3ds max 2008 woes
hero character
hey, suppose my workplace hasn't been the only one which recently upgraded to autodesk's newest one. we finally got us some acceptable viewport speeds - and lots of new headaches:
anyone know which kind of nvidia drivers and direct-3D versions actually do work with 2008, or is it intentional that sometimes meshes with shaders applied simply vanish - even in wireframe, that your viewports/direct-3d crashes (whatever) and you have to reboot the machine in order to fix this? that the selection preview doesn't update properly, vertices are suddenly displayed at the wrong size or you make a change in one viewport and another one get's filled with garbage?
not to mention that some complex fx-shaders now to all sorts of weird, seemingly random things. looks like these are running out of resources somehow?
works all fine here in max8, btw.
there are other dodgy things i could rant about
but for now just trying to make this thing work. have reverted to max8 for the time being until the viewports get sorted out.
anyone know which kind of nvidia drivers and direct-3D versions actually do work with 2008, or is it intentional that sometimes meshes with shaders applied simply vanish - even in wireframe, that your viewports/direct-3d crashes (whatever) and you have to reboot the machine in order to fix this? that the selection preview doesn't update properly, vertices are suddenly displayed at the wrong size or you make a change in one viewport and another one get's filled with garbage?
not to mention that some complex fx-shaders now to all sorts of weird, seemingly random things. looks like these are running out of resources somehow?
works all fine here in max8, btw.
there are other dodgy things i could rant about
but for now just trying to make this thing work. have reverted to max8 for the time being until the viewports get sorted out.
Replies
If you're forced to use it, show your mgmt how much of your time is being lost beta-testing for Autodesk, persuade them to go back.
If you absolutely have to use it, keep in constant contact with Autodesk. Submit bugs, read the forums, check their websites often, read the Subscription site, bug your reseller often, etc.
I don't envy you man.
Last time they rushed SP1 out just to get people to switch and it hurt. Seriously the list of features isn't that ground breaking that it should be called Max7 SP3. I hope they enable that annoying little communication center pop up window and don't give me a way to disable it, easily. I think I had to go into the registry to kill it... arrg setting up the UI again... I can't wait to see where they suggest I put my project files how about the moon? I wonder where I have to install scripts to and how many folders will I have to copy the same script to just to get it to show up in different areas?
we got it mostly for the speedups, which are quite noticeable coming from 8, especially in edit-poly and since it apparently fixes memory leaks/crash problems we had when using fx-shaders, which we use extensively. max8 + zbrush geo + memory leaks all over the place = not so great, really.
i now have three places in the filesystem to dump custom ui's and scripts
no way to disable the damn communication center bubble help thingie, no admin rights, cleverly thought out stuff indeed. why do more and more programs in recent times feature annoying direct-web-links anyway, is anyone finding that convenient? like in PS, click accidentially on the wrong spot and you have to fight a dialog or be taken to some boring manufacturer's website - to do what? at least give me a polycount link if you have to bother me like that...
but them maybe i just can't be bothered with anything that spams me with a dialog. e.g. i make it a habit to delete the senddump program that nags one after a crash. feels like a kick in the nether regions. sorry i crashed, want to talk about it?
still have to spot the customer involvement program executable to get rid of that one. turbosquid's tentacles had to go into the rubbish bin since it seemed to auto-register with my custom UI everytime. if you install yourselves, leave that one out right away.
i have a coworker next to me who immediately converted his workfiles to 2008 and now swears about it like 50 times a day, eager to show me the latest f**k-ups. i'm back to 8 for now as said before - i rather wait a minute between every mouseclick with a zbrush-import on screen than join the beta-testing-party.
ah well, would still be cool to sort out the viewport problems, then move on to to deal with the other new oddities (try coloring your wireframe black and open the UV unwrap window for a start...).
per: any progress on taming XSI?
The viewport speed is insanely fast now too, a 1.5million poly sub-d scene i had in max 8 was getting about 5-10fps, now it gets a smooth 30fps even when editing and with wireframe overlays. However as soon as you minimise the viewport and reveal the wireframe orthos it slows right down again ... but working in perspective is great.
shame they didn't improve the scene/layer manager yet, it's stupid that you can't show groups under layers, or put "layer sets" nested in layers. seems like a huge oversight especially for complicated scenes.
ah well, i'll see how it goes... so far had one crash working over two days on it.
unfortunately the DX Display preview of materials still makes Undo slow down horribly, it's just unuseable, which is a real shame.
i have never ever used layers so no complaints here. mainly because i was made aware that they conflict with groups which i "grew up" with (softimage & max). layers in 3d apps drive me crazy, like in maya where everybody uses them and i try to select something for the tenth time in someone elses scene before realizing that it's in a reference layer. AGAIN. argh
viewport speeds seem good - however: insanely, wouldn't say so. it speeds up, then chugs along, speeds up again... like a ride on a bumpy road. i'd gladly settle for a slower yet more consistent performance. of course it's fast when you're not manipulating the geo, only tumbling something around that's cached anyway. but as soon as you start working on it, changing it - the bumpiness kicks in.
but yeah, far better than 8 in this regard any day and worth an upgrade alone.
I'm sure we all appreciate the beta testing your doing for the rest of us.
The answer to any question like "have they fixed the piece of shit ____ tool yet?" is inevitably no.
My Art Director saw a Max2008 disc on my workstation, and he pointed to it and was starting to say how we won't be going on to new versions during production, when I put my mug of hot coffee on it and smiled at my new coaster.
Wish the cut tool could be fixed as well... right now its my "fking crash app, make cuts on the other side of the model, make invisible verts to create welding problems later on" button
Now in Max 2008 it feels smoother, faster and is perfectly precise in Perspective view. I haven't had a single issue with it yet.
So, Professor420, the answer is not "inevitably no" ... they did actually fix it.
Anyways, more than this, i could not say more than i must be lucky. I'm working in a dell workstation with a quadro fx 3500 and without problems.
I also must say that i use Max for some minor things, my main 3d application in my pipeline is Modo and the communitacion between both apps is perfect. There isn't anything better for a modeler imho.
It's funny, i always wondered why people waits for a SP, i did not install a service pack in ages ^^, none with max7, 8 and 9 hehehe. Some of the bugs are easily avoided, a the big bugs are not solved with a SP.
This is like with Vista... ppl waiting for a SP, when the SO is perfect! at least for me!
Max 2008 is still a bad program for subdiv models, quite bad, and it lacks of too many things in edit poly.
Wait for the next year, max 2009 may be better for all of you, hehe
Support from autodesk is the best way to solve bugs, they did the program, didn't they?