3ds Max - Snapping and Moving with Dimensions
Tags: 3d Modeling, 3ds Max, SnappingGet the Flash Player to see this player.
Software : Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2009
Description : This is a response to a question on the forum. The question is 1. How does one snap in 3ds Max and 2. how can one move things dimensionally. This 3ds Max video tutorials explains both.as well as angle snaps and axis constraints.
Topics Covered
-Snapping
-Angle Snaps
-Axis Constraints
-Absolute World vs. Offset world
-Translations (moving objects) with dimensions
Creative Commons
DesignReform.net by David Fano is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at designreform.net.
Thank you very much, for your help and attention
You’re a really great person and there are not very much persons like you.
A real thank you, and the best of regards from Portugal.
:):) thank you once more
This is exactly what I have been looking for. Up until now I have modeled in other packages and just put it into 3ds Max to render, however I really want to take advantage of the modifier stack. In order to do this (to the fullest) I will need to learn to model my projects in Max, this is extremely helpful. Thank you!
No Sweat. Glad it helped. Feel free to post questions in the forum…. and…… Tell your friends
Thanks again,
This was a really good tutorial but I was hoping that you would have taken it a little further. Basically I understand all the stuff you covered here, but I do have a terrible time lining up radius parts within Max. I work for a manufacturer & about 70% of the stuff we build is on a radius so this is a common fight for me to get stuff aligned properly. Basically what I would like to know is this, is there a way I can snap a point in place, set the pivot to that point, pick another point & rotate it to where I want it to go via snapping? Kind of like doing a Rotate/Reference command in CAD, but with the use of snaps. I hope that’s understandable.
I have been able to use the pick option sometimes by snapping a box to the point I want to rotate, but I can’t seem to get anything working with consistency (WELCOME TO MAX); plus, I’ve also been able to manipulate the sub-objects via the angle snaps if I set my pivot option to center, but once again I can’t seem to get things working consistently. I do also use Rhino, Inventor, & CAD, but for the most part I remodel all the geometry in Max for the visualization; anyway, any help you can give would be most appreciated. Love you tutorials by the way. Have a good day & may God bless you.
What you are asking for is a bit tricky. In particular because (as much i as i like max) the snapping Sucks!
I’ll make another video on rotating and affecting the pivot points and hopefully it will get a little more into what you are looking for.
Thanks for the feedback.
thank you very much it was a very helpful tutorial i been breaking my head trying to be as accurate as possible when im modeling
i have a question
i know 3ds max is not a precison program (well not an easy to use anyways) would you recomend using a precision drawing software like autocad?? or its posible to attain the level of precison of cad with max??
very thanks
Victor - I like Rhino, but i first learned 3d modeling in Autocad so that work to. Depending on the work needed to be done you could also look into a program like solid works, Inventor, or Catia
it is just what i was looking for, it has reduced my modeling time also,its excellent,now i had lot of control on max while modeling
Well it seems that is has compensated you a lot for asking this question on your forum
I’m glad it helped and you helped us, thank you for teaching and sharing with us
Without a doubt, I am very thankful too. I hope I did not come across poorly by asking you to go a little further with this in regards to radius objects. Have a great day Dave, & I am looking forward to more wonderful teachings from you. May God bless you.
Not at all, Sorry i haven’t made the follow up. It’s coming soon. It’s been hectic.
Thanks!
Muy acertado, gracias
Man! you’re a genius! I was pulling my hair out with this snap thing. I’ve been doing 3d for 9 years, Maya, Softimage, Lightwave… blabla bla and I’ve never had any troubles figuring out how something as simple as snap works, but with this tool… pheeew. holy mother of god…
I zoomed in as near as it is possible. Then I moved the objects with the Gizmo in another Viewport into the right position.
Thank you so much, I can now do it like a pro…
WONDERFUL
Muchas gracias por el video….. me sirvio mucho porque necesitaba mover el pivot de un objeto y no sabia como hacerlo….MUCHAS GRACIAS
This video helped me a lot. One thing I’m still unsure about is how to rotate an object to be in precise allignment with the edge of a different object. This can be difficult when trying to 2 allign 2 seperate shapes with tapering edges. In AutoCAD there was a command Rotate >Reference Point. I can’t find any such command in Max. Any answer would be much appreciated! Thanks
right now you would have to move the pivot point and eye ball it. Unless anyone knows otherwise, that’s how i go about it.
Sean: you can draw a helpspline along edge you need to find out its angle and if you extrude it(helpspline) and add editPoly mod., you can read an angle from local coordinate of its polygons.
Some tricks about snapping:
1.to avoid of selecting another object, when you want to snap it, use lock selection by hitting spacebar on keyboard. It is almost no time consuming feature and snapping works perfect with it.
2.snapping options can be accesible by using Shift+RMB. By this way you can change a snapping options even if you are drawing a spline
3.using 2.5 snapping options is good, when you want move object in 2 axes in orthogonal views. It sucks , that it is no possible to assign shortcut to change betweet 3, 2.5 and 2 snapping options. It is only thing that is annoying to me in max snapping.
4.Axis constraints , can be quickly accesible as restrict to axis by shortcuts f5 - X, f6 - Y, f7 - Z
hope that will help to someone, and sorry for english
Yan, thanks for your reply, very helpful; I will try this
On a related point, I started I need to use the quickslice command, but annoyingly, i can’t seem to constrain it to
On a related point, I started I need to use the quickslice command, but annoyingly, there seems to be no option to constrain the angle, even if I use the snap features. Does anyone know how to do this?
sean: 3dsmax is not made for quick precise modeling as CAD softwares, but you can achieve this by creating helper GRID. Rotate it an use it as reference
Thanks again Jan, I’ll try what you suggested with the grid. Since I asked about this, I discovered the SLICE PLANE command, which can be given specific angles, unlike QUICKSLICE.
Hello dear David thank you very much for your helpful support.I’m a first year student in interior design and really really confused to choose which program to use for creating architecture interior and exterior! Is it necessary to knew Revit or Rhino Plus 3ds!(how and in which way thy can help me?!) and also I need to knew which tutorial I should find for that reason!
Thank you once again!
Thanks so much!
Very useful lesson!
Mikky
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
THANK YOU!
It can be of great help to use the TAPE helper object to snap to a randomly oriented wall/edge and then copy/paste its orientation to whatever you want to align.
And don’t forget to use the WORKING PIVOT in order to decide what point your object should rotate around.
Max is very cool software, and watch you hack at it like a lumberjack hacking at a tree is making feel a bit ill… I really can’t watch any more of this.
I’m M. Allen West the artist of FlashCadabra I knew as soon as I started the video you were a cad user or something like that. You are really over looking the best parts of 3DS Max. Beside the fact you can import CAD file and blueprints into Max as lines, and extrude the lines so your measurements would be correct.
Max has tools that are so amazing, and I bet you never even bothered to use them, sad really.
Nice self promotion…….. What might some of those techniques be? Have you watched the other videos on this site? YES, we’re all CAD users. But like I said, what techniques are you referring to? I’m sure every one would love to see them.
This if one of those big LOL, or even ROFTL, saying OMG as end.
Sorry but I wouldn’t like to polute this excelent site, who’s been helping, freely and with amazing will and talent, everyone who needs help. Losing time to make videos and produce excelent tutorials. I bet you as artist, you’re not able to help anyone as D Fano, or loose any of your time to produce something like he does.
So please if you have any comments to make, make them constructive, and not destructive.
Show us what techniques you refer to also, we are all CAD users, and we now we can import, whatever we need, but what if we wan’t to model our building freely, how do we control, the measuring or the snapping and references… That’s what David Fano showed us, and how to easily do it in Max, as not everyone is a ILUMINATI on 3ds Max…
Thank you David, keep your great work coming, and M. Allen West don’t come with jealous/publicist talk, provide us what you mean on practice with your techniques. P.S.-Even DARE you to show that on a video tutorial..
best of regards
M. Allen West: Most of us are aware that you can import CAD files into max. However,David’s video explains what it says in the title “snapping and moving with dimensions” and it’s been very useful.
If you’ve got a better / more efficient way of precision modelling, than please contribute by sharing your knowledge. and not by shooting down other peoples input; it just makes you sound like a douchbag.
sorry, I’ve had to… http://flashcadabra.com/slide/slide.html
, just wondering here what is bad on CAD users? ..and what the user of amazing max’s tools needs to know about snapping?
nice!
OMG. Flashcadabra? That looks like late-eighties quality stuff. Seriously, just shut up.
David, any update on the rotate-reference video?
Thanks!
Second Matt, any tips on a rotate-reference would be awesome
Thanks i saw ur post and Axis constrain is really helpful tool in 3d modeling.Keep up good work