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Chapter 4: Customizing the Max Interface and Setting Preferences

To specify a units system, choose Customize ➪ Units Setup to display the Units Setup dialog box, shown in
Figure 4.19. For the Metric system, options include Millimeters, Centimeters, Meters, and Kilometers. The
U.S. Standard units system can be set to the default units of Feet or Inches displayed as decimals or frac-
tional units. You also can select to display feet with fractional inches or feet with decimal inches. Fractional
values can be divided from ⁄1 to ⁄100 increments.
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1
FIGURE 4.19
The Units Setup dialog box lets you choose which units system to use. Options include Metric, U.S. Standard,
Custom, and Generic.

Using Custom and Generic units
To define a Custom units system, modify the fields under the Custom option, including a units label and its
equivalence to known units. The final option is to use the default Generic units. Generic units relate dis-
tances to each other, but the numbers themselves are irrelevant. You also can set lighting units to use
American or International standards. Lighting units are used to define Photometric lights.
At the top of the Units Setup dialog box is the System Unit Setup button. This button opens the System
Unit Scale dialog box, also shown in Figure 4.19. This dialog box enables you to define the measurement
system used by Max. Options include Inches, Feet, Miles, Millimeters, Centimeters, Meters, and Kilometers.
For example, when using Max to create models that are to be used in the Unreal game editor, you can use
the Custom option to define a unit called the Unreal Foot unit that sets 1 Uft equal to 16 units, which
matches the units in the Unreal editor just fine.
A multiplier field allows you to alter the value of each unit. The Respect System Units in Files toggle pres-
ents a dialog box whenever a file with a different system units setting is encountered. If this option is dis-
abled, all new objects are automatically converted to the current units system.
The Origin control helps you determine the accuracy of an object as it is moved away from the scene origin.
If you know how far objects will be located from the origin, then entering that value tells you the Resulting
Accuracy. You can use this feature to determine the accuracy of your parameters. Objects farther from the
origin have a lower accuracy.

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