# A grab-bag of 3ds Max 8 problems



## Phayder92889 (Apr 2, 2007)

I've been having some tech problems with my MoBo (AGP slot is fried, but mostly functional), first and foremost. It screws up 99% of all DX overlays (menus, lights, fire, water, textures, skyboxes)

so I set 3ds Max to OpenGL mode (which miraculously works )

As with other autodesk programs that I've used, the placement of menus has always been a bit... flexible... for the program's purposes.

I restore down, and on anything less than max resolution, it's about 3 feet to the right of my right monitor.

Or (my personal favorite) it places the submenus a good 9 monitor-lengths away, and refuses to let me click any of the rest of the program until I Alt+F4 the submenu window.

I was wondering how I could reset all these (un/re-installing hasn't helped, it's something to do with where windows remembers where it placed the... um... windows...)

also:

I can't seem to figure out how to make 2 counter-spinning wheels that can interact with other meshes.

Basically, I'm trying to MacGuyver a Pitching machine that'll pelt a ragdoll with baseball-sized objects, so help is appreciated.


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## Inactive (Apr 11, 2005)

you could try and force the video drivers to reposition all dialogue boxes onto a screen. you can see the settings below to do this. if you have exceptions allowed for 3ds you'll have to disable them.









i only dabble in animation, but do you want the ragdoll to interact with the objects hitting it or the meshwheels to interact with the objects being thrown at the ragdoll?

if its the latter i guess a dynamic's which is in the utilities panel (max4). you can create objects to force others to bounce off of each other. i've attached a quick sample file i did to represent a rotating object to hit balls, with gravity space warp. this was done in max4, so you should be able to open it.


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## Phayder92889 (Apr 2, 2007)

Thanks much, dude. Problem fixed, at least mostly.

The materials editor opens the map dialog box offscreen, still, but I know where to tweak it.

The attached image is what I'm trying to get to. Every one of the buttons that would allow me to apply a texture map to something opens it offscreen.

Oh, and I was trying to get both to interact with both.

Balls + wheels, Balls + Ragdoll


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## Inactive (Apr 11, 2005)

for the last dialogue box that opens up off screen i'd open it, then press and hold left ALT and then the SPACEBAR. a windows dialogue should appear and press the down arrow once and hit enter to allow you to move that dialogue box by using the cursor keys. so hold down left and then up cursor keys and see will it creep up onto the desktop. note it can on'y move in 1 direction at a time, so don't press both keys at the same time.

as for objects interacting, then dymanics could be used. if you looked at the files i attached you will see how i setup a simple dynamic solution (acutally 2) to hit a sphere and then get them to bounce off of 2 box objects. one acting as the floor. but since i am not an animator i cannot get it to work correctly, because you'll notice one of the spheres sinks through a box after skidding on it for a bit.

i saw max 9 in a trial version and dynamics doesn't seem to have been updated since 4, so there probably are better animation solutions available. you might want to read up on reactor - the little bit i know it can do collisions like what i attempted in dynamics


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## Phayder92889 (Apr 2, 2007)

I know plenty about reactor, I just can't find out what constraint or tool or whatever allows me to make something rotate at a specific speed.

also, that fixed it. I didn't know that one could do that with the move tool.

Pretty awesome, I'll have to remember that.


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## Inactive (Apr 11, 2005)

maybe i'm missing something here, but i just used the rotate function to rotate that x shape to hit the 2 spheres... you did look at the max file i attached above on #2


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## Phayder92889 (Apr 2, 2007)

I saw that, but I was looking for something along the lines of a pitching machine style launcher.

Like, 2 wheels over and under, spinning in opposite directions, the force launching spheroids out the front of it.


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## Inactive (Apr 11, 2005)

i don't know that you'd need to get that level of physics correct. but if you do want to try it i'd set up one cylinder to spin at the revolutions needed to accelerate the sphere. all i'd do there is rotate it as many times needed for 1 second and set the out of range curve to relative repeat. i'd then 'wire' the second cylinder to the first, but just give it a minus rotational value to the first one. now you'll need to tweak the static and dynamic friction levels of the spheres and spinning cylinders to grab the sphere and accelerate it to the desired speed.

or you could create a tube (to hide the firing mechanism) and transform the sphere a certain distance in x frames to give it a speed and then let dynamics take over and control the collisions and the rest. i have done one like that here, i'll attempt it with 2 spinning cylinders later. the example i attempted here is not a realistic setup. the sphere only moves 0.4m in 0.12 seconds. this is obviously too slow, but i don't have time to spare at the moment to research correct speeds, masses, frictions and air resistance needed to get the physics correct.


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## Inactive (Apr 11, 2005)

i tried setting up a scene using 2 rotating cylinders (one 'wired' to the other) to project a sphere into another object. the results i'm getting are unpredictable. this is largely due to my lack of knowledge. but if you are purely trying to animate a scene i would not do so by trying to use physics, max isn't designed for that. also, i've been hitting a sphere against a box. i don't know how you'd get a biped or some other boned mesh to react to each hit from a sphere.
sorry i cannot be of any assistance.


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## Phayder92889 (Apr 2, 2007)

I would've just animated it if I was allowed to.

This is for a Programming For Game-Design class, and the assignment is to create a dynamic mechanism. We've had to clear our designs with the teacher already, and we're expected to have working devices on Monday.


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## Inactive (Apr 11, 2005)

oh - right. although the max file above is totally setup using dynamics. the cylinders are spinning at 500rpm and the sphere is 0.1Kg while hitting a box of 5.5Kg. the sphere is place between the 2 spinning cylinders and the dynamic solution works out the speed it gets catapulted. 
however, the static and dynamic frictions are all over the place though along with the bounce coefficients. i don't even know what they should be typically for anything.

as for the spinning of the cylinders that catapult the sphere, that is only a question of using wiring. i'll have a look at setting one up...


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## Inactive (Apr 11, 2005)

its hard to know that this is what you are looking for, but i have cylinder pully01 controlling the others. if you rotate it on the y axis it in turn will work the other objects. the belt took a lot longer to create than i though.


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