New File - Keep Objects and Hierarchy missing in Max 2020???

[Anonymous]

Hi All,

I've used this really convenient feature within max to help alleviate issues with slow or problematic scenes and shots with a lot of imported assets for years. By creating a new scene from the File/New menu and selecting either keep objects OR keep objects and hierarchy, a much 'cleaner' file would be created whilst keeping the model intact. 

Is this feature no longer included in MAX 2020? If so, why?

I've spent the last few days looking for a workflow solution to this with no success. Hopefully the option exists somewhere else in a menu stack that I'm missing.

Thanks 

[Anonymous]

If this feature has been removed, is there an alternative way to strip a scene's hierarchy in release 2020? There is no longer a reference to it in the 2020 Max help files, yet it still existed in release 2019 as linked below.

2020 Help File - create new scene 

2019 Help File - create new scene 

[BenBisares · Accepted solution]

Already reached out to markYUUHK privately but I wanted to share the info here for anyone else that reads this and wants to know the situation.

Those options were removed in 2020 as we found that in certain scenarios it can give undesired results (think complex rigs) and generally there are better workflows out there. My suggestion if you want to create a new scene based off the contents of an existing one is the following:

• Create a empty scene in 3ds Max
• File > Import > Merge
  • Locate the scene you want the contents from
• In the Merge window, on the right you can show hide asset types. If you were interested in just the geometry you could uncheck everything except "Geometry"
• On the left, select the objects you want
• Hit ok at the bottom

I find it more useful as you can select only what you want. Can be useful when you have a scene that crashes when opening. Sometimes it's caused by a corrupted element(s) so you may be able to salvage things by only selecting and merging the uncorrupted elements (by trial and error).

Good for file bloat too as many times it's caused by elements that are not visible and merging into a new scene shouldn't bring them in.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Ben,

I appreciate the reply and the answer. This method also achieves the desired result.

The import/merge option is a suitable solution and does offer more control/precision by comparison to the one click keep objects in previous releases. 

[Byteman]

I'm facing the same issue and I need to restart the animation project keeping the scene objects but not the animations. Merging still merges the objects with their animations. Am I missing something in the Merge dialog? 

Thank you

[10DSpace]

@Byteman 

..I need to restart the animation project keeping the scene objects but not the animations.

I would think the most direct way for you to do this would be in your Max scene to "select all" and from the Animation Menu select "Delete Selected Animation".  This removes all animation keys for all of the selected objects.  Then save the new scene with a different name.   I don't see why you would need to use Merge at all in your case if you want everything in the scene but just want to remove all animation keys so you can start fresh?

[Byteman]

Hi,

I just want to start a new animation project and the good old New/Keep mesh and hierarchy was what I actually need. Since it is no longer present, I need to manually select and delete the animations, but not all animations are on selectable objects. That's why I'm looking for something else.

[chatchawin_t]

In my case, I normally need to clear the scene by removing all animation keys (keep objects and hierarchy). I will get the clean file with new scene remaining all objects and all render settings. If I use merge method, I need to set render setting again and need to open new file and merge all objects. It is wasting the time so much to do that. Lets imagine when we have many projects in your hands even don't have time to do that ! It effects to my workflow or anybody. Please ask your users first before you are going to change somethings or keep it for optional way. I wanted to use newer version but sometimes it is very annoying when I can't do the same way.