Creative Scratchpad

With the latest KeyHydra update comes the possibility to use scroll wheel in conjunction with modifier keys to control properties of primitives at creation time, as well as various editable/edit poly tool properties. There's a pretty straightforward UI configuration when you want to tweak the values and an .xml configuration file if you want to go beyond that and add your own presets.

I am happy to share a tool that's nearing release now: LazerCut, part of the KeyHydra package (see also the polycount discussion). It provides an interactive boolean workflow inside 3ds max using the object manipulation tools everyone is used to, without ever having to go to the boolean subobjects and settings:



The cutters can be created in any view, perpective, orthogonal, camera etc. Depending on the current mode, they can be used to split the selected geometry, add to it, subtract from it or create independent objects. Since all the cutters (with the exception of multi-object subtractions) are created in a separate layer as children of the object operated on, you can easily select those relevant to the object with PgDn, or unhide them using unhide $.children.

Every now and then, I stumbled upon an undocumented command or optional keyword. Some of them were later added to the documentation, many of them are still undocumented. Some of those are listed in this article (I'm skipping a lot of stuff I don't find useful like the non-creatable MEditBkgnd texture map, creatable PFlow related classes etc).

Understanding vectors is a crucial skill for any technical artist. In this article, we will look at the very basics, both as a refresher for those who already know the concepts and an introduction for the uninitiated.