General Preferences

Levels—Sets the number of operations you can undo. You can see the operation that will be undone by looking at Undo on the Edit menu.

Constant—Sets one coordinate system and transform center for Move, Rotate, and Scale on the Main toolbar. The coordinate system displayed in the coordinate dropdown list, and the transform center selected from the Use Center flyout, are used for all transforms.

Normally, each transform switches to the coordinate system and transform center used the last time the transform was active.

Enable Viewport Tooltips—Displays a tooltip when the cursor pauses over a non-selected object in the viewports if you are not in sub-object mode. Tooltips show the names of objects.

AutoPlay Preview File—Starts the Media Player automatically at the end of a Make Preview.

Display Cross Hair Cursor—Displays the mouse cursor as full-viewport cross hairs, vertical and horizontal lines extending the full extent of the active viewport.

Each movement of the mouse is redrawn, so the cross hairs are relatively slow. If you want to create a keyboard shortcut, find Cross Hair Cursor toggle in Customize menu > Customize User Interface > Keyboard panel and specify the keys to use for the shortcut. If you want to change the color of the cross-hairs cursor, Customize menu > Customize User Interface > Colors panel > Viewports > Cross Hair Cursor and use the color selector to change the cursor color.

Display Topology Dependence Warning—Turns of the topology dependence warning. A warning is displayed if an object has modifiers and sub-object selections, and you choose to edit a modifier or the base object at the bottom of the modifier stack, which can adversely affect the object’s topology. You can also turn off the warning in the warning dialog. Default=on.

Display Stack Collapse Warning—Turns off the stack collapse warning. A warning is displayed if an object has modifiers and sub-object selections, and you choose to delete a modifier, which can adversely affect the object's topology. You can also turn off the warning in the warning dialog. Default=on.

Save UI Configuration on Exit—Restores panels and toolbars to the positions they were in the last time you used the software. Turn this off to restore panels to the state they were in prior to turning on this option.

Use Large Toolbar Buttons—Toggles between large and small toolbar buttons.

Horizontal Text in Vertical Toolbar—Ensures text buttons are displayed horizontally.

If you create a custom toolbar positioned vertically, and you're using text rather than image buttons, you can choose to display either horizontal or vertical text with this option.

Fixed Width Text Button—Specifies the maximum width of text buttons.

You must turn on the Horizontal Text in Vertical Toolbar option, turn this option on, and then set a maximum display size for the text button in pixels. For custom vertical toolbars with text buttons, this option will limit the size of the text display.

Flyout Time—Sets the pause, in milliseconds, between the mouse click and the flyout popping up from the button. Increase this setting only if you need an extra-long delay. Don't decrease the setting much or you may not be able to execute button commands before the flyout takes over.

Color Selector—Choose the default color selector, or a third-party plug-in color selector in the list. The color selector you choose here is used throughout 3ds Max whenever you specify a color.

Load Plug-Ins When Used—When turned on, loads plug-ins on demand, when they are needed.

Assign Automatically—Enables the automatic creation of a Multi/Sub-Object material when you assign a material to a selection of face sub-objects in an editable object. Default=on.

When on, the assigned material becomes part of the new Multi/Sub-Object material, and is assigned to the face selection. When off, the assigned material is assigned to the entire object.

Note: If the face selection comprises faces with different material IDs, assigned a material to the selection with Assign Automatically turned on results in the software assigning the first unused material ID to all selected faces, thus changing their IDs.

See also Drag and Drop Sub-Object Material Assignment.

Auto Window/Crossing by Direction—When this is enabled, the direction that you drag a selection area determines whether it is a window or crossing selection. This works for any selection area (rectangle, circle, fence, or lasso).

You can select which direction causes a window selection and which causes a crossing selection in the Scene Selection group. When you drag a window selection, the selection region is displayed with a solid line, however when you drag a crossing selection, the selection region is displayed with dashed lines.

Right-> Left => Crossing—When you drag a selection region from right to left, it is a crossing selection. Conversely, when you drag left to right, it is a window selection.

Left-> Right => Crossing—When you drag a selection region from left to right, it is a crossing selection. Conversely, when you drag right to left, it is a window selection.

Paint Selection Brush Size—Sets the size of the brush used by Paint Selection Region.

Precision—Sets the number of decimal places displayed in a spinner's edit field. Range=0 to 10 (where 0 is no decimal places).

Snap—Sets the click increment and decrement values for all of the spinners in 3ds Max.

Use Snap—Toggles spinner snap on and off.

Wrap Cursor Near Spinner—Limits cursor wrapping to an area close to the spinner when you drag to adjust spinner value.

Rollout Threshold—Determines the number of pixels in a rollout that should be scrollable in the command panel before the rollout is shifted into a separate command panel column.

This option is applicable only when the command panel displays multiple columns.

Default to By Layer for New Nodes—When on, all new objects will have their rendering, motion blur, display, and advanced lighting properties set to By Layer.

New Lights Renderable By Layer—When on, the Renderable setting (found on the Object Properties dialog) of new lights is determined by the setting of the layer they are created on.

Propagate Unhide/Unfreeze Commands to Layers?—When a layer is hidden or frozen, and you unhide or unfreeze an object in that layer, this choice determines whether the command affects the object or its layer.

Use Legacy R4 Vertex Normals—By default, 3ds Max uses a new, more accurate method for computing vertex normals from smoothing groups, which improves the way geometry displays in viewports and in rendered output. To use the method from older versions of the software, for compatibility, turn on this check box.

Use Real-World Texture Coordinates—Controls whether real-world texture coordinates are active or if the legacy method of applying texture coordinates is in use. When off, texture-coordinate behavior reverts to the legacy method and texture tile values have a default value of 1, and Real-World Map Size for primitives is off. Default=off.

When Use Real-World Texture Coordinates is on, the Use Real-World Scale and Real-World Map Size options are also on. Use Real-World Scale is present in the Material Editor, on the Coordinates rollout for 2D maps, and Real-World Map Size is available for objects such as primitives and modifiers such as UVW Map.