Go to load a material library, click on the provided dropdown to list .max files instead of .mat.
In the material browser it says the name of the library is xxxx.max and on the far right it says “LIB” as if denote this is a material library.
Rename a material in the library.
Close the current model I’m working in and get prompted to “save the library xxxx.max?” Figure, it’s saving the material set in that max file, so OK.
Go to open xxxx.max and I get “File open failed.” (It will not open, merge, nothing.)
Check the file size, it is really small, coincidentally about the size of a material library file.
Rename my now “corrupted” xxxx.max file to xxxx.mat, just to see what happens.
3 guesses on whether or not when I go to load a material library, this file I just renamed to xxxx.mat loads as such?

So the software gives you the indication that it’s saving a library file. Indeed it DOES save it - in the .mat format, but saves it OVER the .max file it came from with a .max extension. Basically, overwriting your .max model with an incorrectly suffixed .mat file.

Good god, file loss like this should NEVER be in a final release! (Something this poorly implemented, and yet so tricky at specifically making you think you’re doing one thing while actually doing something completely destructive, shouldn’t even squeak through in a BETA!)

What’s worse, when I came across this and did a search, I see that there was already a post written about this for max 2012! I’m using 2013! So this has “squeaked through” at least 2 final releases!

Is Autodesk a professional, respected company or just a bunch of goof-offs, pretending to be, while doing just enough to get by thanks to their market position?
Can’t wait until Adobe gets into full on 3D instead of the stuff they’ve dabbled in and does to Autodesk what they did to QuarkXpress, (who also sat on their laurels and refused to listen to the complaints of their own users, until they lost signficant market share to Adobe. THEN the things they had been asking for suddenly became top priorities, but it was too late for Quark)

So any idea if this bug (more like horrendous file-losing programming) will be fixed in the next release?

Are you suggesting that
“The Slate material/map browser no longer corrupts .max files when it saves a material library.”
is either not working, or is a different issue?
The above is a quote from the Product Update 2 documentation.

Help > Report a Problem will take you to the Defect Report Submission Form.

Max 4.2 through 2014, Composite 2014.
XP-64 (SP2).
nVidia 9800GTX+ (512MB) (Driver 314.22).
i5-3570K @ 4.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

I reported this to AD, as well as posted about this issue here in the forums, long before 2013 shipped.

This is a heinous bug. Unbelievable this didn’t get fixed in 2013!

Is Autodesk a professional, respected company or just a bunch of goof-offs, pretending to be, while doing just enough to get by thanks to their market position?
Can’t wait until Adobe gets into full on 3D instead of the stuff they’ve dabbled in and does to Autodesk what they did to QuarkXpress, (who also sat on their laurels and refused to listen to the complaints of their own users, until they lost signficant market share to Adobe. THEN the things they had been asking for suddenly became top priorities, but it was too late for Quark)

Yeah this is the problem with big companies, they takeover a great product like 3ds Max with great potential and then do their black magic and turn it into a mediocre product. Trouble is I fear Adobe would be no different, and that’s a real shame.

Dags is Angry. Hey Autodesk, just fix the f-f-f-f-flaming Bugs!!!!

just sad.  :(

Intel i7 3820 3.6Ghz 8 CORE HT / CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO / OCZ Vertex4 256GB SSD v1.5
Nvidia EVGA GEFORCE GTX 660 3GB v314.22 (Nitrous in max) / Dual Dell Professional P2311H 23" Displays
ASUS P9X79 PRO / G.SKILL ARES 64GB 1866 DDR3 / Antec…

The Angry Beaver 19 June 2012 01:02 PM

Is Autodesk a professional, respected company or just a bunch of goof-offs, pretending to be, while doing just enough to get by thanks to their market position?
Can’t wait until Adobe gets into full on 3D instead of the stuff they’ve dabbled in and does to Autodesk what they did to QuarkXpress, (who also sat on their laurels and refused to listen to the complaints of their own users, until they lost signficant market share to Adobe. THEN the things they had been asking for suddenly became top priorities, but it was too late for Quark)

Yeah this is the problem with big companies, they takeover a great product like 3ds Max with great potential and then do their black magic and turn it into a mediocre product. Trouble is I fear Adobe would be no different, and that’s a real shame.

Well in this case, 3DS Max wasn’t a take-over, it’s an original Autodesk product. I’d normally agree with your sentiment, except that Maya, Motionbuilder and XSI have all benefited, especially when used together. Max hasn’t done so well over the years, but that probably has a lot to do with not being as well-written in the first place.

3DS Max 2010/12/13 | Maya 8.5 | MotionBuilder 7.5
Windows 7 64bit | 12GB | i7 980X 3.33 ~4.0 (Overclocked)
nVidia FX 3800 270.51 [8.17.12.7051]
Cintiq 21UX 2010
[3DS since DOS R1]

I have installed Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 Product Update 2 (released June 14) and I am not able to reproduce the behavior you describe. When I close the library Max says it cannot save an extracted library directly and suggest saving it as a new mat file. If the mat file already exists it asks if I want to override it. Looks ok for me and it seems they fixed the problem.

I understand your disappointment and your criticism of Autodesk and passing such errors to a final product. I want also mention that they can only fix errors, if they are reported correctly. I have several people around me, complaining about errors in Max for years and no one even tries to report them.

Maybe it’s not only the development team but also users, who like to bash and deconstruct their work utility but are not willing to provide enough information to improve the product.

In my opinion, it is a bit harsh to post such unconstructive comments. In fact, there was already an update at the time of posting. Even if you were not aware of the fix, after Steve Curley mentioned the update, it would have been nice to report back, if it was a help for you and to help others.

Has anyone else tried to reproduce the problem?

Sorry, I didn’t want to offend someone, but I am really tired of all the bashing :(