UV toggle problem - TV Element Mode

[makit3d]

I am on Max 2024 and apart from some bizarre behavior with saving and loading customized settings there is one problem that only recently started to drastically interfere with my work.

The TV Element Mode toggle button in the UVW editor has always defaulted to 'off' for vertex and edge mode and 'on' for element mode. For reasons I cannot figure out it now is the default for all modes. This I could manage except that every time I stitch two edges together is reverts back to 'on' even when it is set to 'off'. This happens for every stitch operation and changing the hotkey has no effect.

I have now set a hotkey for that toggle, but it's incredibly inconvenient to do this for every stitch operation. I often have to work with complex or many cylindrical objects that require a lot of stitching and having to turn off this toggle every time has caused me a lot of delays.

How do I get this toggle to revert back to an 'off' state again by default and stay that way after an operation (like stitching two edges)?

[10DSpace · Accepted solution]

@makit3d 

My first thought would be corrupted UI  which would mean resetting UI as explained here:

https://www.autodesk.com/support/technical/article/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/Resetting-3ds-Max-....

And you also mentioned that besides the stuck (very bad) By Element toggle switch,  you were experiencing  "some bizarre behavior with saving and loading customized settings" .   So before resetting your UI, can you elaborate further on the bizarre behavior relating to customized settings that you have saved?   It seems possible (maybe likely) that the UI corruption and the customized settings  are related.   

Another thought is that there is also a By Element Toggle in the command panel which is for the viewport I guess and is independent of the the one in the Unwrap UVW Editor.  You could try toggling that on and off and see if that slaps the other one back into shape (really doubtful since they are supposed to be independent, but easy enough to check)  

[makit3d]

     The other issues I have been having was with saving and loading customized settings for the the UI. Settings for the quads, toolbars, and menus wouldn't be saved and I eventually had to set the folder to be writable (uncheck Read-Only) for any changes to take place and be loaded for subsequent sessions. I tried to get it to load from a different location, but that didn't work either.

     The problem with the TV Element Toggle just happened a few days ago. I made no changes that would affect it and everything I've discovered to solve it has failed. I will try resetting my UI in hopes of it being the solution.

     As for the Command Panel toggle it has no effect on the Editor toggle as you suspected. The only thing I am able to do for now is set a hotkey to toggle it off manually. This has proven to be too inconvenient by increasing the time to perform the same operation (stitching) by a factor of 3 to 4 or, possibly, more.

[makit3d]

I made the change to reset the UI and it fixed my issue. Now comes the tedious task of setting everything up again. Honestly, I wish I had stayed with 2022. It ran almost flawlessly (only one minor issue) for years. I switch to 2024 and I haven't had a week go by without a problem or issue with the UI.

[10DSpace]

@makit3d 

I have to agree with you about Max 2022.  That is my main engine and I've had very very few issues with it.  Generally, I have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a new version of Max when I have a known winner.  I have 2024 installed to play around with but for my particular work at the moment there is no new killer feature in it that is compelling enough to move me to 2024.

[makit3d]

I didn't want to switch, but had to for a project. It was something I had planned on and now that I have I won't go back. Instead I will keep trying to figure out how to fix the issues I have with Max '24 (almost all are now).

As for the UVW toggle issue it was caused by the script, Polyunwrapper. Apparently having it remember settings on exit (there are at least four options) caused the toggle to stay 'On'. I was able to remove it, rename my old ENU folder, re-install the script, and now all is back to normal.

Since it has been in my toolset for years I won't remove it because of this, especially since this is the first time it has created any issues for me. Generally it is my UVW savior.