Problem with 3DSMAX: Files increase their size each time I save.

This is very urgent. I have 3DS MAX 2013 (legal) and I have a problem these days: Each time I open a recent file with a size of, for example 20MB, it increases its size each time I save it, for example to 200MB and then 400MB, and so on. This happens with the same objects in the scene.

The file is so huge that my computer can’t cope with it. Rendering is almost impossible and saving and handling files is painful. Can someone please help me? I’m just finishing some important projects…

garbage collector and/or make sure compress on save is enabled in preferences>files tab

Many thanks, Jose, for your quick reply. What is garbage collector? A program?

Compress on save doesn't solve the problem, as internally the file is corrupted anyway.

I tried also "save selected" or "merge" the objects in a new scene. It seems that the objects include the problem too, as the new file is also corrupted.

Garbage collector is a purge option for Max, open your script listener and type GC and click enter.

You can try to collapse the modifiers for the meshes, also collapse similar meshes. and Finally use XREF which is the best option for large scenes.

Check how many undo you have in your properties, Undo in MAX are per object bases so this can increase your scene size temporarily too.

I do remember this bug being very prominent up to 2014 version, and that it just vanished over nights with service packs in 2015 and I haven't see it once in 2016.

Pure 'purge" ( garbage collect,etc..), merging to clean scenes, etc. do not help. Or not fully.

While this issue had many different reasons behind, the most common were note-tracks, reactor collisions, and other weird trivia.

Run what you can on this script (but beware 'link composites', that can cause big havoc in CAD imported geometry if it was instanced previously in host app (AutoCAD,Revit) ).

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/cleaner

Many thanks, Juraj.

Although I've been a 3D MAX user for some years, I'm not very used to Script files. Can you tell me what I have to do with this script, step by step? Many thanks!

This is an old bug, to do with importing geometry that has large number of tracks/notes attached. Follow the steps here to see if that fixes it: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Scene-files-increase-in-size-or-take-a-long-time-to-save.html

Many thanks to all of you! I finally solved the problem.

After some research and investigation in forums and old threads, I found this script that works fine:

Type this code in the Script Listner:

trackViewNodes[#Max_MotionClip_Manager].track = copy trackViewNodes[#Max_MotionClip_Manager].track

Clic on Enter and then type:

gc()

Now, a file that was 400MB in size in my hard disk (uncompressed) is only 40MB and 3DSMAX opens it in seconds. Although recent versions of MAX solve the problem, my actual version is 2013 and at the moment I'm not going to purchase the latest version (same story as always: too expensive and very few improvements...)