I have been using max since version 5. I spent a lot of time and money. I have bought plug-ins that later were rolled into max (a loss of money). Max has came a long way and I can work on complex files with my old laptop I have been using since I bought max 5, that I could not earlier.

The problem is I can occasionally open a file and one or more of the objects is corrupt. Meaning the geometry is messed up usually beyond repair. Whats worse is despite saving hundreds of copies because of a problem just like this or the crashing that comes with using max (not the only one of course), is that the problem with the messed up geometry goes back into earlier saves. I have seen it as bad as 12 previous saves.

I can think of one solution I think that will help, but defeats the purpose of flexibility with changing the object is to collapse the geometry and save another copy that is not.

Any thoughts or clues?

This has happened twice this week on different jobs.

I can never figure out how anyone uses max for films or big jobs because of this. It simply escapes me.

I am using 3dsmax design 2009.

joe

Funny I have never had corrupt geometry in many many years of 3ds / max,… I have seen files get the bloated type of corruption, but even then the geometry displayed and rendered correctly.  I have a max 3.1 file from 1997 that I just opened and worked with in 2009 for example - still compatible.

Are you putting modifiers on groups or selections? Could there be something in your workflow that is challenging the geometry pipeline? Are you scaling in sub-object or using Xforms? Etc…

-Shea

http://www.youtube.com/user/SheaDesign

http://www.shea-design.com/

Thanks for the response Shea. There are none of the items you mentioned in my work flow. I did however check the original files on my desktop, I had copied them to my laptop. The file on the desktop were fine. Something apparently happened when I copied them over. The other file I had problems with recently also were copied over.

I have seen this before and had not copied anything over. It was when it was under Discreet. It used the biped. I could not get it to work without this problem of messed up geometry. Neither could Discreet when I sent it to them.

As I mentioned, collapsing the stack seemed to remedy the problem most of the time. Recently on another project that was never copied over had the same problem. I opened the file the next day and the last portion of the object I worked on was messed up. Luckily I was able to delete that portion and proceed.

I think this problem also has to do with luck which I lack. :)

joe

Hi philosofix (joe),

First of all you should try a RAM diagnostic utility (MemTest for example) for a couple of hours.
In most of the cases, corrupted objects inside of a MAX file is a system RAM issue.
Collapsing the stack seemed to remedy the problem because (obviously) the used RAM area is different.

cheers

http://necromanthus.com

To make sure that your copied files are not the problem, try a piece of software called “Beyond Compare”, here: http://www.scootersoftware.com/

It will do a binary comparison, CRC/timestamp comparison, etc., as you see fit.  It will compare individual files or whole folder trees as you instruct.

It’s a great tool to find files that you may have updated (for example if you’ve done a partial re-render to the server, and since it copies and compares, you never get file errors.  It’s a beter system than windows explorer, though admittedly sometimes not quite as convenient.

Kris.

What is the issue with piling up modifiers in the stack?
I am doing a Peter Draper tutorial and he uses tons of modifiers in the stack and when I open up a saved file I get nothing.
I am using Max Design 2009 x64

Is this a common problem and is there a workaround for this?
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I experimented a bit and found that if I collapsed my basic geometry into a mesh object, saved objects open back up without any problems.
I had originally been using a lathed spline as the base of my stack and apparently that was causing the problem I was having.

Dual Intel Xeon W5558 @3.19GHz
12GB ram/
Windows 7 Enterprise (x 64)
3ds Max Design 2012
Nvidia Qudadro 4800
Plugins: fumefx, Afterburn
Max user since Dos R3

I haven’t had any issues lately, but I do recall moving from Viz 3 to Viz 4 (I have a good memory, apparently) and experienced issues back then with the Edit Mesh modifier.  Any geometry from Viz 3 that had an Edit Mesh modifier was a random jumble of polys when opened with Viz 4.  And Booleans had a tendancy to go a little wonky from version to version.  Sometimes improvements to the way things work makes them incompatible with the way things were…

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA

Thanks for all the replies. It is insightful and helpful. I will look into the suggestions. I can remember with DFX+ I had nothing but problems rendering. It uses every bit of ram you have. It always crashed. I have 2G of memory. I remember testing the memory. Maybe I did not run it long enough. I will try that again.

I will also try the “Beyond Repair” as Kris suggested. I copied about 12G of stuff from my x64 3.6 Dual Zeon at the same time instead of small chuncks. I remember years ago that could be problematic, at least for me.

Concerning the stack and modifiers piling up, it does take more resources than a single collapsed object. I can usually go down the stack in a case of corrupt geometry and find the culprit. Unfortunately being linear workflow all the above work on the modifiers applied fails.

I can’t thank you enough for the help.

Regards,
Joe