The first tab is the Objects tab. It contains buttons that let you draw/create many of the often-used basic shapes among the large repetoire of pre-set shapes that 3D Studio Max contains, without having to find them in their usual sets and subsets in the regular areas. From left to right: Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Torus, Teapot (no, this is not a joke, it's really a teapot), Cone, GeoSphere, Tube, Pyramid, Plane, Hedra, Chamfer Box, Oil Tank, Chamfer Cylinder, Spindle, Gengon, RingWave, Torus Knot, Capsule, L-Extrusion, C-Extrusion, Prism, Point Surface Object (NURBS), CV Surface Object (NURBS), Quad Patch, Tri Patch, Bones IK Chain, Damper Dynamics, and Spring Dynamics.
These are many of the base objects that can be drawn into your scene and then animated and modified.
