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388 Chapter 20: Managing Scenes and Projects
format, see Character Assembly (page 1–102) and
Save Character (page 1–115).
A DRF file is a scene file from VIZ Render,
a rendering tool included with AutoCAD
Architecture (formerly Autodesk A rchitectural
Desktop). TheDRFfiletypeissimilartoMAX
filesfrompreviousversionsofAutodeskVIZ.
Ifthefileyou’reloadingwascreatedusingplug-ins
that are not installed, a dialog lists them. You
can still load the file, but any entities in the scene
that were created by the missing plug-ins are
replaced with stand-ins; non-rendering boxes or
placeholder modifiers. You can safely delete these
fromthescene,unlessyouaresharingthescene
with a user who has the plug-ins installed.
Ifthefileyouareloadingcontainsbitmapsthat
cannot be located, a Missing External Files dialog
(page 3–503) appears. This dialog lets you browse
for the missing maps, or continue opening the file
without loading them.
Automatic Unit Convers ion
WhenRespectSystemUnitsInFilesisturnedon
in the System Unit Scale group of the System Unit
Setup dialog (page 3–848),loadedfilesthathavea
different scene unit sca le display a File Load: Units
Mismatch dialog (page 3–852).Thisdialogletsyou
rescale the loaded scene to the current scene unit
scale, or change the cur rent scene unit scale to
match the one in the loaded file. No conversion is
done when loading files created in 3ds Max 1.x.
• If you choose to match the units in the loaded
file, the System Unit Scale se tting in the System
Unit Setup dialog is changed to the setting in
the scene file.
This is the recommended choice, and it is the
default in 3ds Max.
For example, if the cur rent system unit scale is
set to 1 unit = 1 inch, and the incoming file was
set to 1 unit = 1 foot, a sphere with a radius of
100 feet remains 100 feet.
• If you rescale the fi le objects, the objects are
scaled as if they had been created using the
current scene unit scale.
Forexample,ifthecurrentsystemunitscale
is set to 1 unit = 1 inch, and the incoming file
was set to 1 unit = 1 foot, a sphere w ith a radius
of 100 feet becomes 1200 inches in radius
(assuming the unit display is set to generic
units).
IfRespectSystemUnitsInFilesisoff(whichis
not recommended), 3ds Max disregards the units
chosen in the loaded scene file.
For example, a 100-unit radius sphere that was
created in a 1 unit = 1 foot scene becomes a
100-inch sphere in a 1 unit = 1 inch scene.
Procedures
To r eopen a pr eviou sly opened fil e:
• From the bottom of the File menu, choose the
file name.
You set the number of fi les listed by changi ng
the Recent Files In File Menu (page 3–819)
field on the Files panel of the Customize >
Preferences dialog.
To star t 3 ds Ma x and open a specif ic f ile:
• In a command prompt window, specify the file
name after the executable name. For example:
“c:\Program Files \Aut o desk \3ds Max
9\3dsmax .exe” my project.max
To star t 3ds Max and open the last file you work ed
on:
•Inacommandpromptwindow,type-L after
theexecutablename:
“c:\Program Files \Aut o desk \3ds Max
9\3dsmax .exe”
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