Advanced 3Ds Max 5[c] Modeling and Animating

For more information on terms used in 3ds max, see Appendix A at the end of this book.

The elements of the interface are worth special mention. Fig. I.1 shows the active window of 3ds max. The indicated elements have names corresponding to those occurring in the text.

Figure I.1: Interface elements of 3ds max

As it follows from its name — Quad menu — the context menu may consist of four sub-menus (Fig. I.2, a). In the first lesson of the book "3ds max 4: From Objects to Animation," we found it necessary to indicate the name of the quadrant, for example:

• Context menu/Tools 1 à Sub-objects à Face

Figure I.2: Elements of the contextual menu (a) and control panel (b)

There is no such notation in this book because we hope that you already are familiar with these menus.

In addition, many operations in 3ds max 5 can be performed using additional context menus (Additional Quad Menus) called by shortcuts (<Ctrl>, <Alt>, and <Shift>) and the right mouse button. For this, we decided to use the following form:

• <Ctrl>+Context menu à Rectangle

To determine the position of any element on the control panel, we decided to use the terms "rollout" and "group" (Fig. I.2, b). Thus, the full path will look like this:

• Control panel à Parameters rollout à Capping group à Cap End flag

In cases with few parameters (as in the following example), we decided to use an abbreviated record to avoid overloading of the text:

• Control panel à…à Cap End flag

A few words about shortcuts. Traditionally, these key combinations are shown as follows: <Ctrl>+<A>. The brackets "<>" contain the keys. The "+" symbol indicates that these keys should be pressed simultaneously.