Small Annoying Things

PURPOSE
This forum is about all the little annoying quirks and problems in 3ds Max that you might have gotten used to over the years but that might benefit from a second look.

Remember, keep these ideas to tweaks of the workflow rather than large, sweeping changes to the tools. Try to imagine how much effort a programmer has to go into in order to implement your suggestion. Anything requiring major UI changes or new UI dialogs will need to go in another forum.

Feature ideas considered too big will simply be moved to the General Feature Requests forum; suggestions for new defaults should go into the Default Settings forum.

Add your vote to any idea if you also think this is an annoying behavior that needs to be fixed.

HOW TO USE THE FORUM
- Each user has 20 votes for each forum
- Each idea can have no more than 3 votes by a single user
- If you enter an idea, it will cost you 1 vote – therefore try to make sure the idea doesn’t already exist
- The more precise and detailed a description you give, the more likely your idea will rise higher in the list
- When an idea is implemented, votes are returned to all the users that voted
- User can change their votes at any time
- Admins can move, edit and delete ideas as they see fit to better meet the goals of the forum
- We will flag ideas that are getting our attention as “under review”. Because of limits on what we can say publicly, that is as far as we can go with commenting on a particular idea. If it is “under review” it simply means we’re studying it for possible implementation or gathering data, but there is no commitment to do it.

Remember, we do not release versions on “internet time”. Unlike the web sites this was designed for, our process of releasing functionality is much longer term. So there won’t be a constant churn of ideas being “closed out” by us and votes returned to you. For this tool to map to our process, we will be looking at the data during a short period of the year (3-6 months) and deciding what actions to take after that. Don’t expect to post an idea and a month later for us to respond in some fashion to it. The most likely scenario is that you’ll post an idea and if a lot of other people vote on it, we’ll eventually flag it as “under review” – but that could be 9 months later or longer.

Please treat this as an experiment in working with the community. Even if Uservoice is not the final home for this, we’ll do our best to export all the ideas to whatever future system might take its place. Your voice will persist.

Note: It’s important to realize that these lists are simply raising the quality of the feedback we get from the community. They are not a replacement for how we define the features for any given release. They are valuable input, but beta input, product strategy, focus, innovation and other factors are also important aspects we consider.

BUGS
Please report them here:
http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax-DefectSubmission

AVAILABLE PUBLIC FORUMS
Default Settings
Please tell us which user defaults settings you change the most! Enter a description of the default or ini setting and then see how the community votes on it. Remember these are only the user preferences you can either set in the interface or ini files.

General Feature Requests
Please help us collect ideas for new features and general product enhancements. What’s on your top ten list? Add a vote to any idea you also think is important!

Small Annoying Things
This forum is about all the little annoying quirks and problems in 3ds Max that you might have gotten used to over the years but that really should be fixed.
Remember, keep these ideas to tweaks of the workflow rather than large, sweeping changes to the tools. Try to imagine how much effort a programmer has to go into in order to implement your suggestion. Anything requiring major UI changes or new UI dialogs will need to go in another forum.

SDK/Scripting Enhancements
This forum is about improvements to the SDK or Script-related.

Describe a small problem in 3ds Max that annoys you in your daily work. Please give the steps that show it and describe clearly how you'd prefer it to work. Please include a description!

You've used all your votes and won't be able to post a new idea, but you can still search and comment on existing ideas.

There are two ways to get more votes:

  • When an admin closes an idea you've voted on, you'll get your votes back from that idea.
  • You can remove your votes from an open idea you support.
  • To see ideas you have already voted on, select the "My feedback" filter and select "My open ideas".
(thinking…)

Enter your idea and we'll search to see if someone has already suggested it.

If a similar idea already exists, you can vote and comment on it.

If it doesn't exist, you can post your idea so others can vote on it.

Enter your idea and we'll search to see if someone has already suggested it.

  • Hot ideas
  • Top ideas
  • New ideas
  1. Merging spring controllers confusion.

    Make 2 points, link p2 to p1. Assign a spring controller to the second point. Add a couple of keyframes to p1's position to get the spring moving. Save the file. Merge both objects back in. (keeping same name) p2 that got merged in will now be driven by the original p1 even though it's still linked to p1 that it got merged with. Workaround is that the object with the spring controller needs to have a different name than the one that exists in the scene

    3 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  [admin: Bug]  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  2. 2013 Graphite Ribbon layout is forced to Vertical when undocked.

    This is new to 2013, but the graphite ribbon switches to Vertical layout when undocked. Re introduce the option to maintain the layout of the menu when undocked to horizontal or whatever the user wants. This is ridiculous ergonomically as you have to learn two layouts for the menu. A two monitor setup is very common today and the undocked horizontal graphite menu works well

    3 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  General UI  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  3. Track View > Interactive Update > "On" by default

    As far as I know this is not an INI user setting, so I'm putting it in to this forum instead of the DefaultSettings forum. I wind up turning this on everytime I create an animation, it should default to on all the time, and allow users to turn it off when needed.

    4 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Animation  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  4. Parent and Sibling Navigation in SME

    As in the Compact Material Editor, there should be navigation buttons to move to the parent or sibling of a particular map. These could be main toolbar buttons, but, initially they could be confined to the Material Parameters window, since that's most likely where you'd be when you want to see a maps parent material/map.

    4 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Materials/Maps  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  5. Button flyouts behave differently (and much less efficiently) than menu flyouts

    Button fly-outs require *six* steps to obtain a clear description of what they do (vs. 2 steps for menu fly-outs) = frustrating for any user who hasn't memorized every button flyout, and probably frustrating even for users who have.

    Menu flyout: click->every option is visible and named->click what you want.

    Button flyout: click 1)-> nothing is named, and no tool-tips appear until you 2) -> hold down your click, drag 3) -> release 4) -> move off the button area 5) -> move back onto the button area 6) -> tool-tip appears that says what it is (for example, "use…

    3 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  UI, usability, learnabiliy  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  6. Make it easier to edit output paths in Batch Renderer

    When setting up many cameras in batch renderer you currently cannot clone a camera many times and quickly edit the output path information. You can change the camera and view name easily enough but to change the output path you have to delete the cloned one, open up the 'save as' dialogue box (which by default opens in your previous batch render save location) then navigate to the new folder and pick a file name and format. If you are doing this with 20+ cameras it can be very time consuming.

    It would be much easier if you could simply…

    5 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Rendering  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  7. Copying cordinates on maps

    I WOULD APPRECIATE A QUICK WAY TO COPY MAPPING CORDINATES FORM ONE MAP TO ANTHOR IE FROM A DIFFUSE TO A BUMP SO ON AND SO ON.

    2 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Materials/Maps  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  8. 39 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  UI, usability, learnabiliy  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  9. Linking objects in Wireframe mode doesn't provide clear feedback

    In shaded mode, when you link an object to another object, the new Parent object flashes a selection bracket when the link is made. This provides good feedback that the link operation has successfully been made and provides clarity as to which object you've selected as your parent (which is important in complex scenes).

    This feedback does not exist in wireframe mode. In wireframe mode, it is very unclear that a link has occurred correctly. I tend to use the select Ancestor hotkey to confirm that my link has happened correctly.

    I'm pretty sure it used to be that the…

    4 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  UI, usability, learnabiliy  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  10. Quick Open Material/Map tool options from navigator.

    In material Editor Navigator window. It would be really nice IF I press ctrl, alt, or shift... and click or double click on an element it opens up the material/map options under the nav panel immediately.

    Its a bit annoying that I have to navigate my window then click on the panel in the view, while I could do it in a single movement (in cases when I already know which element I wanna open...)

    3 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Materials/Maps  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  11. Importing a 3ds model when objects are named the same | add a rename, ignore naming, apply to all etc...

    When importing 3ds files if the objects in the scene are named the same then you have to manually click skip or merge for every single object with the same name. If there can be a skip or merge all that would help similar to how you can merge from one file to the next.

    4 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  File Dialogs  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  12. Deleting a morph target should not zero the morph weight

    When you delete a morph target from the Morpher modifier, the morph weight value should not be reset to zero. This would be helpful, for example, for replacing a target with a new mesh.

    1 vote
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Animation  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  13. Unhide all objects in specific layer

    Button or right-click menu to hide/unhide all objects in selected layer, not the layer itself. I would like to unhide objects in the layer I'm working in without having to
    1. manually unhide all objects in the layer I'm working on
    or
    2. unhide ALL and then hide the layers I'm not working on.

    0 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Layers  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  14. Double click on backburner rendered image path/filename opens that image

    One version of Backburner did used to do this (5 years ago?) then it was removed.

    22 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Backburner  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  15. Mapping dialogues(flatten, normal) always pop up in the upper left of the left monitor

    This is a pain for people using 2 monitors. It should be like Pack UVs, that shows up in the same monitor as the Edit UVW window.

    1 vote
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Texturing/UV  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  16. Some map types not updating while rendering a sequence

    One example is the falloff map when using an animated object for the direction.

    3 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Rendering  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  17. soft selection sub-rollout should be smaller

    I found myself mostly use the first spinners and checkbox but there is a whole lot of other stuff in this rollout I rarley use and I keep roll it up and down, this is really annoying.

    2 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  Modeling  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  18. Hidden faces indicator or hidden sub-objects in general

    Hidden faces indicator or hidden sub-objects in general to prevent some polygons appear only in render time

    1 vote
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  Modeling  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  19. pick object in the viewport in a track view picking session or at least show selected object in the object tree list

    Sometimes it is easier to pick object in the viewport in a track view picking session or at least show selected object in the object tree list

    1 vote
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    0 comments  ·  UI, usability, learnabiliy  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  20. Adding a closed group to a layer

    Adding a closed group to a layer results in some of the group get in the layer an others do not

    8 votes
    Vote
    Sign in
    Signed in as (Sign out)
    You have left! (?) (thinking…)
    1 comment  ·  [admin: Needs review]  ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →
  • Don't see your idea?

Feedback and Knowledge Base