3dsmax 2010 hotfix released

[BrianKitts]

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=12961688&linkID=10381720

 

This gave me a pretty good laugh this morning seeing that the software is barely out and it's already getting patches. Gotta give autodesk credit for being ahead of the game on this one!

[Koper]

just brilliant!

 

now thats service, hehehe

[neil poppleton]

Autodesk is more of a money machine than a software company these days....!! a must to get subscription releases out each and every year.....

[Scott Erstad]

Unbeleivable. How can a product with the visibility of Max which is not even be fully rolled out already require a major hot fix?

 

Related, our subscription expires this weekend. Who wants to bet that the 2010 upgrade, which "has been released to subscription customers" already apparently, though not available to us yet, will remain unavailable to us even though we have a fully paid a valid subsc. at the time of rollout.

 

Such a transparent money fix.

 

Scott

[BrianKitts]

Seriously people???? I was making a compliment to Autodesk, there's plenty of other open threads on the site for Autodesk bashing if you feel so inclined.... they're on top of things for once just leave it at that.

 

And not it doesn't look like a "major hotfix" but more than likely a few small things that didn't get caught and are getting small patches.

[Ricardo Eloy]

Mixed feelings on this one. I mean, they sure look like they are paying attention to customer complaints by releasing a patch this early. But also says a lot about the software itself and what they consider "ready to ship". No wonder they scored so low in a recent satisfaction survey...

[Dave Buchhofer]

Stability issues that occur during file load with instanced geometry and Hardware Shading enabled

 

Stability opening EVERY SCENE YOU EVER SAVED?

[Scott Erstad]

Seriously, yes. A patch released on Day 0 of a whole new product release which addresses "stability" and "Performance regression" should hardly be considered complimentary. The expectation level is higher than that, or at least should be.

 

Scott

[kenpimentel]

i guess autodesk mest up the new verison of max because it has a lot of bugs in them so Autodesk decided to get the Service pack out now

 

This is NOT a service pack. The post is pretty clear on that. This is NOT a measure of the quality of the software. This is an attempt to respond to customer concerns about quality by getting issues addressed faster than before.

 

It seems that people who want to look at this negatively will - and will use it to bash us. I'm glad to see that some people see this as a positive thing where we are trying to address problems BEFORE they occur. No software is perfect - at least we can be responsive. Bash us if you want - we're doing the right thing.

[Virgil Johnson]

This is NOT a service pack. The post is pretty clear on that. This is NOT a measure of the quality of the software. This is an attempt to respond to customer concerns about quality by getting issues addressed faster than before.

 

It seems that people who want to look at this negatively will - and will use it to bash us. I'm glad to see that some people see this as a positive thing where we are trying to address problems BEFORE they occur. No software is perfect - at least we can be responsive. Bash us if you want - we're doing the right thing.

 

I have got to back you up on that Ken.

This is not a world of perfection. But it can have honesty and responsibility.

 

Virgil

[Greg Law]

I'm with you on this virgal. I think it is excellent that Autodesk is willing to jump on issues so quickly. They could have held back until more issues surfaced, as I'm sure they will with a program as complex as this one.

All I can say is thanks for the support.

[Fran]

...It seems that people who want to look at this negatively will - and will use it to bash us. I'm glad to see that some people see this as a positive thing where we are trying to address problems BEFORE they occur. No software is perfect - at least we can be responsive. Bash us if you want - we're doing the right thing.

 

If you wish to consider being critical of your software "bashing" then so be it. Just as all software has bugs, all software has critics. If I were you, I wouldn't take it so personally and just ignore things you don't consider to be constructive.

 

I would also like to say that people should feel free to criticise any software, company, product or image they want to, to have people discourage it seems a bit creepy to me.

[kenpimentel]

If you wish to consider being critical of your software "bashing" then so be it.

 

I didn't say that. Of course we will get bashed for bugs - I expect that. I'm a huge advocate of using CER to report all your crashers so that we can fix them. Report them and complain about them - it all helps us do something about them.

 

However, what I am surprised by is the fact we're getting bashed for quickly responding to a problem. Bugs are a reality of any software. We can sit on the fixes for 3-6 months and ship in a service pack or we can try to be responsive and address them immediately before they impact someone. We chose the responsive path. That is the right thing to do. Yes, we knew that some people might use it against us, but we still chose to do it.

[Justin Hunt]

danmed if you do, damed if you dont.....

 

Its become a sport.

 

I'd rather have a hot fix every day if needs be, than wait months for a service pack.

 

jhv

[Fran]

I didn't say that. Of course we will get bashed for bugs - I expect that. I'm a huge advocate of using CER to report all your crashers so that we can fix them. Report them and complain about them - it all helps us do something about them.

 

Well, you missed my main point, which was ignore what isn't constructive. It is apparent that Autodesk has inadvertantly failed to foster good will among a segment of the community here and elsewhere. It's not your fault, and you're not doing anything wrong. However, I wouldn't mention shareholders if I were you. Customers tend to not like the idea that they are somehow more important than we are. People who don't understand the regulations of the SEC likewise don't understand your obligations regarding the shareholders.

 

I hope this didn't come across as harsh. I don't share the feeling of ill will toward Autodesk. I'm just trying to give you a bit of insight into why some people forget their manners when it comes to your company. And it's not just Autodesk. Though they have presented themselves as a pretty big target. Even though Max has frustrated me enough times in the past, I continue to use it. I'm no brand loyalist. I'm a visualization specialist and a pragmatist. If a tool didn't work for me, I would stop using it. I agree with everyone who had a favorable reaction to the hot fix. I was a little embarrassed for you guys though. But you know, stuff happens.

[kenpimentel]

Well, you missed my main point

 

I'm just trying to give you a bit of insight into why some people forget their manners when it comes to your company.

 

I agree with everyone who had a favorable reaction to the hot fix. I was a little embarrassed for you guys though. But you know, stuff happens.

 

Thanks, it is not uncommon for me to miss the point, so don't feel like I singled you out.

 

Yes, I figured that years of neglect of the community would not be resolved by my random postings - especially when I seem to pick the most complex topics possible to discuss. Perhaps I should avoid that in the future...

 

If you don't think every piece of software on the planet doesn't ship with plenty of known bugs, you're fooling yourself. The products that admit to it and do something about it, should be praised and not kicked. We should be the model - in my opinion.

[Brian Smith]

I have to support Autodesk on this one. This is no different than us working on a project for many months, sending the final product it to the client only to hear from the architect (CC'd on the email) that something is wrong with the product, and us rerendering before the client has a chance to call us out on the issue.

 

I don't believe in a 12 month release cycle (would much rather see 24 month), but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't want a hot fix sent before I start using. The difficulty in releasing a perfect Max is probably greater than us releasing a perfect visualization.

 

If it was quick, easy, and automatic, I wouldn't mind daily hot fixes, just like a virus program that gets updated almost daily. Even the Chaos Group has nightly builds that are automatically generated for the beta testers.

[theqball]

i was not bashing max i was just say ppl are having trouble with max a lot of bugs in it autodesk should fix the bug before they start on a new 3ds max how is that bashing max?

 

well that's exactly what we did for the 2010 release. before we wrote a single line of code for a new feature we went back and reviewed all the issues reported on 3ds max 2009, 2008, and v9 via support and beta. we built a massive list and prioritized it to address the top issues impacting all markets.

 

Result: over 400 legacy defects and over 40% of the CER crashers were fixed in the 2010 release and the most severe issues were released as a SP to 2009.

[luckymutt]

I really don't "get" how this hotfix can be viewed negatively by anyone.

It was released before 2010 was generally available, yet *after* it was sent to production/replication.

It seemd to be they caught a few things pretty damn quick and responded nicely.

 

I imagine it went something like:

Project Manager->>"Oh crap, we already went to press but here is a couple of issues that slipped by the beta testers in this massively huge app we make."

Jr. Dev Team member->> "Um...I think I can throw together a patch that'll address those issues by lunch time."

PM->> "Cool. that'd make our users very happy."

Ken and Shane->>"Rock...this should make for a quiet spring."

 

Sorry, Ken and Shane...it'll never be that simple.

[Spooner04]

I'm looking forward to max 2010 and using some of its new features, but why so early? AU isn't until december, siggraph isn't until august, i haven't even gotten my tax return back yet.

someone should make an indie film where the world is thrown into a post apocalyptic state because corporate industries mess up everyone's calendar with their release dates for stuff.

[vizwhiz]

ken

 

how about letting CGA'ers beta Test The crap out of The next release

b4 it is released and we can give Autodisk some customer feedback b4

 

The rest of The community has a chance To suffer another 'pushed Too early' release

 

just an idea

 

'you can do it and we can help'

Edited April 15, 2009 by vizwhiz

[Justin Hunt]

The offer has already been made and taken up. I for one did.

 

Funny thing is I was able to download the hotfix before the program. Got it today. Both Max and Design (trial versions) I do like the new design interface over max's default. The contrast in the greys was just wrong enough to hurt the eyes.

 

Been having fun with graphite. Not too sure if I like the way Final gather does it in three passes.

 

More testing tomorrow

 

JHV

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

Been having fun with graphite. Not too sure if I like the way Final gather does it in three passes.

 

I think you will. It is very useful in Vray. You can get an idea what the lighting and image are going to look like before the computer spends to much time crunching through things, and wasting time before you realize that the lighting is bad.

 

I only wish that there was a way to customize the number of passes. When using Vray, I like to do about 8 passes. I haven't found a way to control that in MR yet.

[Justin Hunt]

In some ways it is nice but in other ways it seems slower. Perception, as I havn't done a head to head test with 2009 yet.

 

jhv

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

In some ways it is nice but in other ways it seems slower. Perception, as I havn't done a head to head test with 2009 yet.

 

jhv

 

Think of multi-passing the FG in terms of AA. If you leave an image Min 16 Max 16, it is going to render slower than if you leave it at Min 1 Max 16.

 

The first pass of FG gives a general over view of the FG, and the later passes allow the engine to focus more on the areas that need it, and quickly skip the areas that do not need as much attention.

 

At least this is what I am under the impression that Vray does with multi-passing the Irradiance calculation. This is why I like to use 8 passes in Vray, in theory, it speeds the calculation along because it is able to determine the areas that need attention faster. Not sure if this is true with FG/MR, but it would be nice to hear the results if you have a chance to test them.

 

I won't be using 2010 in production until at least mid May, so I haven't had a chance to root through the MR files to see if I can change the number of passes, or if it is hard coded into app.