First Class

During our first class, we learned some basics for using the 3DS Max program.  \We learned to control the viewport and how to create and manipulate basic 3D shapes.  We learned how to animate and render.  We created a biped skeleton, did some basic animations, and rendered it to a movie.

Here's a summary of keyboard controls:

Think of the viewport as looking at your scene through a camera.
You can rotate, pan, and zoom the view using these keyboard keys:

• Middle mouse button + ALT-KEY = ROTATE the view of our scene about the selected object.
• Middle mouse button = PAN the view left/right/up/down
• Mouse wheel = ZOOM the view in and out 

After creating several objects in the scene, you can manipulate individual objects using the mouse and these keyboard keys:

• Q-key = enable just the pointer, so that you can click and select objects
• W-key = enable the MOVE tool.  Then click drag on one of the 3 arrows (X, Y, and Z) on the selected object.
• E-key = enable the ROTATE tool.  Then click drag on one of the 3 rings (X, Y, and Z) on the selected object.
• R-key = enable the SCALE tool.  Then click drag inside the yellow triangle to scale the object larger or smaller.

Here's a move render of one student's BIPED animation.

Click this link to download a high resolution copy of this movie.