Preferences

3ds Max offers many options for its display and operation. These options are available on the Preference Settings dialog in a series of tabbed panels.

Application Menu > Options button
Standard menu: Customize menu > Preferences
Enhanced menu: Customize menu > Customization > Preferences

Topics in this section

General Preferences
On the General panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you set options for the user interface and for interactivity.
File Preferences
On the Files panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you set options relating to file handling. You can choose the program used for archiving and control the options for log file maintenance. And the Auto Backup function lets you save your work automatically at defined intervals.
Viewport Preferences
On the Viewports panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you set options for viewport display and behavior. You can also set the current display driver.
Interaction Mode Preferences
On the Interaction Mode panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you choose whether mouse and keyboard shortcut behavior matches earlier releases of 3ds Max, or Autodesk Maya.
Gamma and LUT Preferences
On the Gamma And LUT panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you set options to adjust the Gamma and lookup-table (LUT) values for input and output images and for the monitor display.
Rendering Preferences
On the Rendering panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you set options for rendering, such as the default color of ambient light in rendered scenes. The many choices available enable you to reassign the renderers used for production and draft rendering.
Animation Preferences
Use the Animation panel of the Preference Settings dialog to set options relating to animation. Options include displaying animated objects in wireframe viewports, the assignment of sound plug-ins, and controller defaults.
Inverse Kinematics Preferences
On the Inverse Kinematics panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you set options for both applied and interactive inverse kinematics.
Gizmos Preferences
You set the display and behavior of the Transform gizmos on the Gizmos panel of the Preference Settings dialog.
MAXScript Preferences
On the MAXScript panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you set MAXScript and Macro Recorder preferences, enable or disable auto-loading of scripts, set the initial heap size, change font style and size used in the MAXScript editor, and manage all the settings for the Macro Recorder.
Radiosity Preferences
On the Radiosity panel of the Preference Settings dialog, you set options for the radiosity solution.
mental ray Preferences
This panel sets preferences for using the mental ray Renderer and its associated materials and shaders.
Containers Preferences
The Containers panel sets preferences for using the Container feature; in particular, you can use the Status and Update settings to improve performance.
Help Preferences
By default, this help opens from the Autodesk Website. This panel lets you instead open the help from a local or network drive to which you've downloaded and extracted the help system.

Parent topic: Customizing 3ds Max