holding down the ctrl key while adjusting a spinner increases the size of the incriminations. So for example if you are controlling the radius of a sphere by adjusting the radius spinner you would hold the control key down to make the radius resize much larger or smaller and faster than you would with just the spinner alone.

Want to maximize one viewport to fill your entire user interface? Just click in the viewport and hit "alt + w". One easy way to remember this is to think of the "w" as widening the viewport.

In MAX 2009 there is a new viewport feature called "ViewCube" and "SteeringWheel". I'd suggest disabling these to speed up viewport action for large scenes. Rename /program files/autodesk/3ds max 2009/stdplugs/AutoCamMax.gup to "AutoCamMax.gup.bak. This will allow you to turn it back on if you ever need to. Just remove the ".bak" extention.

If you sometimes like to have this on and sometimes off you can just go to the menu item "Views>Properties>Display Options and turn off "Show ViewCube.

Get some specific useful tools by alt+right-clicking in the viewport or on an object.

If you want your object to the zero point in 3D space right-click the move tool and then right click the spinners.

Want to make a duplicate of an object or multiple instances or copies of an object evenly spaced? Just shift drag it to the appropriate location and select instance or copy. Copy just makes a simple copy of the object but when you use instance whatever changes you make to the original will apply to your copies.

In edit poly or edit mesh mode hitting "shift + x" will snap you to nearest edge. Do it again to toggle on and off.

Get some specific useful tools by alt+right-clicking in the viewport or on an object.

Pressing ctrl + c will put a camera to the current view.

Go to Customize>Show UI> and check Floating Toolbars. Now you can drag these toolbars to where you want them and "dock" them to your interface. I don't use all of them but I like reactor on the left and the layers on the bottom.. helps speed things up.. if you have your screen resolution high enough you can squeeze a few more in here and there without loosing too much screen real estate. Remember to save this as maxstart.max in your scenes directory

When you are in subobject mode hitting the delete button can knock all associated stuff out while backspace removes only the selected item. Fiddle around with it in different sub object modes to see what I mean.

If you use reference images in your work (reference image on a plane etc) put them on a separate layer/s and then you can quickly hide them and switch them.

After adding a few tips I realized I never really explain how to save any customizations you might make to your UI. This will be good for future reference so you don't have to repeat these steps each time you start MAX.

To have customizations load each time max starts you simply need to save an empty scene with all your custom attributes to your default scenes directory. Save it as "maxstart.max" (must be saved as this to work).

I like to have those bounding boxes off. To do this right click on the viewport, go to configure, then uncheck "bounding box". Remember to save an empty scene like this as your maxstart.max (No. 13)

If you like the bounding boxes sometimes and don't want it to always load like this you can also use the shortcut "j" to turn them on and off.

I like to have "shade selected faces on all the time". It helps me see what I'm working with a little better when selecting multiple faces etc. To do this right click on the viewport, go to configure, then check "shade selected faces". Remember to save an empty scene like this as your maxstart.max
(No. 13)

When you are in the material editor hit the "x" key to add more materials.

When you're in the material editor try this: Instead of loading a .mat file you can pick your materials from one of your scenes by using the drop down box in the open dialog to switch to Max file, or Viz file. This loads materials from your other scene file instead of an actual material library.

When you have the material editor open you can simply drag the materials to your objects.

You can also have your textures directory open and drag in textures to your map slots in your material editor. Even drag them straight off the web! It will download them for you.

When you're in the material editor try this: Instead of loading a .mat file you can pick your materials from one of your scenes by using the drop down box in the open dialog to switch to Max file, or Viz file. This loads materials from your other scene file instead of an actual material library.

If your scene is getting out of hand with a bunch of objects named by default box_01 etc... select a group of objects that could be renamed then go to "Tools>Rename" and you have advanced renaming options there. Fairly pointless for one object but great for multiples.

X toggles on and off the "transform gizmo" ie the xyz thingy ;)

Use the + and - keys to make the gizmo larger or smaller.

Shift + Right-Click in the viewport gives you a ton of snap options.

Seems simple but many people get crappy chrome even with the default chrome materials. This is because of reflection. Chrome reflects it's surroundings. The default environment for MAX is a black void. If you placed a chrome teapot in a black void (even with lights) you're not going to see much. But place in an actual environment and bling bling! :)

If you're exporting single objects from a scene for a colleague use the reset xform modifier so that when they import it it will be in the middle of the screen at the zero point. That is unless you want them to import in the specific location relative to the zero point that they are at currently in your scene.

P = Perspective
L = Left
R = Right
F = Front
K = Back
T = Top
B = Bottom

You can also right click on the viewport name and under "views" find more options.

If you don't want to remember the keyboard shortcuts you can just remember "v" in any viewport gives you access to the most common views.

When you are in edit poly mode you can use these to switch between sub object modes:

1 = Vertex

2 = Edge

3 = Ring

4 = Face

5 = Element

q = select

w = move

e = rotate

r = scale

If you have your orbit tool set to rotate on subobject element you'll rotate around your selected sub object. For instance if you have a vert selected you'll rotate around the selected vert. It basically sets the center of your orbit to that selection.

Once you've set it there you can easily use the middle mouse button + alt and rotate without having to use the orbit button at all. You can use the middle mouse button + alt regardless but I find it much easier to just set the orbit tool to subobject first.

Middle Mouse Button = Pan

Wheel = Zoom In/Out

Alt+Middle Mouse Button = Orbit

Hold down the "I" key and click in the viewport to center on the location where your cursor is.