- [Instructor] Layout is the process
of setting up a scene in 3D
and it usually involves importing models,
positioning, and rotating them in a larger context.
I'll use this example scene
to demonstrate the most important principle,
the very first thing
that you need to master in scene layout, which is scale.
The size of the world
and size of objects in that world is super important.
You will not get good results
if the objects are not scaled properly.
Every model that you import into a layout
should use the same scale convention.
It is very, very bad practice, indeed,
to model objects at random sizes
and then try to scale them to match in your layout phase.
That is a recipe for disaster,
especially with complex models and character rigs.
It's strongly advised that you model everything
to unity scale, or 1:1 scale.
In other words, the scale of the object in the 3D scene
is measured the same as it would be in the real world.
If you have a scene open
and you don't know the scale of that scene,
there's an old trick to figure that out
just by building a box.
Let's go into the Create panel
to Geometry, Standard Primitives.
Click on the Box button to go into box creation mode.
Let's set the creation method to Cube.
Open up the keyboard entry and set the length to 36,
press Enter, and click the Create button.
We get a cube right at the origin,
because our X, Y and Z position values are set to zero.
And it's got a random color by default.
With that box still selected,
let's go over to the Modify panel
and we can see that we've got length, width and height
and a value of 36.
But there's no unit of measurement shown here.
We don't see centimeters or inches or anything.
By default, we'll get generic units.
What is a generic unit?
It's also known as an internal system unit.
That determines the accuracy of spatial calculations.
We'll talk about this in the next movie.
By default, a system unit is actually an inch
but that's not a problem
because Max allows us to display and enter distance values
in any unit system we want
such as centimeters, or feet, or cubits, or whatever.
And that's completely regardless
and independent of the system units.
Let's look at our unit setup in the Customize menu.
We'll go to Units Setup.
And in this dialogue box
we have a section labeled Display Unit Scale
and it's currently set to generic units.
Just to demonstrate that generic units
are actually inches by default,
I'm going to switch the display unit scale
over to US Standard.
And in that pull-down list here
I'll make sure that's set to decimal inches.
And then when I go ahead and click OK,
over here in the Modify panel,
now we see we have a little double quote
after each one of these numeric entry field values
telling us that we've now got a box
that's 36 inches on a side.
The numeric values didn't change because, again,
a generic unit is an inch by default.
And of course the size of the object didn't change.
We just changed the units of measurement.
You'll almost always want to explicitly set
your display units in each scene.
Let's go back into the unit setup.
Customize, Units Setup.
And let's look a little bit more deeply
at US Standard units.
You can choose feet or inches
or you can choose feet and inches.
And if we go into a mode
in which we have the ability to enter feet and inches,
either fractional or decimal,
then additionally, we see that this section
labeled default units is no longer grayed out
and we can choose feet or inches.
What this does is choose our preference
for how we want 3ds Max
to interpret our data entry or key strokes.
If default units are set to feet, and I type in a one,
3ds Max will interpret that as one foot.
If default units are inches, and I type in a one,
3ds Max will interpret that as one inch.
So let's try it.
We'll set default units to inches, click OK.
Over in the Modify panel, now we see that our length,
width and height are displayed in feet and inches.
Each one of them says three feet, zero inches.
Because our default units are inches,
if we type something in here,
3ds Max will think that we mean inches, not feet.
So to illustrate, if I set the length to 60
and press Enter,
3ds Max thinks that means five feet, or 60 inches.
We can do that for all of these.
I can type in a 60, press Tab, 60, and Enter.
And now we have a box that's 60 inches,
or five feet, on a side.
Now we can always override that behavior.
If we want to type in feet and inches directly
using the symbolism of single and double quotes,
we can always do that,
regardless of what the default units are.
So for example, I can go over here,
set the length to 36 inches, 36 and a double quote,
and press Enter,
and 3ds Max interpreted that as 36 inches or three feet.
So we can do that here again, 36 and double quote,
press Tab, 36 double quote, and press Enter.
I'm going to use the metric system with centimeters
throughout most of this course
so that the scenes will be compatible
with international audiences.
If you're an architect or an interior designer
working in the United States,
you'll probably use US Standard units
but otherwise I'd recommend using the metric system.
It's just way more logical.
Let's go back into the unit setup,
Customize, Units Setup,
and I'll set this to Metric
and I'll make sure that my pull-down list
is set to centimeters
and go ahead and click OK.
And with this object selected
we now see that our values are displayed in centimeters.
Again, the size of the object didn't change.
We're merely measuring it with a different system
and that means there'll be no problem with compatibility
if we share this scene with someone
who prefers to work in different units.
And of course I can type in values here
to make this cube exactly one meter.
So we can set length to 100, press Tab,
width 100, press Tab, height to 100, press Enter.
And now we have a cube that is exactly one cubic meter.
That's how to set up the display units
or units of measurement.