one problem file

[DK6550]

I have to do 9 camera match views of a site. I created the terrain as one file, the buildings as another file and forest landscape as another file. I created 9 view files that all have a camera and sun lighting in them. I xrefed the terrain, buildings and forest into each view file. On one of the view files, the forest billboards refuse to face the camera. On all the other views things work fine. I'm in max 2011 64 bit using forest pro 3.6. The billboards won't merge into the problem view file temporarily. They come in but nothing shows up. They are supposedly there but only in the selection set.
Also what i've noticed is that the billboards come unglued from their terrain spoadically and i'm forced to shut down max and restart to get them to go back in place. Its a nuisance.
Any thoughts?
mh

[DK6550]

i figured out the problem file...it was user error on my part. But the trees coming unglued sporadically still remains.
mh

[iToo]

How have you assigned the surface to forest ? Is the surface included in the forest scene or xrefed ?

If it is included, please try this:

1) Open the forest scene
2) Remove the surface
3) Import it as a xref object
4) Assign the xrefd surface to the forest objects
5) Save all and exit from max
6) Test your main scene

Forest uses an internal cache with the surface's data to speed up the scattering process. Probably this cache is not updated properly with some specific combination of XRefs.

[DK6550]

I'm probably describing the problem of the trees becoming unglued improperly. In the file with the forest objects, the forest objects are attached (linked) to surfaces in the same file. There is no xrefing going on in the forest file. What happens is that after i render the view file with the xref'd forest file in it and then close it, i then open the file with the forest objects and find that some of them have become unglued, not all of them. I then have to shut down max and then restart it, then open the file with the forest objects in it and magically they are back to being glued to the surfaces. Not a big deal, just a minor irritation.
mh

[iToo]

Ok, it seems a minor random bug. I have reproduced the problem here a couple of times, but unfortunately not enough for debugging. We will continue working on it.

For the next time, please try clicking the Refresh button in the surface list. I think that must solve the problem without restarting Max.