3dsmax 2015: looking through a vray camera, the select and place tool will crash max.

[jstrob]

HI,
When I try to use the select and place tool when looking through a vray camera, max will crash instantly everytime. Latest official build vray 3.10.01.

[jstrob]

Well I just discover it also crashes in many other case without vraycam so it's probably a max bug. But with the vray cam it always crashes.

[tashko.zashev]

Do you use the latest 3DS Max updates?

[jstrob]

yes, 3ds max 2015 17.0 SP2

[tashko.zashev]

Managed to reproduce the crash one time, but unfortunately we can't do much in this case.
The crash seems to be very random and more connected to the Select and Place feature.

[jstrob]

Ok thanks. I logged the bug in the Autodesk database. I would like autodesk to have a forum as responsive as chaosgroup but at least eI remember they corrected many bugs I submitted them this way in the past.

[tehamnes]

Same problem here. The placement tool crashes 3dsmax design 2015 sp2 every time I try to use it. For me it happens in all views.
I even did a reinstall of max to se if it was plugin related or something I messed up - but that was a big waste of time.

Edit: Submitted my grief to autodesk as well - hope that helps eventually....

[alexyork]

Ok thanks. I logged the bug in the Autodesk database. I would like autodesk to have a forum as responsive as chaosgroup but at least eI remember they corrected many bugs I submitted them this way in the past.

We'd all love that, for sure, but it will never happen. 3ds max, and AD in general, are extremely bloated and their business style makes it incredibly complex to manage.

The reality is that they don't really care. Not enough anyway. There are so many bugs that get reported, many of which are show-stoppers, but many of them are not dealt with for quite literally years, it's just beyond a joke now. I went to an AD focus group type event recently and it was very clear that AD were there to try to sell max 2015 to us, rather than really listening to our concerns and requests. Their future roadmap was already well underway, it wasn't a case of asking us our opinions about where we'd like AD to go and take max. I sent a large and detailed list of bugs and feature requests, at the request of Eddie himself, but the email went completely ignored, even though I chased it up. They show a complete disinterest in professional users' real-world needs and instead focus all their time and apparent energies in buying up 3rd part tools and slapping in new features that are poorly tested and integrated and keep charging through the nose for it. I've sat on the fence with AD for many years and given them the benefit of the doubt for ages but their terrible customer relations and total disinterest in actually doing what the user-base wants is too much. No amount of free sandwiches and marketing spiel will solve their problems. Their "roadmap" for the future is extremely dodgy too, in my opinion - I have strong doubts that it will actually turn things around from the current situation. The 2015 new features list was laughably small and I think we all know that 2016 is basically going to be a bugfix like 2014 was for 2013. They're doing the same as MS - release a version with new features that are broken, then release another Integer version that is a bug-fix with almost nothing new in it. Imagine if AD did what Chaos are doing - stick with a major Integer version for some years and refine it and refine it for free, then charge a decent whack in one go for a major upgrade that will carry loads of new features that have been properly bug-tested. Yeh... not going to happen. The sad truth is that for almost all of us there is no proper alternative in arch-viz that doesn't cause enormous issues with re-training, re-tooling and converting hundreds or even thousands of assets. Then you open yourself to the issue of people applying to work with you who are all still using max or collaborations with max-based studios... it's just a bad situation.

Chaos Group's forums, with direct customer>developer communications resulting in bug-fixes and new features in the short-term, is a very unique thing in this industry. It is a core part of their customer relations strategy and development approach and is a million miles away from where Autodesk is as a company that very clearly puts shareholders and marketing announcements over real (in-house!!) development and innovation and customer relations. Of course these two companies are worlds apart in scale, but attitudes can be scaled...

Sorry, went off on a rant...

[jstrob]

You seem right.

Maybe the solution would be chaosgroup buying 3ds max!

But I can't wait to see what the new team will do. The 3ds Max team being based in montreal, not too far from my place, I had the luck to know personally and meet with part of the team. So maybe that's why I can still have confidence in 3ds max. But the reality is that Autodesk is just too big to listen to anyone. It's the same thing for many companies and even countries. When it's too big it becomes completely disconnected from the base. Someone has to buy 3ds max and take care of it.

[tehamnes]

Uninstalled 3dsmax design 2015, all MS visual C++ and .net framework. Reinstalled Visual c++ .netframework 4.5.1. via windows update. reinstalled 3dsmax without any service packs or extensions - and voila the placement tool works without crashing the entire max. Solved for now but I expect the problem to revisit at some point when installing the service packs and extensions.
Will tell how it goes.

[tehamnes]

The specific crash with placement tool is introduced when I install SP2/extension 1.
I even tried installing todays SP3 and extension 2 - which (for me) corrupts 3dsmax.exe and the program won't start at all...