Frequently Asked Questions

[Johnas]

Under work

I'll post FAQ's to this post. If you got something to add pm me or email

Edit here are first ones, thanks tommysullivan and multimediaman for the help

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Q: My transform gizmo isn’t visible when I’m using move/scale/rotate tool?

A: Press ‘X’ to get it back to visible

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Q: When I rotate my view, objects in scene goes to boxes?

A: Press ‘O’ to get it back to normal

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Q: My grid isn’t in the viewport, how can I get it back?

A: Press ‘G’ to activate the grid

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Q: When selecting faces/polies all i see is the outline of the poly, when i started it was all highlighted
A: Press 'F2' to activate the highlight

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Q: My objects are invisible in the scene how do I get them visible again?

A: Press ‘F3’ to get them solid

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Q: My objects are missing the wireframe. How do I get it to show again?

A: Press ‘F4’ to get it back

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Q: I am trying to select a line but max will not let me?
A: Make sure you don't have option 'By vertex' selected in Selection
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Q: Max just crashed and i lost all my work, is there a way to get it back?

A: If you have autosave on check your Max's installation folder and from there autosave. There should be your latest work

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Q: My dots are missing when I'm in vertexmode, how do I get them back?

A(1): Go to Customize --> Preferences --> Viewports. Make sure you got 'Show vertices as Dots' ticked. If that doesn't help restart MaxA(2): It is possible that some vertices (or all) got hidden with a set of faces you hid and later unhid. While in Vertex Mode, click Unhide All.

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Q : Edge loops and edge rings let you select related edges easily... Is there anything of the sort for other sub-objects?

A : Not directly, but inderectly, you can convert selections. For whatever subobject you've got selected, Hold CTRL down while you click the sub-object you want as a selection. For example, selecting an edge ring, and holding ctrl and clicking the vertex sub-object will select all vertices within the selected edges.

Just remember ... NEVER hold CTRL+Shift while you select another sub-object. You'll end up with a crashed Max, and an extremely sluggish machine. (may be fixed in versions older than 7)

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Q : My blueprints look awful in the viewports, and I've already made sure the graphics settings are maxxed out. What do I do?

A : 3dsmax utilizes the display card to render its viewports, and as such, it has the same limitations of a graphics card. This means textures whose dimensions aren't squares of two will need to be forced into a resolution, which usually makes them appear pretty bad quality. To fix this, simply make sure the prints have texture dimensions that are squares of two, and your prints should look crystal clear in the viewports. (squares of two = 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096)

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Q : I'm about to perform actions on my scene that are completely undo-able. I save early and often, but quite frankly, I'd rather not have to re-open my whole file in case I don't like the changes. Is there anything to help with this?

A : Actually there is. Under the Edit menu, there is an option called "Hold". This creates a reference point you can revert back to using the "Fetch" feature, also under the Edit menu. So if you try to reset X-forms, or unlink items, and something wigs out on you, you can just fetch, and the file will be back to the way it was before-hand, even though the action technically wasn't undo-able.
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Q : 3dsmax has a history of corrupting its files when I do certain complex work with it. The max files get to a point where opening causes a program error, or it does open, but selecting causes a program error. What's a good way to avoid this problem?

A : Max files can get corrupted, but it's much, much more of a rarity that exports keep such corruption. A good reccomendation is to keep constant exported files of your work, so you can have something to revert back to, if worse comes to worst. Some filetypes users would reccommend would be .obj, .3ds, or .ase. .obj files can be a little destructive to textures in some cases, and .3ds files can be destructive as far as breaking vertices, so you have to fix that upon import. But a .ase file is one of the more simple file types, as it's mere ASCII. Not only do .ase files keep the mesh intact, but they also do not truncate texture filenames. If you have numerous .ase exports of the model(s) you're working on, then the chances of a corrupted file wasting weeks and weeks of work is pretty slim. Just be sure to restart max once you need to import the .ase, that way any corruptions that have happened will be cleared from the program's memory.

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Q : I'm trying to animate an object that spins, like a tire, but I can't get it to turn on the car without rotating extremely strangely. How do I fix this?

A : Your animation rig isn't complex enough. Objects that rotate on multiple axiis, need special linking. The object to be rotated becomes a child of a dummy object, which controls the orientation of one axis, and that dummy object is the child of a dummy which controls the oreintation on another axis.

This way, you can have your tire animated solely by a dummy rotating on one axis. It can keep this rotation as normal, but its overall rotation will be manipulated by the parent dummy, and not alter the manner the child dummy is rotating. Animating that tire will become a matter of child-play, with dummies like this.

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Hey... been a while since I've found anything worthy of adding to the 3dsmax FAQ... But I think I've just discovered a diagnosis for a weird problem I've been having... The faq entry could be something like this:

Q: Unwrapping using the old-fashioned "Detach parts in an Edit Poly modifier, and UVW Map on top" usually leaves me with a collapsed and unwrapped mesh like I wanted... But after I add UVW Unwrap modifiers later on, I can't select the vertices in the UVW Unwrap modifier! What happened?

A: This appears to happen most frequently when a UVW Map modifier is copied and pasted onto an object. To avoid this issue, never copy and paste uvw coordinates modifiers onto objects, instead just copy and paste the values from one new modifier to the next. If you've lost good progress between file versions and can't go back to right before you collapsed in a copied/pasted modifier, then your fix must be to export and import a .3ds file. .ASE might also work to eliminate the unselectable vertex issue as well.

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Q: Every time I import a .3ds file, if I convert it to an editable poly, a bunch of triangles show up everywhere.

A: .3ds imports or exports tend to break vertices up fairly destructively. When you import it, the object is an Editable Mesh, and generally appears to have proper edge visibility. Welding the vertices while the object is an Editable Mesh will get rid of the face destruction that has happened, and you should be able to convert to editable poly without your faces triangulating.
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If all else fails restart max and even your computer and see if that works. Also contact Autodesks support, they will be glad to help for sure.