Good Day All

I can only set one viewport to active shade. Why is this?  Why can I not have all 4 in active shade mode?

I am using Vista 64 bit. I am running Max in DirectX 9.0.

What could be the problem?

Welcome to MAXScript.

Menu Title:
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////
////////// Review GPU Feature Support ////////////
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Graphics Vendor Information: Direct3D 9.0 (NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600)
GPU Shader Model Support: SM3.0
Maximum pixel shader instruction count: 4096
Viewport Shading Quality: Best
Real-time Sun and Sky: Supported
Real-time Architectural Material: Supported
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Do you have the latest driver for your video card?

I will go to the website but I should think it is the latest driver. How would one know? Thanks for your reply

Go to your display properties and verify the driver version with what’s on the site.  That card should support it no problem.

Good Day Silver

I went to Nvidia’s website and had a look at the drivers to download. They had about 4 different drivers. One was for Max but according to the website my system was fine. I tested the 3 other drivers and it lacked one or two things i.e. I downloaded one of the drivers that said it had DirectX 9.0 C. I read in one of the posts that this could be a possible problem. Well to sum it up it did not work....grrrr....

Any other ideas?

Once again thanks for your help

I apologize I completely was misreading what you were trying to do.  I was thinking just regular shading i.e. smooth + highlights.

Active shade can only be done with one viewport.  When you render it’s based on the active vew you are in hence the active shade = 1 viewport. 

From the help menu.

Only one ActiveShade window can be active at a time. If you choose one of the ActiveShade commands while an ActiveShade window is already active, you get an alert that asks whether you want to close the previous one. If the previous ActiveShade window was docked in a viewport, the viewport reverts to the view it previously showed.

Thank you so much for your help but somehow this does not seem right. I am busy with a basic tutorial within the tutorial help file of Max i.e. Modeling a Low-Poly Body (the one with the army guy in it .... (I went help>tutorials>modeling>modeling a low-poly>Modeling a Low-Poly Body). In this tutorial it tells one to activate all view ports. I did this tutorial with my old system at the beginning of the year and it worked just fine.... on my new system (and with the upgrade of course to 2009) it does not activate all of them at once.

Am I missing something? Has this feature changed?

Once again thank you for your help. I really do appreaciate it.

I can’t see anything which says “activate all viewports”.

Can you be specific about the page (the page title at the top), the Section header and the “point” please.

eg. “Setting up the scene” > “Map a reference image” > 3. Click the map button…

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Sorry… Ok it is in Setting up the scene>Adjust the virtual studio (half way down the screen)>number 2.

Maybe I should tell you what I did as this might be the problem. I right clicked on each view port name (e.g. front, left, etc) > Went to views>and said activeshade.

Is that correct?

Wow thanks Steve for coming through on this post… You da bestest

"2. Make sure every viewport is shaded by first activating it and then pressing the F3 keyboard shortcut”.
Not exactly the same as “activate all viewports"…

Activate each viewport in turn (by clicking in it). If the viewport is showing a wireframe representation of the planes then press F3 to toggle the viewport to “Smooth and highlights” mode (aka shaded).

This has nothing whatever to do with “activeshade” which is a realtime rendering of the scene which allows you to see the results of (for example) changing shadow parameters which you would otherwise be unable to see without fully rendering the scene.

When doing the tutorials don’t try to second-guess them. If it says “press F3” then that is what you should do. If it wanted you to use the viewport label right-click menu then that is what it would have told you to do. Max has a myriad options - you will get yourself into all kinds of difficulty is you use them without understanding what they do.

And please - try and keep your questions (on one topic) in one place. You currently have 2 threads running both about this this tutorial and shaded viewports. It gets very messy trying to keep up when we have to look in multiple threads (and cross posting is against the forum rules as well).

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Once again Steve thank you. It is not my intention to make things messy.. it really is not.

Ok I did follow the tutorial step for step and pushed F3 when it stipulated that I should do that. The problem is that I can only view one plane at a time i.e. when creating the boot previously I could view all 3 plains at the same time and in so doing one can drag the size of the boot to the right size. In my view ports I can only see one plane at a time i.e. I have to click on the left view port and drag to that size then switch to the front view port and drag again… go back to the left view port to resize.

Basically what I am trying to say is that I cannot view all the planes as specified in the tutorial, I can only see the plane of the active view port. What I see in the other veiw ports is the wire frame of the planes and no pictures.

when it did not work properly I then started to figure it out i.e. I right clicked clicked on the settings and then turned here for info and obviously picked up what I thought to be my problem (the other post). Maybe it is just a setting that I am doing wrong I am not sure.

The 2 threads that you make mention of in my mind is one and the same thang… eeeeek! Sorry about that. Just a novice trying to make my way around. Obviously I am not talking about shaded viewports..... Sorry (I thought that was my problem)… My real problem is the plane issue and just getting my lingo mixed up (I am sure we all have to start at the beginning .... sorry)

Sorry about the mess I will tell the other post to come here to follow my problem.

I have my wife sitting with me and she read your response and I found out what the problem is.... My keyboard..... My keyboard’s F3 is redo (an extra functionality on my keyboard). When my wife read your email it came to me that you said that the F3 function is smooth and hightlights i.e. (I did it again ... heeee… I did not follow your instructions ... heeee.. the bit where you say I must follow it step for step .... heeee) I right clicked on the front view and clicked on smooth and highlights and tataaaaa… there are all my planes.

The problem now is to solve this problem ... heee.. How to deactivate the keyboards extra functionality.

Thank you so much Steve for taking up all your time..... Thank you Arius1 for all you help..... Honestly everybody sorry about the mess.