Installing versions of 3DS Max & 3DS Max Designer
On another drive than 😄

FOR VERSIONS 8, 2009 and 2010. If later versions crash on boot and are installed on another drive than 😄 try this!

Product must be installed. DO NOT START PROGRAM.

Go to you drives Documrments and settings folder to your user name. That folder and run a search for " infocenter.xml " Now you must copy this exact directory tree on your 😄 drive. Once you have copy all the files from infocenter.xml up the directories till the folder named for your version of 3DStudio max. This incudes subdirectories contained in those folders. Once back to the folder with youre version number you are finished and can start your Max version and register.

My tree in 😄 went:

Documents and Settings\MY USER NAME\local settings\Apllication Data\Autodesk\3DSMAX\2009 - 64bit\enu\plugincfg\Infocenter\xmlfiles\support\

With many subfolders needing copyies just copy the enu folder into the version directory the rest will follow. V8 went into other directories, but same process.

Edit: After a day of using 2009 Design and 2010 Design (Have to use both as one has plugins the other doesn’t. Welcome to 3DS MAX ) Both never blinked at startup in Win 10. This method worked with spectacular results. It was also the last problem I’d have thought to explore on my own.

Still looking for the fabled MAT exporter for 2009 and crossing my fingers it works in Design version.
A scout of Autodesk knowledge base found listings of program differences between MAX and Max Design before 2012 when differences reconciled are no longer posted there. In fact obvious gaps where they were removed. Will get this and other information including gmax info from other databases later. Consider Autodesk info and support to be of little help on versions from 2011 and earlier.
In fact make that any info on 2011 and earlier usually limited to “operator error” topics.

This weeks newsletter from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had an item that hit home for those looking to build asteroid fields. A real close look at 100 near earth objects. So here’s link:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7146&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=weekly20180601-6

Follow the other links and get a look at the real rocks zipping along up there!

Okay I’m getting warm. Old copy of 3dsMax from the day
Recognizes skeletal data from UTF->XML dump if given old character studio header & footer and packed as old 3ds character file. So I have skeletons, but mesh data and vertex weights I’m beating my head against. Plenty of tristrip tools, none recogize their format. Has Anyone cracked DFM’s.? Would appreciate some help here. Somebody in Discovery came close to or did mesh overhaul from file dates, but might have been a texture overhaul as they are solidly different. The whole .dfm structure smells like early Character Studio, but they packed the body meshes differently and as I found the skeletons come out. I think they encoded into .3dm or CMP
Edit: (Disco Was re-texturing. Darn good job too.)

Edit (again): Another modding community got into this and and handed me a trove of 3ds and gmax inport - export plug ins and scripts they bundled.
22 mb worth so here’s the link:

https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/gmax12-3dsmax4-importexport-plugin-script-collection

Team at a company called 3D Convert is looking into mesh converter for .dfm’s.

Company tossed back to creators of the Delphi format. Natch it’s tied into 3DS Max. They THINK there WAS a DFM to CHR converter (when dinosaurs trod the earth). The say they are scouting their archives. Yah…. Right. It was in mainly a way of binary compression for AutoCAD, but they thought it would compress any 3DS files so data in UTF to XML is binary compression. Great. Akin to encryption. The skeleton data was just vertex splines. Who needs compression? The CHR to DFM just stripped the header-footer. If the don’t get back to me it’s into the dll’s and engine to find the “encryption key”.

Vertex reorder got the terrain into MS3D correctly, but another problem cropped up and I’m just going to put this off until can grad new 3ds Max version and any export but Milkshape.

What did work in this project was the retexture.

That other problem was that even with terrain sorted the vertexes on the hardware started flipping for the same reasons. GW vs Wavefront. But the cmp for base didn’t care about importing new textures. So Jeff’s Used Starships will have to find somewhere else to set up shop. Wonder what the rent is on Planet Primus?