Chapter 5: Customizing the Max Interface and Setting Preferences


When you get into a new car, one of the first things you do is to rearrange the seat and mirrors. You do this to make yourself comfortable. The same principle can apply to software packages: Arranging or customizing an interface makes it more comfortable to work with.

Early versions of Max allowed only minimal changes to the interface, but later versions enable significant customization. The Max interface can be customized to show only the icons and tools that you want to see. Max also has a rather bulky set of preferences that you can use to set almost every aspect of the program. This chapter covers various ways to make the Max interface more comfortable for you.

Using the Customize User Interface Window

The Customize menu provides commands for customizing and setting up the Max interface. The first menu item is the Customize User Interface menu command. This command opens the Customize User Interface dialog box. This dialog box includes five panels: Keyboard, Toolbars, Quads, Menus, and Colors. You can also access this dialog box by right-clicking any toolbar away from the buttons and selecting Customize from the pop-up menu.

Customizing keyboard shortcuts

If used properly, keyboard shortcuts can increase your efficiency dramatically. Figure 5.1 shows the Keyboard panel of the Customize User Interface dialog box. In this panel, you can assign shortcuts to any command and define sets of shortcuts. You can assign keyboard shortcuts for any of the interfaces listed in the Group drop-down list. When an interface is selected from the Group drop-down list, all its commands are listed below, along with their current keyboard shortcuts. You can disable the keyboard shortcuts for any of these interfaces using the Active option located next to the drop-down list.

image from book
Figure 5.1: The Keyboard panel enables you to create keyboard shortcuts for any command.

Note 

To access the defined keyboard shortcuts for the various interfaces, the Keyboard Shortcut Override Toggle button on the main toolbar must be enabled. If this button is disabled, then only the keyboard shortcuts for the Main UI are active.

Groups that have a large number of commands are split into categories. You can use the Category dropdown list to filter only select types of commands. This helps you to quickly locate a specific type of command such as controllers, modifiers, or Space Warps. Entering a keyboard shortcut into the Hotkey field shows in the Assigned to field whether that key is currently assigned to a command. You can Assign the hotkey to the selected command or Remove the hotkey from its current assignment.

You can use the Write Keyboard Chart button to output all the keyboard commands to a text file. Using this feature, you can print and post a chart of keyboard shortcuts next to your computer monitor. You can also Load, Save, and Reset selected keyboard shortcut sets. Keyboard shortcut sets are saved as .kbd files in the UI directory where Max is installed.

CROSS-REF 

You can find a reference of the available default keyboard shortcuts in Appendix C, "Max Keyboard Shortcuts."

Tutorial: Assigning keyboard shortcuts

Do you use both hands to control the mouse? If not, one hand is idle most of the time. If you can train this hand to control features using the keyboard, then you can be much more efficient.

To assign a new keyboard shortcut to create a Sphere object, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Customize User Interface dialog box by choosing Customize image from book Customize User Interface.

  2. Open the Keyboard panel, and select Main UI in the Group drop-down list. Scroll through the list, and select the Sphere command.

    Tip 

    With a list of objects available, you can quickly jump close to a desired item by typing the first letter of the item. For example, pressing the S key jumps to the first item that begins with an S.

  3. Place the cursor in the Hotkey field, and press Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S keys together. This enters the hotkey into the field. In the default interface, this key isn't assigned to any command. Click the Assign button to assign the hotkey to the command.

  4. Click the Save button to save the keyboard shortcut set as image from book myShortcuts.kbd. You can load the resulting set from the Chap 05 directory on the DVD.

  5. The final step is to try out the shortcut. Close the Customize User Interface dialog box, press the new keyboard shortcut, Alt+Shift+Ctrl+S, and drag in a viewport to create a sphere.

Customizing toolbars

You can use the Customize User Interface dialog box's Toolbar panel to create custom toolbars. Figure 5.2 shows this panel.

image from book
Figure 5.2: The Toolbars panel in the Customize User Interface dialog box enables you to create new toolbars.

The Toolbars panel of the Customize User Interface dialog box includes the same Group and Category drop-down lists and command list as the Keyboard panel. Clicking the New button opens a simple dialog box where you can name the new toolbar. The Delete button lets you delete toolbars. You can delete only toolbars that you've created. The Rename button lets you rename the current toolbar. The Hide option makes the selected toolbar hidden.

Use the Load and Save buttons to load and save your newly created interface, including the new toolbar, to a custom interface file. Saved toolbars have the .cui extension.

After you create a new toolbar, you can drag the commands in the Action list to either a new blank toolbar created with the New button or to an existing toolbar. By holding down the Alt key, you can drag a button from another toolbar and move it to your new toolbar. Holding down the Ctrl key and dragging a button retains a copy of the button on the first toolbar.

If you drag a command that has an icon associated with it, the icon appears on the new toolbar. If the command doesn't have an icon, then the text for the command appears on the new toolbar.

Tutorial: Creating a custom toolbar

If you've been using Max for a while, you probably have several favorite commands that you use extensively. You can create a custom toolbar of all your favorite commands. To show you how to do this, we create a custom toolbar for the compound objects.

To create a custom toolbar for creating compound objects, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Customize User Interface dialog box by choosing Customize image from book Custom User Interface.

  2. Open the Toolbars panel, and click the New button. In the New Toolbar dialog box that appears, name the toolbar Compound Objects. After you click OK, a new blank toolbar appears.

  3. Select the Main UI group and the Objects Compounds category from the drop-down lists on the left. Then drag each command in the Action list to the new blank toolbar.

  4. Click the Save button to save the changes to the customized interface file. You can load the resulting toolbar from the Chap 05 directory on the DVD. It is named image from book Compound Objects toolbar.cui.

Note 

Don't be alarmed if the toolbar icons show up gray. Gray icons are simply disabled. When the tool is enabled, they are shown in color.

Figure 5.3 shows the new toolbar. With the new toolbar created, you can float, dock, or edit this toolbar just like the other toolbars. Notice that some of the tools have icons and others have text names.

image from book
Figure 5.3: A new toolbar of compound objects created using the Customize User Interface dialog box

You can right-click any of the buttons on any of the existing toolbars, except for the main toolbar, to access a pop-up menu. This pop-up menu enables you to change the button's appearance, delete the button, edit the button's macro script, or open the Customize User Interface dialog box.

CROSS-REF 

To learn more about editing macro scripts, see Chapter 49, "Automating with MAXScript."

Changing a button's appearance

Selecting the Edit Button Appearance command from the right-click pop-up menu opens the Edit Macro Button dialog box, shown in Figure 5.4. This dialog box enables you to quickly change the button's icon, tooltip, or text label. Each icon group shows both the standard icon and the grayed-out disabled version of the icon. Default buttons can also be changed. The Odd Only check box shows only the standard icons.

image from book
Figure 5.4: The Edit Macro Button dialog box provides a quick way to change an icon, tooltip, or text label.

Note 

If a text label doesn't fit within the toolbar button, you can increase the button width using the Fixed Width Text Buttons spinner in the General panel of the Preference Settings dialog box.

Tutorial: Adding custom icons

The Max interface uses two different sizes of icons. Large icons are 24 × 24 pixels, and small icons are 16 × 15 pixels. Large icons can be 24-bit color, and small ones must be only 16-bit. Multiple icons can be placed side by side in a single file. The easiest way to create some custom toolbars is to copy an existing set of icons into an image-editing program, make the modifications, and save them under a different name. You can find all the icons saved as BMPs and used by Max in the 3dsmax\UI\Icons directory.

To create a new group of icons, follow these steps:

  1. Select a group of current icons to edit from the UI directory, and open them in Photoshop. I selected the Patches group, which includes all the files that start with the word Patches. This group includes only two icons. To edit icons used for both large and small icon settings and both active and inactive states, open the following four files: Patches_16a.bmp, Patches_16i.bmp, Patches_24a.bmp, and Patches_24i.bmp.

  2. In each file, the icons are all included side by side in the same file, so the first two files are 32 × 15 and the second two are 48 × 24. Edit the files, being sure to keep each icon within its required dimensions.

  3. When you finish editing or creating the icons, save each file with the name of the icon group in front of the underscore character. My files were saved as image from book Kels_16a.bmp, image from book Kels_16i.bmp, image from book Kels_24a.bmp, and image from book Kels_24i.bmp, so they show up in Kels group in the Edit Macro Button dialog box. Copy these four edited files from the Chap 05 directory on the DVD to the 3dsmax\UI\Icons directory.

  4. After the files are saved, you need to restart Max. The icon group is then available within the Customize User Interface dialog box when assigned to a command.

Figure 5.5 shows the Edit Macro Button dialog box with my custom icon group named Kels open.

image from book
Figure 5.5: The Edit Macro Button dialog box with a custom icon group selected

Customizing quadmenus

The third panel in the Customize User Interface dialog box allows you to customize the quadmenus. You can open quadmenus by right-clicking on the active viewport or in certain interfaces. Figure 5.6 shows this panel.

image from book
Figure 5.6: The Quads panel of the Customize User Interface dialog box lets you modify pop-up quadmenus.

To the left of the panel are the Group and Category drop-down lists and a list of actions that are the same as the Keyboard and Toolbars panels, but the Quads panel also includes a Separator and a list of Menu commands. Quadmenus can include separators to divide the commands into different sections and menus that appear at the top of the standard interface.

The drop-down list at the top right of the Quads panel includes many different quadmenu sets. These quadmenus appear in different locations, such as within the ActiveShade window. Not only can you customize the default viewport quadmenus, but you also can create your own named custom quadmenus with the New button or you can rename an existing quadmenu. The Quad Shortcut field lets you assign a keyboard shortcut to a custom quadmenu.

Tip 

Several quadmenus have keyboard shortcuts applied to them. Right-clicking with the Shift key held down opens the Snap quadmenu. Other shortcuts include Alt+right-click for the Animation quadmenu, Ctrl+right-click for the Modeling quadmenu, Shift+AIt+right-click for the reactor quadmenu, and Ctrl+Alt+right-click for the Lighting/Rendering quadmenu.

If the Show All Quads option is disabled, it causes only a single quadmenu to be shown at a time when unchecked. Although only one quadmenu is shown at a time, the corner of each menu is shown, and you can switch between the different menus by moving the mouse over the corner of the menu. This is useful if you want to limit the size of the quadmenu.

The four quadrants of the current quadmenu are shown as four boxes. The currently selected quadmenu is highlighted yellow, and its label and commands are shown in the adjacent fields. Click the gray boxes to select one of the different quadmenus.

To add a command to the selected quadmenu, drag an action, separator, or menu from the panes on the left to the quadmenu commands pane on the right. You can reorder the commands in the quadmenu commands pane by dragging the commands and dropping them in their new location. To delete a command, just select it and press the Delete key or select Delete Menu Item from the right-click pop-up menu.

If you right-click on the commands in the right pane, a pop-up menu appears with options to delete or rename the command. Another command allows you to flatten a submenu, which displays all submenu commands on the top level with the other commands.

Custom quadmenus can be loaded and saved as menu files (with the .mnu extension).

The Quads panel also includes an Advanced Options button. Clicking this button opens the Advanced Quad Menu Options dialog box, shown in Figure 5.7. Using this dialog box, you can set options such as the colors used in the quadmenus.

image from book
Figure 5.7: The Advanced Quad Menu Options dialog box lets you change quadmenu fonts and colors.

Changes to the Advanced Quad Menu Options dialog box affect all quadmenus. You can load and save these settings to files (with the .qop extension). The Starting Quadrant determines which quadrant is first to appear when the quadmenu is accessed. You can select to change the colors for each quadmenu independent of the others. The column with the L locks the colors so they are consistent for all quadmenus if enabled.

The remainder of the Advanced Quad Menu Options dialog box includes settings for controlling how the quadmenus are displayed and positioned, as well as the fonts that are used.

The Animation section lets you define the animation style that is used when the quadmenus appear. The animation types include None, Stretch, and Fade. The Stretch style slowly stretches the quadmenus until they are full size over the designated number of steps, and the Fade style slowly makes the quadmenus appear.

Tip 

I personally don't like to wait for the quadmenus to appear, so I keep the Animation setting set to None.

Customizing menus

The Menus panel of the Customize User Interface dialog box allows you to customize the menus used at the top of the Max window. Figure 5.8 shows this panel.

image from book
Figure 5.8: You can use the Menus panel of the Customize User Interface dialog box to modify menus.

This panel includes the same Group and Category drop-down lists and the Action, Separator, and Menus panes found in the Quads panel. You can drag and drop these commands to the menu pane on the right. Menus can be saved as files (with the .mnu extension). In the menu pane on the right, you can delete menu items with the Delete key or by right-clicking and selecting Delete Item from the pop-up menu.

Tip 

If you place an ampersand (&) character in front of a custom menu name letter, that letter is underlined and can be accessed using the Alt key; for example, Alt+F opens the File menu.

Tutorial: Adding a new menu

Adding a new menu is easy to do with the Customize User Interface dialog box. For this example, you tack another menu to the end of the Tools menu.

To add another menu item to the Tools menu, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Customize image from book Customize User Interface to open the Customize User Interface dialog box.

  2. Click the Menus tab to open the Menus panel.

  3. In the top-left drop-down list, select Main UI from the Group drop-down list and Tools from the Category drop-down list.

    Expand the Tools menu in the right pane by clicking on the plus sign to its left.

  4. Locate the Cross Hair Cursor Toggle menu item in the Action list, drag it to the right, and drop it right after the Channel Info Editor menu item.

    As you drag, a blue line indicates where the menu will be located.

  5. Click the Save button to save the menu as a file. You can find the customized menu from this example in the Chap 05 directory on the DVD.

After you save the new menu file, you need to restart Max before you can see the changes. You can reset the default UI by choosing Customize image from book Revert to Startup Layout.

Customizing colors

Within Max, the colors often indicate the mode in which you're working. For example, red marks animation mode. Using the Colors panel of the Customize User Interface dialog box, you can set custom colors for all Max interface elements. This panel, shown in Figure 5.9, includes two panes. The upper pane displays the available items for the interface selected in the Elements drop-down list. Selecting an item in the list displays its color in the color swatch to the right.

image from book
Figure 5.9: You can use the Colors panel of the Customize User Interface dialog box to set the colors used in the interface.

The lower pane displays a list of the custom colors that can be changed to affect the appearance of the interface. For example, Highlight Text isn't an element; it's an interface appearance. The Scheme drop-down list can alter the color scheme between custom colors and the Windows Default Colors.

You can save custom color settings as files with the .clr extension. You can use the Apply Colors Now button to immediately update the interface colors.




3ds Max 9 Bible
3ds Max 9 Bible
ISBN: 0470100893
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 383

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