3D Studio MAX 3: In Depth. Sample Chapter | 2

Introduction

To use MAX to its potential, you have to learn to think the way the program does. In this chapter, you'll learn the central concepts on which MAX is built. Once mastered, these principles will open the doors to the full range of power and flexibility for which MAX is so famous.

Every program has its own personality. 3D Studio MAX has a style of workflow and organization that is both powerful and unique, and the more you work with it, the more comfortable you become with its seamlessly integrated toolset. More than any other 3D graphics application I know of, MAX is built on certain underlying concepts that must be understood in a general way if you want to work with the program. A mark of the serious MAX practitioner is in the mastery of these few subtle concepts on which the towering edifice is built. With these concepts in hand, you begin to think like MAX, and the overwhelming number of tools and options becomes manageable.

MAX requires you to strategize and think according to a plan that best exploits its toolset. If you can learn to think as MAX does, you'll see the same principles repeating themselves in every corner and at every level of the program. Not only will you be able to learn new features more quickly, but you will understand their logical connections to the rest of the program. MAX, for all its complexity, is extremely well thought out.

In the famous story, three blind men examining an elephant with their hands come to completely different conclusions about the creature's shape. MAX is such a big and complex application that each user tends to see it from a different perspective. To get you started from the same vantage point I'm using, consider the concept of an "object" in MAX.

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Reproduced with permission from The Coriolis Group, copyright © 1999

Created: Sept. 30, 1999
Revised: Sept. 30, 1999

URL: https://webreference.com/3d/books/max3/1-1.html