Oasis Studio 3ds Max 2017 Tutorial 002 What's New In 3ds Max 2017 User Interface

Whats New In 3ds Max 2017 User Interface

New Look And New Icons

     

     I was pleasantly surprised by the new look and feel of the user interface it has been upgraded with new looking  icons but there are a lot of similarities that I are very similar so you should be able to  tell what they are if you have ever used any other earlier addition's of 3ds Max software. I am as excited as anyone to get started using 3ds Max 2017 with all of it's new features so we are going to go through some more of the changes so bear with me as we have a closer look into all of them. 

    One of the other great changes to the User Interface is that they have made it HSPI aware so now the 3ds Max Interface appearance will be much better with DPI Monitors.    

Customizing User Interface Icons

     One of the new features I like is that you can change the icons int the User Interface to those of the older versions of 3ds Max or you can change them to any image that you like using a PNG file of your choosing and 3ds Max with scale the image down to the right size you need but it is unable to scale up the size of the image. 

How To Cutomize Your Icons

• Open the MaxScript Listener Window

• Select Maxscript
• In the output window enter  CustomControlsOptions.PrintIconPaths=true

• Mouse over the icon you wish to Customize, the icons location path, size,state and all of the available files will appear in the MaxScript Listener

• Now remember the path and name. of the Icon that you wish to select.
• Now go to Windows Explore and navigate your way to the Icons Path and you will find a folder name UI_LN 
• When you have successfully navigated to the Icon's folder, we will have to create a folder with one of the following names. 
  • If you are using the user interface with the light theme, create a folder called Light.
  • If you are using the user interface with the dark theme, create a folder called Dark
• Now in the Light or Dark folder that you have created Create a folder for the end of the path and paste you named PNG file there.  

• You must make sure at this point that your PNG files must follow the nomenclature of either IconName.png or IconName_Size.png.

• Now if you are sure that your ,png files are name appropriately close down 3ds Max and restart you new Icon should appear if not repeat the process making sure that you have name your .png files correctly.

     There is a lot more to cover on the new features of the User Interface that I will be covering in the next blog so please keep checking back for more,

3ds Max 2017 Tutorial 001

By - Michael Priest © 2016

Welcome

  Welcome to my 3ds Max Tutorial Blog. The Blog is for everyone interested in learning 3Ds Max I will be using 3ds Max 2017 for the first time in these tutorials so your version may be different then mine but they are relatively the same but with some extra added tools and enhanced features. You can download a Student copy of this program for free Here follow the instructions for the download and wait and wait for it to install, it will take some time but well worth the wait. You are about to enter a world were you are not limited by the imagination of someone else but only bound by your own and that my dear friends is an endless journey or creativity.

About This Blog

    I have stated above this is my first time using 3ds Max 2017 although I have used 3ds max 2011 in School to create all of my 3D Models and Animations and Importing them to Unity Game Engine to use them in my Games and Simulations. Now then this is still going to be a learning curve for me so as I learn you will learn from my knowledge that I have gained while using this New Version of 3ds Max 2017 and I have looked for books on it to assist me but there are none that I have found as of yet and there are very few Tutorials out on this release so this blog is going to be I hope a blessing for you if you are just starting out and have never used 3ds Max as I will start my first blogs in the assumption that you have never used this program and have little or no programming skills whatsoever.

What Is 3ds Max

     3ds Max is one of the best professional 3D Graphics Program that I have ever seen it is incredible
for creating 3D Animations, 3D Models that will blow you away, Games and Simulations as well as great Images but the main feature that I love is it's Modeling Capabilities and its great Plugin capabilities. In my Tutorials we will be mainly using 3ds Max for Video Game Development but there are numerous uses for 3ds Max that we may get into in my lifetime to come in my Blogs. For now lets focus on it's Modeling and Animation tools that will take us a long, long time to cover all of the great features and tool available to us to use along with our imaginations. Warning you are about to enter a world were you will get so involved in this program you will lose track of time as you create your own 3D Worlds and Objects there is really no turning back.

Whats Next 

   In my next Blog we are going to explore the User Interface of 3ds Max. I know you all would like to jump right in and start using and creating things right away so please feel free to go ahead and start exploring the User Interface on your own. There are great resources available in 3ds Max itself under help in the top right corner of the program so if you can wait like most please do some reading on your own. I would say that research is the number one skill set anyone can have when working with this program, learning will be a life long process for anyone who is interested in Games and Programming.  Oh I forgot to mention that in and of itself having program knowledge is really not essential but in this Blog we are going to get into programming at some point but don't be alarmed it is not that hard and I will walk you through it every step of the way.




© 2016 Michael Priest