New Cam-Light lister keeps resetting

[dean_dmoo]

Hi,

As title says, the lister keeps resetting itself. I've saved how I want to menu's to be setup. I close the light lister. Re-open it with the toolbar button and everything is back to the original settings.....aaaaarrrghhhh. Am I missing a setting somewhere to fix it? Otherwise is there a way to re-activate the old one? It's pretty pointless for us at the moment in it's current state.

Thanks!

EDIT:

And now it is opening with the saved setting. I literally just checked it to make sure before posting..... Anyway, does it save the setup to the max file? Or do you need to reload the save file setting everytime a new session of max is started / a new file is opened? The second one is what it feels like as I seem to be setting this menu up every single day.

The question still stands regarding activating the old one, is that possible?

EDIT 2:

See, I'm not going crazy! Currently doing lighting tests and closed and reopened the lister and the settings have reset again. FFS.

[hermit.crab]

I can't seem to reproduce the issue. The loaded settings seem to be working as expected. They are also saved for the particular 3ds max version (not saved scene). Maybe there's trouble accessing the .vrlst file on your system? Is it saved locally or on a network?

[dean_dmoo]

I can't seem to reproduce the issue. The loaded settings seem to be working as expected. They are also saved for the particular 3ds max version (not saved scene). Maybe there's trouble accessing the .vrlst file on your system? Is it saved locally or on a network?

It's saved on the network. What is the recommended workflow? We use template files for everything, so I would think that if we saved the settings within those files (with the vrlst locally in the 3ds max program files folder) that would mean we always load the correct settings. Is that correct?

[hermit.crab]

I would think that if we saved the settings within those files (with the vrlst locally in the 3ds max program files folder) that would mean we always load the correct settings. Is that correct?

It was just a guess. Try testing the VRayLister's behavior when the .vrlst is saved locally for starters.

[dean_dmoo]

But how do you guys do it? I'm assuming you don't set it up everything time you start a new project/file?

[hermit.crab]

We do not advocate for a certain way of doing this particular procedure - it depends on your organization's needs. Sharing templates is a reasonable way of doing it. That being said, I tested both on network and locally and the lister's preferences are loaded as expected (they are present on opening 3ds max automatically). The thing is, I wish to narrow down the issue, hence why I asked you to test loading the .vrlst file locally. If it loads correctly, then there may be a conflict when opening the preference file from multiple people f.e., which we will troubleshoot additionally.

[hermit.crab]

Okay, it seems there is indeed a certain workflow to make the VRayLister's preset load automatically:

1. Create a preset (you've already done this and stored it in your organization's network)
2. Open 3ds Max and load the preset
3. Save the scene - this is important since doing so tells V-Ray to save the loaded preset locally as well. The duplicated preset is located in the ENU folder here:

C:\Users\%user%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2024 - 64bit\ENU\en-US\plugcfg\vraylisteruser.vrlst

4. Now every time you open a new scene the .vrlst file in the ENU folder will be loaded.

EDIT: We'll update the VRayLister's docs page so that includes this info.

[dean_dmoo]

That's great, thanks for figuring it out!

[dlparisi]

Okay, it seems there is indeed a certain workflow to make the VRayLister's preset load automatically:

1. Create a preset (you've already done this and stored it in your organization's network)
2. Open 3ds Max and load the preset
3. Save the scene - this is important since doing so tells V-Ray to save the loaded preset locally as well. The duplicated preset is located in the ENU folder here:

C:\Users\%user%\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2024 - 64bit\ENU\en-US\plugcfg\vraylisteruser.vrlst

4. Now every time you open a new scene the .vrlst file in the ENU folder will be loaded.

I'm still a bit confused about this. When exactly does the local vraylisteruser.vrlst get written? Given the instructions above it seems like any time I load a preset (even for a different project) it's going to overwrite the local vraylisteruser.vrlst file with that preset once I do a save, potentially overwriting any "default" that I'm trying to set.

[hermit.crab]

I'm still a bit confused about this. When exactly does the local vraylisteruser.vrlst get written?

It gets saved when closing the VRayLister window. We've logged an improvement request to rewrite the file upon loading a preset too (internal bug-tracker id: VMAX-13962).

Given the instructions above it seems like any time I load a preset (even for a different project) it's going to overwrite the local vraylisteruser.vrlst file with that preset once I do a save, potentially overwriting any "default" that I'm trying to set.

That's right. So what you would ideally want is to have a default preset, which even if you modify V-Ray will fall back to upon restarting 3ds Max?

[dean_dmoo]

To come back to this,

The above doesn't work. We've been too busy to spend more time on it, but I've just set it up as above and it just resets itself. Hell, it even resets itself if you close the menu and just re-open it.

Honestly it's a major waste of time to have to load the settings E.VE.RY.TIME we want to use the lister! It happens on all our workstations, windows10/11.

We use the EV exposure setting, but that isn't in the base version so we get to constantly load it. See video for how ridiculous it is!

https://vimeo.com/1010956511/ad4a6b54ed?share=copy

[hermit.crab]

Odd. Do you have permissions to access, read/write here:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Autodesk\3dsMax\2025 - 64bit\ENU\en-US\plugcfg\

The V-Ray Lister file is named "vraylisteruser.vrlst". You should see the file update on closing the light lister window in 3ds Max. Does it?

[dean_dmoo]

Hi,

Just tested it at another pc (working from home today). Same issue, the vraylisteruser is getting saved while working in max. I have full rights on the pc's (administrator).

Loaded the saved layout, does the lights but ignores the camera's. Load it again from the camera tab and loads the layout as it should. Close the lister and open it again, lights are fine, cameras have been reset. File is automatically saving in the user folder. Open it again lights have now also been reset!

[dean_dmoo]

Can I just edit the file in notepad and save it again? I'm seeing the true / false info in the "visible" setting:

},
"type": {
"visual_id": 9,
"visible": true
},
"shutter_speed": {
"visual_id": 10,
"visible": true
},
"latency": {
"visual_id": 11,
"visible": true

Might be worth a try if that at least enables the initial load to be correct. Or will that cause issues with vray/max?

[hermit.crab]

I am still baffled as to why this is happening on your end. Maybe it's something particular. Does it happen on an empty scene? If not, do send a sample scene so we can troubleshoot. Otherwise, yes, you can freely edit the .vrlst file or you can manually replace the file with your preset (post #7).