3ds max Keyframe Animation Setting up Time Configuration This is the least ambiguous option here because PAL runs at precisely 25 frames per second. If we choose Film over here then 3ds Max will adopt a frame rate of 24 FPS, but that's completely USA centric because historically the frame rate for analog celluloid film in Europe has been 25 FPS. So the term Film here is also kind of misleading, and if we choose any of those three options, the interface doesn't tell us what the actual frame rate is. No matter which of those three options we choose, this FPS field here won't change. That field only becomes active when we choose the Custom option. And that's exactly what I recommend. If you want to know for certain what your frame rate is with no ambiguity, just choose custom and plug in the frame rate you need. Now the cool thing about 3ds Max and most 3D programs is that you can change the frame rate without changing the time duration of the animation. If I want to go for a European standard, I would put in 25 frames per second, type in 25 and then when I press enter watch what happens in the track bar down here. I'll press enter and now we have a different readout in terms of the number of frames. It went from being 100 frames down to 83 frames. What happened was that 3ds Max re-sampled that segment of time at 25 frames per second instead of 30. I'm going to set that back up to 30 now. And now we're back at 100 frames. The mechanism that allows for this is that 3ds Max subdivides time into tiny elements known as ticks. There are 4,800 ticks in a second. That's the time base or the resolution of time internally.
