Your general objective is to become familiar with Max to the point that you can do lab 2.
Because you are graduate students, you should know how to explore software by now, so I'm not going to spend large amounts of time working through each menu and feature. I will demonstrate the software and discuss its main features.
When I was learning what little I know about the software, I used the Peterson tutorial on pages 64 through 73. This tutorial surveys a broad range of the features that the system offers. It has the disadvantage of constantly referring to icons or menu items whose identity may be mysterious to you. The icons will identify themselves if you put the mouse on them and wait a bit, but that's a tough way to hunt them down.
Here are the key icons and controls I've identified so far:
SELECT OBJECT: a small arrow, upper left area in the toolbar.
SELECT AND MOVE: four outward facing arrows, upper center in the toolbar.
ZOOM: Magnifying glass, lower right corner.
CONSTRAIN TO X (or Y or Z or XY): letters in the upper center toolbar. Very handy for precise motion.
Animation playback: The VCR-style controls in lower right screen.
ANIMATION TIME SLIDER: The horizontal elevator box right below the perspective and left-viewports. It will have fractions in it, like 1/1 or 1/900 (once you've set up a 900 frame or 30 second animation.)
UNDO: Ctrl-Z is marvelous, as it can undo everything you've done back
to the beginning. Redo (also in the Edit menu) will put it back again,
until you start down a different pathway.
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Evaluation sheets for the Discovery and Specification presentations
will be given out in class.