Quote - You are responding faster than I can. So, my response is one behind yours. lol.

In regards to Autogrid. I was creating a Sci Fi environment whereby control panels had to rest upon station surfaces. The panels had to be right on them as if they were bolted to them. As an example (sorry I'm not trying to push my site here) but if you visit www.bandolin.net > Digital Art > 3D Art > Environments > NX-01 Project, you'll see what I mean.

When I tried to use Autogrid the panels would not be at the perfect angle, it would be ever so slightly off. Enough to notice. So, I gave up using it.

I'll have to check out the example you mean to see what's going on there for sure, but I have an idea of what went wrong.  The reason I think it failed you in that case is because you may have been trying to place a large object onto a heavily divided or tessellated object.  It won't work presicely in that situation, because the larger object needs a surface normal to use for placement, and if the receiving surface is heavily subdivided, or has many normals facing different angles, it has nowhere to go, and has to pick just one polygon normal.  This isn't a job for the autogrid, and it would be no wonder you got frustrated.  Autogrid will not "average" the normals of a surface.  It picks just ONE polygon normal, and uses it.

In that case, I may have suggested using Object Paint tools in the Graphite Panel, which has many options for object placement on a surface, and can work in many situations where the surface is complex.  Or perhaps a maxscript like Advanced Painter, or Ultimate Painter.  Same concept as the Object Paint tools.

When considering when to use autogrid, just consider if your polygons, on the object you are placing to, constain large enough planar surface area, and make sure you aren't trying to autogrid on a polygon with some odd normals issue, or bad triangulation.

Also, be sure to reset your pivot point transforms before doing certain operations, because that can screw up so many things in Max, it isn't funny.  Never rescale at object level, and if you do, always reset your transforms.

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