Problem with max viewports

se7ered

max has been screwing with me all weekend...everything from showing super low resolution textures in the viewport to randomly changing my color scheme and UI...i fixed all that

Now textures won't update when i save them out of photoshop...they update in the material editor, but not in the viewport. The only way I can get them to update is to go into the diffuse and open the file again. The box for this is preferences is checked so i don't know what they problem is.

hella lame

Anyone have any suggestions?

Moosey_G

Check if your viewport is disabled

se7ered

nope. def. enabled

se7ered

to make it even more frustrating, the normals update just fine. This problem is unique to my diffuse slot

Eric Chadwick

Which version of Max?

Some versions require the material editor to be open, with the bitmap UI visible, in order for it to be automatically updated whenever the bitmap is saved.

thomasp

sounds like you are running out of memory there. try creating lower-res proxy versions of the textures you are not working on and plug those into your material. my experience in particular is that max really dislikes textures of 2048-square or larger. it will work alright for a while, then it'll start screwing with the scene like you described.

give it a try using 512-square or similar as standins for everything that doesn't require immediate attention. also, clean out your scene materials, make sure no textures are loaded that are not necessary.

se7ered

heh..my scene is one object...like 750 polys. 1024 texture. it will update if i have on show standard map in viewport but not show hardware...then it only updates normals

se7ered

chadwick: That what i have to do as long as i have 'show standard map' on instead of 'show hardware map'

Eric Chadwick

Confirmed here in Max 2010.

You might consider switching to a DirectX Shader... they always auto-reload a bitmap whenever it's saved, and they're much more powerful and tweakable than the Hardware Shader from a Standard material.

renderhjs

i heard it is a known bug in 2010, was about to write a script to fix it on my side. but even with a recent patch it was not fixed.

thomasp

my bad - i was assuming you were using fx shader files already - not that "show DX material in viewport" thingie or what they call it. no idea about that. and - fx shaders and loading in large textures can lead to problems over time as i described earlier.

se7ered

Thanks. I was looking into directX shaders as a solution so it looks like that is the route i will take

Xoliul

Also, try to avoid using PSD if you weren't already; you're asking Max to flatten huge files (you know how big PSD's can get), and then load in this temporary file. Way slower than a flattened TGA or even JPG.

se7ered

yea..i use TGAs. I think I'm gonna go with Xoliulshader 1.5 since i know nothing about making a directX shader. Anyone heard this? :P