BASIC SKILLS – BASIC MODIFICATIONS 3ds Max 2010

We’re gonna learn how to make the most important modifications in our scene.

1- The viewports :
The most important thing you should know is how viewports works, well it’s simple and
easy, there is 4 viewports which refers to :
 2D viewports (2 axes only): Top(xy), Left(zy), Front(xz).
 3D viewports (3 axes – xyz) : Perspective.

You can go from the figure01 to figure02 by :

Figure 01 Figure 02

1- Selecting a viewport (perspective for example)

2- Click on the Maximize viewport toogle button on the bottom-right side of the interface, or
click on the shortcut (Alt+W).

You can select a viewport by clicking RMB (Right Mouse Button) and it will highlight by a
yellow color .
 BASIC SKILLS – BASIC MODIFICATIONS 3ds Max 2010

Modifications inside the viewports:

ViewCube is a tool that allows you to orbit your scene in 3D, it’s generally used in the
perspective viewport because it’s actually the only viewport in 3D, but you still can use it in
the other 2D viewports.
Click and hold on the ViewCube then move the mouse to the way you want you’ll notice
that the viewport grid (in the dark gray) will move along, that means that you’re moving
your entire scene.
Click on the home button in the top-left corner of the ViewCube to get back to the default
position.

The Gizmo is a selection tool that allows doing modifications on objects, as move, scale,
rotate.
It represents the 3 axes X,Y,Z. you can modify by an axe or 2 or 3, modifying by 1 axe
means to click on the desired axe (moving by the Z axe for example), by 2 axes means to
modify by clicking the rectangle drawn in the plan on these two axes.