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3DSMax 2011

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  • ironbearxl
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    ironbearxl polycounter lvl 18
    Does 2011 Viewport Canvas allow you to send a screenshot to photoshop via projection paint?

    The painting tools work really well in the demo, the only caveat is when mixing colors they blend to grey, so it seems they are not meant for that purpose.
  • r_fletch_r
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    r_fletch_r polycounter lvl 9
    Ken: Could you pat the person on the back who had the idea of including the fast_sss and occlusion docs in the additional help.

    You might also want to give whoever does the docs a kick up the ass and get them to fix the whats new link in the help menu. its been pointing in the wrong place since atleast 2009
  • hyrumark
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    hyrumark polycounter lvl 12
    Do plugins need recompiled for this new version, or do the 2010 versions still work with 2011?
  • kenpimentel
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    Almost all plugins will work as is, there are a few plug-ins that won't. There is simply one SDK issue that deals with lights that will trip up some plug-ins.
  • hyrumark
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    hyrumark polycounter lvl 12
    Thanks Ken! That's good news. Upgrading to the latest version of Max, then having to wait months for plugins to get updated always feels like taking 2 steps forward, then 2 steps back.
  • kenpimentel
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    We're going to try to stick to a policy of keeping the release plug-in compatible for a minimum of 2 years before breaking it. We won't always pull that off.
  • Toast
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    Toast polycounter lvl 11
    re: wishlist system
    I 100% agree. I'm leading an internal effort to do something about this. No promises, I don't win every time, but I have a pretty good track record.

    Tell Corey, Maya too please! :)

    Someting like they have with Ubuntu would be great. A public wishlist system where users can vote so the devs end up knowing the most important feature request is.

    I know ADSK have an internal sugs, but it's hard to know what's really going on and have an open discussion that other users can improve and comment upon.

    http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/
  • elte
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    elte polycounter lvl 18
    I know wish list is good, but when everybody has their wishlist, you'll never satisfy everybody in the end.

    I have a big expectation on the next xbr roadmap which is 'diet'. I think this is the most crucial part because in 2011 max/maya installer file was like 1.2gb, where it was less than 500mb in 2009. IMO Performance and workflow play bigger role rather than new features but immature implementation.
  • CrazyButcher
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    CrazyButcher polycounter lvl 18
    performance, yes please, autodesk should understand that a good deal of their clients are seasoned professionals, who loose money the slower the app gets (the menu lag situation and alike). Thanks to 3rd party plugins and scripts (polyboost, nodejoe, renderers...) a lot of the feature-need can be filled by external means anyway, but getting the core system faster can only be done by autodesk.
    I fail to see why autodesk thinks they have to provide a plethora of new features every year, given their market dominance (and often they just buy-in 3rd party plugins anyway). It's not like any of the subscribers would run away if releases were every 2 years, and we had a service pack inbetween (like it used to be). Where would they go to anyway, most tools are owned by autodesk. I think their marketing department lost its mind, with trying to make a professional app more "flashy web 2.0" like. It's like MS office ribbon thing, it might be nicer to new users, but you piss off all the hardcore users that are used to the old system and actually were very fast with it. But probably that is ADs strategy to gain new markets, presenting the apps to be "easy for anyone" or so...
    I mean who here uses viewcube, that spin-wheel or whatnot clutter, when they are hard pressed to meet deadlines and work with keyboard shortcuts and other time-savers mostly. But well we are just one fraction of the user-base, many probably use max mostly to import models from CAD and make nice presentations and never touch any modelling tools and therefore have completely different focus.
  • renderhjs
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    renderhjs sublime tool
    performance, yes please, autodesk should understand that a good deal of their clients are seasoned professionals, who loose money the slower the app gets (the menu lag situation and alike). Thanks to 3rd party plugins and scripts (polyboost, nodejoe, renderers...) a lot of the feature-need can be filled by external means anyway, but getting the core system faster can only be done by autodesk.
    I fail to see why autodesk thinks they have to provide a plethora of new features every year, given their market dominance (and often they just buy-in 3rd party plugins anyway). It's not like any of the subscribers would run away if releases were every 2 years, and we had a service pack inbetween (like it used to be). Where would they go to anyway, most tools are owned by autodesk. I think their marketing department lost its mind, with trying to make a professional app more "flashy web 2.0" like. It's like MS office ribbon thing, it might be nicer to new users, but you piss off all the hardcore users that are used to the old system and actually were very fast with it. But probably that is ADs strategy to gain new markets, presenting the apps to be "easy for anyone" or so...
    I mean who here uses viewcube, that spin-wheel or whatnot clutter, when they are hard pressed to meet deadlines and work with keyboard shortcuts and other time-savers mostly. But well we are just one fraction of the user-base, many probably use max mostly to import models from CAD and make nice presentations and never touch any modelling tools and therefore have completely different focus.
    renderhjs promoted this comment :thumbup:
    Thats exactly how I feel
  • kenpimentel
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    ... getting the core system faster can only be done by autodesk.

    I fail to see why autodesk thinks they have to provide a plethora of new features every year,

    It's like MS office ribbon thing, it might be nicer to new users, but you piss off all the hardcore users

    I mean who here uses viewcube, that spin-wheel or whatnot clutter, when they are hard pressed to meet deadlines and work with keyboard shortcuts and other time-savers mostly.

    re: faster core
    Perhaps you haven't been exposed to our XBR plans. We are heavily resourced to achieve exactly that. Go to my blog and search on XBR as you'll find plenty of info on that initiative.

    re: annual releases
    Subscription users complained when they weren't getting annual releases and now they complain when they are. We're focused on minimizing the impact of annual releases by things like the new "save as previous" feature and plug-in compatibility for more than one release (2010 and 2011 are the same SDK).

    re: new users
    You can't just sell to existing users - products die that way. You have to sell to new users. Yes, we're trying to make the product more useable and more configurable for power users. Expect more of both.

    re: viewcube
    Everyone's favorite bash item, just turn it off. It was something that came from Maya and Autodesk made it a requirement that all products will have one to ensure that anyone could walk up to an Autodesk product and be minimally functional without learning anything. It's not a bad idea - I know there are many on these forums that have secretly used it but don't feel that they can be public about it.

    Everyone wants 3ds Max to be "one thing". The problem is that everyone's "one thing" is very different...
  • Eric Chadwick
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    Sounds like you're going the right direction to me Ken.

    I think it's unfortunate that some features are implemented in an unfinished interim state (e.g. 2010 ribbon), but I get the reasoning behind it.

    It's great to see you posting where the audience is.
  • Xoliul
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    Xoliul polycounter lvl 14
    Ken, I followed the XBR plans a bit, but did any of that speedup from XBR end up in 2011 yet? Or is this for later releases ?
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Everyone wants 3ds Max to be "one thing". The problem is that everyone's "one thing" is very different...

    Very true, a lot of people forget this :)
  • r_fletch_r
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    r_fletch_r polycounter lvl 9
    The thing with a wishlist open to the general public is, its never going to be trust worthy. Think of all the 12yr old crack monkeys that would give a vote to.

    I mean you only need to look at some of the silly comments over on the Area to see what you are dealing with.


    on another note has anyone been looking through the new mentalray features exposable via max script. Max now has progressive rendering, Irradience Particles Importons, mentalray's built in ibl.
  • CJE
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    CJE polycounter lvl 13
    We're going to try to stick to a policy of keeping the release plug-in compatible for a minimum of 2 years before breaking it. We won't always pull that off.

    I have a question that applies to both 2011 and 2010. Is there anyway to (other than getting a new PC) Improve the startup performance?

    I've done tests using the same rig

    3DS Max 2009/2008 with all updates takes about 15-20 seconds to fully load up.

    3DS Max 2010/2011 fully updated on the same rig takes about 90 seconds to fully load.

    That's a huge difference, and I'm just wondering if there is something I can do to fix that, and what the reason for the speed decrease is from 2009 to 2010.
  • yiannisk
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    yiannisk polycounter lvl 7
    yes, disable graphite tools and enable them when you need them.

    it is very easy to do and it is the graphite tools (heritage of polyboost) that cause so much delay in startup.
    Those who were using polyboost are aware of that.
  • FAT_CAP
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    FAT_CAP polycounter lvl 18
    yiannisk wrote: »
    yes, disable graphite tools and enable them when you need them.

    it is very easy to do and it is the graphite tools (heritage of polyboost) that cause so much delay in startup.
    Those who were using polyboost are aware of that.

    Disable them as in turn them off using TOOLS> GRAPHITE MODELLING TOOLS (uncheck)?
  • CrazyButcher
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    CrazyButcher polycounter lvl 18
    sorry that it hits you Ken, you gotta feel like Don Quijote, but a major part of the emotions the application evokes, speaks for its success.
    re: new users
    You can't just sell to existing users - products die that way. You have to sell to new users. Yes, we're trying to make the product more useable and more configurable for power users. Expect more of both.
    re: viewcube
    Everyone's favorite bash item, just turn it off. It was something that came from Maya and Autodesk made it a requirement that all products will have one to ensure that anyone could walk up to an Autodesk product and be minimally functional without learning anything. It's not a bad idea - I know there are many on these forums that have secretly used it but don't feel that they can be public about it.

    I can understand the reason and logic behind it. The viewcube just serves as best icon to this new market thing. I know it costs basically nothing to implement (although it screws up your minimal update-rectangle in viewport logic, because the viewcube expands the area of redraw to include itself always)
    Still it is somewhat crucial that the everyday work of many professionals is not severely affected by this, which currently it is. Of course, in a transition phase things have to get worse before better again... as plugin developer I am very aware of XBR, and the partial mess 3dsmax has become over the years as things got added and added. So a major overhaul is a very good decision. Even if it means throwing out old stuff, but the plugin community around max is huge, they could fill a lot of gaps quickly.
    Everyone wants 3ds Max to be "one thing". The problem is that everyone's "one thing" is very different...

    yes that's true, and I see that like in the old 3d studio days, you go towards dedicated (now customizable) "views" for different modes, which is a very good thing. 3dsmax major appeal to developers comes from its "framework" like character that it offers so much and can be expanded relatively easily in so many ways.
    I just fear (because it's not easy to pull off, and a thin red line to get right) that the "new market incentive" negatively interferes with productivity. Because we are mostly only shown marketing slides, which focus on presenting these "new" things. Things like start-up time reduction and "load only what you need" and so on, can be done with current max as well, as seen by 3ds clean thread, which means for the professional user, this can be done already (not nicely exposed, but it is there).
    What isn't there is the stuff we can't or only can hardly do in the SDK. The whole viewport rendering engine, with its origin in opengl, then retrofitted to dx and still supporting different renderers. Here it is easier for the "new apps" (mudbox...) who started from scratch to make viewport fx make much better use of modern rendering apis. E.g. the scene-effects feel like a very "hidden feature". Things like iso-line editing for subdiv surfaces... that's core stuff we cannot expand well as plugin developers, but need you to do it.
    Definitely not an easy situation for you, with so many different voices from different directions.
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    when do you guys think you are going to get simulations work with multiple threads/cores.

    I would like to be able to use more than an 8th of my i7 for cloth/ hair sims.
  • Kwramm
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    Kwramm interpolator
    meh, fix the slow shaded persp viewport please, I haven't been able to run any max version since 2009. I was so hoping 2011 x64 would work on my rig. Guess I'll wait for 2012 then...

    (http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-3ds-max/autodesk-3ds-max--3ds-max-design-2010/problem-with-stuttering-viewport-rotation-in-3ds-max-2010/page-last/)
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    Everyone wants 3ds Max to be "one thing". The problem is that everyone's "one thing" is very different...
    MoP wrote: »
    Very true, a lot of people forget this :)



    Make a 3DsMax Game Artist edition then?! Architects have their own version called Design or whatever, don't they?

    If the market for 3DsMax is so big, just split into focused areas and stop cluttering the program and trying to be everything into a single app.
  • CrazyButcher
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    CrazyButcher polycounter lvl 18
    the design version is the same as the regular, there is just some more stuff on accurate lighting, and no plugin SDK afaik. It's not like there is a fundamental difference.

    splitting in editions would make things not much better for them, as often features are useful for many users and you would still want to use the same "engine", otherwise it would be major loss of investment. So the max core engine is what is of interest here.

    the "views" they work on, will allow to customize what is loaded and how stuff looks like in an easier fashion. I am sure they will provide some templates for common uses, and the community will do similar.
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 14
    i dont see that many changes from 2010. the jump from 2009 to 2010 was big enough.
  • j_bradford
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    j_bradford polycounter lvl 17
    If anyone is copying over their Quad/toolbar menu from Max 2010, you may have to re-create it in 2011. We're getting a bug where it breaks certain menu options like Viewport canvas when loading up 2010 quad/toolbar setting files.
  • kenpimentel
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    re: clutter
    We talk abou this as part of our XBR strategy. XBR Diet is the codename for this effort. The goal is to provide more configurability of the core application, so that a studio could conceivably build their own "Game Max" and configure their machines that way.

    re: multi-thread
    Cloth is MT (2010), Hair is MT (2010), new Quicksilver is MT (2011). Just because something is MT doesn't mean that it can always use all your resources equally. It all depends on the algorithm. Rendering is nicely parallizeable - most other things are not. We have many more plans for MT, but each area is a lot of work.

    re: viewport rewrite
    You probably haven't seen our XBR webinar recording because we talked about this. http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/register_for_excalibur_xbr_webinar
    This is the XBR: Graphics part of our initiative. Quicksilver is the beginning of it, not the end of it...

    re: startup time reduction
    XBR: Diet gives us this too. On-demand dll loading would be one way to implment this. We talk about these concepts in the webinar.

    re: wishlist
    If we did this (it would be a significant challenge), it would become just one other source of feedback. It would be useful to direct everyone to a single wishlist at the very least. We could make it something only subscription users have access to - or that they have one of their own wishlists. That way, subscription customers could get to influence the release more directly. These are just things we are exploring - definitely no plans at this point - I don't want to set the wrong expectation.
  • CJE
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    CJE polycounter lvl 13
    I'm getting a pretty crazy bug where when I use any polydraw feature in Max 2011, whenever my cursor hovers over the mesh, it increases my gamma, and it keeps consecutively increasing it, until the entire MAX 2011 UI is 100% White...
  • kenpimentel
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    What is your GPU/driver? Try to see if you've got outdated drivers.
  • Mark Dygert
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    re: clutter
    We talk abou this as part of our XBR strategy. XBR Diet is the codename for this effort. The goal is to provide more configurability of the core application, so that a studio could conceivably build their own "Game Max" and configure their machines that way.
    I really like this idea. If I could wish to improve on it, it would probably be broken down a bit more specifically to the job level in addition to a standard studio set. Even on the job level "the build" might need to change over the course of the project depending on the assigned tasks.

    It would be great to have some kind of advanced plug-in manager that allows the user to toggle on/off things like biped, the graph editors, hair/fur plug-ins, particles, Reactor and typically unused modifiers without having to restart.

    When closing 3dsmax and the set has been changed maybe prompt to save a new set or save it as the new default (backing up the old). That way over the course of a project the user can load whats fastest for them based on the tasks at hand.

    It would be a bit more like XSI (which came up in the webinar) but way more advanced and customizable.

    At the bare min, I would like to switch between dark and light UI's without it killing the icons and toolbars I've set up...
  • elte
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    elte polycounter lvl 18
    Ken, any update on the beta program?
  • kenpimentel
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    I'll check. Invites should have gone out by now.
  • CJE
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    CJE polycounter lvl 13
    What is your GPU/driver? Try to see if you've got outdated drivers.

    I'm using a XFX 8800 GT Ultra, and I have the latest Nvidia Windows 7 64-bit Drivers.
  • kenpimentel
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    re: beta
    You should have an invite by now. Let me know if you didn't.

    re: gamma problem
    Go ahead and log it: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=5600504&linkID=9241177
  • elte
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    elte polycounter lvl 18
    Got it, please check your mail.
  • aniceto
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    aniceto polycounter lvl 18
    the UI in Composite is retard huge
  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    Is the cut tool in 2011 better now? or its still the same shit.
  • monster
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    monster polycounter
    I am completely in love with Max 2011!

    As an animator, I use the curve editor ALL DAY. In all previous releases, displaying more that a couple of curves would slow the viewport frame rate down severely. So I would have to deselect everything every time I wanted to preview the animation.

    I finally get about 60 fps with the curve editor displaying a couple hundred curves.

    /me weeps with joy.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    monster, heh, they finally fixed that? :)
    I remember having horrible slowdown when trying to handle lots of curves at once. Good to know it's sorted.
  • onionhead_o
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    onionhead_o polycounter lvl 16
    nobody knows? i mean the cut in edit poly.
  • Mark Dygert
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    I haven't noticed a difference in the cut tool but then I stopped having trouble with it around max2008. If I had to guess you're trying to cut/create edges in vert mode? Try cutting/creating edges in edge or poly mode and see if that is any better. Next check the scale of your scene and the snap settings. It would be helpful to see video of it "freaking out" if you have the time. Just asking if its any better doesn't really help.

    Also pay attention to what the cursor is doing, it will change when over a vert, poly or edge. If you're still have issues after all that I'm sure they want to know about it.

    Monster, yea performance in general when playing back animation and working with curves is a whole lot better for me too. It's gone from constantly toggling the curve editor open and closed to just leaving it up. At work I'm stuck using 2010 until the project is over in another month or two, I almost wish I hadn't tried 2011, ha.

    We do a lot of composting (mostly simple stuff) and I'm almost positive AfterEffects will be replaced before the year is out.

    I still have a long laundry list of things that need to be, fixed, changed or updated but overall its a good step in the right direction.
  • Miguelito
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    Miguelito polycounter lvl 18
    I have viewport performance problems on my notebook since 3ds 2010 (framedrops) so I switched back to 2009. Now 2011 has the same issues. I cant really figure out why. Max 2009 runs totally fine :(
    I dont think my machine is too slow. (Intel i7 , 4GB, Geforce gtx 260M, windows 7)
    Latest Framework etc is installed aswell
    Browsing through the internet, I noticed that more people have viewport issues but there still seems no solution (?)
  • Trappe
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    Miguelito wrote: »
    I have viewport performance problems on my notebook since 3ds 2010 (framedrops) so I switched back to 2009. Now 2011 has the same issues. I cant really figure out why. Max 2009 runs totally fine :(
    I dont think my machine is too slow. (Intel i7 , 4GB, Geforce gtx 260M, windows 7)
    Latest Framework etc is installed aswell
    Browsing through the internet, I noticed that more people have viewport issues but there still seems no solution (?)

    Some of us here had slowdown problems, turning of the stats in the viewport fixed it for them.
  • Miguelito
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    Miguelito polycounter lvl 18
    If it was that easy :). Nope. Framedops occure with and without stats.
    I just have a feeling that it is the whole Framework thing. Unfortunately i have framedrops with and without the ribbon being enabled. pssshh
  • kyis
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    Hello,
    I'm on windows 7 64, radeon 5850 (latest drivers, and driver 3D tweaks at "let the app decide" where possible).

    So here is what happens: when the gamma / LUT setting is enabled in 3ds (32 or 64), I get 4-5fps in all viewports with directX even when its empty (opengl remains unaffected), with the gamma disabled everything run smoothly.

    I hope this get fixed because being unable to use linear workflow is a huge handicap for me...

    I tried every display / driver settings adjustments that I know of, but no fix so far...



    Edit 27/05/2010:

    I corrected the problem by installing the driver ATI 10.4, apparently the driver from Asus (the maker of my card) wasn't all that up to date (only 2 months appart...). ^^

    Edit 28/05/2010:
    Er... it came back, and I fixed it again... after I installed the driver 10.5 from ATI which came out yesterday afternoon, it worked for a while until I rebooted.
    I was so convinced it was a driver issue I decided to proceed by elimination, what is using the GPU appart from windows ?, which I already had looking like win95 when I was trying to fix the problem the first time. There was firefox with deezer (flash based audio streaming) and ARTE+7 (flash video streaming), asus gamerOSD which is for video capture in games and finally asus smartdoctor which is for overclocking the GPU and screaming when the temperatures are going of chart...
    Well after many closing, opening and rebooting, I found that uninstalling the two(oh so useless) Asus softs fixed the problem, I think they were hooking to the driver at startup, which was why 3dsmax was working with a fresh driver but no reboot and was back in the dumps once I rebooted.
    I rebooted a few times, launched various apps I'm using regularly and 3dsmax seems to be back on track again.

    But I'm still keeping my joy under control...who knows...
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    Sorry for the bump, but just wanted to drop a quick note that max2011 is running alright for me, so far it runs as good as 2010, which is good cos I never had any probs with it either. Plugins and scripts that worked with 2010 also work with 2011, I hate when plugins don't work with newer versions.

    The new material editor was a bit of a surprise for me, this might take a while to get used to, but I like it, feels like XSI! :)
  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    Ken: If your still around, in future versions, please give us the option of using the old style option boxes, or something similar so we don't have to be so careful when clicking on sliders.

    also, Viewport Canvas needs stencils.
  • kenpimentel
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    Still around. Though more grey hairs. We're looking at refinements as we speak. We think we need to tweak some aspects of Caddies before they become everyone's friends. We're planning to do a public disclosure of our UI plans towards the end of the year. Watch for that.

    The viewport canvas is getting some love. Can't be too specific about when or how. Sorry.
  • [HP]
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    [HP] polycounter lvl 13
    Thank you for caring ken! :) That's definitely something.
  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    When did they introduce that new material editor? I'm going to really have to spend a good while 're-learning' max because of all these changes since 2009 :P
  • Autocon
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    Autocon polycounter lvl 15
    Some really great features in Max 2011 but because of that god awful caddie system I will try and avoid upgrading from 2010 like the plague.

    Was able to mess around with 2011 for a good while when it was installed on work comp and the caddy system makes using the little extras box features so much more time consuming/annoying.

    I always enjoyed the pop up window staying where I put it and not moving when I move my selection/viewport. Not to mention I dont like the fact that it generally defualts to being right in the middle of my model. I always have the floating boxs in the same place on my screen so its easy to move my mouse there to make adjustments and its not obstructing my model.

    Also having the advanced options in a drop down menu is nice in theory on how it saves on screen space but in reality it is just more of a haste and more work/clicks when I want to select one of those options or flip between some of them like Extrude by Group, Local Normal or By Polygon. Much quicker to click the little circle having all visable at once then having to go through a drop down menu to select them.

    Most things in 2011 look great but the caddies system was just way to annoying to want to use. Not to mention I am annoyed/surprised/wish there was a way to not use the caddie system and use the old floating box method.


    Hopefully the changes ken mentioned are coming to caddies will make them better.
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