Object fades to black after time

[stark1121]

Hi I'm pretty much a novice to 3ds Max, and I encountered this problem. My object fades to black/only edges after 10 seconds if I'm not using it.

When I select it, the colors I assigned come out and the edges are in white (picture 1). When I click on the background, it seems to retain its color (picture2). Then in no less than 10 seconds, it FADES to black/edges(picture 3). It literally FADES. The color darkens/dissapears leaving picture 3. I have no idea what I've done to make my object behave like this. Anyone has ideas? this is really frustrating in work... 😞

[aon.914858227]

Switch from Viewport->Realistic to shaded mode.

[stark1121]

Hi Aon. But my viewport is already in Shaded mode. I've closed and reopened my .max file and now it's like this. It seems to me that the objects are in color only when they're created and turn black/edges after I've reopened the .max

Here is the full screenshot of my workspace. The objects are black when I select them and turn only edges few seconds later

[Speichelprobe]

Is your viewport lit with the scene lights or the default lights? In the viewport click shaded -> lighting and Shadows -> Illuminate with Default lights.

If this doesn't work, try another viewport to check if the error is related to the viewport settings or something else.

You could also try to create a light in the viewport to see what happens.

[aon.914858227]

OK, if you are already in shaded mode then it might be a graphics-card driver related problem or

your graphics card does not meet the minimal requirements. Nitrous can be very demanding.

Like Speichelprobe (he,he..) suggested switch to a different display driver:

Customize->Preferences->Viewports->choose driver.

Update your graphics-card drivers and make sure you have the latest service-pack (for 2015 SP2 is the latest) installed.

[stark1121]

Hi Speichelprobe. My viewport is already illuminated with default lights and other lights don't work either. And yes the problem seems to be in the objects themselves, changing viewports doesn't make any difference and the problem is present in all of them...

Thanks for the feedback anyways.. do you have any other ideas on what would be the problem? I need the program urgently and I can't work with objects all black 😞

[stark1121]

Hi Aon.

Would it be the Graphic Card's fault? I'm currently on Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000. Just to check, I copied the file to my MacBook Pro Bootcamp with Windows 8 where I can use the Intel(R) Iris(TM) PRo Graphics 5200, and opened it with the 3ds Max 2015 I had it installed and the same problem occurs...

I don't know too much about graphics card but won't they be enough? And the things I've modeled are pretty simple

[Steve_Curley]

HD4000 is unsupported and pretty much useless for Max - causes no end of problems. Get yourself a half decent card - a reasonable spec gaming card should be fine.
What would also help everyone (to help you) is a copy of the scene - you can remove all the geometry except for one object. Make sure you leave any lights in there though. Ensure it still has the problem, save it, zip it and attach it to a reply.

[stark1121]

Thank you Steve. Here's the file.

For the problem, it occurs only in this file, and regardless of the computer I'm using.

Thank you guys all for pitching in 🙂

[Stefan_L]

IMHO this is caused by scaling the objects on top level - e.g. the axis is 931,95496% long...

[stark1121]

As I've mentioned, I'm still a novice, so I wouldn't know 'how' the problem was caused should that be the reason. Would there be any ways of fixing the problem?

[Steve_Curley · Accepted solution]

Yes, but it's not just the scaling which is an issue. I've tried several times, in your scene, to correct other errors as well as the scaling - and crashed Max in the process. My Max is pretty stable, so I think there's a problem with the scene, not just the objects. Merging the objects into a new scene appears to cure that, so:-
1) Start a new scene, set the System Units to mm to match the original scene.
2) App Menu > Import > Merge. Select your original scene and click Open. Select the only object [Motor] and click OK.
3) Group > UnGroup. Groups can be useful, they can also be a pain in the rear. Avoid using them unless absulutely necessary.
4) Command Panel > Utilites tab. If you see Reset XForm, click it, otherwise click More (at the top) and select it from the list.
5) Carefully select each of the objects, one at a time, except MotorBody and MotorCapsule, and click Reset Selected. All the other objects are Primitives and should reset ok.
6) For those 2 remaining ones, switch back to the Modify Panel, select them (one at a time), go into each sub-object level and make sure none of the subobjects are actually selected (Ctrl+D to Deslect All). When you've checked all the subobject levels, click on the Editable Poly object itself in the Stack. Do both, then go back to the Utilites tab and use the Reset XForm as before.
7) Select all the objects, on the Modify Panel add an Edit Poly modifier. Select that Modifier > Right-Click it > Collapse To.
Do note that once you do that all the objects will be Editable Polys, not Primitives, so you will no longer have access to the Create options (Radius, Length etc).

That should be sufficient to fix the original problem, however, there are multiple issues with the MotorCapsule which you really should correct. Select it and Isolate it (little lightbulb at the bottom of the main Max window, just left of the 3 XYZ Spinners).
Look closely at where you have (chamfered) Right-Angle corners. Where they meet the top (or bottom) there should be a small triangle. Examine all of them and you'll find several which do not look "right". You need to fix those - I did it with a combination of Target Welding the incorrect vertices and in some cases Cutting a new Edge between them so there's nice neat triangle. Even when you've done that you'll find that if you area-select around them that there is actually 4 vertices, not 3. If so just click Weld (on the Edit Vertices rollout) and then there should be just 3. I don't know how you managed that, but try not to do it - bad topology like that can cause problems.

As an example, in the images below, the Left one shows you where the problem is, Middle shows what the problem is and the Right one shows how it should be (when fixed).
Looking at the Middle one, there are 2 vertices close together on the right of the corner. Vertex SubObjects, Target Weld the upper one to the lower one. There will then be a missing edge, so switch to Polygons, pick the Cut tool (Edit Geometry rollout) and carefully Cut between the other 2 vertices (the left-hand ones). The cursor should change when it's over a vertex so you know when to click to perform the Cut.
There are several places where you need to do something similar, though they're not all identical and may require slightly different procedures to fix them.

[stark1121]

wow you're amazing.... thank you so much for going over 🙂

[Steve_Curley]

Glad it helped. Just remember 3 lessons to learn from this:-

Avoid groups if you can.
Never scale objects at the object level. With those Primitives you could have simply changed the creation properties (or on the modify panel later). If you must scale, do so at a sub-object level, or apply an XForm Modifier and scale its Gizmo.
Be careful when modeling that you don't accidentally select vertices/edges/polys on the other side of the object - check around the model regularly to make sure nothing got moved inadvertantly. If it did, fix it immediately rather than waiting until later.

Have fun 😉

[stark1121]

thank you Steve. Groups, yes I know they are inconvieneint but do I have any other option? There are a lot of objects and it's hard to keep them organized.

The advice about scaling primitives, I'll stick to that tightly 😉

[Steve_Curley]

Groups tend to cause problems with animating, either the objects within the group or the group object itself. In that case I would create a Hierarchy of the objects (using the Select and Link tool). maybe with a Dummy object to which all the others are linked.
For scene organisation I would use Layers, though how you organise the objects depends on the scene. Do you put all the windows on a layer and all the walls on a separate layer or do you put each entire building on its own layer?
If it's just a matter of selecting all the components at once then consider the Selection Sets. You can use Groups, but be careful when you do - Groups work by (effectively) creating a hierarchy with the group object at the top and everything else below it. Scaling the Group (for example), because of the way such transforms are inherited by the components, can cause serious issues when animating, so I would not use them if there's any chance of the objects or the group being animated. For simply positioning the Motor assembly within the scene, group them, move the group, ungroup them.