Max 8 Crashing

commander riker

Max is randomly closing on me - especially if I try to go into vertex subedit mode.

I exported and reimported the file both as .OBJ and .3DS files. This only created more geometry (converted to triangles when I imported it back). I need to keep my geometry fairly intact.

I tried attaching it to another polygon, but that crashed max too.

I'm out of ideas. All it is is an editable poly.

I'm on a tight schedule, so any help would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance.

HarlequiN

Is it just the one file it's messing up on you with?

Try merging the object into a new scene. File>Merge, and then select your file - it will bring up a list of objects in the scene you're merging from - pick the one you need (if there are multiple objects) and click OK.

You could also try converting to an edit mesh, and then back to edit poly.

BTW, the file types you mention do indeed triangulate your mesh - but they do not "create" geometry - they merely triangulate the poly's you have in the edit poly. Every game engine exporter I know of triangulates the mesh on export anyway, so if this is a game asset you end up in basically the same place (although I believe they also bugger up your smoothing groups - so that could be a real pain).

commander riker

yeah I tried merging too, it crashed.

the triangulation messes up my uvw unwrap. I had collapsed the unwrap modifier so it should have stayed intact, but when it got triangulated my unwrap job got completely messed up.

yeah its just the one file - the one I need of course. I have others that are just fine.

thanks for the help.

For now I'm just going to a backup copy and redoing everything I had already done...it would be nice to know why max is crashing on this file so I can be sure not to do it again.

Jesse Moody

have you tried to do a reset xform? That fixed a file that kept crashing on me.

HarlequiN

Also, one other potential fix. Create a primitive object, turn it into an editable poly and then attach your problem mesh to it. Select the primitive (now) subobject and delete it and you should be left with a completely new object that looks like your old one.

I've had to do that to all the parts of a complex scene that kept crashing before now. Worked though.