Online survey for OLD stuff removal

[LOMBARDIAUGUSTO]

Max is senior software and as for all the "long story" software there are a lot of old tools that no one uses anymore but they are still there to maintain back compatibility

the idea is to prepare a list of stuff that the DEV team would like to remove and propose to artists with a 1 to 10 rank per feature to remove

it is good to hear what we want to add to max but it is important as well to know what we don't use anymore because things are evolved or there is a new tool or plugin

this could be a great way to help team to speedup and cleanup things

what do you think about?

[RGhost77]

I think they would be remove anything at all...

[Xerges]

I would remove:

- Video Post
- AEC objects, walls, stairs, windows, doors... (those ugly trees...)
- all the particles systems that are not Particle Flow (replace by particle flow presets that replicate spray, blizzard...)
- Physique, yes physique, use skin, skin should get a skin 2.0 and be done with physique once and for all
- View Cube
- Steering Wheels
- Strokes

- Flight Studio

- Camera Tracker

- COM/DCOM server control

- Panorama Exporter

- Polygon Counter

- Scene Effect Loader (is it still working?)

- VRML97 (C'mon! this is not serious)

- Forces: Bomb

and that's without mentioning that Atmospheric aparatus should be raplaced by something new,

it's obsolete... like all atmosphere in environment and the horrible Effects.

And even though I uninstall the connection with Civil View and Revit, I don't use those and I don't even have Interactive installed, I still have menus with Content, Interactive, Civil View and even a Revit Explorer ???

WHY?

1. Consistency (having multiple particle systems instead of handling everything with Particle Flow for instance)

2. Free up UI space (UI is cluttered with old stuff nobody needs/use)

3. make code slimmer (coders may thank for that)

4. make Max install smaller and faster, and improve loading time of Max

5. make Max look better (when new users see windows/dialog from the windows 95 era it looks bad: video post, environment effects, atmospheric apparatus, polygon counter...)

[Anonymous]

I like the viewcube. In the same way I prefer a lot more the old non caddy interface.

Rather than things based in personal tastes I think that Max has created duplicate tools and the new are a lot better and those should be removed. And initially only from the main interface but they could be accessed for compatibility.

[LOMBARDIAUGUSTO]

Hi Xerge

you did a long list and i agree with most of your points

i think that at the moment is good to hear what people don't use anymore but in this first step is more important to know how many people agree with the idea to start a REMOVAL program

my idea is to find a good method for the identification of what needs to be improved and what can be removed

and the last word is from the development team because they know how many resources to invest on this operation

once we can have a list made by users the development team can start to consider this cleanup operation with no fear of complains from users

[LOMBARDIAUGUSTO]

RGhost77

i really hope so

max needs a good cleanup and in most cases needs to collect duplicates in a brand new tool

and make the code more efficient

[garry]

Don't get rid of the VRML stuff. I use that a lot.

[LOMBARDIAUGUSTO]

really??

i never used and i'm courious to know which application it could have 😉

[Anonymous]

This situation is also typical of Photoshop. As on they say they will remove something appears lots of users that are using that feature.

[LOMBARDIAUGUSTO]

yes Karl it is exactly the same situation for all the software

this is the reason why i'm asking for a public Survey, i'm convinced that the only way to do it and avoid big complains is to involve artist in the identification of what can be removed, as we do for what to include...

no one can decide alone about something that have so wide base...now that anyone is online and can express he's opinion we can try to approach this task in a different way

and if we find a good method this can be reproduced for other software

[lightcube]

Removal of ViewCube is an absolute NO to remove for me. I use it often when navigating large scenes to know the cardinal directions. This is especially useful when using 3D mice and you sometimes lose orientation.

Just because one person doesn't use it doesn't mean others don't.

I have no opinion on the other items on the list.

My feeling is that instead of removing things, just give users the option to load/not load different plugins built into Max, especially for fringe things.

[dgorsman]

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@LOMBARDIAUGUSTO wrote:

yes Karl it is exactly the same situation for all the software

this is the reason why i'm asking for a public Survey, i'm convinced that the only way to do it and avoid big complains is to involve artist in the identification of what can be removed, as we do for what to include...

no one can decide alone about something that have so wide base...now that anyone is online and can express he's opinion we can try to approach this task in a different way

and if we find a good method this can be reproduced for other software

---

Regardless of what is removed there will always be loud complaints, just like choosing new features to add.  Its a matter of finding the group least offended, or at least being able to tolerate the fallout.  In many cases this means that very little can be removed unless forced to do so by changes to support functions e.g. retirement of DX9 and adding support for DX12.

[LOMBARDIAUGUSTO]

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@dgorsman wrote:Regardless of what is removed there will always be loud complaints, just like choosing new features to add.  Its a matter of finding the group least offended, or at least being able to tolerate the fallout.  In many cases this means that very little can be removed unless forced to do so by changes to support functions e.g. retirement of DX9 and adding support for DX12.

---

sure dgorsman, there will ever be some complain

the introduction of removal has the same reason to exist of the add new feature survey

now we can discuss about details...but the core of the discussion remains the same:

to give directions to the DEV team not only on add new stuff or improve old stuff (as they did with spline tools...great jog guys) but also on remove old stuff or in some cases on collect several clone tools in a single new one

and as it already happens for add new the DEV team has the last decision on  remove old

this is a new approach...it never was done before so until someone doesn't try we will never see if it works

[jeff]

A survey is a good idea. Perhaps with "I have never, ever used this",  "I used it 5 years ago", "I use it once a year", all the way to "can't live without it" choices for features. I can't imagine anyone still uses the Max camera tracker, but maybe there's a studio out there using it all the time...