& Construction
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Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
& Manufacturing
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Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Integrated BIM tools, including Revit, AutoCAD, and Civil 3D
Professional CAD/CAM tools built on Inventor and AutoCAD
Learn to keep all of your files organized and portable by using 3ds Max projects and taking advantage of tools like Increment on Save and Auto Backup.
Type:
Tutorial
Length:
5 min.
Tutorial resources
These downloadable resources will be used to complete this tutorial:
Transcript
00:03
Let's talk a little bit more about how you can organize
00:06
your projects and your scene files within three Ds max.
00:10
So here we have sort of a drone model
00:12
and we want to save this with all of its materials and textures.
00:15
And when we say projects like this,
00:17
we want to keep everything organized so that we know where everything is.
00:20
For instance, we want to know where the geometry is.
00:22
We want to know where the textures are that are being pulled into the scene,
00:25
et cetera.
00:25
And so the way that we can do this in three Ds Macs is to use three Ds max projects.
00:30
And so where you're gonna go to find the project functionality is under the file menu
00:35
under project.
00:36
And then also over here next to the, where the project is listed,
00:40
you'll see a number of buttons here on the right side of that.
00:43
And so what we can do, we come down to project
00:46
and we'll just
00:47
come in here,
00:48
we can create an empty project but no structure
00:51
and we can kind of build it from scratch.
00:53
We can create a default project which has the default folder structure in it.
00:57
We can also create a new project from our current one.
00:59
And this will also allow us to set a project.
01:02
So if we have several projects that we're working on simultaneously,
01:04
we can set a project to a particular one, work on that
01:08
and then set it back to the original.
01:10
So let's go ahead and create a new project
01:12
and let's create a default project.
01:15
So I'll go ahead and click on create default
01:17
that will bring up our explorer window.
01:19
So what I'm gonna do is navigate to where I want to put that new project.
01:24
So I'm going to put it in a folder called projects.
01:26
I'm gonna go ahead and create a new folder
01:29
and I'm just gonna call this getting started 2021.
01:33
Go ahead and click into there and we'll select the folder.
01:36
So now if we look in the upper right,
01:38
you can see that the project we just created is the current project.
01:40
If we jump into a file explorer and go into that folder, we just created,
01:44
you can see that three Ds Max has created a
01:47
number of different folders inside of that getting started 2021.
01:51
You can see there's a scenes folder,
01:53
uh there's a folder for import and export for
01:55
downloads for our backup files and so forth.
01:58
Now the layout for how those folders are created can be found.
02:01
If we go under project and let's configure project paths,
02:05
you can see all of these listed on the right
02:08
correspond to those folders that we saw in our project.
02:11
Now, if for whatever reason, we wanted to change any of these,
02:14
we can click on any of these folders
02:16
and go to modify them and we can change what those folders are.
02:19
So now if we want to save this file, we can go to file,
02:22
save as and save it into the scenes directory of that particular project.
02:26
And when we're saving scenes,
02:27
we can save them as a max formatted file or we can also export elements of our scenes,
02:32
go to export.
02:32
You can see that that defaults into our export folder.
02:35
And if you click up the drop down,
02:37
you'll see a number of different kinds of files that you can export F B
02:40
X and O B J are probably the ones that you're most familiar with.
02:43
But there are also files related more to manufacturing. We've got o limbic caches
02:47
that we can deal with as well.
02:48
So a lot of different options in terms of files and
02:51
we'll talk more about that in the pipeline integration lesson.
02:54
We can also, if we're trying to bring things indoor scene,
02:57
we can go to import,
02:58
we can import geometry or if we have another max file that we want to combine,
03:02
we can merge it into the current scene.
03:04
And one thing that I did want to mention
03:05
is any time you're using any kind of 3D software. And three Ds Max is no exception.
03:10
You want to be smart about how you save your files.
03:13
So for instance, this file is called Drone dot X.
03:16
If I continue working on this file and I continue to just save over Drone dot Max,
03:20
what happens if Drone dot Max gets corrupted while I've lost all
03:24
of the work that I've done could be days or weeks.
03:27
So there are a few tools that we can use
03:29
to minimize our risk of losing work that we've done.
03:32
The first tool that we could use is to simply increment our saves.
03:35
So instead of Drone dot Max, I would start with Drone 01,
03:39
I would do some work. And then the next time I save it, I would save it as drone at 02.
03:44
If we go into file preferences,
03:46
you can see under the files tab, there is an increment on save.
03:51
If I go ahead and check that box
03:53
and click, ok.
03:54
And then I go up to file and I hit save. You can see that it's automatically added a 01
03:59
to this max file.
04:01
So now if I spend, let's say 30 minutes doing some more work and I save it again
04:05
and something happens to my file,
04:07
I've only lost 30 minutes of work rather than my entire project.
04:10
So incrementing is a smart thing to do.
04:12
If you have the space for it, you don't have to keep 10 files.
04:15
You could keep maybe five increments or you could keep all of them.
04:18
If you really want to be able to go back and forth, it's up to you,
04:21
but it is smart not to keep saving over the same scene file.
04:24
We can also turn on auto backup.
04:26
So if we go back into preferences,
04:28
you can see auto backup right below the file handling
04:31
here. You can see how many files you want to keep.
04:33
So here, we're only keeping three and we're backing up every five minutes.
04:37
You can see there's also
04:39
some text that you can add to the file name
04:41
here. You can see the check box for backup on save.
04:43
So whenever you save a file, you'll save A dot B A K file as a backup.
04:47
So there are several tools in three Ds max to help make sure that you
04:51
don't lose any of the work that you've done if something were to happen.
04:54
So that's a look at working with projects in three Ds max and saving scene files and
04:58
ways we can minimize our risk in terms of losing any of the work that we've done.
Video transcript
00:03
Let's talk a little bit more about how you can organize
00:06
your projects and your scene files within three Ds max.
00:10
So here we have sort of a drone model
00:12
and we want to save this with all of its materials and textures.
00:15
And when we say projects like this,
00:17
we want to keep everything organized so that we know where everything is.
00:20
For instance, we want to know where the geometry is.
00:22
We want to know where the textures are that are being pulled into the scene,
00:25
et cetera.
00:25
And so the way that we can do this in three Ds Macs is to use three Ds max projects.
00:30
And so where you're gonna go to find the project functionality is under the file menu
00:35
under project.
00:36
And then also over here next to the, where the project is listed,
00:40
you'll see a number of buttons here on the right side of that.
00:43
And so what we can do, we come down to project
00:46
and we'll just
00:47
come in here,
00:48
we can create an empty project but no structure
00:51
and we can kind of build it from scratch.
00:53
We can create a default project which has the default folder structure in it.
00:57
We can also create a new project from our current one.
00:59
And this will also allow us to set a project.
01:02
So if we have several projects that we're working on simultaneously,
01:04
we can set a project to a particular one, work on that
01:08
and then set it back to the original.
01:10
So let's go ahead and create a new project
01:12
and let's create a default project.
01:15
So I'll go ahead and click on create default
01:17
that will bring up our explorer window.
01:19
So what I'm gonna do is navigate to where I want to put that new project.
01:24
So I'm going to put it in a folder called projects.
01:26
I'm gonna go ahead and create a new folder
01:29
and I'm just gonna call this getting started 2021.
01:33
Go ahead and click into there and we'll select the folder.
01:36
So now if we look in the upper right,
01:38
you can see that the project we just created is the current project.
01:40
If we jump into a file explorer and go into that folder, we just created,
01:44
you can see that three Ds Max has created a
01:47
number of different folders inside of that getting started 2021.
01:51
You can see there's a scenes folder,
01:53
uh there's a folder for import and export for
01:55
downloads for our backup files and so forth.
01:58
Now the layout for how those folders are created can be found.
02:01
If we go under project and let's configure project paths,
02:05
you can see all of these listed on the right
02:08
correspond to those folders that we saw in our project.
02:11
Now, if for whatever reason, we wanted to change any of these,
02:14
we can click on any of these folders
02:16
and go to modify them and we can change what those folders are.
02:19
So now if we want to save this file, we can go to file,
02:22
save as and save it into the scenes directory of that particular project.
02:26
And when we're saving scenes,
02:27
we can save them as a max formatted file or we can also export elements of our scenes,
02:32
go to export.
02:32
You can see that that defaults into our export folder.
02:35
And if you click up the drop down,
02:37
you'll see a number of different kinds of files that you can export F B
02:40
X and O B J are probably the ones that you're most familiar with.
02:43
But there are also files related more to manufacturing. We've got o limbic caches
02:47
that we can deal with as well.
02:48
So a lot of different options in terms of files and
02:51
we'll talk more about that in the pipeline integration lesson.
02:54
We can also, if we're trying to bring things indoor scene,
02:57
we can go to import,
02:58
we can import geometry or if we have another max file that we want to combine,
03:02
we can merge it into the current scene.
03:04
And one thing that I did want to mention
03:05
is any time you're using any kind of 3D software. And three Ds Max is no exception.
03:10
You want to be smart about how you save your files.
03:13
So for instance, this file is called Drone dot X.
03:16
If I continue working on this file and I continue to just save over Drone dot Max,
03:20
what happens if Drone dot Max gets corrupted while I've lost all
03:24
of the work that I've done could be days or weeks.
03:27
So there are a few tools that we can use
03:29
to minimize our risk of losing work that we've done.
03:32
The first tool that we could use is to simply increment our saves.
03:35
So instead of Drone dot Max, I would start with Drone 01,
03:39
I would do some work. And then the next time I save it, I would save it as drone at 02.
03:44
If we go into file preferences,
03:46
you can see under the files tab, there is an increment on save.
03:51
If I go ahead and check that box
03:53
and click, ok.
03:54
And then I go up to file and I hit save. You can see that it's automatically added a 01
03:59
to this max file.
04:01
So now if I spend, let's say 30 minutes doing some more work and I save it again
04:05
and something happens to my file,
04:07
I've only lost 30 minutes of work rather than my entire project.
04:10
So incrementing is a smart thing to do.
04:12
If you have the space for it, you don't have to keep 10 files.
04:15
You could keep maybe five increments or you could keep all of them.
04:18
If you really want to be able to go back and forth, it's up to you,
04:21
but it is smart not to keep saving over the same scene file.
04:24
We can also turn on auto backup.
04:26
So if we go back into preferences,
04:28
you can see auto backup right below the file handling
04:31
here. You can see how many files you want to keep.
04:33
So here, we're only keeping three and we're backing up every five minutes.
04:37
You can see there's also
04:39
some text that you can add to the file name
04:41
here. You can see the check box for backup on save.
04:43
So whenever you save a file, you'll save A dot B A K file as a backup.
04:47
So there are several tools in three Ds max to help make sure that you
04:51
don't lose any of the work that you've done if something were to happen.
04:54
So that's a look at working with projects in three Ds max and saving scene files and
04:58
ways we can minimize our risk in terms of losing any of the work that we've done.
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