Here’s a bit of a rant but I am really really sick of working that way!! Why is it so hard?? I can’t believe that I have to spend half of my time struggling with the software instead of working on the projects. This is costing me money! It’s almost like the software is trying to screw me up whenever it can instead of helping me! I am already seriously considering moving to another package and regret dumping a bag of cash for a buggy piece of unfinished software!

Here’s just a small list of the problems that make me go nuts and smash Max’es CD case into tiny little pieces with a hammer (or another blunt and sufficiently heavy object):

No.1:
Every now and then the program is not starting, forcing me to end the process in Task manager, wait a minute or two for it to completely go away from the processes list and then when started again saying that there was “Pure virtual function call C++ error” (or something in this lines).

No.2:
Occasional mysterious crash when clicking “Save as”. It crashes to desktop without even showing the crash screen.

No.3
Sometimes the undo function just breaks and I have no way to go back unless I have a recent save or autoback file! A software that pretends to be a leader in its field and doesn’t even have a working undo funtcion? Give me a break!

No.4
Hundreds of thousands Reactor collisions appearing on their own and increasing the file size and saving time enormously. Very common problem!

No.5
Mysterious heaping of NoteTracks in the MotionClip Manager that we have to clean occasionally. Very common problem too.

No.6
Mysterious crash when opening the Material editor. I just hit “M” and BOOM! Max crashes without even showing the crash screen. Pretty common problem too.

No.7
Gizmo disappearing when undoing a transform command (move/rotate or scale) on elements edges or polys. Select an element of your choise - poly or edge, then move it. Now click away into a blank space of the viewport and then click undo - BAM! Your element gets selected again but the gizmo is gone and you can’t manipulate.

No.8
Waiting for the command panel to refresh when working with photometric lights. When I select a photometric light I have to wait ~1 second for the elements in the command panel (buttons checkboxes..) to appear in which time the program freezes.

No.9....
...... and the list goes on and on

I’ll be really really happy if someone has solutions to these problems hindering my work.
Thanks and have a bugless/crashless day!

I understand your frustration… I’m required to use 3DSMAX-9 on Windows XP at work, sometimes even 3DSMAX-5 because of our clients, and use them for intense scenes which even 3DSMAX-2012 on Windows 7 would struggle with.

This causes alot of “out-of-memory” issues and frequent crashes as some scenes have been created in 3DSMAX-5, modified by 10 people then resaved to 3DSMAX-9 and then again modified by another 10 people and in the end the 300MB file containing 25,000+ objects, linked to 300+ lights and over 1GB of textures becomes so unstable that even at the best of times fails to open. I cringe thinking about about :P

However looking past this… 3DSMAX, for me is the best 3D application I have had the pleasure to work with, its wide range of functionality is mind-boggling and even with my 10 years experience with the program am still finding a new tool hidden away which assists in my daily workflow. I would never consider using any other application, its just too awesome :P

website: http://www.all3dmax.com

Blakestone 05 August 2011 08:01 AM

I understand your frustration…
...However looking past this… 3DSMAX, for me is the best 3D application I have had the pleasure to work with, its wide range of functionality is mind-boggling and even with my 10 years experience with the program am still finding a new tool hidden away which assists in my daily workflow. I would never consider using any other application, its just too awesome :P

Hi, Blakestone,
Are you an Autodesk agent? Because this is not how a person using 3Ds Max talks. They usually swear and curse their pitiful life.

haha… if its a good paying job maybe I will look into that :P

3DSMAX like many applications is not flawless however daily use you start to learn what causes it to crash and thus how to avoid it. 99% of the crashes I experience is due to misuse of a MAX scene, its simply too much for 3DSMAX to handle.

website: http://www.all3dmax.com

Blakestone 05 August 2011 08:43 AM

3DSMAX like many applications is not flawless however daily use you start to learn what causes it to crash

How about everything? It just crashed to me while trying to Save as…

Blakestone 05 August 2011 08:43 AM

99% of the crashes I experience is due to misuse of a MAX scene, its simply too much for 3DSMAX to handle.

What misuse? It’s crashing/making problems on nearly half of my scenes randomly no matter their complexity.

I have to say that I don’t experience any of the issues you’ve listed (except maybe the undo bug every so often). I’ve used 2009 on XP, Vista, and Windows 7 without many issues. XP might have had more crashes than the other two, maybe cause it was 32-bit and the others are 64-bit. It might help if you post your system specs.

Since we all use Max in different ways, you might be working with areas that I don’t use very often which could cause you more crashes than it does me. Or it could be user errors in your scene if it gets passed around to a lot of people as Blakestone mentioned. Maybe you have a piece of hardware that’s not best suited for use with Max. Then there could be a buggy plugin if you have a lot installed that could be causing issues.

I’m not saying I don’t get crashes or errors, but the ones I do encounter I usually take note of what I did so I can hit save before trying it again just in case it is the programs fault and not a random occurance.

3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC

misuse… check the attachment, this is a very basic shape created by a ex-staff member who has over 10 years experience in the game and simulator industry. When trying to do simple functions on this object such as “Loop”, “Ring”, “Chamfer”, “Extrude” etc. 3DSMAX crashes… of course it would the mesh is horrendous and full of errors. This is misuse of the 3DSMAX application!

I guess its debatable to say that 3DSMAX is a poor application because it crashes, personally I feel if you model like this you deserve to have it crash… its 3DSMAX’s way of saying don’t create horrendous meshes :P

Can you imagine a MAX scene with 5000+ objects all in this state and/or worse, well welcome to my world :P

website: http://www.all3dmax.com

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Blakestone 05 August 2011 09:30 AM

misuse… check the attachment, this is a very basic shape created by a ex-staff member who has over 10 years experience in the game and simulator industry.....

...I guess its debatable to say that 3DSMAX is a poor application because it crashes, personally I feel if you model like this you deserve to have it crash… its 3DSMAX’s way of saying don’t create horrendous meshes :P

Sorry but I have never created meshes like these. I can say that I understand the “laws” of modeling quite well. My models are always as clean as possible and it still does crash.