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Just a litle warning about Viz and ADT2004


arch83
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Everyone knows by now that linking between ADT2004 and Viz4 will not work.

 

It's also important to know that ADT 3.3 linking will fail and files will not open if you install ADT2004 on the machine that you run those two programs on.

 

What you will get, if you happen to merge or link by dragging onto the viewport, is a corrupt Viz ".max" file that will crash explorer.exe (not IE)if you attempt to open it or even mouse-over the file.

 

This took two months to figure out because I had been so busy and had forgotten that I had installed that stupid demo.

 

If you buy ADT2004 or try the demo, be sure you install it on another machine that it will not affect. It takes a lot of cleaning to get rid of it.

 

Jeff

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6 month old system with no plugins, no internet access and only three applications installed. Win2k with SP3, Viz4.2 (network), ADT 3.3 and Photoshop 6.

 

Obviously after completetly uninstalling ADT2004 and cleaning the registry of traces the problem disappeared. I'm not a brain surgeon but I think that the correlation is fairly obvious.

 

If you check the Autodesk discussion board you see I'm not the only one with the same problem.

 

BTW - I could still link to ADT3.3 files IF they were created BEFORE installing 2004.

 

Just keep it in mind when you lose a day of work.

 

[ July 04, 2003, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: arch83 ]

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Well, I haven't had this problem but I'm using VIZ3 not 4. But I do have ADT 3 and 4 installed on the same machine with no problems.

 

I don't like the VIZ Render that came with ADT4 so I'm still using VIZ3.

 

This is an extra step of course, but whenever I have changes in my model that I made in ADT4, I have to export to the 2k file format of .dwg before I either link or reload in VIZ. Its not much work for me really.

 

Or are you saying you can't do that either because ADT4 won't translate to version 3.3?

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I am not sure about that. I will have to install the trial on an admin computer and send a file through our server. I'm sure it is probably a registry component that is causing the problem. Our local Autodesk rep is clueless and he sent a request for information in for us three weeks ago with no response.

 

I was just passing my, and others problem along. Forewarned is forearmed. :)

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Ok, here's what I did:

 

- restored a ghost image of a plain Windows XP OS (containing PC Anywhere, NAV and WinZIP)

- Installed ADT 3.3 (no service packs)

- Installed VIZ 4.2

- Created a DWG file containing walls, doors and windows in ADT 3.3

- Saved the DWG "BeforeADT4.dwg"

- Linked it to VIZ 4 - Successful link

- Installed ADT 2004

- Started ADT 2004, played with it, saved a DWG "ADT4DWG.DWG"

- Started VIZ Render, linked DWG - successful

 

Now onto your problem, here's what I did:

 

- Start ADT 3.3

- Created several objects

- Save DWG "AfterADT4.dwg"

- Start VIZ 4

- File > File Link Manager

- Choose DWG saved

- Link - Link was successful

- Open Explorer

- Drag "AfterADT4.DWG" to VIZ 4

- Choose Link - Link was successful

- Save and reload .MAX files - All Successful

 

So, I did a test and all worked. Attempting to link the ADT 2004 file Fails, it's known, and it did fail as expected, no crashes, nothing fancy. Just a message saying the DWG did not contain usable data.

 

As for Explorer crashing when you mouseover a MAX file, please in Preferences > Files, disable "Save File Properties". Then Open and Re-save your .MAX file. This is a Windows 2000 bug that Microsoft only fixed in Windows XP Service Pack 1.

 

If you have more details, or more information on your ADT 2004 problem with ADT 3.3, I'll be happy to look into it. I'll also look into the Newsgroups, to see what people are talking about it, but I haven't seen any complaints about it till last week (I do browse the ADT newsgroups frequently)

 

Hope this helps.

 

Alexander | discreet Quality Engineer

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It sounds like the "Save File Properties" may be falsely tagging my ADT3.3 files.

 

I did load the ADT2004 trial onto another machine last night. Also with Win2k SP4 and the same setup. I had the same problem.

 

I'll try changing those settings on that machine when I get back to the office and see what happens.

 

Thanks Alexander for taking the time to experiment. If it works, your solution should be made widely known to the Adesk folks.

 

j :)

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Save File Properties is a .MAX only issue. MAX and VIZ save extended File Properties data that's accessible when you right-click the file and choose Properties, or through the File menu inside of VIZ/MAX.

 

This information should not and does not affect ADT 3.3 files, since they're DWG.

 

If you had a Pre-Release or Beta version of ADT, it could have caused problems of compatibility with ADT 3.3, but as I mentioned above, the shipping release of ADT 2004 didn't cause me problems.

 

Anyway, any extra info is welcome.

 

Alexander

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Well the file .max "mouse-over" crash is all gone now.

 

I reinstalled ADT2004 (release ADT2004.0.0, played with all the features including VizRender. I saved some files, etc.

 

Then I went to Viz4 and tried linking to my previous ADT3.3 files...and the problem is all gone.

 

I merged the mouse-over crashing .max files into the drawing by typing the name instead of pointing. After the file merged I resaved and reopened by clicking the file...no problems :)

 

I am still confused as to why I had the problem with linking.???

 

Either way my ADT2004 Trial will run out before long and I have no intention of buying it for now unless a more suitable modeling/render program is mated to it than VizRender, such as "Viz5" or a perhaps a joint product from Autodesk and Discreet.

 

And BTW I have enjoyed your books (Mastering Max3 and Mastering Max4), although, currently George Omuras' book is open in front of me :D

 

Thanks again for all your help.

 

Jeff

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