms” to:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011\Scripts\Startup

Copy “3DxStudio.chm” to:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2010\help

Max Design 2014 / Win 7 Pro
Xeon E5-2687W @ 3.10 GHz (x2); 64 GB Ram; Nvidea 4000 and GTX 570

This is probably the most useful thread so please refrain from posts other than suggesting a tweak. I’m going to show you how to revert to the old select menu and get material menu.

Select menu:

Find the currentdefaults.ini file in your documents and settings/*username*/local settings/application data/autodesk/3dsmax/2011/enu/defaults/MAX folder

Then find in it the lines:
“[Scene Explorer]
SelectByNameUsesSceneExplorer=1” and set the value to 0 (SelectByNameUsesSceneExplorer=0).

If it isn’t there add it. Put it after the DefaultMappingType=0 line.

Get material menu:

Find the SME.ini file in your documents and settings/*username*/local settings/application data/autodesk/3dsmax/2011/enu/plugcfg folder

Then find in it the lines:
“UseOldMtlBrowser=0” and set the value to 1 (UseOldMtlBrowser=1).

For Win7 users the folders are a little bit different. Go to users/*youruser*/appdata/local/autodesk and so on..

P.S. maybe the people who wrote things other than tweaks here should delete their posts to keep it clean. And surely this should be a sticky thread.

http://www.proviz.bg

I admit I didn’t read all the posts because I thought it was offtopic. Anyway thanks very much for making this sticky. I know there are a lot of other threads on the same topic, but I don’t feel they are organized well enough and cover all the available tweaks. I hope others can contribute to this one and make it as clean and useful as possible.

http://www.proviz.bg

I’m upgrading as we speak:

- rename (or delete) AutoCamMax.gup in the stdblugs dir to get rid of the silly cube thingie.
- dl brad noble’s previous/next keyframe script and assign it to hotkeys: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/go-to-nextprevious-framekey
- dl and install Jerry Ylilammi’s bercon maps: http://www.ylilammi.com/BerconMaps.shtml
- dl and install my quad primitives: http://area.autodesk.com/userdata/forum/1/1527_opGC312KbbD0H73mRz9o.zip

More as I find/remember them.

Now it’s on to the wonderful world of updating all the colors (especially in the script editor)

--
James Kelly
fo co mo so

Alright, I have seen this tweak up to 2009, but can’t find anything after.  Is there a tweak to create or enable tab-panel based toolbars like the older versions.  They had tabs like “Compound” “Helpers” “Modifiers” then when you clicked the tab entire icon based buttons would show up with the most common commands.  I really loved the simplicity of looking at the top, seeing a cone, clicking it and getting a cone.

I just installed this yesterday.  I have thought of creating custom toolbars, but wanted to see if a UI tweak was out there first.

Thanks in advance.
Randell Trulson

Sincerely,
Randell Trulson
http://www.NeuronGames.com