Hey guys

I guess my wish is so simple

Lately we’ve seen the ability of customizing the ribbons… which allows us to put shortcuts for your commands that’s your pick n modify panels n tabs ... so on
I felt it could be an option right now

But wait no, why still if i want to use the most powerful commands of modeling still i have to use the ribbons?

I wish that adsk implement those features as commands in edit poly modifier
(maybe the main issue is there’s no enough space) i was thinking about it, it could be take an enough space if they would use fly-out menus ... i mean it’s not so difficult to make such thing if they arrange the commands nicely :)

It just seems really stupid to me that we now have a Commad Panel and a Ribbon in the UI. How would you describe them both?
The command panel is a big fat toolbar on the side of the workspace that has a load of different tabs containing loads of diferent tools that we all use for everday Max work, creating, editing, animating etc…
The ribbon is a big fat toolbar on the top of the workspace that has a load of different tabs containing loads of different tools that we use for poly modeling… but nothing else.
So they are really just the same thing, a big fat multi-tabbed tool-laden toolbar. Only one of them has tools for nearly all Max functions, and the other only has tools for just one of Max’s many functions.
So why do we need them both eating screen space? Why not just on big fat toolbar that has it all? So you only see the graphite tools when you are in an Edit Poly modifier or have an Editable Poly object selected and are in the Modifier Tab of the big fat super-toolbar, which let’s face it, is the only time you are ever going to use them. Although you may intergrate the selection tools into the selection modifiers and those that use sub-object selections as appropriate. You can call it a Command Panel, call it a Ribbon, call it Weasel Catcher if you like, whatever I don’t care, just make it work. You can make it cusomisable like the ribbon, so people can throw away all the tools they never want to use to reduce clutter, re-group the ones they do use for convinience, and include ones they have added to Max like plugins and scripts to expand functionallity. And it can sit on the right like the command panel, or at the top like the ribbon if you prefer, or the bottom, or the top, or floating in a window, or even upside-down in a scrolling box from a drop-down fly-out on a mini-toolbar, just especially for all those among us that seem to enjoy wacky disfunctional but different UI changes(yes, I’m thinking of your needs too), then they can say “Yaay, my Weasel Catcher is upside-down in a scrolling box from a drop-down fly-out on a mini-toolbar, that’s sooo cool!”.
You know it makes sense… well maybe not that last bit.
It’s all so obvious, I shouldn’t need to write this.
And do sometihng about the caddies while you are at it.

we are almost having the same ideas…
i can’t understand why we are using ribbon...i guess it’s coming from cad softwares...but honestly we don’t need it…

+the command panel is just need a lil bit of redesign styles (not replacing it) n making things more nice
i guess they did a good job on 3ds max design (you can see the buttons of the command panel not those ugly bricks… n more nice colors there…

i wish 3ds max is just coming by default like this

if you look at the XBR videos you will understand a lot of things about where 3dsmax is going.
you have some nice suggestions and fair complains in some cases. although 2011 is one of the best releases ever, BY FAR. there are some truly awesome features in there and some early ones too.

mR is really fast, easier than ever to setup since 2008 actually.. viewport speed is up, i now can load scenes and subdivide to levels that previously i wouldn’t think about it, (i can even sculpt easily on my nvidia 265 on items of almost a million triangles) quicksilver is a very nice although early preview system and i can fill pages with nice things about this release :)

(there are problems ofc, just for me the good things overshadow mostly minor issues)

i find it very much stable not that i had many complains with previous versions that is.. it seems i am one of the few(?) that max starts normally doesn’t crash unless i run out of memory, and in general 2011 is the release tha made me happier than ever after so many years of using 3d studio.

my favourite releases ever, R1, 4.2, 9, 2011 and i think i see a pattern there and better things to come! :)

.:bugs bug me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U8H0GyTevg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDdMS1BWJic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxMnbEG75Y&feature=related

.:bugs bug me

I totally agree on disliking the ribbon; however, I do not understand why the links are posted to YouTube videos of Autodesk Inventor.  At my work, I have the option to do 3ds Max, Inventor, CAD, or Rhino; obviously, I have chosen 3ds Max; however, I do still use some of the for mentioned products on a limited scale to prototype & manufacture my companies products.  Ultimately I am saying this, the last thing we want is for 3ds Max to become rigid & stiff like some of the other softwares I mentioned; plus, you are talking about very different process for model creation: Poly, Nurbs, Solid Body. 

Basically what I am saying is this: the reason I chose & love working in 3ds Max is because I do not like rigidity the other software (Inventor) imposes.  It totally kills the creative process!  However, please keep in mind that Inventor has its place & is rigid for a reason, manufacturing.  Now, I’m by no means saying 3ds Max is perfect lately, but I can assure you that we do not want it to take the route of Inventor.

I too hate the ribbon, & I do not even think it belongs in AutoCAD or Inventor; it sucks all the way around - Including Microsoft.  Heck - I still use Office 2003 because to me it’s simpler & just plain works without causing me undo stress; however, I unfortunately do not have that option (to stay back several releases) when it comes to Max.  Basically the ribbon & the caddies suck, & the suck hard when it comes to 3ds Max.  Ultimately I love having some of the extra function, but I cannot stand the organization - give me functionality, but give it to me simply in a manner that works.  Use some foresight before just throwing stuff in the UI & telling me it smells like roses when it actually smells like $hit.

Sorry, I did not mean to get off on a tangent!  My ultimate point in this comment is that we do not want 3ds Max to go the route of Inventor - TRUST ME!

Chris Robinson
http://www.supercoonstudios.com (Under Development)
3ds Max 2011
Dell Precision 690, Intel Xeon Dual Quads @ 2.66 GHz, Dual NVIDIA Quadro FX4500s, 12 GB RAM, Windonws 7 x64

Max interface is one of it’s weakest points by far. It’s so old and user “unfriendly” that I could write a book on improvements for it. After using XSI and Cinema 4D interfaces, max feels like from stone age. Starting from speed, because it’s slow as hell, now with max 2011 buggy too, that every now and then ribbon corrupts itself. We can’t edit multiple objects at once, or slide multiple parameters together, or key them, or copy/paste them, or display them in the timeline alone or…

The ways to apply animation controllers to parameters is crap, I hope with a general node based approach this will be no longer the case, because right now if you want to apply a look at constraint to a UVW Map gizmo, we must do an ugly hack.

I would like to see multiple stacks at the same time, or divide the interface as I wish, and put slate in a viewport, or material editor. Moving certain windows or toolbars like curve editor or viewport canvas in windows 7 with aero on is so slow that looks like I’m using a 10 years old computer. The “funny” thing is that max only runs on windows and is the only one that have such problems.

So max interface needs massive improvements, actually a complete overhaul IMHO. And the best softwares to take a look at are XSI and Cinema 4D, and Autodesk now owns Softimage so there is no excuse for not taking the good things from it.

Regards,
Jr.

Without sinking into any sort of rant or complaining, I’d just like to add that I agree that the graphite tools featured in the Ribbon should also be available through the standard Edit Poly rollout in the command palette.  Users that like having the ribbon can choose to hide their command palette, and users that are used to and understand the command palette can use the tool they already know. 

Personally, I float my command palette and keep it on my second monitor, then I expand it to two columns, sometimes more.  I’ve just undocked my ribbon, and placed that next to my command palette.  It’s kind of silly, and more than anything highlights the redundancy, but at least it keeps that ribbon from slowing down and covering up my viewports.