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Useful 3ds Max Shortcut List

If you are working on a project using 3ds Max, you must work efficiently. Creating 3D art itself is a time-consuming
activity. Instead of using your valuable time finding where the button is, you will find very helpful if you are using shortcut.
I am not shortcut freak, but in my experience using shortcut saves me a lot of time. Once you memorize them by using
them frequently, shortcut will increase your productivity, because you are working using your right hand in the mouse and
left hand in keyboard.
by Didik Wijaya
If you are working on a project using 3ds Max, you must work efficiently. Creating 3D art itself is a
time-consuming activity. Instead of using your valuable time finding where the button is, you will find very helpful if you
are using shortcut. I am not shortcut freak, but in my experience using shortcut saves me a lot of time. Once you
memorize them by using them frequently, shortcut will increase your productivity, because you are working using your
right hand in the mouse and left hand in keyboard.
Here I list most useful 3ds max shortcuts:

VIEWPORT and DISPLAY

F3
Toggle between WireFrame/Smooth And Highlight

F4
Turn on/off Edged Faces

G
Hide/show Grid

F
Switch to Front viewport

T
Switch to Top viewport

L
Switch to Left viewport

R
Switch to Right viewport

B
Swith to Bottom viewport

P
Switch to Perspective viewport

C
Swith to Camera viewport

Swith to User viewport

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Z
Zoom Extent All if none object is selected, if there is object selected, it will zoom extent the object

X
Turn on/off Transform Gizmo. Sometimes the transform gizmo is off by accident. This is the quick way to restore it

D
Disable the viewport

Alt+W
Maximize viewport

Ctrl+(+)
Zoom in selected viewport

Ctrl+(-)
Zoom out selected viewport

SELECTION

Q
Select

W
Select and Move

E
Select and Rotate

R
Select and Scale

H
Select by Name

Ctrl+A
Select all

Ctrl+D
De-select all

Ctrl+I
Invert selection

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Spacebar
Lock selection

Del
Delete selected object

1 to 5

Select one of sub-object selection

(1=Vertex, 2=Edge, 3=border, 4=Polygon, 5=element)

S
Toggle Snap

A
Toggle Angle Snap

MATERIAL

M
Open Material Editor

G
When is Material Editor = Get Material

Up arrow
When in Material Editor = Go to Parent

RENDERING

F9
Render last rendered viewport, or if used at first render, it will render selected viewport

F10
Open Render Scene dialog

Shift+Q

Render selected viewport

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Ctrl+C
Clone Selected Object

MODELING

Alt+C
When in Editable Poly = Enable Cut

Shift+E
When in Editable Poly = Enable Extrude

ANIMATION

N
Toggle Auto Key button

/ (slash)
Play animation

MISC

6
Particle View window

7
Counts faces amount in selected object

8
Open Environment window

9
Open Advanced Lighting

0
Render to Texture
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F1
Help

F12
Transform Type In

Ctrl+X
Expert Mode

Ctrl+N
Open new file

Ctrl+O
Open file

Ctrl+S
Save file

Ctrl+Z
Undo

Ctrl+Y
Redo

Tips: Use only the shortcut you need based on your projects. To become familiar with shorcuts, I suggest use several of
them once in a while and after you memorize them begin trying other shortcuts. You don't need to memorize them all at
once.

The
shortcuts mentioned in this page are just a small subset of the
available shortcuts in 3D Studio MAX. I don't think you need more than these, but in case you need other shotcuts you
can find in the 3D Studio MAX user
reference.

In addition to the default keyboard shortcuts, you can also create your own custom keyboard shortcut:

- Choose Customize menu > Customize User Interface

- In Keyboard tab, highlight the action for which you want to create a shortcut.
- In the Hotkey field, enter the keyboard shortcut you want to assign to the action.
- Click Assign.

USING THE MOUSE EFFICIENTLY IN 3DS MAX

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Beside using shortcut, you can also maximize your mouse usage in 3ds Max. Using
the mouse properly can be a huge timesaver as well. Usually we use only Left Mouse Button and Right Mouse Button.
If you have 3 button mouse, you can benefit from Middle Mouse Button. Here I list the use of each 3 mouse buttons in
3ds Max.

USING MOUSE EFFICIENTLY

LMB=left mouse button, MMB=middle mouse button, RMB=right mouse button

Ctrl+LMB
Add selection

Alt+LMB
Reduce selection

Shift+LMB
Clone object

RMB
right click in non-active viewport will activate it

RMB
right click inside active viewport will open Quad Menu

RMB
right click in viewport's name will open viewport menu

MMB
Pan view

Alt+MMB
Rotate view

Scroll wheel
Zoom in / out

Any question or comments regarding this tutorial should be sent to:

Didik Wijaya, email: escalight@yahoo.com

Discuss this tutorial

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