[3Ds Max 2017] - Smoothing Groups Issue?

EliasWick

I've been working with 3Ds Max 2017 for a while now and believe that the smoothing groups works different compared to prior versions of Max.

Here is the "issue":
I have a standard Edit Poly Box in my scene and tessellated it once.


If I move the middle Vertex into the center of the box, it shows a shading as if the box would be triangulated.

Here is what I believe it was before.


If anyone knows any settings that I can tweak in order to get the old result back, feel free to help me out.
I believe that this shading "issue" might have to do with my settings for the viewport shading, but I am not sure.

Edit: One solution would be to use the Nitrous Direct3D 9, but that is not something that I would like to use.

Swordslayer

In 2018.1 there's an explicit Model Assist mode to bring back this behavior when no SGs are assigned, but I don't think it's in the latest 2017 update.

EliasWick

Swordslayer said:

In 2018.1 there's an explicit Model Assist mode to bring back this behavior when no SGs are assigned, but I don't think it's in the latest 2017 update.

Oh thank you for the answer!
So in 2018, without the Model Assist mode, your viewport would act the same way as mine?
Also, are you using the Nitrous Direct3D 11.0?
I've read around and my issue seems to be a part of using the Nitrous drivers.

Swordslayer

If there are no smoothing groups, it behaves the same way in regular shaded mode. Yes, I use D3D 11 (on GTX 1060 so no prehistoric gfx card either). There were quite a few threads about this at the time of 2017 release which I think is also part of the reason why Model Assist was introduced in the first place (there seem to be no other differences from shaded mode apart from this).

EliasWick

Swordslayer said:

If there are no smoothing groups, it behaves the same way in regular shaded mode. Yes, I use D3D 11 (on GTX 1060 so no prehistoric gfx card either). There were quite a few threads about this at the time of 2017 release which I think is also part of the reason why Model Assist was introduced in the first place (there seem to be no other differences from shaded mode apart from this).

Thank you very, very much. You made my weekend!
As for many people, I don't like change... So this has been very frustrating. Happy to know that they addressed the issue (sort of) in 2018.
And hey, it's probably good to be able and see the triangulation flow when you are modelling, especially for games.