Project Setup/Management and Quality Assurance for Small Business
by Anselm v. Seherr - Thoß, Germany


Or open the 3dsmax.ini from the Max ROOT and edit the Paths under the line [Directories]. I use to edit my 3dsmax.ini for every project. Be sure to backup every file you edit for a project!


Under Customize > Preferences > Files I use to edit the “Recent File in File Menu” to the possible maximum of 50 files. So you can open more recent files.

And I enable Autoback and raise the number of autobak to 9 (again the possible maximum). I define the Backup Interval depending on the maxfile size I have to work with. It´s simply disturbing if you have a 300MB file and Autobak keeps you from working because it backups every five minutes…


After we modified our Max for the new duty let´s create a Maxstart.max file and save that into the Scenes folder. The Maxstart.max file determines certain settings when you start Max (Maybe that´s why it´s called Maxstart.max file :-).

I even use to create Maxstart.max file for every shot which defines the right frame range, unit setup, special render settings already set, file properties etc. That prevent´s you from problems occuring because an animator still worked with the wrong FPS or timeline e.g. Same goes for rendering output. You can set the right output size, destination folder and range and save that to the Maxstart.max file too.

Just click on the Time Configuration button on the bottom of the Max Interface and edit the Timeline as desired.


Customize- Since I work in germany and we have the PAL system here I use to work in PAL. That means 25FPS and 720x576 as Render spec…