3dsmax 2016 - Is it usable in production straight out the box ?

[Donald2B]

I'm sure they are working on it. Make sure to use the feedback/user voice so they know this problem persists.

[Neilg]

Why do people try and avoid groups?
I had a coworker who hated them and would leave everything ungrouped too but it just made his scenes a nightmare to work in, I never understood the benefit.

[Donald2B]

Using groups doesn't make a scene any easier or difficult to work in if the scene is a mess to begin with!

IME they have created more harm than good. Slow viewport performance, rendering issues (crashing), file corruption, difficult to get all objects moved to a new layer, etc...

I link objects to a main object or helper. I can move everything together and a double click will select the entire hierarchy, if needed. I'm not constantly open/closing groups to access individual objects. Or in some cases have multiple nested groups within groups which is just a pain.

Using layers and simple linking I don't miss groups.

[glorybound]

I know groups was an old issue, which was resolved many moons ago; maybe people are just holding on to the past.

[Shimakaze]

I have had the opposite evolution in my approach to Groups, in that since I first started out learning Max some 15 years ago I relied heavily on them for everything. While they had issues, they were much easier to use than the alternatives back then. As time went on the layer management and XRef support improved and I gradually moved away from groups because of the lack of flexibility they have. Nowadays I use Layers and XRefs for most scene management, and the only time I really use groups is if I need a bunch of objects to share a common pivot for a while. In that case it's easier to group them than to handle them as individual objects. Whenever I'm done with whatever I'm doing I almost always ungroup them again. Right now one of my major annoyances is how groups and layers don't cooperate. For instance, I feel that if you select a group in the layer manager it should select all grouped items, but it doesn't.
So for me, layers, xrefs and heavier usage of procedural modeling has taken away most of the need for groups.

[Deflaminis]

Why do people try and avoid groups?
I had a coworker who hated them and would leave everything ungrouped too but it just made his scenes a nightmare to work in, I never understood the benefit.

There are a few reasons, but the number 1 reason I've seen is because you cannot include/exclude an object in a group. (well, you may be able to now with the new outliner, but you didn't used to be able to.)

[fraggle]

I know groups was an old issue, which was resolved many moons ago; maybe people are just holding on to the past.

It has never been efficient as soon as you raise the number of object in the group whatever the version.

[Jiri.Matys]

For me, max 2016 working great. Fast and without any major problem or crashing. I think very good release.

[CRD]

I have a memory that Vlado said that when VRay is shooting rays and it hits an object in a group, then it has to open the group and evaluate all the objects in the group. So using groups for organizing objects that are far apart can slow down rendering.
At least that's what I remember reading somewhere when starting with VRay. May be a false memory or something that has been fixed over the years.

[stevesideas]

It's a strange situation IMO. Groups and linked objects are pretty much the same thing with the group itself acting as the parent. It seems odd that they are treated so differently in terms of rendering.

[muoto]

Using groups doesn't make a scene any easier or difficult to work in if the scene is a mess to begin with!

IME they have created more harm than good. Slow viewport performance, rendering issues (crashing), file corruption, difficult to get all objects moved to a new layer, etc...

I link objects to a main object or helper. I can move everything together and a double click will select the entire hierarchy, if needed. I'm not constantly open/closing groups to access individual objects. Or in some cases have multiple nested groups within groups which is just a pain.

Using layers and simple linking I don't miss groups.

Well i just think i might try out this workflow, it seems interesting, especially the select group/open group/select object/edit object/close group...so much time consuming in fact!

[Jeroen Prins]

interesting. I should try different methods also.
I use groups all the time. Have the shortcuts to open 1 / close 3 / group 5/ attach 7/ detach 9, on my numpad which works very fast.

Does anybody know the material editor is finally faster and crashes less? (this is probably my main annoyance and nr1 crash alltime..)
I'm still on 2014, but want to update in a short term.

[muoto]

is it possible to select a bunch of objects and link them all at once to an object ? or do you have to do it one by one ?
is it not too messy to have all the objects linked to a helper ? it means also you only move the helper to move all the "linked" objects. It that not messy after a while if you don't remember what belongs to what ?

[Donald2B]

Select all the items you want to link, click on the link button, click on selection and drag to parent item or bring up select by name dialog and pick parent item. Easy.

I don't think there is a right or wrong way, that's what I LOVE about Max. Try a couple different ways and find the way that works best for you. For smaller items I just link the objects to the largest piece to make it easier to select later in the viewport. Reduces the need to have a bunch of extra dummies in the scene.

[super gnu]

im sure with practice it can be a good system, but im having palpitations at the thought of using stuff linked to dummies in a scene with thousands of objects on a tight deadline.
i just know id be constantly finding things that had moved because i forgot they were linked to the same dummy as something else.

i guess the habit of doubleclicking on the dummy before moving it would be essential.

im so old-school. i use groups all the time. never really given me major headaches (apart from that really annoying incompatibility with layers)

having said that, maybe they have been the cause of many issues (there are always issues) and i just never realised..


having said -that-, i do find myself just attaching stuff a lot more these days. -im looking at my giant scene now, ive actually only got 4 groups in it. one for the cars, one for the plants, one for each of two sets of furniture. could easily just use layers for this of course.