3ds max Ortho Snap

While drawing a line in 3ds max, do you ever wish you could snap to a specific angle, like 45°? I have wished that for many years. I know there are scripts (like miauu’s polyline pro) but why no 3ds max native tools?

Ahem, well actually there is – I just found it. You might have been using this for years, and if so then I wish you had told me! But if like me, you just get annoyed every time you draw a line, then read on.

It’s simply a snap function called ortho snap, and you can add it to the snaps toolbar like so:

Here is where it’s located in your customise user interface dialogue:

And this is what it looks like when you draw with it. It’s not perfect, and I haven’t found a way to snap to a polar point while keeping on the same trajectory (if you know what I mean) but it might just make you happy like it did me today when you start to use it.