Quote - Now that I'm home and have Max in front of me, I've had the opportunity to take a gander at the different modes. I've reread your posts at least 5 times each and I still can't quite wrap my head around exactly what the Animate Mode does.

"When it's in modeling mode, which is default, the modifier locks you into whatever procedure you do on it.  In Animate mode, the last operation; be it an extrusion, bevel, inset, or whatever, is perserved to be edited later, if necessary, or animated with keyframe animation, and passed up the stack."

If I understand correctly, the animate mode allows me to modify the last operation even after I've clicked the check mark. I thought it would allow me to modify the 2nd, 3rd or 4th previous operation similar to what History does in Photoshop.

For example:

• I create an inset,
• then extrude that inset,
• followed by a negative bevel to create a cavity,
• finally a chamfer to round out the inside of the bevel.

Can I go back to the original inset and change the size because it was too small (or large) to begin with?

You can, if you put those other operations on their own edit poly as well.  It's for having a procedural link back to that particular modeling operation in the stack.  Do this exercise...

• Create a plane with some segments.
• Add edit poly modifier, and tick "Animate" mode.
• In polygon sub-object level, CTRL-A to select all faces in the plane, then perform an inset by a small amount using "by polygon".
• Leave all the inset faces selected, and do not exit sub-object mode.
• Now add a Delete Mesh modifier on top of the Edit Poly in the stack.  This should delete all your inset faces that were selected, but leave you with a "lattice" type grid plane, with square holes.
• Add a shell modifier on top of that, and increase the outer amount until the object is extruded thickness.  Doesn't matter how thick; it's just an extrusion, so can be as thick as you like.
• Now go back down to edit poly, and under the Edit Poly Mode rollout, where you clicked the "animate" ticker, click the "Settings" button.

This will bring up your Inset caddy again, with the same settings you performed in that inset command, and now you can adjust the inset you had created to a different amount.  Do that, and you will see the holes in your grid getting bigger or smaller as you adjust the amount.

I imagine you can see how this is a powerful feature for presentation purposes (for arch/viz designers), or a great way to create unusual animations on your model (if you keyframe those changes), or just a good way to  experiment with different settings as you model an object, to see how different parameters would affect the result.

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