Michael J. Brown Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I try to be level-headed, but this just takes the cake. I'm sure there have been threads on this already, but I just need to rant a bit. The tendancy of 3dsMax 2013 to automatically switch a camera view to perspective whenever certain actions are performed in that view is nothing short of a ASININE:mad:. Max didn't used to do that. Why the hell did Autodesk do that? I'm sitting here trying to prep a file for submittal to a renderfarm. Going through the checks and balances. Crossing my 'T's and dotting my 'I's. And after 30 minutes of going back and forth making sure there are no more duplicate maps, missing maps, light cache subdivisions that are set too low, or any other of the host of other stuff that always seems to pop up when you submit a job to render, I am finally about to send it. Then I notice that my camera had, at some mysterious point in time, been switched to perspective. No-doubt a result of Autodesk's new function that makes the camera view revert. Had I not caught that it would have cost me the entire $150 cost of that render job before I got the results and realized what happened. I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THIS $#&*!! Isn't there a way to stop this from happening? Autodesk, what the heck are you doing!?:mad: Stop fixing stuff that is not broken!! I know this is just a small, little issue. But sometimes (especially when you are trying to get something out on time and on budget) one's nerves are strung so tight that it only takes one stupid little thing like this to tip the scales and make a fella go berserk - ya know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danb4026 Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I believe Max 2014 has resolved this issue. I know it doesn't do you any good now, and I am not sure why they haven't created a bug fix for 2013. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris MacDonald Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I too feel the pain, I've experienced the exact same issue (well almost, I wasn't sending to an external render farm - but the image was needed the next day and I hadn't noticed that it had switched). It seems to me Autodesk are hell bent on trying to fix things that aren't broken, whilst ignoring things that the entire community is crying out for. The sheer number of things that are on their very own "uservoice" page that are still unadopted/unresolved is quite astonishing; I can't help but think they only have that page to placate those of us that want a better product, considering the year-on-year price hikes. Quad chamfers! That is all I have to say: http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com/forums/80695-general-feature-requests/filters/top And that was posted in 2011! F*cking ludicrous really that some bloke has managed to cobble together his own third party plugin to do it, yet the behemoth that Autodesk is simply can't find the time and resources to implement something so simple! Sorry to go off topic, I too hate the perspective/camera switch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 I believe Max 2014 has resolved this issue. I know it doesn't do you any good now, and I am not sure why they haven't created a bug fix for 2013. Then why would you want to upgrade to 2014? Besides, it took Autodesk about year and of hundreds of developers' hours to solve the issue and add a check box in the main UI now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Hart Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 I had a chance to look at 2014 the other day, and the isolate tool was the first thing I checked. As mentioned, it seems to be fixed - however this was just with a standard camera. I love how autodesk describes the isolate tool being "enhanced" now - meaning it is no longer broken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 its a deeply flawed piece of software run by a group of ********s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 ********s = girrafes? The new camera match feature is well worth the upgrade on my end. It will likely pay for itself in less than a month given I happen to do a lot of photo matching work and it saves a lot of time. The global search feature is also a welcome step toward a more efficient workflow especially given the evolution of the interface from Max 1.0 to now. There are not as many whiz bang new features as I would have liked to see but quite a few of the annoying things from 2013 have been corrected/improved upon. More efficient = faster turnaround and more black ink so it makes sense to update in our shop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notamondayfan Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 I've never had this issue, but I can see your frustration! I didn't like the way Autodesk changed the viewport quad behaviour, it use to remember the view of each of the quads, so when you flicked between left, top, front and perspective it would remember where you were. Luckily there's a script to undo this http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/proviewportswitcher which might also solve your problem? I'm only guessing here, as I've never had your problem, and this is the only script I use that has any influence over the viewports. Dean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 It seems to me Autodesk are hell bent on trying to fix things that aren't broken, whilst ignoring things that the entire community is crying out for. Unfortunately this statement is true, take Backburner for instance if you look on that feedback page it's been one of the top 10 requested things to fix and update for years. After Autodesk announced that they wouldn't be updating BB any longer only fixing existing issues in 2011 I realized they had no intention of creating a full featured product. This became such an intolerable issue for us that we dumped BB and went with a third party option that cost us an additional $7,000. What since does it make for a company to create a product and then severely handicap one of its most important features? I guess you don't have to worry about those kind of things when you've got a monopoly on the industry and meeting customer needs has taken a back seat to making mountains of money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 (edited) Backburner has received attention for 2014 though I suppose this could fall under the 'fixes' category which, technically, is an update. Of course, any functionality is subject to change until the product actually ships. Edited April 4, 2013 by John Dollus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy L Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 Another AD bashing thread? Really, I think they have a great product and Im glad its the one i picked up first. Your gripes are so minor and the product so huge that it seems bizarre to be complaining so venomously about it. Maybe a little myopic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael J. Brown Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 I agree, Tom, to a degree. Certainly I would not go as far as some by implying that 3dsMax is anything but a first-rate piece of complex software. That is not what is at issue (at least not with MY complaint). If the whole 'camera view inadvertently switching to perspective view' thing was a programing error on Autodesk's part, okay. We're all human here... FIX IT. But if a decision was made with clear conciousness to implement something as ass-backwards as making one's camera view swap out to perspective with no discernibly valid reason, then someone needs to answer for it...THEN FIX IT BACK. 3dsMax - a stunning software package? Yes! But that does not make them immune to criticism. myopic? Well, a little leven leveneth the whole lump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Dollus Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 ... then someone needs to answer for it...THEN FIX IT BACK. Considering it doesn't do that in 2014 and there was a large shakeup in the dev team around the end of the year, it seems you got everything you asked for, michael. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael J. Brown Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 Considering it doesn't do that in 2014 and there was a large shakeup in the dev team around the end of the year, it seems you got everything you asked for, michael. DISCO! Now i'm straight. (or perhaps I should say, "will be" straight in another month or so when it gets rolled out here at my office). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Schroeder Posted April 4, 2013 Share Posted April 4, 2013 The perspective switch should have been caught in the initial testing or at least the first hotfix. That's not a bug you can ignore for the entire year, nor is it a bug that should exist considering it never happened in the previous releases. For that, Autodesk deserves an angry mob with torches outside their offices. Is Max 2013 a huge pile of poo? No, in fact it's quite stable if you ignore some odd quirks here and there. I've even begun to like the caddies, and thankfully those are getting killed, or at least optioned now, in 2014 as well. It sounds like 2014 is going to be the better release. You have to remember that they completely overhauled the SDK in 2013 so under the hood, it was a much larger upgrade than say 2012 was from 2011. Granted, AD screwed themselves by having that perspective zoom-extents on isolate control through Max internals and not a script as it was in the past, so a fix may not have been that easy to implement outside of a major release like 2014. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 He did start with "this is a rant". We all have them. We work with software, it should be expected now and again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.Mitov Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 I'm curious whether the Clipping planes are fixed in Max 2014. In Max 2013 they are broken. Just try to enable Clipping planes in Front view for example, change the same view to Left and then change it back to Front again. The clipping planes get reset (going all the way up and down the slider). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josef Wienerroither Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 Clipping planes in orthogonal views do not make much sense from a technical standpoint.. But nevertheless i tested your steps and they behave exactly like in Max 2013, meaning do not seem to be fixed But whats the use case for your scenario ? BTW: switching to/from different viewports does'not reset the clipping planes, it seems the clip values only get confused when you change the exact same viewport to a different type... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris MacDonald Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 Clipping planes in orthogonal views do not make much sense from a technical standpoint They do to me, on large models. Perspective view is usually f****d, and selections are less accurate - so I try to work in orthogonal as much as possible, which means that I need them when I want to perhaps look inside a building, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josef Wienerroither Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 They do to me, on large models. Perspective view is usually f****d, and selections are less accurate - so I try to work in orthogonal as much as possible, which means that I need them when I want to perhaps look inside a building, etc. Yes i understand that, but that's definitely not the primary reason why clipping planes in the viewport where introduced. They are there to manually limit z-depth and thus increase z-buffer resolution ( to prevent the z-fighting issues in large scale scene ) in perspective views. You will not get z-fighting issues in orthographic views. But you are right: i don't think the issue would be that hard to fix, so filling a bug report ( again ) would help .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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