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Table of Contents

Part I: Getting Started with 3ds Max

Quick Start: Laying Siege to the Castle Wall

Breaking the Walls—Planning the Production

Setting Up the Scene

Tutorial: Building a wall

Tutorial: Gathering models

Tutorial: Adding a ground plane

Adding Materials and Lights

Tutorial: Adding materials

Tutorial: Adding a Sun & Sky system

Tutorial: Rendering a preview

Creating a Dynamic Animation with MassFX

Tutorial: Running a simulation

Tutorial: Rendering the final animation

Summary

Chapter 1: Exploring the Max Interface

Learning the Interface Elements

Using the Menus

Using the Toolbars

Docking and floating toolbars

Using tooltips and flyouts

Using the Quick Access toolbar

Learning the main toolbar

Using the Ribbon

Using the Viewports

Using the Command Panel

Working with rollouts

Increasing the Command Panel's width

Tutorial: Rearranging the interface for lefties

Using the Lower Interface Bar Controls

Interacting with the Interface

Gaining quick access with the right-click quadmenus

Using Caddy controls

Understanding the button color cues

Using drag-and-drop features

Controlling spinners

Understanding modeless and persistent dialog boxes

Getting Help

Using the InfoCenter toolbar

Viewing the Essential Skills Movies

Using the online reference guides

Using the rest of the Help menu

Summary

Chapter 2: Controlling and Configuring the Viewports

Understanding 3D Space

Learning Axonometric versus Perspective

Learning Orthographic and Isometric views

Discovering the viewports in Max

Using the Navigation Gizmos

Working with the ViewCube

Using the SteeringWheels

Tutorial: Navigating the active viewport

Controlling Viewports with a Scroll Wheel Mouse

Using the Viewport Navigation Controls

Zooming a view

Panning a view

Walking through a view

Rotating a view

Maximizing the active viewport

Controlling camera and spotlight views

Changing the Viewport Display

Undoing and saving viewport changes

Disabling and refreshing viewports

Viewing materials in the viewports

Displaying lights and shadows in the viewports

Configuring viewport lighting and shadows

Locating mesh problems with xView

Configuring the Viewports

Setting the viewport visual style

Altering the viewport layout

Using Safe Frames

Setting Display Performance

Defining regions

Viewing statistics

Working with Viewport Backgrounds

Loading viewport background images

Loading viewport background animations

Tutorial: Loading reference images for modeling

Summary

Chapter 3: Working with Files, Importing, and Exporting

Working with Max Scene Files

Using the Application Button

Using the Welcome Screen

Starting new

Saving files

Archiving files

Opening files

Setting a Project Folder

Merging and replacing objects

Getting out

Setting File Preferences

Handling files

Backing up files

Tutorial: Setting up Auto Backup

Maintaining log files

Configuring Paths

Configuring user paths

Configuring system paths

Importing and Exporting

Importing supported formats

Import preference

Exporting supported formats

Moving files to Softimage, MotionBuilder, and Mudbox

Moving files to and from Maya

Using the OBJ format

Exporting to the JSR-184 (M3G) format

Exporting to the DWF format

Exporting utilities

Tutorial: Importing vector drawings from Illustrator

Using the File Utilities

Using the Asset Browser utility

Finding files with the Max File Finder utility

Collecting files with the Resource Collector utility

Using the File Link Manager utility

Using i-drop

Accessing File Information

Displaying scene information

Viewing file properties

Viewing files

Summary

Chapter 4: Changing Interface Units and Setting Preferences

Selecting System Units

Using Custom and Generic units

Handling mismatched units

Rescaling world units

Setting Preferences

General preferences

Files panel preferences

Viewport