.max file sizes....
polycounter lvl 9
I have a .max file with nothing at all in it (as far as I can see) - I've deleted everything to try and figure out what is causing the bloat in file size. It currently stands at ~19mb!
The 'Asset Tracking' dialog lists alot of textures that were referenced at some point but shouldn't be any longer (obviously because there is nothing in the scene to have a material). Unfortunately that utility is a bit rubbish you can't click on something and ask it to 'show dependancies' or something similar. Does anyone have any suggestion on this front?
Also I was wondering if anyone knew if there was a way that textures can be embedded in a .max?
The 'Asset Tracking' dialog lists alot of textures that were referenced at some point but shouldn't be any longer (obviously because there is nothing in the scene to have a material). Unfortunately that utility is a bit rubbish you can't click on something and ask it to 'show dependancies' or something similar. Does anyone have any suggestion on this front?
Also I was wondering if anyone knew if there was a way that textures can be embedded in a .max?
Replies
To clean out your material references in the Asset Tracking, Right Click on any of your unused textures and click "Strip Path". Press F5 to refresh the window.
Or
Open up your Material Browser. Click Utilities > Condense Material Editor Slots, and that should strip out any unused or unreferenced textures.
There really isn't a way to "embed" the files into a .max file that I know of like how an .FBX can, but you can package up your .max scene and all the textures nice and neat with the Save As > Archive (Max 2010...it's in older versions too in a different spot)
but this can bloat your max file enormously(once had a 300mb max file because of biped)
Not sure if I ever acidently created a biped in the scene but if I had it's long gone now. Also if I make a box in the bloated .max file save it and then merge it into a new scene the file size is very small so it must be unloading whatever is bloating the scene! weird *shrug*
I can't remember if this is actually necessary, but try typing this command into the maxscript listener and executing it, then saving the file. See if the size changes.
- Collapse your modifier stack. It will remember materials if they where applied at one point to even an older modifier in the stack.
- Reset your material editor any materials even non active ones will be retained.
- Like arrangemonk suggested check the Biped Collections if you're in Max9. They had a bug that would duplicate collections of poses and bloat files, it was fixed in max2008.
- Check Graph Editors > Schematic View this will show you all the objects in the scene. It's quite possible you have one object that has a long modifier stack but you deleted all the elements so nothing shows up but you still have an active object.
I also tried that gc() garbage collector function and it does shave a few kilobytes off but still standing at 19mb. Asset browser is still referencing those textures :poly105:
There was nothing in the file as far I could tell. When you try to merge from it the 'Merge' dialog box appears but there are no objects to select.
I think I found out what it is though - it's something to do with the way in which the company I work for store their attributes/metadata about objects in the scene. The information seems to be persistant (even after an object has been removed) and embedded in the .max file.