Additional Notes About 3ds max 7

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Installing, registering and activating 3ds max 7

3ds max 7 displays the Register Today wizard upon startup. Choose Activate the product and the wizard guides you through the brief registration and activation process. If you choose Run the Product, you will have 30 days to enter a valid activation code before the software disables itself on that machine. Before a user with Restricted Privileges can run 3ds max 7 under the Windows operating system, an Administrator must start the program at least once. This generates registry information, which completes the install. When you uninstall 3ds max 7, your configuration files will remain in the \3dsmax7 folder. These include your custom UI and plugin.ini file, which can contain 3rd-party plugin authorization information. You can reinstall 3ds max 7 to this folder at a later date, and your settings will persist. If you do not want your settings to persist, install into a different folder. After installing backburner to a new folder using the stand alone installer, the old backburner 2 folder will not be removed. The folder can be safely removed manually. The Repair feature only supports files that have internal file versioning that it can use to track the files. There are certain file types and partner programs in 3ds max 7 that do not provide this information. If the Repair function does not successfully resolve the issues you are experiencing, try uninstalling and then re-installing the feature or partner program. Parking the license on another system in order to rebuild the main system will not work as described in the Installation Guide. In order to successfully retain the license, you should do the following: 1. Shut down 3ds max 7 and do not run it again until the end of this process. 2. Copy the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Macrovision\SafeCast\Product Licenses folder to another system or to a floppy disk. It is recommended that if you use a floppy disk, you make two copies. If for any reason you need to run 3ds max 7 after this point, you will need to restart the process from Step 1. 3. Proceed with system rebuild. 4. Once the rebuild has completed, reinstall 3ds max 7 and any needed updates. Note: Dont run 3ds max after having installed. 5. Restore the copy of the license folder to the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Macrovision\SafeCast\Product Licenses\ folder. 6. Reboot the system. You should now be able to run 3ds max 7 with no loss of license. If the license should break, try simply re-registering via the web connection. In many cases this will repair the license.

Network License Versions

Network licensing enables 3ds max (v4.3 and later) software to obtain authorization from a network license server. Before activating the network license server, you must upgrade to or purchase the network-enabled version of 3ds max. For license manager details, please refer to the Network Licensing Guide which is available by selecting the Documentation panel or the Network Deployment panel from the product installation menu (setup.exe in the root of your Product CD). The 3ds max 7 installation program no longer creates a license file in the application root directory. The installer has been improved to merge license server information directly into the registry. Should you still desire to manually direct 3ds max 7 to a different license server using the license file method, you can create a licpath.lic file using Notepad, containing the following two lines:
SERVER hostname hostid USE_SERVER

where hostname and hostid are the machine name and physical address of the license server, respectively. This information can be obtained from your system administrator. The license borrowing utility for 3ds max 7 is found only in the Help menu. Documentation states that it is available from the Tools pull down and command line.

Notes About 3ds max 7 Features

ACTIVESHADE Using Raytrace materials can cause the ActiveShade window to lose focus, activating the main UI keyboard shortcuts. Click the ActiveShade window to reactivate ActiveShade keyboard shortcuts.

ASSET BROWSER Scene XRef drag and drop of files with scripts that depend on explicit scene object references can cause unpredictable results or program failure.

BONES Bones creation behavior can be unpredictable when using Snap Override. When you use SHIFT+right-click to invoke Snap Override, the Bones system interprets this as a left-click and places a bone in the scene. The Macro Recorder does not support Bones creation. However, you can manipulate the bones with the Macro Recorder after creating them. When Reassign Root is used, it deletes and recreates new bones. Any animated parameters, controller setups and custom bone settings are lost, including IK chain assignments. You should use this tool before making any adjustments or IK assignments to your bones. Negatively scaled bones can be set to unity with the Reset Scale button in Object Properties rollout of the Bone Adjustment Tools dialog. In tandem with the Reset Stretch and Realign buttons, it is now easy to create symmetrical bone chains free of scaling and stretch problems. The Stretch Factor for the selected bone is now displayed in the Object Properties rollout of the Bone Adjustment Tools dialog.

BOOLEANS Edges created during a Boolean operation involving compound (nested) Booleans might be visible when they should be invisible. This affects only viewport display modes that display visible edges, such as Wireframe, Lit Wireframes and Edged Faces. These edges can be made invisible through mesh editing.

CAMERA MAP TEXTURE Per Pixel Camera Map should only allow lights or cameras to be selected but does not correctly filter the available selection. Please use only lights or cameras.

CAMERAS Changing a Camera Corrected view to a User or Perspective view causes the view to display distorted geometry. Changing to any other axonometric view will correct this.

CHARACTERS Use of the Unlink Selection tool on objects that are contained in Characters can produce unexpected results. Instead, use the specific tools provided for adding and removing objects from Characters. Objects with animated TCB Rotation controllers can shift position when a containing character is destroyed. To avoid this, use Euler rotation controllers instead. Pick Object must be used to add characters to groups. Adding groups to a character by selecting from the viewport is not supported. In some instances, the Character Error dialog can appear with no nodes listed. If this occurs, try reselecting or selecting part of your hierarchy and then using Add Member to add more objects to your character. Before entering the Skin Pose mode for a character or group, it is advised to first set keys for all the members. The easiest way to do this is to click Set Key Pose.

CLONE AND ALIGN In 3ds max, some tools flip the sign of the scale of the objects they operate on. This is not always apparent to the user. If you use Clone and Align to align an object to another whose scale has been flipped, you might get unexpected positioning and orientation. Choose to also Match Scale to correct the discrepancy. (Example: the Mirror tool applies a negative scale to at least one axis of the object it is used on. In Clone and Align, select Match Scale to achieve the desired results with such objects.)

COMBUSTION MAPS combustion needs to be installed on your system in order to view CWS files. It should also be installed on all network-rendering servers if you are going to net-render a scene that contains CWS files. combustion does not need to be authorized to process CWS files used within 3ds max net-rendering servers, but does need to be present. CWS files that were created as rub-throughs wont display unless combustion is installed on your computer. In the Combustion Parameters rollout when Track Time or Custom Resolution > Enable is turned on, viewport selections are not highlighted. If you are using a Combustion map with a Displace modifier or as a projector light map, the scene will not render correctly while a live link exists between 3ds max and combustion. To render correctly, save the loaded workspace file, and then turn off the Edit button to terminate the link between 3ds max and combustion. Using the Combustion map (within 3ds max 7) with combustion and attempting to change the UV Coordinates while Unwrap is selected and the Unwrap operation is visible

in combustion, you might experience a disconnection error in 3ds max. To correct this, verify that all your UV settings are in place before you attempt to edit your map within combustion. The disconnection alert only appears when you have an object selected in your scene, so if you deselect your object and change the Unwrap UV channels, no disconnection alert should appear. The UV Offset values in the Coordinates rollout of the combustion map are not honored when painting directly on the object in 3ds max 7. To offset the UVW Coordinates of the combustion map, apply a UVW Map modifier and a UVW XForm modifier. You will have to save the workspace in combustion for every render in 3ds max. Save the combustion workspace and load it using the Project button. The latest changes in combustion are getting displayed in the sample slots of the material editor but not in 3ds max renderings. You will have to save the workspace in combustion and render again in 3ds max. In the Combustion Parameters rollout, when the Edit button is Enabled, combustion launches and prompts to create a new workspace. You must close this dialog, or 3ds max will not respond.

COMPOUND OBJECTS When the Use Soft Selection check box is turned on in the Blobmesh compound object, objects that do not have their own Use Soft Selection turned on will not generate a blobmesh surface. To correct this, enter the objects sub-object mode, turn on the Use Soft Selection check box, and then exit the sub-object mode. A similar effect can be achieved using a Select modifier or by adding a Turn To modifier and turning on Invert in the Subobjects Selection group.

CONTROLLERS SHIFT+cloning path-constrained objects might not position copies properly. Creating clones of a path-constrained object using the SHIFT+Move technique will not evenly space each clone from its previous sibling. There is currently no action item for the Gimbal coordinate system. If an older scene containing a Local Euler controller is loaded into 3ds max 7, it will be changed to an Euler XYZ. The animation data and resulting animation will be precisely the same. NURBS Point controllers should be individually reassigned from the Surface sub-object level rather than at the Master Controller level in Track View in order to see their effect. Master Point controllers are compound controllers and depend on sub-controllers and their structure; therefore, you cannot cut and paste Master Point controllers. Setting a motion track's input type to None after it was assigned to another type, such as Mouse or Keyboard, and then using Undo can cause program failure.

CUSTOM ATTRIBUTES Loading into 3ds max 7 a 3ds max 5.x file with missing plugins (stand-ins) that had stored custom attribute information can lead to program instability. Loading into 3ds max 7 a 3ds max 5.x file that contains custom attributes can lead to instability if missing plugin stand-ins are created upon load. It is recommended that you save the file in 3ds max 5.x without the missing plugins, open it in 3ds max 7 and then save it before proceeding.

DAYLIGHT (IES SUN & SKY) The positioning controller of the Daylight system does not exactly correspond to the one described by the IES RP-21 Calculation of Daylight Availability standard, thus resulting in slight intensity variations at certain times and locations.

DEPTH OF FIELD The use of atmospheric effects with the Depth Of Field rendering effect is currently not supported.

DOPE SHEET EDITOR Performance can degrade when moving or coping keys for objects requiring intensive recalculations based on previous keys (for example HD IK.).

DISPLAY Using max in D3D mode disables the Use Dual Planes check box for OpenGL and Software display modes. To re-enable Dual Planes support, go to Customize > Preferences > Viewports Tab > Viewport Parameters section and choose Use Dual Planes. The default value for OpenGL and SZB is to Use Dual Planes. DX Display of Standard Material is supported only when running max in DirectX 9 mode. The Direct3D Metal Bump viewport shader only supports DDS files as cube maps. The Wave, Ripple, Bomb, Drag, and UDynaFlect space warps will display with incorrect coloring under Direct3D. Some video cards might display only half the lines on wireframe objects. To fix this, turn off the toggle Use Wireframe Faces (Custom Driver Extension) on the Configure OpenGL dialog, located under Customize > Preferences > Viewports panel. Running 3ds max 7 under Direct3D with Microsoft NetMeeting can cause display problems or product instability. Direct3D does not support two-sided display for materials. Best and Simple viewport transparency modes are the same for all D3D display drivers.

DirectX viewports might become unresponsive after Windows standby, running a screen saver, fast-user switching or locking the system. Changing the DirectX Managers shader drop-down will cause the viewport to temporarily display the first frame on an animated scene. Users of the nVidia Quadro4 XGL display cards might see window flashing as the TrackView window opens. If this occurs, disable the nView Desktop Manager using the NVIDIA Media Center. Choose nView Desktop Manager > Disable. Switching between vertex color, alpha, and illumination using Properties in Editable Poly when the display mode is Direct3D can cause the colors to garble or not change. In this instance, refreshing the viewport or entering or exiting the Editable Poly's sub-object mode should force a refresh. Direct3D viewports can become unresponsive after minimizing and maximizing when a viewport background is displayed. If this occurs, please save your file and restart 3ds max. Starting Windows XP with the /3GB option reduces the amount of kernel address space to 1GB. Sometimes the kernel might need more space for DirectX or system drivers, resulting in cached mesh corruption or sluggish DirectX performance. See Microsoft support for tuning information. If you are using the /3GB switch and have this problem, use "/USERVA=2800" (or 2700 etc.) (MB for this argument) to limit the USER Virtual Address space to less than 3GB. This allows more space for the operating system kernel if it is needed. This option is placed in the boot.ini file just after the "/3GB" option. DirectX Shaders are displayed incorrectly for objects that have been mirrored on one axis with the Mirror tool. This does not occur for objects mirrored with the Mirror or Symmetry modifiers. The DirectX viewport shader sample, colortest.fx, does not display correctly. The Metal Bump DirectX plugin will overwrite the currently assigned Metal Bump Cubemap when using 'Pick object and create' to create a new cubemap.

DIRECTX DISPLAY OF STANDARD MATERIAL DirectX Display of Standard Material does not work with Skylights. DirectX Display of Standard Material does not ignore lights that are turned off in a scene. Because DirectX shader complexity increases with each scene light and to avoid running out of video memory or exceeding shader length, we recommend minimizing the number of scene lights when viewing DirectX Display of Standard Material. DirectX Display of Standard Material will not show screen-mapped NormalBump maps in the viewport. Canceling the creation of some light types when viewing DirectX Display of Standard Material can cause a crash.

DIRECTX 9 SHADER MATERIAL DirectX 9 Shader materials can be inverted when applied to mirrored objects.

In a multi/sub-object material, the color swatches for a DirectX 9 Shader material cannot be set from the top level. To change the color, go into the DX9 Shader material and adjust the Shaded color in the Software Render Style rollout. Multi/Sub-object materials can display incorrectly in the viewport when a DirectX 9 Shader material occupies the first slot.

DYNAMICS UTILITY The Dynamics utility is included within 3ds max 7 for legacy files only. For superior results, use reactor for any dynamics simulations. The Dynamics utility will not be supported in future versions of 3ds max.

EDITABLE MESH 3ds max 3.x files having a stack where an Edit Mesh modifier containing sub-object collapses is above a MeshSmooth modifier, might load into 3ds max 7 with missing faces and distorted geometry. To correct this, load the scene in 3ds max 3.1 and collapse the object to the highest MeshSmooth level in the stack (that's under the Edit Mesh modifier with sub-object collapses), save that file and then re-open it in 3ds max 7. Do not try to set Weights on vertices in an Editable Mesh. If you need to do so on a mesh object, use an Edit Mesh modifier.

EDITABLE POLY & POLYMESH OBJECT If an Editable Mesh has face normals flipped in a nonuniform manner, converting it to an Editable Poly can cause problems. The conversion process attempts to divide the object into elements to keep a legal condition. The division method might be unpredictable and will probably be based on how many vertices are shared between flipped and non-flipped faces. Unifying the normals before conversion is recommended. Or, you can detach the flipped faces as elements before conversion, and the elements will be respected by the Editable Poly conversion. This ensures a more orderly and predictable conversion. Interior patch edges that are not displayed will always appear as visible edges after converting to a polymesh. When in an edit mode such as Attach or Edit Triangulation, undoing a Stackview Convert To Editable Poly while the Modify Panel is displayed and must be scrolled can result in program failure.

EDIT POLY MODIFIER Named Selections are not currently saved with the Edit Poly modifier. Drag and drop of materials from the Material Editor to sub-objects in the Edit Poly modifier to create multi sub-object materials is not currently supported. Using Paint Soft Selection or Paint Deform while the animation is playing is not supported

and can lead to instability. Use of the Repeat Last command with Paint Deform can cause instability and is not recommended. Modifying the underlying topology of an Edit Poly modifier, and then attempting to Paint Deform a model can lead to an application error. It is highly suggested that you apply topology changes above the Edit Poly modifier or Editable Poly object, and then apply a new Edit Poly before attempting to Paint Deform the model. Using the shift+x shortcut to enter the Edge constraint mode of the Edit Poly modifier will activate the mode properly, but the change will not be reflected in the Constraint dropdown list. The Edit Poly modifier stores a history of operations made within the modifier which can in some instances result in very large file sizes. It is recommended that you collapse your stack on occasion to reduce file size, or check the Compress On Save check box in the Preference Settings dialog, Files panel.

FILE I/O 3DS files created by the Rhino product (from Robert McNeel & Associates) can cause instability when imported into 3ds max. If an assert error dialog is encountered, using Retry might result in a successful import, but this might cause your session to destabilize. 3ds max 7 can import the text-based (ASCII) Wavefront formats OBJ and MTL. An OBJ file contains geometry descriptions. A MTL file is also text based, and contains material descriptions that supplement the OBJ file.

FILE MENU 3ds max 7 files are not backward-compatible with previous versions of 3ds max and will not load in earlier versions.

FLEX Flex single-frame rendering can take a substantial amount of time. When a scene containing Flex is rendered at a point in time far away from the Flex reference frame, the modifier must calculate the solution for all flexed points from the reference frame to the current frame. During single-frame tests or net rendering, this could contribute to a significant delay in overall rendering time. To correct this, add a Point Cache modifier above Flex and record the flexed point data to disk. Then, disable all modifiers below Flex before you render.

GROUPS Grouped objects that have animated TCB Rotation controllers can shift position when the object is removed from the group. To avoid this effect, use Euler rotation controllers instead.

Use of the Unlink Selection tool on objects that are contained in Groups can produce unexpected results. Instead use the specific tools provided for Attaching and Detaching objects from Groups.

HELP: REFERENCE & TUTORIALS

In the topic Reaction Manager Dialog, the procedure is revised as follows: Move the first part of step 23 to the start of step 22. Step 22 should read: 22. In the Reactions (upper) list, click the Box01 / X Position entry to highlight it, and then move the box about 50 units on the X axis, to about X=100. Also, the button image from the start of step 22 belongs in step 23. Step 23 should read: 23. [Create State button image] Click Create State. Finally, the first part of step 29 is unnecessary. Step 29 should read: 29. Click Create State.

License Borrowing Utility: The 3ds max 7 license borrowing utility was originally built for AutoCAD and is described in terms of that product in the help system. 3ds max 7 users should replace AutoCAD references with the 3ds max equivalent as needed. For example, if the help system refers to AutoCAD 2005 program folders, you should use the 3ds max 7 folder. Information on the Water Surface Shadow shader was not included in the lume help content (lume_shaders.chm). Below is some information that may help describe its use: Water Surface Shadow: The lume Water Surface Shadow shader can be used to get a more realistic shadow for water scenes, as it does not require expensive caustic computations. Nevertheless, the strength of the shadow depends on the waves of a water surface. The parameters of Water Surface Shadow are identical to those for Water Surface. For more information, see the lume documentation for Water Surface. A typical use is to assign Water Surface to the Surface slot of a material, and then Water Surface Shadow to the Shadow slot of the same material. To get good and fast results, use a constant color for the Surface Material of the Water Surface Shadow shader.

There is an undocumented Pose To Pose check box on the Rotation List Controller rollout. When a Rotation List Controller is assigned to an object, the Average Weights control is replaced with a Pose To Pose toggle. If Pose To Pose is off, the list controller weights each rotation individually and adds up the weighted rotations for the final effect. You animate by stacking layers on top of layers, and then weighting their effect in and out. This is the default behavior. If Pose To Pose is turned on, then each pose is blended with the results from the previous items in the list. This method is not additive, but instead is true pose-to-pose blending. Adjusting the weight of an item in the list blends to and from that pose (that

controller in the list). If the last weight is 1.0, then adjusting the weights of previous poses in the list won't have any effect, because the last pose has full effect. This is a stackbased approach that is best used for nonlinear effects. Motion clips or even single-frame poses can be pasted onto new layers, and the weights can be used to blend the poses together. The topic "3ds max Materials in mental ray Renderings" says that the Shell material is not supported by the mental ray renderer. As of 3ds max 7, mental ray does support the Shell material and Render To Texture. The topic "Caustics and Global Illumination Rollout (mental ray Renderer)" states that the default value for the Global Energy Multiplier is 1000.0. In 3ds max 7, the default value has changed to 1.0. In the text of the topics Lights & Cameras > Lights > Rollouts for Specific Shadow Types > "Advanced Ray-Traced Parameters Rollout" and "Area Shadows Rollout," text that refers to "Pass 1 Quality" should read "Shadow Integrity," and text that refers to "Pass 2 Quality" should read "Shadow Quality."

HOTKEYS If Flash v5 or lower is installed on your computer, the text in the Hot Key Map will not display properly. Just go to www.macromedia.com and download/install the latest free version of the Flash player (v7). Prior to loading a KBD file from a previous version of 3ds max, manually remove the E from the Edit Keys Mode action entry (under Track View group).

HSDS Using HSDS on a mapped object breaks vertices and can distort the texture. This is a limitation, as there is no provision for more than one texture vertex per vertex. To work around the problem, texture the output of HSDS instead of the input.

INI FILES Before editing 3dsmax.ini, or any other INI file, it is advised that you save a copy for backup. You can restore your 3dsmax.ini to factory defaults by removing it from the root \ 3dsmax7 folder and starting 3ds max.

INVERSE KINEMATICS There can be instances where no warning will be displayed for an invalid IK dependency loop. It is possible to create such a loop (with hierarchy links, controllers, or parameter wiring) that creates an unpredictable IK solution. The incorrect results are generally immediately evident and usually undoable. Setting rotational joint limits on HI IK start joints might lead to unintuitive IK behavior. To correct this, free up as many degrees (axes) of rotational freedom as possible. It can also help to adjust the preferred angles of the start joint.

Conflicts can occur when you have an HI IK chain and use Assign Vertex Colors on the bones that make up that chain. This conflict can cause subsequent file load problems. To correct, either collapse the stack after using the Assign Vertex Colors utility, or add a VertexPaint or STL Check modifier to the top of the stack. For HI IK, no MAXScript or parameter wiring is available for the Enabled state. This is as designed, as the Enabled state is controlled by the new Boolean controller, which can be copied and instanced.

JSR-184 The exporter complies with the JSR-184 Specification, and many 3ds max 7 features such as particles, procedural tools, procedural textures, and others are not supported. Biped and other character studio features are not supported. IK is not supported. Bones for export should use FK. Render To Texture (RTT) is not supported. All animation controllers should be collapsed before exporting. An Active Camera must be defined to view exported M3G files in the JSR-184 player. There are currently issues with alpha channel support.

LAYERS When a layers Shaded Viewport Display is used, it will be set to Facet if the viewport itself is displayed in non-Smooth mode. Once the viewport is set to Smooth + Highlights by right-clicking the viewport label, this will change the layers default Facet display to Smooth.

LENS EFFECTS A glow of small size doesn't appear to work when rendering to fields. To correct this, increase the size of the glow before rendering. Glow, on an Environment map, using Effects ID, will not work if Antialiasing is on. Resetting 3ds max while the Video Post Lens Effects Setup dialog is displayed is not recommended.

MACRO RECORDER Not all features are macro-recordable.

MANIPULATORS Changing V Tiling coordinates of a UMV Map to a negative value when Manipulator is enabled can cause program instability (nVidia card using Software-Z Buffer).

MAP CHANNEL When using the Map Channel Utility with patch objects, pasting channels can result in channel names being lost, so name your channels after you've completed your copying and pasting.

MATERIAL EDITOR When a Noise map has been added to a material, the first launch of the Material Editor, in a 3ds max 7 session, may be delayed. Subsequent launches of the Material Editor in the same session will not be delayed. Blur and Blur Offset controls are enabled for all 3D maps, but can be used only with antialiased 3D maps such as Noise. When working on a material at the level of an instanced map, the Make Unique button can unexpectedly delete the current material. Be sure to have the material assigned to an object in the scene before using Make Unique on the map so that you can later Get Material to get the material from the scene. Alternately, you can drag and drop the original map again into the current map as a copy rather than an instance. Installing Microsoft Access after installing 3ds max 7 results in the MAT file type being reassigned as an Access table file and not a 3ds max materials library file. To correct, use Windows Explorer > View > File Types to reference the file type back to 3ds max 7. Use of recursive IFL files is not supported. The startup default material library file has been moved to the \3dsmax7\defaults\max directory. You will need to save it there in order for it to be used on startup. Depending on how duplicate texture maps were created in the scene, there can be instability associated with running the Instance Duplicate Map utility when Show Map In Viewport is on for those maps. If this instability is encountered, deactivate all maps before running the utility using the toggle in the Views menu. The maps can then be safely activated again with the same toggle. Right-clicking a material slot and selecting Cut or Clear will not properly clear the material sample slot. Cut will correctly allow pasting to another slot, but it does not correctly remove the original as would be expected in a Cut operation.

MENTAL RAY: GENERAL Subsurface Scattering (SSS) Materials are not supported when used as a sub-material; for example, as a sub-material in Multi/Sub-Object, Blend, or Composite in this release. Raytracing 2-sided shadows is not currently supported by mental ray.

The "Render Atmospherics inside Raytraced Objects" flag within the Raytrace material is currently unsupported.

When scenes require more than 300 MB to render, it is suggested you use "place holders". This enables "data flushing" of everything that can be recreated later on, thereby maximizing disk space usage. For example, the "large BSP" can be partially flushed and recreated as other areas of the scene get rendered. Here's some information that should be considered when ray-tracing large files: instancing yes no no flushing no yes no

grid large BSP BSP

When creating large files for rendering with mental ray, especially ones using Final Gather, save your work before rendering. Canceling such a render could create a long wait time. mental ray does not support antialiasing specified in the Material Editor. The Reflect/Refract, Thin Wall Refraction, and Flat Mirror maps cause standard raytracing to be performed with mental ray. Therefore, these maps arent fully supported in this release. Materials generated by 3rd-party plug-ins are not supported in mental ray and can cause instability. It is advised not to use Material To Shader in the 3ds max environment slot. This shader usually needs to be placed on geometry in order to be evaluated. mental ray does not support the Render Map feature in the Material Editor. Sample spheres in the Material Editor are off center and not fully visible in when using 6x4 Sample Windows. Very large displacement settings can cause 3ds max to become unstable. To avoid this instability, reduce large factor values or change the displacement settings in the render dialog. Scripting mental ray parameters is not supported in this release. Gizmos with atmospherics assigned should have a positive height value in order to render correctly with mental ray. Scaling a gizmo being used for an atmospheric effect will, in turn scale the density of that effect when rendering with the scanline renderer. mental ray does not perform this scaling. For the renderers to match after scaling such a gizmo, the density of the

atmospheric effect (Fire, Volume Fog, and so on) must be subsequently increased or decreased. Show Preview with mental ray Depth Of Field is not supported in this release. Rendering objects with coincident faces is not supported in mental ray. Depth Of Field will not work correctly when rendering objects with coincident faces using the mental ray renderer. Instability can result from using a camera target as a focal node with Depth Of Field and the mental ray renderer. Instead use the scanline renderer for such situations. Pausing a rendering is not supported in this release. Rendering outside the Safe Frame area with mental ray can cause instability when using Render Types (blowup, crop, and so on). To avoid this, render within the Safe Frame area or turn off Safe Frame. Rendering XRefed Atmospherics is not supported by mental ray. Multi-Layer G-Buffers and RPF channels are not fully supported in this release. Specifically, mental ray does not support the background, mask, weight, or transparency channels. Also, mental ray will output only a single layer (the top one) of information for all other channels. The Receive Shadows check box in Object Properties is not supported in this release of mental ray. The Alpha render element is unsupported when rendering atmospherics with mental ray. To work around this problem, render to an image type that contains its own alpha channel. The Blend render element is unsupported when rendering atmospherics with mental ray. The Pseudo Color exposure control can render incorrectly with mental ray when used in conjunction with atmospheric effects. The Visible To Camera check box in Object Properties is not supported. In some cases, very high-poly objects can cause instability during rendering due to memory fragmentation. Workarounds include: o Split large objects into smaller ones. Aim for minimal overlapping with the bounding box of the new objects. A good general rule is 10K100K triangles per object. Render using the Conserve Memory option. Render using mental ray from the command line.

o o

Video Post is not fully supported in this release, as it requires specific rendering modes and options, not all of which are currently available in mental ray. Render Passes in mental ray ignores the Skip Existing Images toggle. Objects with a Look at Controller that are mapped with a Facade shader will not render correctly. The Panorama Exporter utility uses only the default scanline renderer. However, the Panorama Viewer can display panoramas created by the WrapAround lens filter. The mental ray Shadow Map shadow type does not support object Shadow Casting exclusion. mental ray does not support every case of include/exclude lists for reflection and refraction. mental ray can produce banding and unwanted shadows with Volume Light when the Auto check box is turned on. Turning off the Auto check box and increasing the Sample Volume % spinner value can correct this. Multiple overlapping light atmospheric effects can expose the edges of the volumes. Using the same instance of the effect on all the lights should make them blend better.

When rendering a series of pass files in mental ray for use in an animation sequence, file names must end with a letter, not a number. When the Ink n Paint material is set to use displacement, smoothing group lines should be disabled to avoid unexpected results. Motion blur with the mental ray renderer does not always follow curving trajectories. Increasing the value of Motion Segments can help, but this works better for rotary motion than for traveling motion. Rendering Archvision RPC objects is not supported with mental ray. All objects will render gray. mental ray field-rendered Lens Effects will be not be in the correct location. Rendering with Bucket Widths less than 5 can cause system instability.

MENTAL RAY: DISTRIBUTED BUCKET RENDERING Subsurface Scattering (SSS) Materials are not supported with Distributed Bucket Rendering (DBR) in this release. When adding a new host to a Distributed Bucket Rendering, close and re-start 3ds max

7 in order for the new host to be recognized. Using Remote Hosts Only with Distributed Bucket Rendering (DBR) is not supported in this release. Contour shaders aren't supported with Distributed Bucket Rendering in this release. When rendering contours using Distributed Bucket Rendering or the command-line renderer, the shader declaration will need to be edited manually in order for contours to render correctly. This correction is needed if contours are enabled in the rendering options. Below is an example of the edits that would be required; the actual shaders or parameter values that are used depend on how they are set up in the scene. contour store "contour_store_function" () contour contrast "contour_contrast_function_levels" ( "zdelta" 1000, "ndelta" 20, "diff_mat" on, "diff_label" off, "diff_index" off, "contrast" off, "min_level" 0, "max_level" 1) Distributed Bucket Rendering does not support a shader assigned to the Dielectric (base) shader's Absorption component. Rendering can cause 3ds max 7 to hang. If you assign a shader to the Absorption component, render locally. (The Dielectric (base) shader is in the mental images base shader library.)

MERGE ANIMATION Merge Animation no longer supports character studio Biped animation. character studio features support the merging of Biped animation. When using Merge Animation at the sub-object level, the target object will first need to have sub-object animation controllers assigned to its vertices. Merge Animation does not automatically assign sub-controllers to vertices, CVs or control points. For example, when merging FFD lattices, you must click Animate All before merging lattice control points. It is wise to make sure that the target object has a Vertex controller (Bezier Point 3 or similar) assigned to every vertex in its mesh. There must be a one-to-one correspondence between the animated vertices of the source nodes and the target nodes in the scene to achieve predictable results. There is a known issue with Groups, which can cause Merge Animation to fail. This sometimes occurs with objects that were once part of a Group but are no longer, leaving a flag for Group membership incorrectly set on the object. One way to clear this flag is to make these objects part of a character (then destroy the character, if desired). Alternatively, in MAXScript this will clear the flag for selected objects:
for n in selection do ( setGroupMember n false )

Merging MAX files that contain an XRef into the current scene is not advised. Merge Animation errors can be avoided by exiting and reopening the Merge Animation dialog, between merges. The Save Mapping and Load Mapping functions will operate as expected only if the object IDs in the scene and the source file are not changed in any way from session to session. There is no guarantee that object ID to object name correspondence will be preserved between Merge Animation sessions.

MESHSMOOTH Some meshsmoothed files using creasing might load into 3ds max 7 with faces that appear to collapse to a point when smoothed. This can happen when some of the edge creases have become slightly corrupt, which causes a problem in 3ds max 7 but not in 3ds max 5. To correct this, run this script in either 3ds max 5 or 3ds max 7 with the file causing the error loaded.
mapped function FixEPolyCreaseErrors theNode = ( local theObj = theNode.baseObject if classof theObj == Editable_Poly do ( if (polyOp.getEDataChannelSupport theObj 2) do -- crease data ( format "processing node: %\n" theNode.name local isNAN local version = maxVersion() if version[1] < 6000 then Fn isNAN val = (classof val == float and val == 0 and val == 1) else Fn isNAN val = (classof val == float and val*0 != 0) local nEdges = polyOp.getNumEdges theObj local getEDataValue = polyOp.getEDataValue -- cache function value local setEDataValue = polyOp.setEDataValue -- cache function value local modified_edges = undefined for i = 1 to nEdges do ( local crease = getEDataValue theObj 2 i if (isNAN crease) do ( setEDataValue theObj 2 i 0. if modified_edges == undefined do modified_edges = #() append modified_edges i ) ) if modified_edges != undefined do format "\tupdated edges: %\n" modified_edges ) ) )

When using Smoothness on a mesh that has had control-level editing, Smoothness will smooth down to the highest level that has had control-level editing applied to it, or to the currently active control level, whichever is higher.

At this time, control-level editing in MeshSmooth should be considered a modeling tool only. Having an animated deformer placed before a MeshSmoothed object that has had control-level editing can result in the MeshSmoothed object becoming distorted. It's recommended that deforming modifiers be placed after the MeshSmooth modifier in the stack if you're using the deformers for animation. For best results, using a deforming modifier before the MeshSmooth modifier in the stack, you'll need to limit your controllevel edits to moving vertices in their local Z axis. Using MeshSmooth with values of more than 10 iterations is not supported. When MeshSmooth is set to 0 iterations, a polygon conversion of the MeshSmoothed object still occurs, and viewport performance is impacted. For optimal playback, set the MeshSmooth modifier to be off in viewports, rather then setting iterations to 0.

MODIFIERS Using Path Deform and Stretch can leave remnants in the viewport. Press ` (reverse accent) to refresh the display. A Helix object with Display Render Mesh on that uses an FFD modifier will no longer appear in the viewport if an Edit Mesh modifier is added to the stack. To correct, convert the Helix to an Editable Spline by either collapsing or adding an Edit Spline modifier somewhere before Edit Mesh. The data resulting from the use of the Assign Vertex Colors utility is not baked into the mesh, but into the Vertex Paint modifier itself. Thus, the data in the Vertex Paint modifier can later be retargeted to a different channel. The results will be baked into the mesh only when you collapse the stack.

If a spline is chosen for beveling the edges of a shelled object, and the Bevel Edges check box is checked, the edges of the shelled object will not update. Turning Bevel Edges off and then on again will force an update.

If the interpolation steps of a spline used for Bevel Edges is changed, the shelled object will not update until a vertex is moved or until Bevel Edges is turned off and back on. In some instances, adding the Vertex Paint modifier to an editable mesh (or some other poly conversion) will result in some shifting of vertex colors. This is usually a result of having edited the vertex colors at the Face level instead of the Poly level. If this occurs, try adding a Turn To Patch modifier between the Vertex Paint modifier and the editable mesh. If that fails, enter the edge mode of the editable mesh and make all edges visible. Adding the Vertex Paint modifier to an empty object (one with no faces or vertices) or deleting all the geometry below a Vertex Paint modifier can lead to program instability. At least one face is needed for Vertex Paint to work.

Collapsing the stack of a poly object or converting an object to an editable poly object will not preserve normal information. All normal information is lost on collapse. Avoid collapsing the stack if normals are needed for export or additional modification in the stack. Because of this, the second Usage Note in the Edit Normals Modifier help topic is no longer valid.

MORPHER Assigning a Morpher material will reset frame zero Morph Channel values to zero. To avoid this, use Set Key to set nonzero Channel values at frame zero. The frame zero value will appear to be reset, in this case, but scrubbing the time slider will then update the frame zero value, as set previously. Windows98 or Windows ME can lose system resources (UI elements might no longer display) when scrolling the Morpher Channel List, repeated interaction with Morpher scene elements, or simultaneous use of 3ds max 7 with other applications that require large amounts of resources. To resolve the problem save your file, exit, and restart 3ds max 7, or close the other resource-intensive applications. If possible, avoid excessively scrolling the Morpher UI when using these operating systems. When adding new targets to a progressive morph, target percents will be renormalized. If target percents have been customized, it is recommended that you make a note of current target percents before adding new targets.

MORPHER MATERIAL Copying a Morpher material to different Material Editor slots can cause unexpected results, particularly if using Undo and Redo. The Morpher material requires associated geometry to work correctly with Set Key.

MOTION PANEL When a trajectory of an object is derived from a spline using the Convert From feature, the Previous Key and Next Key buttons on the Key Info (Basic) rollout do not work unless Time Display (in the Time Configuration dialog) is set to FRAMES:TICKS. This is because the keys are created between frames.

MULTIRES Instanced MultiRes modifiers will display their Vertex Percentage values, and will hide their Vertex Counts, when more than one object is selected. When using Set Key, remember that the MultiRes modifier detects any keys that are set on object parameters as changes in the underlying object's mesh, and this can require the MultiRes mesh to be regenerated.

NETWORK RENDERING & BACKBURNER Image Motion Blur will not yield correct results when using strip rendering. Split Scan Lines does not stitch the G-buffer information back into the file. As such, Gbuffer information is not output when using Split Scan Lines. This means that using Split Scan Lines will not store RPF/ RLA data. Render servers can timeout loading the application after one minute if the manager machine does not load the 3ds max 7 renderer plugin. This can occur for 3ds max 5, 5.1 and 6. It is recommended that you install 3ds max 7 on the manager machine. You can also just copy the max.task file from the \3dsmax7 folder on another system into your backburner folder. When the manager starts you should see: loading 3ds max 7 renderer plugin. Net-rendering scenes with DDS textures or with output to DDS files is not recommended on heterogeneous render farms. This is due to DDS being a hardware-accelerated format. As such, results will differ between video card model and driver combinations, resulting in inconsistent renderings across frames. In the monitor, the task summary for an active job will not automatically update as frames complete. This is designed to prevent performance problems with the monitor when many frames are completed simultaneously. To refresh the task summary for a job, click the Refresh button in the monitor. Using Render Effects on a Split Rendering can give unexpected results in the final image. Specifically, the Lens Effect might be in the wrong place when using Render Region crop. To correct this, set the render type to "View," and render again. If you are installing 3ds max 7 on a system that currently has 3ds max 5.x or 3ds max 6 installed (with Backburner 2.1 or 2.2), the 3ds max 7 installation program will silently install Backburner 2.3 over your copy of Backburner 2.1/2.2. This is intended behavior so that Backburner 2.3 can be used to control your network jobs for 3ds max 5.x, 3ds max 6 and 3ds max 7(and combustion as well), along with providing support for command-line rendering in 3ds max 7.

NORMAL MAPPING When using material id matching and mental ray, overlapping objects that have different material IDs and share coplanar polygons can cause ray-miss errors where the polygons overlap. For best results with Normal Mapping in Tangent space mode, you should have a welllaid-out UV mapping for the low-res object. Avoid an excessive number of mapping seams. If multiple faces overlap within the mapping (as with texture mirroring), this can cause problems if one texture is rendered for both faces. Outputting the height map into the alpha of the normal map is currently not supported in mental ray.

PARAMETER COLLECTOR Rollouts added to collections after the collection has been named but before it is

duplicated are lost when the duplicated collection is saved. To avoid this problem, follow the specific sequence of steps: save the collection, duplicate it, name it, and then add new rollouts and parameters. (Do not save a collection, add new rollouts and parameters, duplicate it, and then name it.) PARAMETER WIRING Wiring a parameter to values outside the constrained range of that parameter can cause unpredictable results. Turning on Display Render Mesh after wiring a NURBS point curve can cause instability. The workaround is to assign a Bezier float controller to the curve's Sides track and insert a key. Values can then be changed, and Display Render Mesh can be used without problems.

PARTICLE FLOW & PARTICLE SYSTEMS Using PArray with an Object-Based Emitter and Object Fragments where the emitter object has no vertices on the Emit Start frame will cause instability, leading to an application failure. When the source particle system of a Mesher compound object is set to Mesh Viewport Display, it will not update properly in viewports. Use the Dots or Ticks Viewport Display options with a Mesher compound object. SDynaFlect space warps do not solve properly in Dynamics simulations. All Seed settings in Particle Flow use the same default value: 12345. This means that, if the default is not changed, the same randomization sequence will be applied to all randomized values. For example, if scale and speed are both randomized using the same seed value, then it's likely that all smaller particles will also be slower ones. For fully random results, make sure all Seed values are different from each other. In situations where a scene has a particle system that references geometry objects (as for collision detection), and those reference objects are also rendered, the scene might not be able to render properly with the scanline renderer. Rendering these same objects with mental ray doesnt pose any problem. To work around the problem, hide all the objects that a particle system references (directly or indirectly) before using the scanline rendering. That includes all deflector geometries, objects used as emitters, and so on. The use of large fonts on your desktop and in 3ds max 7 can affect the precision of Particle View operations. To prevent this, use a smaller or more standard font size.

PATCH OBJECTS SubComp copy/pasting is not supported in patches.

PERFORMANCE 3ds max 7 now includes a performance flag that when turned on can enhance the overall performance of interactive manipulation of referenced objects (link, IK, ...). The flag (DontRepeatRefMsg) can be found in the [Performance] section of the

CurrentDefaults.ini file. It defaults to on (1) for the 3ds max market defaults and to off (0) for the Design Visualization defaults. Note: The performance enhancement can produce instability when working with objects such as AEC Extended/Walls (VIZWalls). If you encounter any problems turn off the flag in the CurrentDefaults.ini file (DontRepeatRefMsg=0) and re-launch 3ds max 7.

PLUG-IN MANAGER Under Win98 and WinME, plug-ins that are currently loaded are marked as "Unloaded" instead. The Load option for selected or tagged plug-ins loads a plug-in for the current 3ds max 7 session, but doesn't load for subsequent sessions. Plug-ins loaded using the script function "loadDllsFromDir" do not appear in the Plug-in Manager.

POLY SELECT If you have multiple Poly Select modifiers in the stack, don't use Paint Soft selection in a Poly Select modifier beneath another in the stack, as this can cause instability.

PROJECTION MODIFIER Do not add empty geometry (for example, objects with no polygons) to the Projection modifier, as this can lead to instability. It is recommended that if you use Project Mapping with patches, you turn on the Create New Holder check box to avoid potential instability. Project Mapping using patch objects as projection sources is not supported.

QUAD PATCH Performance is slow when creating Quad Patches with 100x100 segments.

RADIOSITY After processing radiosity, some maps might display incorrect colors in the viewport. To fix this, make sure you turn on Show Map In Viewport for the parent material, not for the map. Radiosity does not support light Include/Exclude lists. Coincident faces can cause artifacts with radiosity calculations. Splines using an Extrude modifier with an Extrude Height of 0 and both Cap Start and Cap End turned on usually produce coincidental faces. To correct this, turn one of the Cap options off, or make the Extrude Height > 0. Objects excluded from radiosity will render black when using Re-Use Direct Illumination From Radiosity Solution. If you want to avoid rendering Direct Illumination, you can Store

Direct Illumination for all lights and add lights that are excluded from radiosity. Opening previous 3ds max 4 scenes sets Compute Radiosity When Required to on by default. Radiosity does not support Wireframe materials. Use the Lattice modifier or an Opacity map to get the desired effect. In 3ds max 7, radiosity is computed based on the ambient color. If you have old files where the ambient color is different or darker than the diffuse color, your scenes might render unexpectedly. For predictable results, either lock the ambient and diffuse color or at least to make them very similar. Autodesk VIZ 4 uses the Diffuse color to compute radiosity, so results from it may be dissimilar to those in 3ds max 7. You can correct this using the Fix Ambient utility. When using XRef Scenes, and the XRef Scene has been changed, the radiosity solution will not be automatically invalidated. You need to click Reset All and restart, so the radiosity solution can be updated. Files that contain radiosity solutions are usually very large. If you turn on Compress On Save in Customize > Preferences, files will reduce significantly in size. If you use Standard Lights with negative multipliers in your scene, it is suggested that you exclude these from the radiosity solution. Using Standard Lights with negative multipliers can lead to unpredictable results.

RAYTRACE Using the Raytrace material on double-sided materials is currently not supported. It is almost always better to use supersampling, rather then antialiasing, at the material level. The only time you might want to use Raytrace antialiasing is to blur or defocus reflections or refractions. If you do use Raytrace antialiasing, the default blur value, 0.0, is usually too small. Try using 0.5 or 0.6 and set all of your materials that use the Raytrace map to Adaptive Halton supersampling to improve image quality. Some 3ds max 4.2 files using Raytrace maps as the refraction map of a standard material can render more slowly in 3ds max 7. To improve performance, go to the Raytrace maps in your scene, open the Refractive Material Extensions rollout, and turn off the Treat Refractions As Glass (Fresnel Effect) check box. 3ds max 4.2 .MAX files using Raytrace maps as the refraction map of a standard material will render differently in 3ds max 7, due to improvements made in refraction map.

REACTOR The Reactor controller from earlier versions of 3ds max has been renamed the Reaction controller to prevent confusion with reactor dynamics. reactor 2.0 is included with 3ds max 7. No additional authorization is required. To start reactor, click the reactor button on the Utilities panel.

The interactive reactor preview uses its own graphics display. Some older graphics accelerators that only do full-screen acceleration will run slowly in software windowed mode. To use 3D hardware acceleration on these cards, turn on the full screen option before previewing the scene. If you experience problems that include the abovementioned render problems or issues that prevent the preview window from running (blank, black screen, or the window hanging), please contact Discreet Product Support with information about your card: chipset, manufacturer, driver revision, and operating system information (including service pack version) so we can work to correct it.

In the case of a scene not completing a Solve, there are various ways of simulating the same scene: o Take your original scene and increase the substeps/keyframe value (Animation & Export rollout). Increase the collision tolerance for your scene so that its approximately 1/10 th of World Scale (Advanced rollout). If this increase causes too large a gap between objects, scale the objects up and scale gravity up by an equal percentage. For keyframed and deformable objects, increase the updates/keyframe value.

The addition of body or collection types to a scene can change the scenes simulation. Adding types of objects will not usually have a noticeable effect on the scenes simulation but it is advisable to create scenes as nearly complete as possible, before tweaking the parameters for a desired result. The reactor plugin can cause a 3ds max network render job to hang with a dialog stating that the reactor plugin will not load. Should that be the case, you should install DirectX version 8 or higher.

REGATHER Rendered images can look inconsistent when rendering with a number of rays per sample smaller than 40 on systems with two or more processors. Differences will also be noticed between Autodesk VIZ 4 and 3ds max 7, because 3ds max 7 supports multithreading for Regather while Autodesk VIZ 4 does not.

RENDER ELEMENTS Adding Render Elements to a newly opened file does not mark the scene as modified. To correct, save the scene before opening a new scene or closing 3ds max 7. Scenes from 3ds max 4 with Z Depth render elements load incorrectly when filtering is enabled. To correct, disable filtering for these elements within 3ds max 4 prior to loading in 3ds max 7. The Diffuse and Shadow elements might have unexpected results when rendering with the Light Tracer. Using Render Effects on a Split Rendering can give unexpected results in the final image. Specifically the Lens Effect might be in the wrong place when using Render Region crop. To correct this set the render type dropdown to "View" and render again.

RENDER EFFECTS The File Output render effect does not support network rendering.

RENDERING Image Motion Blur is a memory-intensive operation requiring a large amount of RAM. It

scales linearly with the number of pixels in the rendered image. You may not have sufficient memory to allocate the image motion blur buffer if you are also using highresolution background maps. To correct this, composite the blurred image against the background image in postproduction, rather then rendering when Image Motion Blur is calculated. Rendering Fields with Image Motion Blur and Work With Transparency turned on can result in the final images containing artifacts. Bitmap Formats: The MOV file format codec Cinepak can cause instability when using QuickTime to playback (XP only). If your map does not advance beyond frame one or fails to render when using older AVI files (with older CODECs) and Sync to Particle Age, try re-rendering the AVI file with a newer Codec through Video Post.

RENDER TO TEXTURE A warning will be displayed when you use Render To Texture on a patch object. Results might be less than satisfactory if you choose to continue. For best results, add either a Turn To Mesh or UVW Unwrap modifier to patch objects before using Render To Texture. Render to texture can give you ray miss errors if the scene size is extreme. Distant camera positioning can contribute to this. Moving the camera close to the subject, and moving the subject close to the origin, can help fix the problem.

RESOURCE COLLECTOR The Resource Collector does not collect Environment, Displacement, or Projector maps. The Resource Collector does not collect the image files used by IFL files, only the IFL file itself. The Resource Collector does not collect the objects or scenes referenced by XRef Objects or XRef Scenes.

SCHEMATIC VIEW Compound objects cannot be renamed.

SET KEY Set Key requires a controller to be present to create a key. While all objects have default controllers for their transforms, object parameters do not. Controllers must be assigned to these entities before Set Key can create keys for them.

Leaving Set Key on during material creation can lead to unexpected results. It is recommended that you turn Set Key off while setting up materials and maps.

Set Key action items will only work with XYZ controllers. For all other controllers, use Keyframe Tools action items. Note that 3ds max 7 defaults to XYZ controllers.

Set Key does not respect the changes made in the active material, unless you have enabled the Set Key Material Filter.

Block controllers do not work with Set-Key-only animation. If the Block contains an object animated with Auto Key, then all objects animate correctly. The Auto Key object can be a simple dummy, and it can be deleted after the block is created.

The Follow/Bank utility does not support Set Key animation. Set Key does not support NURBS objects. Object creation on frames other than 0 while in Set Key mode is not recommended and can have unexpected results. Note that in some cases Set Key mode does not always automatically disable during object creation. Because of this, it is recommended that you disable Set Key mode manually before creating new objects.

SKIN When Merging a mesh containing a Skin modifier referencing a Biped skeleton, be sure to select the mesh and the Biped. Selecting and merging the skin mesh alone might result in a crash. There is an additional feature called Skin Utilities for transferring vertex weights from one Skin object in a scene to another. It can be found in the Utilities panel.

SPLINE IK The default sub-controller for the first bone of the Spline IK bone chain is now Path controller. The first bone can be animated interactively, just as with any object with Path controller and the other bones in the chain will follow. Bones that continue past the end of a spline will maintain current orientation to their parent bones rather than snapping to a 0,0,0 rotation as they did in 3ds max 5.0. This allows bone chains to be predictably path-animated off of the end of the spline. Spline IK now allows for the inclusion of the spline, spline helpers, IK handle, and bone chain in the same hierarchy.

Spline IK will now preserve the arbitrary X-rotation of the bones in a chain after Spline IK is assigned. The preferred angles for each bone under Spline IK control are accessible in MAXScript, although not exposed in the user interface as with HI IK. Generally, only the X axis should be manipulated, as with Twist, since the Y and Z axes are always used by Spline IK to fix the bones to the spline. This value can be accessed with $.controller.prefXAngle. It is possible that some Spline IK chains, created in 3ds max 5.0 might load into 3ds max 7 with bones arbitrarily rotated about their X axes. This can occur if the bone chain was created in 3ds max 5.0 with arbitrary X-rotations before Spline IK was assigned (after the assignment Spline IK would have automatically aligned the bones X-axes). If such a scene is loaded into 3ds max 7, the bones can revert to their creation orientations. If it is necessary to realign the bones, the bone chain can be reoriented using MAXScript. For example, select all the Spline IK bones (if the first bone in the chain is already properly oriented, deselect it) and run: for n in selection do ( n.controller.prefXAngle = 0.0 )

It is possible that some Spline IK chains, created in 3ds max 5.0, might load into 3ds max 7 with bone chains entirely flipped about their local X axis. If this occurs, the bone chain can often be reoriented by adjusting the Spline IK Twist Start Angle. Spline IK will only work when referencing a shape or spline object, meaning the referenced objects stack must end as a spline (a Shape). Modifiers can be used on the referenced spline so long as they do not convert it to another geometry type.

SUBDIVIDE MODIFIER The Subdivide modifier cannot be applied to NURBS Curves, even if theyre renderable curves. Instead, use the Subdivision Properties to adjust the curve's mesh density. Very low Size values can exhaust system memory and cause session instability because Subdivide will create extremely large quantities of faces. Be sure to use reasonable Size values. If subdivide is taking a long time to calculate, use the ESC key to abort the subdivision, then set the Update method to Manual so you can change the Size value to something more appropriate.

TEXTURE COORDINATES If you open a file that has its Unit Scale set differently than the System Unit Scale of your local 3ds3ds max 7 installation, you will get a File Load: Units Mismatch message. There are a number of reasons your System Unit Scale might be different than the file you are opening. Whatever the reason, if you choose to Adopt the Files Unit Scale you might lose the display of some of your texture mapping if the objects are using Unwrap UVW modifier. If you do try to open a file and the mapping looks wrong, open the same file again and choose the option Rescale the File Objects to the System Unit Scale rather than adopt the scale. Choosing Adopt the Files Unit Scale will add two setting to your 3dsmax.ini file (UnitType= and UnitScale=). To get back the default System Unit Scale you can edit your 3dsmax.ini file and remove those settings; Or go to Customize > Unit Setup > System

Unit Setup and change the units back to default scale: Inches.

TRACKVIEW The Trackview hotkeys will not work if the application focus is in subordinate windows, such as floating Toolbars and Soft Selection settings. To use Trackview hotkeys, click the Function Curve or Dope Sheet editor title bar to replace the focus there. Deleting the trackview.ini file can cause icons to disappear. To resolve this, try loading the trackview.ini file from the 3ds max 7 CD. This action will bring your TrackView settings back to their default values.

TRANSFORM TOOLS Transform tools will not update while dragging at a sub-object level. The Transform gizmo can disappear when snaps are enabled at the sub-object level. Passing the cursor over the missing gizmo will cause it to reappear.

TRANSFORM TYPE-IN The Transform Type-In controls on the status bar don't re-enable properly after you've been in a sub-object mode. To correct this, deselect and then reselect the object.

TURBOSMOOTH On rare occasions, Turbosmooth may create a garbled mesh. Should this occur, try adding a Turn To Mesh or Turn To Poly modifier underneath Turbosmooth in the stack.

UNWRAP UVW Unfold mapping with Selected Faces can give unexpected results and is not recommended. In certain patch models, the Stitch operation can cause tangent handles to be welded when Align Clusters is turned on. Turning off Align Clusters should solve the problem. When there is a sub-object selection below Unwrap UVW in the stack, the Unwrap modifier uses those faces and disables its own Select Face sub-object mode. Closing the sub-object selection below the Unwrap will allow you to enter the Select Face sub-object mode in Unwrap by clicking the title bar, then the sub-object plus symbol in the stack will refresh after changing to another panel and back. The Sketch Vertices feature should be used with the interactive feature on, as having it off can lead to situations where Undo will not work. In certain circumstances, the Brightness of the Edit Dialog background will be set to 0,

which will result in the bitmap not being visible in the Edit Dialog. To fix this, click the Show Options button in the lower toolbar and increase the Brightness spinner value (0.5 is the default), or open the Options>Advanced Options floater and increase the Tile Brightness or uncheck the Affect Center Tile check box. You can then choose Options>Save Current Settings As Default, and you should not run into this problem again. When using the Pick Texture dropdown in the Edit UVWs dialog of the Unwrap UVW modifier, do not click on None in the Material/Map browser. Click Cancel if you don't want to add a map, or use the Show Map toggle if you want to disable the background display.

USER INTERFACE / CUI CUI files created in versions of 3ds max prior to 3ds max 6.0 are not forwardcompatible. These files need to be re-created for use in 3ds max 7. 3ds max 6.x CUI files are compatible with 3ds max 7, but may be missing certain new UI items. Items in the Align flyout will not match the icons and Clone & Align will be missing. CUI files should not be removed from the UI folder. If 3ds max 7 looks for a CUI file that is not in the UI folder upon startup, the application can fail. This can be a problem if multiple users are using the same configuration settings, but dont have the correct CUI files associated with that configuration. The proper highlighting of UI elements (mainly check boxes and radio button settings) might not appear in the command panel during keyboard tabbing when running 3ds max 7 under Windows 2000. To force the highlighting to display properly, undock the command panel. Then the highlighting will display and properly show where UI focus is. Once you have tabbed while the command panel is floating, you can redock the command panel, and highlighting will operate properly. Large fonts are not supported in 3ds max 7, and can produce unpredictable display results. The grid draw options drop-down list in Advanced Options is not supported. When working with memory-intensive files and processes, you might notice that the tools below the track bar disappear. Simply click the Maximize/Restore button at the upperright corner of the applications window. This will cause the missing tools to redraw at the bottom. When 3ds max 7 is started the first time, the toolbar button for the Keyboard Shortcut Override toggle will appear to be off even though the function is active. Click the button once to turn this function off. The button will stay in a non-active state. Click it again, and the desired functionality will follow. If you want your system to default to your keyboard shortcuts from 3ds max 4 or 5.x, copy your keyboard shortcuts over as maxkeys.kbd. into the 3ds max 7 \ui folder. Closing the Customize User Interface dialog without saving will automatically save the KBD file. When docking the Layers Toolbar either left or right the Layers drop-down list will be

displayed as a thin strip at the top of the docked toolbar. Although it is still operational, it is harder to click on because of its size. If the Layers Toolbar is docked on the right flush with the edge of the screen, the Layers drop-down list will display off the screen. To resolve this, do not dock the Layers Toolbar left or right. Instead dock it on the top or allow it to float. This will force the toolbar to display horizontally. Open Mini Curve Editor Button: In the lower left corner of the workspace there is a button that will open the Mini Curve Editor docked directly above the Timeline. When loading a custom UI scheme that changes the current icons (for example discreet-dark.ui or discreet-light.ui) this buttons icon will temporarily disappear. The button will still function even without an icon. Restarting 3ds max 7 will restore the icon. The use of menu files (MNU) from previous releases of 3ds max in 3ds max 7 can have unpredictable results in the UI. Some of these issues can be resolved by resetting 3ds max 7 and either loading a 3ds max 7 MNU file or by using Customize User Interface > Menus tab > Restore.

UVW MAP UVW maps assigned below a Disp Approx (displacement approximation) modifier might block changes made at the Displace Level. Setting the UVW modifier to Off in the viewport solves the updating problem.

VERTEX COLOR MAP The Channel Name dialog may get out of sync with the Map and Sub Channels display in the Vertex Color modifier. If this happens, the Map Channel and Sub Channel will be the entries that show the correct result.

VERTEX PAINT When adding modifiers above Vertex Paint, or when switching between Vertex Paint and other modifiers, be certain to exit the sub-object mode in Vertex Paint or cancel the painting mode you're in.

VIDEO POST Close the Video Post Lens Effects setup dialog before you choose File > Reset. Lens Effects Focus does not affect overlapping portions of objects. Video Post does not support Multipass Depth Of Field and Multipass Motion Blur.

VIEWING FILES The Autodesk FLC image file setup depends on the AVI settings for Windows Media Player. Since Media Player can be replaced when installing other applications, viewing FLC files can fail at times. To work around this, install QuickTime 5, which is provided

with 3ds max, and use it to view these types of files. QuickTime 5 can convert FLI and FLC files, but not CEL files. WALK THROUGH When the Walk Through button is active, its actions can't be undone. To Undo a Walk Through action the user must exit the mode first, and then undo. Using the Walk Through scene navigation mode in a camera viewport that has a camera with "Manual Clip Planes" enabled can result in an application exit if another viewport is selected. To avoid this, use the Walk Through mode in a maximized view with these cameras only, or switch to Perspective views before enabling Walk Through.

WALLS Break vertex sometimes leaves corner geometry. Saving and reloading the file will correct this condition At times it can be difficult moving points vertically (up and down) on World Z axis when working with Walls in a Grid (Top) view. Turning on Grid Snap and turning off Use Axis Constraints can help. A Window object that is aligned to the bottom of a Wall object can corrupt the automatic booleans of attached Doors and Windows. To correct this condition, move the Window away from the bottom of the Wall. When trying to break a wall segment that has a bottom offset can result in incorrect display in the Perspective viewport. This operation should be performed in the Plan view.

XREF Manipulators can fail to function, once the file is saved using the Merge Manipulator option. If this occurs, then the XRef should be removed and redone. Deleting a Fog Atmospheric effect that has been object xrefed will result in an application failure, upon using Update Now in the XRef dialog. Use Proxy on an XRef Camera Object is not recommended. This can lead to an application failure. Adding an Object XRef of an object, which is itself an Object XRef in the target scene, is not recommended. XRef Automatic Update has more restrictive functionality under Windows 98. XRef objects and scenes can be set to update automatically whenever a file change is detected. Under Windows 2000, this occurs each time the source file is saved. Due to different system notifications in Windows 98, the automatic update occurs only when the source file is closed by exiting 3ds max 7 or by loading another file. Manual Update works as expected.

When clicking to unbind the highlighted XRef(s) from whichever parent they've been bound to, the XRef scene does not return to its origin, typically the 0,0,0 world origin of the MAX file scene it came from.

Drag and drop when running under Windows 98 requires the Local Intranet security level to be set to Low in IE. This setting can be found in the Internet Options dialog, accessed from the Tools menu. When using object XRef and Fire Effect Atmospherics, the fire effect information does not always update with the Update Now function. It is recommended that Fire Effect Atmospherics be Merged rather than XRefd.

Notes About MAXSCRIPT and the 3ds max 7 SDK

MAXSCRIPT (Scripter) The option in the MAXScript panel of the Preferences dialog o Auto Open Listener On Output opens the Listener if a script sends output to a WindowStream value with no associated window. This would require a MAXScript extension. When the Maxcript Listener is displayed in a viewport, max may not restore from being minimized correctly. To restore max, right click on the 3ds max application button in the Windows taskbar and select 'Restore' or 'Maximize'.

MAXScript known problems and workarounds: Not all properties aliases as shown by showProperties are supported for the following objects: o Free camera o Target camera o Spray particle system o Snow particle system SubObject move transform is currently supported only for Editable_Mesh, Editable_Poly, and NURBS. SubObject rotate and scale transforms are not supported with: Editable_Mesh, Editable_Poly, Editable_Patch, NURBS, MeshSmooth, and HSDS modifiers.

If the MAXScript Initial Heap Allocation, as specified in the MAXScript tab of the Preference Settings dialog, is very large, 3ds max will fail to start if that amount of contiguous memory is not available. It is recommended that the Initial Heap Allocation not exceed 100MB. Loading presets that contain node associations displays a dialog requiring user interaction. To bypass the dialog using MAXScript, you can use the following syntax:
<boolean>renderPresets.Load <integer>which <filename>file <bitArray>categories [loadNodes:<enum: {#Yes|#No|#Cancel|#Prompt}>]

Load the indexed preset from the specified file, using the categories described by the bitArray. Returns true on success. Specifying LoadNodes with #Yes, #No or #Cancel will not display the Prompt window and will perform the same actions as pressing the

respective buttons in the prompt. Specifying #Prompt will display the dialog and require user input. If you do not specify LoadNodes and the file contains nodes associated, the prompt window will be displayed. Some of the Sample Scripts have been moved to a new directory structure on CD #3 and any that contain hard-coded paths may generate errors.

If you are using a script that applies a (Havok) reactor modifier to an object you should be aware that certain syntax can cause the subsequent rendering to fail. To properly assign a reactor controller to an object using a script use one of the following syntax:

addmodifier (reactor_Cloth ())

or
addmodifer (reactor_SoftBody ())

or
addmodifier (reactor_Rope ())

SDK
3ds max 7 plug-ins are compatible with 3ds max 6 version. No recompiling is required. To make a plug-in for version 7 only, the API number has to be changed:
//#define MAX_API_NUM 13 #define MAX_API_NUM 15 //R6 // R7

The recommended compiler for development of 3ds max plug-ins is Microsoft Visual Studio 7.0, but plug-ins may also be compiled using VC7.1, given some extra considerations. For an overview of the compatibility issues, please see the tech note available in the TechDocs section of the Sparks Knowledge Base: http://sparks.discreet.com/search/ The SDK documentation for 3ds max 7 will be made available for download at http://sparks.discreet.com/ The SDK AppWizard is designed for the VC6 development environment. However, an updated version for VC7 will be made available for download at http://sparks.discreet.com/ \samples\gup\comsrv\maxclient\maxclient.vcproj To compile, include statements in the project must be changed: from: #import "..\..\..\..\..\exe\stdplugs\comsrv.gup" to: #import "..\..\..\..\..\stdplugs\comsrv.gup" \samples\modifiers\bonesdef\bonesdef.vcproj

Requires that you build the MAXComponents project first before compiling. Creating vertical toolbars is not supported at this time, the standard Windows API could be used instead. In order to compile the SDK samples for network rendering (JobAssign and ListJobs), the following must be added to the project: #define DF_MGRPORT 3234. Class IKMasterControl: Several types of controllers return a non-NULL pointer when GetInterface(I_MASTER) is called on them. To get an interface to this class, use the following code: ReferenceTarget* ref = NULL; IKMasterControl* themaster = NULL if (controller) ref = (ReferenceTarget*)controller->GetInterface(I_MASTER) if (ref && ref->ClassID() == IKMASTER_CLASSID) themaster = (IKMasterControl*)ref; It is recommended that to prevent naming conflicts in MAXScript, the ClassName and InternalName returned by a plug-in class should be different from names already used in 3ds max. This will prevent a potential renaming of existing plug-in classes as exposed by MAXScript. For each plug-in class, MAXScript attempts to create a global variable with the name returned by ClassName (and one for the name returned by InternalName if it is different) to represent the class. If a global variable with that name already exists, the superclass name is appended to the class name. Thus, if you create a modifier plug-in class whose name is "Dent" while Dent texture already exists, your modifier plug-in class will be assigned the global variable name DentModifier in MAXScript To verify that there is no MAXScript name conflict, you can run the following in MAXScript Listener: apropos <class name string> implicitWild:false If the result is just 'OK', no naming conflict exists.

Additional Notes About character studio

INSTALLATION AND AUTHORIZATION character studio is installed from within the 3ds max 7.0 setup program.

COMPATIBILITY character studio requires 3ds max 7.0. It is not supported with earlier versions of 3ds max. All character studio 2.x, 3.x, and 4.x data files remain forward compatible to character studio. Backward-compatibility between 3ds max 7.0 and all previous versions of character studio is not supported. Thus, files saved with 3ds max 7.0 cannot be used by earlier versions of character studio (e.g. 3.4, 4.0, 4.1).

Notes About character studio Features

BIPED Files created in previous versions of character studio must be resaved in 3ds max 7.0 before using them. Two new .ini flags have been added that affect which 3ds max objects are automatically put into the max object list in the .bip save dialog: SaveOutBipsParent and SaveOutBipsParentChildren. Usage: {1/0} o If SaveOutBipsParent=0, then the bipeds parents aren't automatically put into the save list. If SaveOutBipsParentChildren=0, then saving out the bipeds parents will not save the other parents children also.

Using native 3ds max trajectories is not recommended for use in any version of character studio and will result in unpredictable animations. Use the Biped trajectories instead. 3ds max Track View Utilities are not supported on Bipeds. Old MAX and BIP footstep motions are automatically converted to the Biped new pivotbased system when loaded. In Biped, more control over the IK pivoting is possible. The conversion to character studio can introduce "sliding" footsteps that allow the IK key to move anywhere in the coordinate space of the footstep, rather than being forced onto the footstep. A sliding footstep is created whenever an IK key is allowed to be free by not being joined to the previous IK key. This does not necessarily mean that sliding is

introduced; it only means that sliding is allowed. When feet are linked to dummy objects (IK Blend =1), entering and exiting Figure mode can cause the feet to rotate. To return the feet to their correct position, enter and exit Figure mode twice more. It is recommended that you try to do as much of your Figure mode work before using IK Blend with dummy objects. It is not recommended using IK blending in Layers Planted or Sliding Keys. The limbs will snap to a different position than expected. Free keys work fine. Before importing motion-capture files (BVH or CSM), please consult the reference, or the bvh.rtf and csm.rtf documents in the cstudio\docs directory. The .CSM files in the HouseOfMoves directory all start with a calibration pose because Biped uses the first frame to determine figure size and calibration of hip and feet angles in the absence of a Talent Definition FIG file. However, this is only for convenience of quick viewing. For best results, we strongly recommend that you always follow the guidelines in the csm.rtf document: o Create "Talent Definition" files (CAL and FIG) for a given performer from a specifically recorded "calibration pose motion." Create BIP motions from the talent's CSM motions using the same Talent Definition files from step 1.

Furthermore, using the Talent Definition files allows you to skip over the first frame so that it does not influence key-reduced motions. Smoothing parameters in the biped.ini file are now set to zero, which produces better results. The biped.ini file can specify multiple path names for locating animation files for the Motion Flow Graphs. When using the Motion Flow Graph, there must be a key set for the horizontal COM; otherwise your results can be unpredictable. If a Motion Flow Graph to do a looping motion results in accumulated turning, then you might need to adjust the Angle in the Edit Transition dialog. This is because the program matches the orientation of the COM at the start of the transition. If this orientation is different from the direction of the motion, some compensation is necessary. Biped is not designed to work with the 3ds max Set Key feature. Deleting keys after using subanimation manipulators results in a transform key at the current frame. 3ds max objects and subanims don't support saving segments. If you save out a segment, reload it and play it, the segment end indicator is disregarded. Saving files with 3ds max objects that have script controllers is not supported in this release. Files from Biped (BIP) with IK objects do not retain links with those objects. To correct

this, relink to the IK objects after the BIP file is loaded. Using layers to animate legs with IK will not display accurate results until the layer is collapsed. To check the results, collapse the layer, undo, change the animation, repeat. Copying and pasting poses/postures/tracks will not work between the base layer and higher layers because Keys in higher layers are relative to previous layers, but are absolute on the first layer. Use of the 3ds max 7 Timeslider's Create Key feature is not supported within Biped layers.

Accessing a biped after choosing File > New > Keep Objects and Hierarchy can lead to unexpected results and therefore, is not recommended. Saving BIP files with "Save position and Rotation" when using footsteps will cause footsteps to move to their initial creation point. It is recommended you first convert to freeform or move footsteps as needed after using this feature. This also applies to using the hotkey (default is ALT-M) to "bake" the Move-All transforms. Motion Flow transitions that are of 0 or 1 frame length will now accumulate Z transformation instead of repeating it. For instance, a Biped ladder-climbing clip that transitions to itself in character studio 4.1 will show the Biped repeating the same rungs of the ladder over and over. The same clip in character studio, given a 0 or 1 frame transition, will show the Biped continuing up the ladder as the Motion Flow script progresses. Because of this fix, existing Motion Flow files will have to have their scripts reinitialized; this can be accomplished by changing any parameter of the script, i.e.: change the start frame from 0 to 1 to 0. When using Create Multiple Footsteps for generating 5 or more steps, the tension setting for in-the-air keys on the feet will default to 25 for only the first four steps, after which it will default to 50. To reset all those keys to a tension of 25, select them and edit their tension en masse using the Transform key dialog. Using MAXScript to make Figure mode false on a biped that isn't in Figure mode is unadvisable as it will introduce and offset in the transform.

The transition focus parameter in the transition editing dialogue box (in both the mixer and moflow systems) now creates more visually precise transitions based on relative toe position. Legacy max motion flow files will look the same as before when loaded, but may be easily improved to reflect this bug fix by either editing a transition or script parameter(such as tweaking back and forth the script start frame or start position) to force an updated motion flow computation. Legacy mixer files will be updated automatically upon loading. The updated motion in the transition, while not dramatically different, should appear to be much more natural and seamless. As before, some slight sliding of feet may still occur depending on the motion clips that are being used, but only to accommodate the tradeoff with the continuity of speed in the figure's center-of-mass. Program failure or file corruption can occur when loading BIP files when Restructure biped to match file is turned on and the number of toes and/or toe links of the current figure (in the viewport) is greater than the number of toes and/or toe links of the figure

stored in the file. To correct this create a biped with one toe, one toe link, zero or one fingers, one finger link and reload the BIP file. Or load a FIG file that matches the figure stored in the file.

CROWD In Motion Clip, when saving Global Clip ANT files, it's best to clear the scene of all Delegates and Master Clip objects. Otherwise, a defect results that causes some of that data to be present upon reloading of the ANT file. Biped crowds solve faster, with less backtracking, if the biped Motion Flow Graphs contain motion clips with many alternative choices in direction of motion. When using the Surface Arrive behavior, if you change the BIP files after a solve the Z data is lost. Biped Crowd scenes must be solved starting from frame 0. Loading a Crowd file without the Behavior plugin can cause program failure. In Scatter using negative XY with XY Plane values can cause program failure when using Generate Locations. Solve & Scatter Solve are not redrawing viewports correctly in OpenGL mode. Click Redraw to correct the display.

MAXSCRIPT It is not recommended to use the Copy command on a Biped structure. For example, the following can result in an out-of-memory error and program failure: bp = biped.CreateNew 100 -90 [0,0,0] bp_obj = $Bip01* bp_obj1 = copy bp_obj Many of the features of character studio do not support the Macro Recorder. .

MOTION Anchor Key settings are not saved in MAX files.

MOTION CAPTURE File corruption can occur when loading a mocap file (CSM or BVH) starting with a figure (in the viewport) with two or more toes with two or more toe links. The corruption can be detected after entering and exiting Figure Mode. To workaround this: o Create a biped with one toe, one toe link, zero or one fingers, one finger link.

Reload the mocap file.

Or try just reloading the mocap file. In general if the current biped has fewer toe and finger links than the figure in the loaded file, the file will always load correctly.

MOTION MIXER The Motion Mixer does not support animation that depends on 3ds max objects. When Bipeds use 3ds max objects for IK blending, those clips will not import accurately to the Mixer. To bake the IK object animation for use in the Mixer, use Save Segment with a key per frame.

PHYSIQUE Physique functionality can be assigned to any object type; however, if you assign it to non-Biped or non-Bones hierarchies such as lights, cameras, or helper objects, and then initialize, the program can fail. If you merge a Physique mesh from a MAX file to a biped, the program can fail. The workaround is to merge the mesh and the biped, remove the Physique modifier from the mesh, and then delete the biped file. Physique is assigned to links, not nodes. To assign either floating bones or hierarchy bones, you need to have a link; this means a node is required at both ends of the link. In most cases, you will need a dummy node at the end of the last link. Before applying Physique to 3ds max Bones, check to make sure that there are no circular references in your Bones structure. If there are circular references, the results are unpredictable. Any objects that have scaled Biped images or bone structures that were scaled with any versions of Physique prior to v3.11 should be manually re-initialized in 3ds max 7.0.

NETWORK RENDERING To render character studio animations using network rendering, each computer on your rendering network must have the same version of character studio. A result of not having the same version on all machines is floating feet or incomplete renders. When using Motion Flow Graphs, use UNC path names. For example, if your BIP file in your Motion Flow Graph is named: c:\3dsmax7\cstudio\motions\bip\runner.bip change the name of the file in the Motion Flow Graph by right-clicking the clip and changing the name in the Clip Name text box to: \\mypc5\3dsmax7\cstudio\motions\bip\runner.bip where mypc5 is the network identification of the computer that has the BIP file.

PHYSIQUE SDK MODIFICATIONS Physique exports the data based on the link to which the vertex is assigned. The node returned is the first (parent) node of the link. If there is branching in the hierarchy, Physique reports the vertex assigned to the same node twice. This is correct since the vertex is assigned to two links, each with the same root node.

TUTORIALS character studio tutorial files can be found on the Partner Resources CD. When working on the Motion Flow tutorial, you will encounter some missing steps in the "Looping Animation In Motion Flow Mode", "Using A Shared Motion Flow" and "Creating Random Motion" lessons. The following additional information will allow you to complete the tutorial. o Looping Animation in Motion Flow Mode In the section titled "Create a Script" at step 2, you are asked to click the walk2loop clip five times. After performing that step, right-click in the Motion Flow graph to turn off scripting mode. Using A Shared Motion Flow In the section titled "Create a Shared Motion Flow Script" at step 9, you are instructed to click the Create button on the Create Random Motion dialog. Doing this will display the Unify Options dialog. This dialog appears for each biped in the scene that will share the motion script. Since this tutorial has six bipeds, the dialog appears six times. Click OK to accept the default settings each time the Unify Options dialog appears. Creating Random Motion In the section titled "Set and Optimize Transitions" at step 12, you are told to enter a Minimum Animation Length of 2000 and click Create. The Unify Options dialog will appear where you can accept the default settings and click OK. If the biped shifts position and float above the grid, change the Start Position Z value to zero on the Motion Flow rollout. This will position the entire animation back on the ground plane.

UI The default Left/Right FootStep keyboard shortcut conflicts with the native 3ds max hotkey. To use the Left/Right Biped footsteps keyboard shortcut remove the 3ds max "Smart Select" keyboard shortcut under Customize User Interface. Collapse Move All Mode: This action will now collapse and "bake" the current Move-All transforms into the selected Biped. Default key is ALT-M Reset all limb keys: This action will "clean up" all the IK limb keys (by simply resetting all the keyframes) to fix IK keyframe motion discontinuities for "corrupted" files that might have been created in character studio 4.0 or character studio 4.1 using either 1) motions with scaling bone subanims or 2) trackbar sliding key edits that alter IK limb keyframe positions. Default key is ALT-K

Discreet is a Division of Autodesk, Inc. 3ds max, Autodesk, Biped, character studio, combustion, Discreet, Physique, reactor, sparks, and Volo are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc./Autodesk Canada Inc., in the U.S.A. and/or other countries. mental ray is a registered trademark of mental images GmbH & Co. KG licensed for use by Autodesk, Inc. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. 2004 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.