topic Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening in 3ds Max Modeling Forum

why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

Tommybouy — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 15:54:42 GMT

Hi,

wondering what is going wrong here, one spline, either extruder or added a Edit poly to it , it's a mess, 😞

how best to model (don't want to use opacity maps)
thanks

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

A娘 — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 01:36:06 GMT

you should know how computer graphics define the complex polygon , the path out of shape (with face inner) must be counterclockwise , and path inner (the hole's path) must be clockwise
when you pen your lines correct , you will get what you want

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

Tommybouy — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:09:15 GMT

Do you mean like this? if so it still doesn’t work

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

A娘 — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:36:07 GMT

you can upload the scene to check

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

Tommybouy — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 14:43:02 GMT

Sure,
thanks

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

Casey_H_ — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 17:01:54 GMT

I opened your file in 2025 and I am curious what version of Max are you using?

The splines made in Max look fine. While this is a simple setup, compound splines with curves are calculation heavy. The only thing I would point out is that you have an Extrude on top of an Edit Poly, which is not the way you want to add thickness. Extrusion should be done in the Edit Poly -> Polygon sub-object mode once you have it shaped and placed how you want. Max is more efficient dealing with polygons than with complex splines.

While extruding faces through edit poly is recommended, I would not recommend the compound spline technique for a perf panel like this in Max. Starting the panel as a compound spline is great, but I suggest you only do enough of the pattern to make a single "perf tile". See the pics. Edit Poly on top of a closed/compound spline works fine to create the solid panel face with perforations.

Lots of ways to create the tile, but here's what I did with yours:

In poly mode, I used snaps with Quickslice to define the seams of the tile. The internal triangulation edges of the bottom faces created extra vertices when sliced (left side). The new verts were target welded to the outer boundary. Bottom faces were deleted; top faces with good triangulation were duped, mirrored and welded (right side).

Adjust the Array to overlap the area you wish to fill with the perf. Make a duplicate so the original is safe. Then you collapse the copy, trim up the edges with an Edit Poly on top, as well as extrude the faces for thickness.

The cleaned up "perf tile" in Array.

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

A娘 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:14:15 GMT

the error comes from the function of the triangulate didn't fit complex polygon very well ，your scene has lots of holes and the edge close to the out boundary , the function do not return a correct result

if the out boundary long from holes , it will be correct

the way to adjust:

select the rectangle in segment mode , and divide it many times , it will be correct finally
you can set rectangle vertex to corner mode , it can reduce the times of divide

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

Tommybouy — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 08:37:34 GMT

thanks for that

I’m using max 2022, I have 2027 installed but just haven’t used it yet.
Those 2 modifiers are only there to see how A) it looked it i put an edit poly on it on the spline and B) if i tried extruding the spline, at this stage i wasn’t planning on using them both actively on the spline. If 'A' above worked I would have going into sub poly mode and extruded (as you mention) it was just curious to see if both modifiers gave the same result.

yeah I appreciate the method method you shown,and is a good solution, would be nice for the sake of speed if I could do it the way i am trying, but nevertheless there is a workaround 👍

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

Tommybouy — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 08:43:23 GMT

i have tried in past to add in lots of vertices to the rectangle i.e. 21 vertices added to the top line of rectangle to align with the top vertices in the top row of circles, i repeated this for the remaining other sides of the rectangle (22 on bottom segment, 6 on the left and right segments) and it didnt work

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

A娘 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:42:44 GMT

just select segment ， and click divide button ， active show final result , the result become intact by several times

(view in My Videos)

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

wernienst — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:46:03 GMT

Have you considered using Booleans with polygon objects?

In the following example I added a Boolean modifier to the plate (box) and subtracted an array of about 400 cylinders.

Then I added the new 2027 SmartBevel modifier just to see if Max would complain.

By increasing the box subdivisions I could even add a Bend modifier, which

would not be possible/give unusable results with the methods mentioned above.

All parameters are still editable.

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

Casey_H_ — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:21:12 GMT

@wernienst wrote:

...By increasing the box subdivisions I could even add a Bend modifier...

Put some cuts to quadify the perf tile, sub-divide the array, and adding Bend is precisely the same, except without nasty boolean topology! Just saying that other methods are still valid for deformations, if desired. 😉

Re: why does max struggle with this - Perforated screening

Tommybouy — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:45:13 GMT

Cheers that looks good