OMG! I really like Rawalanche’s proposal for the caddies!!!
Please, please Autodesk hire him to do the interface of Max 2014. I am sure he’ll do a better job than all of Autodesk’s UI designers together.

I hate the caddies in their current state with passion! What “designer” came up with the “bright” idea of adding a dead space between the buttons and putting the modes in a group?? And why circular buttons? Which element of Max they match? All other buttons are square buttons ala Windows 98.

Please Autodesk, if you can’t design better caddies bring back the old Windows 98 style dialog boxes. They might not be a design masterpiece but at least they worked better and faster!!!

A fair amount of doublethink in this thread. I dont care either way about caddies since i want the developers to spend their time on more important issues. If that is being a “fanboy” i dont know what to call those who year after year fight against the caddie windmills. :-)

3ds Max 8 - 3ds Max Design 2013
i7 2600K 3,4GHZ
8 GB DDR3
GTX 560Ti

Many have suggested that Autodesk are trying to develop a more standardized interface between products. I can see from a business perspective how this makes perfect sense to suits at AD. I’m sure they would love to grow their markets by selling every user of Autocad and Solidworks a seat of Max which they didn’t really need. And it would be attractive for Autodesk marketing to be able to say: “you’re already familiar with the UI--it’s just like the software you’re currently using everyday.”

One of the issues with that is that each software package has a lineage and long history behind it. Users whom have used the software for decades and whom are accustomed to the UI and every peculiarity and nuance of a program. There are hoards of resources which too, are based on this long lineage: scripts, books, tutorials, custom tools, plugins, etc. Furthermore, the Max UI is a long evolution of tried and true. It’s tailored to what the software does and what it’s users expect from it. There is no one universal UI scheme which will work across several types of complicated software.

If there is one “universal” ui scheme, you would think it would be the familiar windows controls: standard dialogs. Why Autodesk decided to reinvent the wheel for the caddies is curious. They had the wheel, spent resources and replaced it with a hexagon.

Beyond having some new UI shoved down our throats, what’s really worrisome to me is the thought that it’s going to be NOT ONLY NEW BUT AWFUL. Caddies are an absolute atrocity of design. They notion that something so terrible and poorly thought out could make it into release software is bewildering. The fact that it’s survived three releases now is even more astonishing.

I sincerely hope it’s not an indication of what’s to come. I think folks are up in arms about caddies for a couple reasons: a) they’re functionally awful b) this is the Alamo of terrible Max UI to come. This isn’t only a fight for caddies, but an attempt to be heard and to divert potential, farther reaching UI atrocities of the future.

I absolutely agree with Senorpablo.

I am not really sure why is Autodesk unifying the look across their different software products. Each of them is used for accomplishing a different task. If I were an architect I would like UI tailored to suit my drafting needs. How could such an interface suit an artist using multimedia creation software like Max or Maya? They should have their own interface tailored to the tasks needed in such an environment. The moment Max’es interface gets AutoCAD-like I’m switching and never looking back (I’m already on the verge of doing this).

Solution is on it’s way…

read more in the following post:

http://area.autodesk.com/forum/269079/

ooops - permalinks are broken on this forum ?

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Free Tools (Scriptspot):
PowerPreview:  Quality Previews from Nitrous Viewports - Download
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Recompiles for 2011,2012 and 2013 are here ( both x32 and x64 )
Please see the following thread and report any problems you might find there

http://area.autodesk.com/for...poly-modifier-recompiles/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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
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Home of The Frogs | Online Portfolio