What about the interface...?

I have to learn how to use 3DS Max for school this fall. Not really a complaint; I saw that one coming.

But… when I finally started up Max, my first reaction was… “wtf?”
How, honestly, can people complain that Blender has a bad interface (I believe the words were “Blender is the king of the very bad, very fucking bad UI”) in favor of Max?
I mean, I know Max has a TON of awesome tools and features. How the hell am I supposed to use them, though? At least Blender has its different sections of tools organized and labeled nicer, and the keyboard shortcuts make sense (in Max, r != rotate.) Max is like “here you go, have fun!” I just don’t understand the workflow of Max yet, I guess.
For people that have never used 3DS Max, here’s a side-by-side of Max, Wings3d, and Blender. To me the only think Max has going for it is that it only uses 1 window…
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/9677/softwarecomparisonzy8.th.jpg

Actually im in the exact same situation as you (about the school thing). I googled for max shortcuts and found this:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/3DS_MAX/Shortcuts

But where the bloody hell is the extrude shortcut??!

You guys are really haing that hard a time with Max? When I triedGMax, it was pretty easy to find out what to do.

Max doesn’t have keyboard shortcuts for everything, but if you look in the customisation menu, you can create any shortcut you like for anything at all.

With my students, I walk them through the 3D windows first, and show how you can resize them, maximise and minimise them (using the buttons in the lower right hand corner), pan, rotate the view, change from perspective §, front (f), left (l), top (t), etc.

Then we look at the right hand panels. I introduce the create panel (with the arrow on it), and all the primitives and objects you can choose from.

Then the modify panel (2nd tab), where you get to add modifiers to the stack, and you can go into Max’s version of “edit mode” by expanding a modifier and clicking on a sub-object mode.

Then the hierarchy panel (third tab), where you can manipulate pivots and other exciting things.

Then the motion panel (with the wheel icon). That’s where your constraints go. You can show your trajectory curves in there too, and IK stuff happens in there.

Then the display panel, where you change how things look in the 3D windows.

Then the utilities panel, with lots of extra goodies.

The next thing to look at is the menus that come up when you right-click in the 3D windows. You get to access lots of the stuff from the panels in the right click menu, so if that suits you better you can speed up your workflow.

To render, press a teapot (either one), or go to the render menu. You’ll see the hotkeys there.

That should be enough to get started!

I you that if you stopped bitching and did some 3dsmax tutorials or took the time to do your own tutorials, it wouldn’t be so bad.

I’m learning 3D Max right now, and it didn’t take me long to get used to the default interface, it’s hidious that’s for sure, Blender’s interface is a lot better I agree, but pointing angrily at the buttons saying “wtf?” is:

  1. Not going to get you anywhere
  2. Can be done the same way for any new interface
  3. Just sound like you didn’t even bother to check out the help files or even click on any of the button for that matter

So don’t come complaining if you haven’t made the least bit of effort.

Mystery

okay here’s my two cents :

Max has that lots of icons at the screen at once since it provides several alternatives to access them.

You can go to the menu bar, to the icons, using shortcuts and to the command panel. Since it is clearly for commercial purposes, Max tries to accomodate every type of user exist out there, since user=dollar right?

Actually memorizing shortcuts isn’t everyone’s favorite way. Some of my fellow workers here who’s been in 3D field for years even refuses to memorize shortcuts.

Max throws every important icons on its default interface. Now what will happen if there’s no manual or help at all? With icons, user still can guess and do some trials and errors. Each of max’s icon has tooltip available. Just like Blender’s.

oh btw you CAN make max view only 1 viewport by choosing any of the viewport and hit Alt+W or the very bottom right corner icon.

Blender has the worst interface on 2.2x and below. Really. But slowly on 2.3x the interface become more and more polished.

Unlike blender which has only one type of mesh object, for polygon modeling max have two different type of objects. Editable Mesh and Editable Poly.For regular usage, Editable Poly is far more superior than Editable Mesh.

The only difference between two is that Editable Mesh counts the triangles existed on each surface while Editable Poly are not. Editable Mesh is more of an old facility provided for compatibility reasons I think.

To do some extrusion on an object you must convert the object into either editable mesh or poly first. Then enter polygon level, choose a polygon and on Editable Poly press Ctrl+E for extrude.

I do come to think Max has becoming a bloatware. The old dynamic engine even still provided eventhough they already put havok’s reactor. Also Mental Ray integration seems a little bit like a joke in 3DSMax (Standard material transparency screws alot when rendered using Mental Ray)

But in alot of ways, Max serves it purpose nicely, like the really good real time UV editing, character studio and great modeling tools with the widest plugin support among other software packages, etc.

Max has become the “standard” since it’s one of the oldest 3D software package player I think.

You’re right about editable mesh, as I understand it, they have only kept it for compatability.

The easiest way to extrude, strangely enough, is to actually delete the poly(s) in the area you want to do the extrude, then select the edges around it/them (use border select if it’s a simple hole). Then, in a side-on view, hold down the shift key and drag with the move gizmo. Every time you drag, you will extrude. Create a new poly to fill in the hole later, or use a “cap holes” modifier.

This is such a simple way of creating new geometry. All my students end up using it most of the time, but then they have to remember to keep welding vertices together if they extrude in sections.

Another very nice thing to keep in mind - if you select an edge and hit the delete key, it will delete the faces connected to that edge. But if you hit backspace, it will remove the edge and merge the faces.

Look out for accidentally hitting ctrl+x, because it puts you in expert mode and most of your interface will disappear! This is great if you know all the shortcuts and use the right click menu a lot, but otherwise just hit ctrl+x to get it back again. Lots of beginners panic when they hit that hotkey by mistake when they really meant to go ctrl+z :stuck_out_tongue:

Also, if you can’t select or deselect things, check if you’ve locked your selection (there’s a yellow padlock button at the bottom). This happens if you accidentally hit the spacebar. Of course, this can be a useful feature, but I’ve only ever known one guy who used it!

I do teach sometime ago, and I told all my students that they must use ctrl+x while doing my modeling tasks… lol. The very often accident happen to my student is hide gizmo (x) and lock selection just like you said.

I use it all the time in MAX, since the selection is not automatically locked, like it sort of is in Blender (since RMB is select, and clicking LMB doesn’t deselect unlike in MAX).

When I’ve used other 3d packages that didn’t have that “lock” feature it drives me nuts when I accidentally deslect or select something else while trying to rotate the viewport or transform an object.

Mike

Yes.
But Blender has a TON writing it.

:smiley:

MAX comes with a TON of DOCUMENTATION and TUTORIALS.

Mike

I mean, I know Max has a TON of awesome tools and features…
That’s the main reason why 3ds max is the way it is. Somehow the developers had to find a way to accommodate all of them. A cube primitive, for example, had to be converted to a mesh before you can move around or edit its verts, edges and faces. One thing the developers had to accept, IMO, is that most people nowadays use sub-d for most modeling applications. Thus, the default should be that when you add a primitive, it’s assumed to be editable right away. Another thing is the heavy application of context-sensitivity, ie, menus not needed for the current tool should be hidden, then reappear when needed. Why should edge tools clutter the UI when you’re in vert mode, for instance?

You can go to the menu bar, to the icons, using shortcuts and to the command panel. Since it is clearly for commercial purposes, Max tries to accomodate every type of user exist out there, since user=dollar right?

Actually memorizing shortcuts isn’t everyone’s favorite way. Some of my fellow workers here who’s been in 3D field for years even refuses to memorize shortcuts.
Exactly. When I was a total beginner, I hated looking for hotkeys. The first thing I do was to look for the navigation icons. I hated pressing a modifier key just to rotate the view like in Maya. The nav icons are there in Max, but not in Blender. In short, you can use Max even if, for some unfortunate incident, you lost one of your arms. (How can you navigate your way around in Blender with only one arm?) Max developers aim, I believe, is to accommodate all types of users: You don’t like hotkeys or are a complete beginner? Icons and menus are available. You like hotkeys or already an expert in the initial interface? Then, hotkeys are available.

People with a limb less than normal are an EXCEPTION, therefore you cannot base the norm on them (even though the saying* says otherwise). Just because some people have lost an arm, you’re not going to change the entire interface, are you?

*Exceptions determine the norm.

Point is, Max is not some horrible 3d app with no shortcut key options.

One of the fantastic things about Max is that you could, if you wanted to, open up the listener and do everything you wanted from the command line, by typing Maxscript commands :). Blender could easily have a listener too (in fact, I remember using one that someone has created as a script).

It’s really useful sometimes, eg. when I was using Maxscript to create a starfield in Max from actual star data, so it would look like the real night sky. Every time I tested my script by creating thousands of stars, I could delete all of them by just typing “delete geometry” in the listener. I didn’t have to select them all, which would take a minute or so to work on so many objects.

I’m not necessarily complaining about Max itself. It just that it looks messy as well, why are people complaining about Blender’s interface when theirs isn’t much better? Gotta remember, I said this what what I did at first glance. Of course I’m doing tutorials, I’m not THAT retarded. I did learn how to do things in Blender…

Also, “I you that if you stopped…”
Come now, what kind of English is that? :smiley: I bet that if you stopped bitching at me and took the time to read over your posts, you wouldn’t have such careless mistakes :rolleyes::wink:

To not put in “bet” is not an English mistake. It’s a typo.

Not like it has any bearing on anything, it just sounds like an under-handed jab to point it out.

“It just that it looks messy as well, why are people complaining about Blender’s interface when theirs isn’t much better?”

I’m not saying that’s any better.

i’ma join in on the side of anti-max ui. gave gmax a try, and had no trouble with the buttons. it’s just that the ui constrains workflow so badly.