Have corona bitmap loader by-pass the 'turn off dialogue' 3Ds Max script

[Rhodesy]

For years we have had really slow Max scene load times (45mins plus) Even on SSds and 10GB networks. These are big scenes with xrefs etc but still soul destorying when you have to restart after a crash. But we have recently descovered this autodesk script for which stops pop ups which was part of the problem. Even with silentium script installed Max still took a long time to load anything but at least you didnt have to manually click OK for popups. Load times are now about 5mins for the same scene!

Snag is I think its interfeared with the corona bitmap loader so you dont get the pop up box where you can load the bitmap. Is there any way of writing the corona bitmap loader to not be classed as a pop up like forestpack or railclone which still work with their own pop up dialogues? I know ideally it would be best for the script to ignore the corona request but I dont think autodesk would listen. Or if someone can edit this script to let corona through, even better!

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-suppress-Waning-dialogs-when-opening-a-scene-in-3ds-Max.html

[maru]

Hello, this is interesting, but I have some questions:

For years we have had really slow Max scene load times (45mins plus) Even on SSds and 10GB networks. These are big scenes with xrefs etc but still soul destorying when you have to restart after a crash. But we have recently descovered this autodesk script for which stops pop ups which was part of the problem.

What exact pop ups do you mean? Do you have a screenshot showing such pop up?

Even with silentium script installed Max still took a long time to load anything but at least you didnt have to manually click OK for popups. Load times are now about 5mins for the same scene!

Again, the same question as above. :)

Snag is I think its interfeared with the corona bitmap loader so you dont get the pop up box where you can load the bitmap.

Sorry, but what exactly interfered with the Corona Bitmap loader? And once again - what exact pop up box do you mean?

Is there any way of writing the corona bitmap loader to not be classed as a pop up like forestpack or railclone which still work with their own pop up dialogues? I know ideally it would be best for the script to ignore the corona request but I dont think autodesk would listen. Or if someone can edit this script to let corona through, even better!
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-explore/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles/How-to-suppress-Waning-dialogs-when-opening-a-scene-in-3ds-Max.html

And once again sorry, but this is the most confusing part to me. What exactly do you mean by these things:
"classed as a pop up like forestpack or railclone"
"their own pop up dialogues"
"ignore the corona request"

Sorry for asking so many questions, but I think it's just a matter of providing a few screenshots and explaining what exactly you mean and all should become clear.
Thanks in advance!

[Rhodesy]

OK Just opened the script and its just triggering quite mode which is a new one on me.

There is a help section in the docs about it and looks like you can add different options to the script. Im no developer so wouldnt know where to start. Is it possible to get a custom quiet mode which still allows the conrona bitmap loader to work? Not sure what category it would fall in to?
https://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2017/ENU/?guid=__files_GUID_A1FFEDE0_9B92_4CD5_8127_76AA393D5143_htm

[Rhodesy]

Sorry Maru, thanks for coming back.

So essentially Max has always taken forever to load our scenes and we get loads of prompts about scale miss matches of xrefs / missing xrefs / MR DLLs / Vray DLLs etc. All you can click on is OK so there is absolutley no point to them but they stop the scene loading until you do. Silentium is a script that solves some of this problem as recognises that once you press OK once on the scale miss match for example it will press it again for you as soon as the pop up flashes up. But even then Max still takes a long time to load everything through.

A couple of weeks ago I can across the turn off dialogues script from autodesk which as it transpires actives a quiet mode in Max which stops ALL warning errors and seems to load even large scenes through really efficiently and quickly. Its like it doesnt even try to go in and work out if an object has a scale miss match or missing a DLL for example, it just steamrolls it all through quickly. Of course a draw back is that you dont know if you are missing any maps but its usually clear from the image if you are, and they are usually ghost ones no longer needed anyway.

But the problem is when trying to right click and add a corona bitmap in the slate editor for example, there is no pop up / file loader appearing to select a bitmap. The corona bitmap interface on the right with the mapping and tiling appears but even manually hitting the load bitmap button does nothing. You can manually copy and paste a files path in there and it loads so it must be this Quite Mode that stops the file loader opening. I have also noticed I havent got the corona error prompts which tell me if a map is missing or using a legacy shader recently so that is either that I have clean scenes or its stopping that as well. All other funtionality is working and rendering fine.

My colleague is also running the quite mode script and has also now got the same problem. For now we are just using the 3ds max bitmap loader which works fine but I would rather be using the corona one.

Thanks for any insite in to this.

[Frood]

Of course a draw back is that you dont know if you are missing any maps

I started using a startup script which turns quiet mode on for scene loading. Exactly for the reason you mentioned: Clicking popups away all the time and no way to load a scene in the background while working with another Max instance. But the script disables quiet mode after having loaded the scene. Missing maps is not an issue because Shift-T shows everything missing and usually our scenes are "clean" UNC linked ones.

The only issue I have is that if you load a scene with different units, quiet mode does not do the default it seems (adopt scene units), but better than doubling loading times for larger/Xreffed scenes which is a pain. I can confirm, that CoronaBitmap does not show its browser when having quiet mode active, but all you would have to do is do disable it after loading the scene?

I'm attaching my startup script for you to test, maybe it helps. As mentioned, loading scenes with different units than the current one is something to be aware of.


Good Luck


Edit: I would recommend to use the file menu extension instead (two posts down), but I'm leaving this script here in case somebody wants to use it.

https://forum.corona-renderer.com/index.php?topic=33381.msg186113#msg186113

[Rhodesy]

Of course a draw back is that you dont know if you are missing any maps

I started using a startup script which turns quiet mode on for scene loading. Exactly for the reason you mentioned: Clicking popups away all the time and no way to load a scene in the background while working with another Max instance. But the script disables quiet mode after having loaded the scene. Missing maps is not an issue because Shift-T shows everything missing and usually our scenes are "clean" UNC linked ones.

The only issue I have is that if you load a scene with different units, quiet mode does not do the default it seems (adopt scene units), but better than doubling loading times for larger/Xreffed scenes which is a pain. I can confirm, that CoronaBitmap does not show its browser when having quiet mode active, but all you would have to do is do disable it after loading the scene?

I'm attaching my startup script for you to test, maybe it helps. As mentioned, loading scenes with different units than the current one is something to be aware of.


Good Luck

Frood, thank you so much! That's exactly what I wanted / needed. Can confirm it loads a scene without any dialogue boxes but corona bitmap loader still works! Fantastic. I'll have to watch out for the scene scale issue. Can that manifest as individual xrefs coming in 10x too big for example or is it just if you are xreffing a whole scene in that is miss matched?

Also glad that you have found that this has sped up your scene loading times and its not just us which had a bad system before. It should be widely publicised as I'm sure we're not the only ones!! Thanks again, life saver!

[Frood]

Can that manifest as individual xrefs coming in 10x too big for example or is it just if you are xreffing a whole scene in that is miss matched?

Just the main scene is wrong, don't know what happens with Xrefs in that case. But if the main scene has correct units, everything referenced is ok. I still have no idea what the unit/scaling defaults are or where they might be stored when opening scenes quietly. There are entries in max.ini but they had no effect. I just could not find any pattern when testing and got mixed results.

I was thinking about open scenes in a better way by script where you can explicitly specify to adopt the file units ("useFileUnits:true"). So I added "Open Quietly..." to the "File" menu which opens a scene without popups but always uses the file unit setup at the same time. Drawback is that you cannot use the file history for example but that's worth it I think.

If you want to try it, remove "System_LoadScenesInSilentMode.ms" (the script from above) from your scripts/startup directory and add the one attached here. We've been using it the last couple of days and are quite happy with that solution.

Also glad that you have found that this has sped up your scene loading times

Well, it's just due to not having to click any button while loading, no interruption. The general speed is the same.


Good Luck

[Rhodesy]

Thanks again Frood. Will give it a try. So far not experienced any issues with scale with the original script yet but its good to know this one has a fix for it.

Re the speed up perhaps its a mix of Max 2022 / merging in more objects rather than Xreffing them / your quite mode script, but I've definitely noticed a substantial speed up from a typical large scene load time of about 40 mins down to about 5 mins. Real game changer.

Thanks again