View cube and objects suddenly gone

[Anonymous]

Hello, 

I have been trying to figure out what the problem with my view cube is a for a few hours now. It was fine when I touched it earlier, but suddenly it and the scene in the viewport wants to disappear. I noticed my scene would appear again if I switched the camera to a top/bottom/left/right view, but as soon as I tried to rotate the view cube again, I still have the same problem. When I view all four windows at once, one or two windows will let me select and rotate the cube normally, but as soon as I full-screen that window and touch the view cube, it does the same thing. 

[Anonymous]

Also, I am using the 2017 version of 3ds Max

[Anonymous]

Also, I am using the 2017 version of 3ds Max. 

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous and welcome to the community,

The viewcube seems to cause problems for a number of people.  When you say your scene disappears... is the camera view moving far away from it or are the objects there but invisible?  

Can you try to disable the viewcube for me?   Once you do, does the problem with disappearing go away then?  Thanks for trying that!

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Well, I don't have the problem right now because it seems to have gone away after restarting 3ds Max twice. Was is a glitch maybe?

As for the camera view for the scene disappearing, I'm not exactly sure if it quickly zoomed out so far I couldn't select anything, or if the objects in the scene disappeared. At the time, even the grid disappeared. 

If this happens again, would disabling it and enabling it fix the issue? If so, how do I disable the cube exactly? Would it be in the configuration for the view cube settings? 

Thank you so much! 

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

There are two issues that exist and I'm not sure which one you are experiencing.  I'm seeing a lot of reports of objects becoming invisible in the viewports for some people.  In that case you can still see the outline of objects when you select them, but they are invisible.  It seems to have to do with drivers and that is being investigated and followed up on as we type to one another.  Trying DX9 or older drivers should help with it for the time being.  

The other is related to the viewcube or possibly objects that are in the wrong system units or are very far from the origin at 0,0,0. Disabling the viewcube usually solves this issue.  The grid disappearing too makes me think it's this issue.  I should ask, how many system units across is your scene?  Is it far from the origin?  If it's less than say 5000 system units across and near the origin, disabling the viewcube should do it.  Thanks for trying those things and I'm here for you if you have any questions.

Best Regards,

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

I just wanted to follow up here, any thoughts on my previous post? Thanks for the update!

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the late reply. It's been a busy week for me. 

Well from what you describe in the first issue, I don't think I have had that particular problem. Just in case I do have that problem in the future, would updating my graphics card do the trick to fix that? 

For the system units, I am not sure. Some objects were away from the orgin, but not too far out from the origin--maybe a few ft away from it. And thank you for helping me out with that. Hopefully this issue won't happen again on my end.

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @Anonymous,

Happy to help!

I got to the bottom of the first issue and it was actually a result of objects that existed millions of units from the origin.  So in that case they both come down to system units.  A few feet from the origin is no problem usually. 

Would it be possible to share this file with me? If privacy is necessary due to NDA reasons, I can create a private folder for you. I am happy to do so if you would like.  My batting average for this type of thing without a file to put my hands on is not very good and going back and forth ends up wasting a lot of time.  Do you think that would be ok?

Best Regards,

[Anonymous]

Ctrl + Alt + V 

Worked for me

[Anonymous]

Excuse me, I also have this problem in 3Ds max 2017. I clicked viewcube. And my objects and viewcube gone. I can't find my objects in the viewport. Can you help me with it? Thank you!

[hollygrzedzicki]

I guess this just never got fixed? Using 3ds 2019 and having this issue. Working on an object and suddenly the cube is gone, my objects are gone, grid is gone. Restarting didn't fix the issue. My object is on the origin, yet clicking home doesn't reveal it, or the grid. Turning viewcube off and on again had no effect. 

[Anonymous]

Same here 3ds max 2018. It happened when I tried to apply bend modifier on top of turbosmooth. After that everything dissapeared and in other viewports too when I tried to interact with them. Restart didn't help.

[jon.bell]

Hi @Anonymous,

I just wanted to refresh this thread to see if you were still having this issue, or if it was resolved (and if so, what the solution was). Thanks!

[bioclone_ax45]

To give some more details on this issue (I think is this issue the one I had multiple times) 

I ussually on one PC (with broken ALT) use the viewcube to rotate the scene instead Alt.. when this bug appears, trying to rotate keeping pushed the left click on the cube makes the views "go mad" and experience this issue (no objects on scene or not even grind able to get found...)

Opening the scene explorer allows you to select any object of the scene, and you can use the top down button "zoom extents all selected" to put again on sight your objects... (hovewer using the view cube will make the problem appear again)

One "fix" I luckily found, was to create (or load) a previous save of the project, and then use this as a base/host to the bugged project save merging both together.. this "transfer" the objects (at least the modelling, bones and materials) , not sure about other things... into the project, but THE BUG NO LONGER APPEARS... what allows you to re-save it and continue working normally.

Not the best thing, but at least dont makes you get mad and lost several hours of work. hope it helps.

*Just to add, I never have objects away from 0,0,0... but had this lots of times... I will try disabling the viewcube as stated on this topic the next time I have this to see if that works better.

[jon.bell]

@bioclone_ax45 ,

I'm curious about this behavior -- would you be able to zip up and send me a copy of the "problem" 3ds Max file that was behaving this way in your scene? I can send you a private OneDrive folder link if the file is too large.

Please let me know, and thanks!

[bioclone_ax45]

Sorry, but I dont think I currently have any save with the problem, I ussually try to get rid of em as soon as I get the problem to avoid later problems.

If I got it again will try to save it and post it.

[Anonymous]

Hi, i have been working on a file for several months now and have been recently facing this issue, kindly help how to fix it

[jon.bell]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thanks for your question. Can you give us a bit more information about exactly what's happening in your viewports?

1. If you don't use the Viewcube in regular 3ds Max scene navigation, can you simply turn it off (Views > Viewcube > uncheck Show the Viewcube).
2. You could also try resetting your 3ds Max user preferences back to default in case they've become corrupted.
3. Can you check your scene geometry to make sure it's not extremely far from the world origin (0,0,0)?
4. Can you make sure you've downloaded and installed the latest video drivers for your GPU?

Please let us know if this helps!

[jon.bell]

Hi @Anonymous ,

I just wanted to check back with you to see if the suggestions I posted here two weeks ago helped.

Could you please let us know? Thanks!