Max 2017 Doesn't Remember Viewport Background color

[Anonymous]

I change the viewport background solid color to pure black using Customize User Interface, Viewport Background, and changing the color to black. When I apply it it works fine. However, when I open a new file or close max and open it again, it often "forgets" this change and shows a gradient even when I choose "solid color" for the background. Then if I go into CUI again, I see it is still set as black. The only way to force it to show a black viewport background again is to change it to a different color and then change it back again.

3ds Max 2017 (19.0 Update commercial)
Windows 10 Enterprise
Intel(R) Xeon (R) CPU E3-1505M v5 @ 2.80GHz 2.81 GHz
64-bit

[DanielCantin · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous

The color will persist if it has RGB values of ~15 or more, this is still very dark but will allow you to perceive the black center grid lines if that can be useful to you. It is also affecting Gradient Background colors and Max 2019 too.

Is that a good enough range of colors to work with, or you need a black background?

I'll log a defect, I don't know if this is a problematic implementation of a limited color range for the background colors or if it should work for black.

[Anonymous]

No, I require a pure black background (and sometimes pure white- not sure if the same problem occurs on the other end of the spectrum, I haven't noticed).

Due to extreme time-constraints, I create a lot of animations in my work using viewport preview and require the background color to remain as I set it is part of my workflow.

[DanielCantin]

Thanks for your workflow description, I'll make sure to document this in the defect. White worked in my tests

[hagen.deloss · Accepted solution]

hello @Anonymous,

thanks for posting on the forums! I actually was very curious myself to see if the viewport settings could be saved, because I really like having custom colors!

I found a thread from a few years back and Steve Curly posted a solution that I tried out. I tried it out in 3DS Max 2019 and it worked....at least the first few times 😛

okay so I created a blank scene, and I set a custom image as the background in all view ports. Then I saved my scene (naming it maxstart) Make sure to save it somewhere local and frequented, like C:/users/you/documents

Then go to customize>configure user  paths>change the root path of maxstart to your new scene!

This solution will only work on new scenes you create, not existing ones, so you would have to import your other scenes into fresh ones with the new background.

@DanielCantin thanks for jumping in, and yeah it would be really cool to have this background color data be saved in scenes!

Please select the Accept as Solution button if my post solves your issue or answers your question.

[Anonymous]

That is interesting. I will look into that.

I do think it would be a good thing to just simply be able to save your background color as whatever you want. Should I put this in a feature request thread somewhere?

[hagen.deloss]

@Anonymous

It would be great if you wanted to post that on the 3DS Max Ideas board.

I'm all about user customization, and it sounds like its important to your workflow! I would vote on it if you submit!!

[Anonymous]

I just submitted it. Ideally you could save a different background color easily with each unique file.

[hagen.deloss]

Here is a link to @Anonymous Ideas board post! Please vote if you think this is a feature that should be implemented 😄

each max file remembers viewport background color