This is pretty par for the course in developing software (and games) for the PC. I think we've been spoiled over the last decade by constant unchanging console hardware.
You just can't test it on every configuration under every circumstance until its out in the wild, then you rush like a mad weasel to address bug reports and fix the biggest problems. Back in the PC gaming hay-day it was par for the course to wait for the first patch before passing judgement on a game. Back then you played a game for months not days... Ahh the good ol days.
This is pretty par for the course in developing software (and games) for the PC. I think we've been spoiled over the last decade by constant unchanging console hardware.
You just can't test it on every configuration under every circumstance until its out in the wild, then you rush like a mad weasel to address bug reports and fix the biggest problems. Back in the PC gaming hay-day it was par for the course to wait for the first patch before passing judgement on a game. Back then you played a game for months not days... Ahh the good ol days.
We also had to walk uphill both ways in the snow (barefoot, of course) to buy our games. They came on 17 floppy disks and we LIKED it! We had to switch disks every 5 minutes while we played the game, copy protection consisted of correlating random symbols to particular pages of the game manual by means of paper wheels that fell apart or were eaten by family pets with alarming frequency, and no one even dreamed of a gigabyte.
Okay, so I may be exaggerating slightly at the beginning there... on a more serious note, Vig is completely correct. There's simply no way to test even half of the possible hardware configurations. Additionally, I've been told that a number of these problems didn't come up in the beta and only surfaced after release, even on some of the same hardware. Even seemingly minor changes can cause problems, and if they had to fix something worse 2 days (or whatever) before the set release date, there may not have been time to fully address the new problems. Besides, there are always more bugs to fix than there's time for, and eventually you have to ship; triage is generally required and it's a pretty safe bet that any known bugs were in because the programmers had to spend time fixing something more severe.
Yep its nice to have a handful of things fixed.
It would be nice to be able to save defaults for dialogs like Relax and Pack in the UVW editor again... which the hotfix didn't fix...:poly127:
I do this for all major software releases. Always best to wait for the first service pack as they generally fix all the launch bugs that were not fixxed in the first place to get the product out the door.
For those of you about to go nuts trying to figure this out, for whatever reason they changed "Display Selected with Edged Faces Toggle", which puts a wireframe over only the selected mesh, into "Viewport Selection Display Selected with Edged Faces Toggle".
So I was trying to figure out how come my F4 key didn't do anything, and that's why. It's a different shortcut entry in 2012. I guess the previous one was too short, so they had to add a couple of words in there just to mess with me.
It seems like this new entry is just for Nitrous. If you disable Nitrous, then it doesn't work and you have to set F4 to the old shortcut. Plus, just for good measure, when you hit F4 in Nitrous with the new shortcut, it doesn't visually show the wireframe until you make a viewport operation. Sigh.
I when you hit F4 in Nitrous with the new shortcut, it doesn't visually show the wireframe until you make a viewport operation. Sigh.
You may be able to fix this with a little max script. try macro recording the show wireframe command. copy it to a new script and add
completeRedraw() to the end line.
Drop that onto the UI and assign it to f4.
completeRedraw should force a viewport redraw and get your your wires.
If none of that makes sense to you PM me and ill write a macro for you. (presuming it works)
You may be able to fix this with a little max script. try macro recording the show wireframe command. copy it to a new script and add
completeRedraw() to the end line.
Drop that onto the UI and assign it to f4.
completeRedraw should force a viewport redraw and get your your wires.
If none of that makes sense to you PM me and ill write a macro for you. (presuming it works)
That's interesting. Not only does that work, but when I macro-record the F4 line, I get this one:
Which if I input it manually does a refresh as well. So it seems that if I just put that command in a macro in and of itself, it works even without the completeRedraw().
Just to test it out, if I hit F4 and nothing happens, and then I put in a completeRedraw() in the listener manually, the wireframe appears.
So really it's just running it through the built-in shortcut key that's borked. Which is what most people do.
2012, it's the end you know.
minor changes causing major pain, is a sign of spaghetti code.
and the more you pile on top of a lump of spaghetti code, the more hairy it's gonna get.
it's a miracle they've managed to get this far.
I don't know if the tired old "spaghetti code" argument holds as much water as it has in the past. They rewrote the viewport code this time around. Their plans for the UI are fundamental shifts away from the old code max has been using.
I don't really see them tacking on a bunch of new stuff but they seem to be replacing the old code base and making fundemental changes to max's deep nauhty bits. Which is what people have been crying about for years...
Based on the webinars I've seen they seem pretty committed to updating max for the future and rewriting core pieces to achieve that goal.
I don't think it is the end, it might be a brief bumpy feeling, but we've got a lot cooking that might surprise you. In another month, we should have a major Service Pack out and then people should be pretty satisfied (we hope). Nitrous is something very new and very powerful - even if we haven't fully engaged it to date. http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/3ds_max_2012_service_pack_details
Hmm, nothing on DirectX shaders working in Nitrous? I hope that's because the fix isn't finalized and not because it won't be there. That's the only significant problem I've hit that I didn't see on the list though, so that's a good sign.
Replies
even simply being able to modify skin weights would be a big relief for me :P
You just can't test it on every configuration under every circumstance until its out in the wild, then you rush like a mad weasel to address bug reports and fix the biggest problems. Back in the PC gaming hay-day it was par for the course to wait for the first patch before passing judgement on a game. Back then you played a game for months not days... Ahh the good ol days.
Okay, so I may be exaggerating slightly at the beginning there... on a more serious note, Vig is completely correct. There's simply no way to test even half of the possible hardware configurations. Additionally, I've been told that a number of these problems didn't come up in the beta and only surfaced after release, even on some of the same hardware. Even seemingly minor changes can cause problems, and if they had to fix something worse 2 days (or whatever) before the set release date, there may not have been time to fully address the new problems. Besides, there are always more bugs to fix than there's time for, and eventually you have to ship; triage is generally required and it's a pretty safe bet that any known bugs were in because the programmers had to spend time fixing something more severe.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=17019428&linkID=11937426
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/3ds_max_2012_hot_fix_and_service_pack_plans
Yep its nice to have a handful of things fixed.
It would be nice to be able to save defaults for dialogs like Relax and Pack in the UVW editor again... which the hotfix didn't fix...:poly127:
I do this for all major software releases. Always best to wait for the first service pack as they generally fix all the launch bugs that were not fixxed in the first place to get the product out the door.
Always do this with Microsoft OS's too.
So I was trying to figure out how come my F4 key didn't do anything, and that's why. It's a different shortcut entry in 2012. I guess the previous one was too short, so they had to add a couple of words in there just to mess with me.
It seems like this new entry is just for Nitrous. If you disable Nitrous, then it doesn't work and you have to set F4 to the old shortcut. Plus, just for good measure, when you hit F4 in Nitrous with the new shortcut, it doesn't visually show the wireframe until you make a viewport operation. Sigh.
You may be able to fix this with a little max script. try macro recording the show wireframe command. copy it to a new script and add
completeRedraw() to the end line.
Drop that onto the UI and assign it to f4.
completeRedraw should force a viewport redraw and get your your wires.
If none of that makes sense to you PM me and ill write a macro for you. (presuming it works)
That's interesting. Not only does that work, but when I macro-record the F4 line, I get this one:
Which if I input it manually does a refresh as well. So it seems that if I just put that command in a macro in and of itself, it works even without the completeRedraw().
Just to test it out, if I hit F4 and nothing happens, and then I put in a completeRedraw() in the listener manually, the wireframe appears.
So really it's just running it through the built-in shortcut key that's borked. Which is what most people do.
Thanks for the tip though.
minor changes causing major pain, is a sign of spaghetti code.
and the more you pile on top of a lump of spaghetti code, the more hairy it's gonna get.
it's a miracle they've managed to get this far.
I don't really see them tacking on a bunch of new stuff but they seem to be replacing the old code base and making fundemental changes to max's deep nauhty bits. Which is what people have been crying about for years...
Based on the webinars I've seen they seem pretty committed to updating max for the future and rewriting core pieces to achieve that goal.
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/ken/3ds_max_2012_service_pack_details