Hello there!

My company is currently using a series of build machines that are constantly exporting Max files into a series of intermediate formats (DAE, Havok files, etc.).  This has worked out recently until some of our MAX files have become more graphically intensive, using DirectX shaders.

At this point, since our servers has sub-par video cards, Max comes to a grinding halt seemingly loading these files.  This becomes problematic for a variety of reasons, and I would like to find a more permanent solution.

Though, I’ve made an assumption here.  Does Max need to render the file in order to properly export it?  What if the file specifically uses DirectX shaders?

If my assumption holds, the first solution that comes to mind is being able to export MAX files without a UI (not a customized UI).  If we do not have to render these files, this would be a considerable speed gain and relieve us of our currently problem.

Our exporting script is called with the following arguments:

3dsmax.exe -q -silent -mip -U MAXScript <max script name>

This appears to still boot up Max minimized and executes our MaxScript without a problem.  But Max still takes a long time to load these files properly.

It also appears that the 3dsmaxcmd.exe doesn’t particularly have the same implementation as it’s 3dsmax counterpart.  Instead, it is used more for batch rendering via script, not necessary plugin-related exporting.  Is this correct?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Kevin Weinberg
Tools Engineering Lead
Seven Studios

There’s another -v option to load display drivers :
-vs : Software
-vo : OpenGL
-vd : Direct3D
-vn : null renderer

Also if 3dsmax really really wants to render something even minimized and no UI (in order to access your fx shaders in the material editor to export their parameters) , you could tick the “Software Only” checkbox in the DX control panel provided with the DXSDK : using REF is extremely slow but any low graphics card on your build machine would still render the stuff : as long as you don’t move around the camera and your script isn’t animating something it won’t have to redraw the scene (and the window will be minimized anyway) so perhaps the access to your materials will be less “stuck” as you’ll be in Direct3D mode from the max point of view (when you’re in OpenGL : this type of mat appears greyed out as “Incompatible”, maybe that’s what’s causing the slow down?)

To be tested ...

There’s also a checkbox in the “Material Editor Options” to use “Force Software Rendering” : it allows you to access the material while the stuff is displayed with classic standard mat in the viewport but I’m not sure whether this is tweakable through startup command line : and it’s not very convenient as the user would have to make sure he turns it on/off each time he saves the scene