Best way to learn 3DS Max fast?

Hey guys. I'm hoping someone can help me out here. Chip? Anyone?

I may have a job coming up that will require use of 3DS Max (partially SL related, partially not). I'd rather use Maya, since that's what I already know, but that may not be an option for this particular project, unfortunately. Since I'm generally quite good at learning new software very quickly, and since I've got a lot of 3D experience, I don't think diving into Max will be too much trouble, but I'd be grateful for any pointers on the best ways to start. Really, what I need to do is learn enough in the next few days to evaluate whether or not I think I can do the job (with Max) in a reasonable amount of time, or whether I should recommend they find someone else. Obviously, I'm hoping the former will be the case, but either way, I need to figure it out.

I've got an old copy of Max 8 lying around, which I just installed, and am now playing with. So far, I'm a tad disappointed to have discovered that the help file doesn't seem to want to perform quite the same job of hand-holding through the basics that Maya's help file does. I'm sure that given enough time, I'd be fine, but unfortunately I may not have the luxury of time in this particular case.

I need, as fast as can be humanly possible, to learn enough about the interface and Max's polygonal modeling work flow to be able to make an intelligent decision. I don't expect to become an expert in it over night, but I do want to be able to hit the ground running as fast as possible.

Max users, any insight on the best way to get comfortable with the program quickly?

Thanks in advance.

Poly modeling, eh?

Start with a primitive, like a Cube or Rectangle or whatever that one is called. Drag it out and make sure it is selected. As it is, it is still parametric. You will have to convert it to an Editable Poly. You can do this by right-clicking and pulling up the quad menu, or you can do it from the Stack by right-clicking. At least, I think you can do it from Quad.

Once you have it as an Editable Poly, you should be good to start playing with it to get to know the modeling tools.

With it selected, you should have access to the various sub-modes: Vert, Line, Border, Plane, and Element. This is also in the Stack area. Once you are in a sub-mode with something selected, it's just a matter of getting to know what the various do-hickies do.

Just below the stack, there are a bunch of buttons. These will vary depending on the sub-mode. Things like Chamfer, Weld, Slice, and a bunch of others. Some of these buttons will have a little dialog button next to them. I recommend hitting the little dialog button to bring up the dialog for the function. This way you can play with the settings, take note of what happens, and then cancel out.

That's about the best I can do right now. Depending on other responses, like links to tutorials and what-not, I might toss up some basic stuff for ya. I've been busy writing Photoshop tutorials lately and writing some Max stuff might be a good change of pace.

edit:

If all you are providing is a poly mesh with maybe UV coords, no reason you shouldn't be able to use OBJ to model in Maya and get into Max. Well, depending on other specifics of the job.

Along the same lines, another option might be to do the bulk of the work in Maya, then get it into Max for Max specific clean-up.

The next time you are in the matrix, have tank upload the program.

If you like video training, you can check out Lynda.com http://www.lynda.com/ they have great excellent training videos for a monthly subscription of $25. You can subscribe for one month, watch all the videos you want and cancel.

They currently have 2 courses for 3dMax 9 (they seem to have skipped from version 6 right to 9). 3ds Max 9 Essential Training, 9 hours and 3ds Max 9 Modeling 13.5 hours. They also have a whole bunch of older courses for Max 6. I havent done any of them, but have watched some of their advanced photoshop videos and they're pretty well done. The videos are broken up into little 4-5 minute chunks by specific topic, so its easy to pick the parts you need to learn and not have to sit through hours of redundant stuff you don't need to know.

Another really great source of game related training videos is 3DBUZZ, who offer insanely indepth video training packages for very cheap. Like $100 for 100 hours of videos. The content is great, and theyre done in a pretty entertaining and informal style.

Unfortunately for me, no matter how interesting the topic is, I cant help falling asleep when watching training videos, but maybe you'll have better luck.

Yeah the poly modeling tools in 3ds max are almost exactly the same as Maya. When teaching 3ds max I'm routinely saying things like "well Maya has tool X so let's just look it up in the help... yep!" The key is to know that a) all the commands are tucked into the side menu, and b) you gotta convert primitives to Editable Poly before doing polygon modeling on them. So use the Create tab of the side menu to drag out primitives, right-click on them to convert to Editable Poly (as described above) and then switch to the Modify tab for accessing poly modeling tools.

Incidentally, the "stack" he refers to is the modifier stack; it's just like the History in Photoshop, it's a list of all the things you have done to an object. That list is in the Modify tab I mentioned. Again, on the side menu you can switch between different modes (Create, Modify, etc.) by clicking the tabs at the top.

Oh and one last thing, since it's a basic thing that's easy to overlook. The move/rotate/scale tools are buttons in the toolbar at the top of the screen. Camera controls are buttons in the bottom right part of the screen.

---

Now if this job will require texturing or animation, that stuff is kinda different. Still mostly the same really, but all the small details are changed, whereas for modeling the tools mostly have the exact same names and everything.


Or this. Depending on what exactly the job is, doing the majority of the work in Maya and just using 3ds max for final output is a good option. Modeling and texturing will carry over fine, animation would be the only problem.

Thanks for the responses, guys. The logic is starting to make more sense now. The conversion to editable mesh was one of things I didn't figure out right away.

HaHA! I like that! If only it were that easy.