Desperately need some 3DS Max advice

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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I am just about ready to throw my computer out a window, here. I've been trying to teach myself 3DS Max so I don't have to resort to using Propper for everything, but one thing I am completely unable to understand is snapping things to the grid. It never seems to work properly. I'll grab a vertex and drag it to where I want it to be, and it'll pop up a green cross that shows that it's snapped to the exact point... and then I let go, and the vertex is clearly only kind of close to that spot. Or, and this is hilarious, it'll go where I wanted to in the two axes I dragged them on, but randomly jump some distance away in the third axis. So like I use the "front" viewport to drag it a few inches up and to the east, and then the top-down viewport shows that it also jumped about a foot to the south. What is up with that behavior and how do I get it to stop?
 

MoonFox

L10: Glamorous Member
Mar 17, 2015
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to be honest: I use Autodesk Maya, which is a lot more accurate
 

Freyja

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Jul 31, 2009
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to be honest: I use Autodesk Maya, which is a lot more accurate

This is useless advice, Steve needs help with 3dsmax. Maya is a great program too but it's not "more accurate," it just does similar things in different ways that may be easier for some people.

Steve, to be honest, the grid isn't used all that much in 3ds max because it's very restrictive. It's not like hammer, there's no restriction about going off the grid. If you want to move things precisely, you usually type in the value at the bottom of the screen for it's x, y, z position. By default, every 1 unit in 3ds max corresponds to 1 unit in hammer, so if you stick to whole numbers there, then they will align to the grid in hammer. I know it's a hard mentality to get out of, coming from hammer, but the grid really isn't nearly as important unless you're creating something extremely modular.

However, if you'd prefer to stick to the grid, the snap grid tools can be opened by right clicking on the snap3 button in your toolbar. There's a checkbox under the second tab (Enable axis contraints) that I believe will help you with your problem of it moving off in another axis. I can't however reproduce your problem of it staying slightly off grid, I'd reccomend just checking the position values for that.
 

Jusa

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May 28, 2013
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I just started learning 3DS Max as well and was losing my nerves over vertices jumping on one of the axes. I got to admit its weird going from hammer into a more "free from grid" program.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
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Nov 14, 2009
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There's a checkbox under the second tab (Enable axis contraints) that I believe will help you with your problem of it moving off in another axis.
Yep, that did the trick. And there are valid reasons for needing to design models on-grid, like for example it's meant to be placed flush with a wall or corner. I wish to high heaven valve had realized that when they were making some of TF2's props, especially the minecart tracks.
 

Freyja

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Jul 31, 2009
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And there are valid reasons for needing to design models on-grid, like for example it's meant to be placed flush with a wall or corner. I wish to high heaven valve had realized that when they were making some of TF2's props, especially the minecart tracks.

Yes but usually this isn't done using the 3ds snap to grid feature, as the prop aligns based on the origin point in the 3ds max file. But it can help.
 
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