[3Ds Max] Messed up mesh after hitting ctrl-Z

C86G

Ok guys... I´ve just encountered a veeeery annoying problem/bug in 3Ds Max. It happened before, but I cannot recreate it.
I´ve done some minor changes to a poly mesh and hit ctrl-z to undo. After that, my mesh gets completely fckd up and I have no idea why. There is no big modifier stack or anything fancy. And no matter what I do, I cannot get the original correct mesh again. Even all (!) the autoback files from max now have the same mesh with the errors.

Any idea what causes this?

echofourpapa

This usually happens to me if I'm going anything in an oddly scaled mesh and I use reset xform.

There's some commands that can't be undone, and some modifiers that don't allow for base level changes. When you hit those Max usually prompts you with Hold/yes, Yes and No. Hold stores a state of your mesh pre-changes-you-are-about-to-make so you can restore(called Fetch) them later since Undo won't be available.

More Info On Hold and Fetch here

C86G

I usually save before changes I wouldn´t want to do a 2nd time, just forgot it this time...

I´m just wondering because there really was nothing special abnout the object. No big stack, correct scaling, no need to reset xform or anyting like that. I really only selected some edges, moved them and hit undo.

echofourpapa

There's also the "box trick"(I'm not sure if there is a better name for it). Where you create a box, align it to your old objects, then attach the problem object to it then delete the box element. That usually works for clearing out any bad data too.

C86G

Never used that "technique" before. Will try it next time.

Thank you : )

C86G

Omg, it happened again (different file) and I hate it! I absolutely hate it! Worst about it is it automatically saves the messed up file.

Eric Chadwick

What is your Autobak setting? I've changed mine to be 20 files, saving every 5 minutes. If I'm working on a large file, I'll reduce this because it slows work down too much, and save more often. Save incremental is a big help.

C86G

I do save incremental and after every big or difficult step. Just as I did 5 minutes ago. The problem here is, max has overwritten my file, the file I saved myself, no autobacked file. I know that sounds impossible, but reopening my file (without saving after the mesh gets messed up) opens the messed up version. Only orkaroung I see here is saving MORE files and hoping max won´t be silly again.

Eric Chadwick

Once you find a good backup, I would clear out the file, first thing. Export the mesh to an OBJ. Restart Max. Import the OBJ.

Sometimes Max stores junk data in the Max file. Clearing it out like this is a good idea, when you run into trouble.

Maya does this too.

C86G

Thanks Eric.