topic Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding in 3ds Max Forum

3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

rebeccah_luttrell — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 16:54:02 GMT

Hi, can anyone help me with regards to 3dsmax and boolean features. I've basically made a small rectangular shape and added some text and used the boolean feature. there's no open anything on the rectangle, it's completely closed. it's a very very simple design and everytime i click to edit the text on the boolean, it just keeps saying not responding, and then 15 seconds later it works, then i try to click text again and it keeps going not responding. it's literally impossible to do anything and is rendering this software absoultely useless to me. Does anyone know or can help me sort this out? i must be doing something wrong, because theres no way such a franchise like autodesk has created such an awfully flawed software.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 17:37:19 GMT

What if instead of editing text already booleaned, what if you delete that boolean, edit the text and then reboolean it? It might be faster.

You haven't posted the specs on your hardware so it's hard to know where the slowdown might be. I don't think you can unilaterally characterize Max as awfully flawed in all fairness. It's pretty rock solid these days. I do lot's of booleans and between the ProBoolean and regular Boolean modifiers, I get really good and fast results with some pretty complex stuff.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

rebeccah_luttrell — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 18:53:23 GMT

thank you so much for your response, and as i stated before, i can't believe that autodesk would create such a flawed system, which is why im actually referring to it being user error. perhaps you misread.

On the other hand, i'm using a threadripper 3970x with a 2070 super. graphic card, with a bunch of NVMes.

I don't think it's the hardware, however there's always room for improvement.

I will try this solution you provided, however, i don't think it will work, i thin kthere is a larger user error at hand that i am ignorant to.

Do you personally know if there's a way to send a file for someone to check out to analyze? there's gotta be something I did, or didn't do that's makign the software trip out.

Thanks

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

rebeccah_luttrell — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 19:34:44 GMT

p.s i just tried what you mentioned with no luck. Darnit. There's something i'm doing, or have set up, that's making it do this, because as soon as you click boolean, it simply just stops responding for 10-15 seconds, and then goes back to normal, then goes back to not responding. I've tried to resinstall the software, i've tried to recreate it in a 2021 version, and im still having the same issue. I'd really like to sort this out, do you have any other ideas?

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

rebeccah_luttrell — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 20:41:12 GMT

here's a video of what i mean in terms of not responding

March 30, 2021 - YouTube

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 21:03:55 GMT

Can you upload a file here? I’d be happy to look at it and see if I experience the same issue as you. I have a similar system. I’m not an Autodesk employee but I’d be happy to try your file.

I don’t know if you can upload something directly to them but the moderators here are fantastic and they do look at these threads. It’s likely one of them will look at the file as well.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

rebeccah_luttrell — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 03:56:21 GMT

okay great, check this out.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

Diffus3d — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 08:19:29 GMT

Seems similar to issues I've seen when the OS was installed on an SSD in SATA mode instead of AHCI mode but the BIOS setting was then later changed to AHCI mode after the windows installation. Windows had problems similar to this with basic operations in multiple software titles for me.

Might be a silly question but did you set your BIOS boot device to NVMe mode before you installed windows? Is the NVMe a clone/image of what used to be an SSD in AHCI mode?

This really feels like system config to me, but I'm guessing. Seems like it's waiting for windows to process something perhaps. Are IRQ's still a thing with Windows 10? Similar problems would happen back in the day with devices with conflicting IRQ's. I would double check hardware settings.

Best Regards,

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 13:03:23 GMT

I can't open the file in Max 2022 nor can I 'merge' it into a new file. Max just hangs. I think there may be something fundamentally wrong or corrupt with the file. Have you tried to rebuild the object in a brand new file?

@Diffus3d, Alfred, did you open the file? Your comment is interesting. I have all NVMe drives as well. I wish I could get the file open to see if they have an effect.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

rebeccah_luttrell — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 17:48:38 GMT

when i installed windows onto the NVMe, is was a fresh install on a true NVMe pcie lane. There was no clone, or AHCI mode.

Thanks,

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

rebeccah_luttrell — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 17:55:03 GMT

I had the same suspicion that it was a corrupt file, so we recreated it in a new file, but with the same results.
I exported it in 2020 as well, with the same result.
i've uninstalled and reinstalled 3dsmax,
turned off backups as well,

i've attached a 2021 file, as i've noticed that is the version you are using. What are your thoughts?

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 18:24:21 GMT

Sorry to do this to you but can you remove the material 'black coated metal.jpg.png' from everything and just put a standard material on it? The opening of the file hangs on it and it just won't open. Maybe the texture is corrupt. Anyway, maybe just put a generic and basic material on everything and save it out. Let's make sure materials aren't causing problems. Then I'll look at it again.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 18:41:02 GMT

I did a test of my own. I had no issues. I'll upload the file and a video of it. See what happens if you open this file, Max 2022 FYI.

I forgot to turn the audio record off like I normally do. So, you got my music. Sorry...

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 02:26:38 GMT

Rebeccah, I can report that I'm seeing an issue similar to yours. I'm working on a file tonight. It was one from Max 2015 and I opened it in Max 2022. I went to save it and it took 237 seconds to save. I had no trouble working on the file, it just takes a long time to save.

I saved the file as a Max 2021 file and opened it in Max 2021. It saved in 2 seconds. I then opened that Max 2021 file again in Max 2022 and saved again, timing it again. It took 249 seconds to save.

There is clearly something going on. I'm running Gen4 Nvme. I might try Gen3 and see what happens. There was an issue with USB services starting and stopping with Gen 4 enabled a few months ago. Hmmm... I think you may have found a bug of some kind.

Edit: So I knocked my system back to Gen3 for PCI and Nvme and it had no effect. The Max 2022 file still takes 120 times longer to save than the same file in Max 2021. I'll do a few more tests and report this.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

Diffus3d — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 03:15:38 GMT

It may have nothing to do with hardware, I'm spitballing. If it's only happening in one version of Max it's probably not that. I didn't mean to lead you guys down a rabbit hole, it was just worth noting.

Since you both can recreate the issue then there may very well be some kind of bug there. I don't have 2022 installed yet, company policy is to wait until sp2 for all new software.

In 2021, I also had trouble opening at first as it was looking for missing paths but after about a minute I could open it. It saved instantly though for me. Definitely there is a problem here, but it seems to be in the stack itself. Is there a version pre-boolean? Maybe it has something to do with stack modifiers or geo integrity.

Best,

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 13:59:40 GMT

No, I like your spitballing. I'm tending to agree with you. I just opened a file in Max 2020 and Max 2021 that has 17million polys and is 600mb. It saved in about 5 seconds. In Max 2022, it was still saving after a minute and I just ended task out of it to close Max. My machine suffers no slowdowns in any other place or program, except this new anomaly I'm seeing. Otherwise, Max 2022 seems smooth and fast. For me, it's just saving something larger than a couple of cubes that is troubling.

Edit: Just a bit more info to make this more perplexing. I just tried a couple of other large files and they saved just as fast as 2021 and 2020. So, it's an intermittent issue, even harder to diagnose...lol... I'll keep exploring and thinking.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

rebeccah_luttrell — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 14:51:52 GMT

wow, okay. this is very interesting. So one thing i want to point out, is that i've imported a text font style and a texture from the web. I was suggested to remove it to try it out, but you are saying that even with my file, when you edit the text for boolean, you don't see the not responding aspect of it? for me, when i click anything in regards to the boolean, it goes not responding for roughly a minute ( previous i said 15 seconds, but after timing it, it's actually over 60 seconds ) and it simply doesn't work. It's very odd. I haven't noticed the saving and loading as an issue, because im new to autodesk, so i thought it was the norm for it to take so long to load. Thank you for taking interest and trying to get to the bottom of this. Very helpful and insightful.

The other thing is, we do have very simliar specs. using the threadripper amd system, with gen 4 nvme, with higher end graphic cards ( moreso yours, being a 2080ti and mine being a 2070 super) so i don't think it's hardware performance issues, but could be a bug or lack of code that doesn't support the bleeding edge tech hardware yet?

What are your thougths?

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 15:11:09 GMT

Since you the font and style from the web, there could be some issues there. Maybe try a different font and style from a different source, just as a test. If the new font and style don't have the issue, that's something to think about in diagnosing.

It's possible that it is code or bugs related to Nvme and this newer tech. That's likely. There has already been an ongoing problem with PCI Gen4 and USB and sound issues. You can google it and find that stuff.

But, yes, if build a scene like yours entirely in Max, with max meshes and text, then make a boolean with 5 or 6 subobjects, I don't have any issues and everything works smoothly, fast and fluidly. It just feels like there is something in your model that is causing the issue. Can you rebuild it in Max without importing from the web? Use one of your existing fonts like Arial. One that you know is good and not problematic. See how it works.

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

Diffus3d — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 20:07:29 GMT

I also get the not responding for a minute when I click in the boolean. I noticed some of the operands had poly modifiers on the top, and some didn't. I wonder if putting an Edit Poly on top before the booleans (or even better, collapsing the stack pre-boolean) would help this issue.

I am on a Ryzen Gen 3 Threadripper and I do OC my RAM. Not sure if that has much of an effect on the issue.

Best Regards,

Re: 3dsmax Boolean Text Not responding

RobH2 — Thu, 01 Apr 2021 20:32:36 GMT

Good test. FYI, I am not overclocking but am Ryzen Gen4. I'll pay attention to what Edit Polys do to affect things.