How to remove missing external file reference

[Anonymous]

I didn't add or remove anything but 3DS MAX started asking for some texture (see screenshot). The only modifications to the scene were made regarding animation, not materials or anything else. I also checked all the materials maps in the scene and didn't find any reference to this ZS_1 file, I don't even know what kind of file it is, a texture or what, I didn't use it at all. How do I find out which material wants this texture and how to remove this reference? I tried "lost_textures" and "MissingTextures_31" scripts, they don't find it.

[darawork]

Hi,

Have you tried this plug-in:

https://www.colinsenner.com/scripts/relink-bitmaps

[Anonymous]

Looks promising.

Maybe you know how to find the exact material or object that requires this external file?

[Anonymous]

This plugin didn't find anything...

Can you tell me how to remove it?

[jackietsteh · Accepted solution]

1) Try open your material editor, click Utilities, then choose Condense Material Editor Slots, closed the material editor.

2) Go to reference, Asset Tracking, File, Refresh.

See whether it work for you or not, please let me know.

[Anonymous]

Look what I found after that:

It's an animation file. This reference looks for the animation file in 3dsmax animations folder. I've never used it, I don't even keep Biped animations in that folder, it's weird. Can I just select it and click remove?

[jackietsteh]

Hi, try open a new max file, and then import everything from your old file into the new new one, see whether it work for you or not.

[Anonymous]

This is weird... I see the object that requires something, this ZS_1 thing... 3DS Max sees it as well and shows me it in this window... but I can't just remove it... can someone from Autodesk just take a look at this forum and think about a tool to remove such things?...

I right-clicked that ZS_1 file, selected "Browse" and just picked up some random BIP animation file. This seems to resolve this.

[gabrielmartinsUKK2Z]

Is there a way to just disable the warning message, so that at startup we don't get the same message over and over again?

[jibijib]

You can't edit or remove these with plugins or the asset tracker, you have to remove them directly on the biped.

You can do this by going into the "Mixer" app, and then removing them from the Motion Mixer.

These are where you concatenate all the animations into one for use in a .bip file, it's useful but it always leaves garbage behind, which degenerate into ZS_1, with corrupted naming, eg images below.

Right click and 'delete' the sections, save the file and you'll never get popups again. 😉