viewport shading disappears

[robertdiraimo]

During modeling, especially after applying and collasping modifiers such as FFD, the viewport no longer displays the transformed object shaded, even though 'shaded' is selected. The shaded polygon face is displayed as wirefram with a diagonal line through the face instead of shading. This makes working with complex models near impossible. Attached are two captures of the before and after losing shading.

Thanks in advance!

[Steve_Curley]

Can you replicate this reliably (provide the necessary steps to recreate it)? Could you provide a Max scene containing just one object immediately prior to Collapsing (remember to Zip it or it won't attach)? I just tried a few times to duplicate this and couldn't get it to fail.
What Max version? Have you applied all available updates?

[robertdiraimo]

I can reproduce the loss of "shaded" objects easily. It happens all the time. First I convert a simple object such as a tube to an editable poly (see my screen capture pre_collapse and pre_collapse scene file. Then I perform a FFD modifier to the object. Sometimes the "shaded" view is lost while I am working on the FFD modifier, but usually it is lost after I collapse (see attached post_collapse screen capture and post_collapse scene files that are attached.

Also, if I start a new scene (without closing 3ds Max) after losing "shaded" view on objects, the new objects that I create are similarly not shaded and appear with the unusual wireframe appearance seen in my screen captures. If I close 3ds Max and restart it, even the FFD modified objects that lost their shading are then properly "shaded" in the viewport.

I am using 3ds Max 2013 and the update is installed.

I have a Dell running 64-bit Windows 7 with 8GB RAM and Xeon dual quad core processors at 1.80 GHz. I have a Quadro 4000 graphics card.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

[Stefan_L]

Tried your scenes in Max2014+2015, everything works as expected.
But I remember having similar problems some month/years ago. Since introduction of Nitrous weird viewport hickups decrease by increasing version number 🙂

[Steve_Curley]

That is most strange, and obviously wrong.
First off you have the scenes the wrong way around - the one (post) with the FFD in place should be pre and vice versa.
If I load "pre" (just a cylinder) I have no problems with the scene.
If I load post (with ffd) and CollapseTo (in the stack) then I get the same problem you're describing. Even worse, as you mentioned, doing a Reset then creating an object has that object in the same, incorrect, state. However, if I load Max (clean) create a Cylinder, convert to Poly, add an FFD and CollapseTo then it works perfectly. This all points to the scene being corrupt in some way.
If, however, I load "post" and right-click the object > Convert to > Editable Poly then it works. And as an aside, if I load the scene into Max2015 and CollapseTo it works fine.

I think I would reset Max competely. If you have a Maxstart.max scene then rename it so it can't get loaded. Rename your ENU folder to completely remove all of max's configuration files. Load Max and it will create new, clean settings. Try re-creating the situation (without loading the existing scenes).

And a final tip - if you want to model in cm make sure you set the System Units to cm as well as the display units. In your scene a 1cm cube would actually be a 0.3937 Inch cube. This is not good - make sure you set the units in a new scene appropriately before creating anything.

[Edit] @Stefan_L - it DOES go wrong in 2013, so it's not only scene dependant (and probably settings dependant too) but also version dependant.[/Edit]

[robertdiraimo]

Thanks for the input. I am truly grateful for the help.

I tried all your recommendations. My device drivers are up to date. I deleted the Maxstart.max file. I have a new ENU folder, and the system and display units are both set to cm.

Unfortunately the problem still persists.

Thanks again, and if you have any other ideas I would appreciate the help.

Rob

[Steve_Curley]

As I mentioned earlier, if you right-click the object > Convert To > Editable Poly it seems to work (it did here anyway). Try doing that instead of using the Collapse To in the Stack.
You could try a complete uninstall/reinstall I suppose, but obviously there's no guarantee even that will cure it. Your only real course of action in the long run is to upgrade.