Most of the main window is occupied by the viewports, where you view and work with your scene. The remaining areas of the window hold controls and show status information.
One of the most important aspects of using Autodesk VIZ is its versatility. Many program functions are available from multiple user-interface elements. For example, you can open Track View for animation control from the Main toolbar as well as the Graph Editors menu, but the easiest way to get to a specific object's track in Track View is to right-click the object, and then choose Track View Selected from the quad menu.
You can customize the user interface in a variety of ways: by adding keyboard shortcuts, moving toolbars and command panels around, creating new toolbars and tool buttons, and even recording scripts into toolbar buttons.
MAXScript lets you create and use custom commands in the built-in scripting language. For more information, access the MAXScript Reference from the Help menu.
A standard Windows menu bar with typical File, Edit, and Help menus. Special menus include:
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Tools contains duplicates of many of the Main toolbar commands.
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Group contains commands for managing combined objects.
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Views contains commands for setting up and controlling the viewports.
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Create contains commands for creating objects.
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Modifiers contains commands for modifying objects.
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Animation contains commands for animating and constraining objects, plus commands such as Bone Tools for setting up animated characters.
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Graph Editors provides graphical access to editing objects and animation: Track View lets you open and manage animation tracks in Track View windows.
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Rendering contains commands for rendering, radiosity, and the environment.
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Customize gives you access to controls that let you customize the user interface.
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MAXScript has commands for working with MAXScript, the built-in scripting language.
For more information about the Autodesk VIZ menus, see Menu Bar.
The Auto Key button turns on animation mode. The other controls navigate through time and play back an animation.
This collection of six panels provides handy access to most of the modeling and animation commands.
You can "tear off" the command panel and place it anywhere you like.
By default, the command panel is docked at the right of your screen. You can access a menu that lets you float or dismiss the command panel by right-clicking just above it. If it is not displayed, or you want to change its location and docking or floating status, right-click in a blank area of any toolbar, and choose from the shortcut menu.
These two lines display prompts and information about your scene and the active command, toggles controlling selections, precision, and display properties. See Status Bar Controls.
You can display from one to four viewports. These can show multiple views of the same geometry, as well as the Asset Browser and MAXScript Listener. See Viewports.
The button cluster at the lower-right corner of the main window contains controls for zooming, panning, and navigating within the viewports. See Viewport Controls.