Introduction to 3ds Max 2011

In this lesson, we'll take a look at setting our Project Folder and then also, re-linking images, if they get broken. So as we open up 3ds Max, one of the things that we'll want to do is set a project, as we start to work. And setting a project and creating a project will create all of the folder structure that's needed to save all of our scenes, all of our data, all of our texture maps and things like that, in an organized location. So you can keep all of your work organized. And so one of the ways we can do this, we can come up here and choose Manage. And let's Set Project Folder. So this will set a folder to be the root of the current 3ds Max project. So we'll go ahead and set that. And let's choose a folder that we've created here. So I've just gone ahead and created a folder on the root drive here, the C Drive. And you can do the same thing. Or if you have a project that you've already created, you can select that project. But this is the top level of this. So we'll say, OK. And that will create this project. So that when we go in and go to Open, it's going to immediately go into that project, into the structure where the scenes are located and find the scenes, same thing with the textures and so forth. So if we go ahead and open up a scene from this particular project, we'll open up the Pod_Racer, go ahead and open that up. And opening this up will give up will give us a little bit of a warning here. It's going to say, there are external files that are missing. So we have these texture files, these image files, that we can't find. So if you ever open up any project files that you're using, and you get this sort of a warning. Probably, what you'll need to do is go ahead and just re-link those images. They're not in the location where 3ds Max expects them to be. And this could be because a drive letter is different. There could be any number of reasons. But all you need to do is go in and just re-link those up. So we can go in here to Browse and add a path, to look for these images in. We could also in here to Manage and go to Asset Tracking. So looking at Asset Tracking, you can see here that we have, again, the paths for these particular images. We get a little warning over here that says, "unknown status, file missing." Can't really find that, so what we can do is select our image and then, find and navigate to that path. So we'll go to Path, Set Path. And this will allow us to find this particular path. So we can go in here. And let's just go up. And let's say that these are actually in a folder called Texture Maps, for whatever reason. So we'll go ahead and navigate to that folder. And now, we'll say Use Path. Once that path is in here, we'll say OK to that. And now, we should have that file there now. OK, we'll do the same thing here. Set Path, OK, and let's go ahead and add that path back in there. So again, go into to Texture Maps, Use Path. OK. And this one, the file is missing. So we'll do the same thing here. OK. And now they should be, probably, in the Images folder. So if you have images that you've got in different locations, and you want to move those into the correct folder. You can do that. And then, this one, we can go ahead and also Set Path on that one, as well. OK. And then, now we have our object with our textures re-linked here. And so we can go ahead and turn off our edged faces. And this is actually the project that we're going to be creating, coming up here in just a few minutes. So looking at the overall interface and kind of getting started topic here, in 3ds Max, I hope you have a better idea just kind of how to get around here in 3ds Max, the importance of our Command Panel. And the role that's going to play in building up our geometry and also just doing any sort of functions that we're going to be doing here in our project; and just being able to move objects around; being able to navigate within our 3D views; being to look at the different 3D views and highlight different View Ports. OK, just kind of experiment a little bit with some simple objects, kind of getting your way, finding your way around the interface, before you actually jump into the next section and start modeling. So we'll go ahead and pick up in the next lesson and actually start building up some of this geometry. And we'll actually end with a project that looks just like this. So I look forward to seeing you in the next lesson.