material editor missing

[Bobo]

This is gunn :bounce: a sound crazy, but when i open up max 7 now I cant open the material editor. Ive had 7 for about 3 months and it works fine. It just happend. I press M and nothing.......... Ive tried looking on the sides and everywhere. Restarting does not make a differance...............ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh whats going on.


It is possible that your editor is floating somewhere outside of the visible desktop (for example if you switched from dual to single monitor, or changed the resolution, or something else). Two possible solutions - the brutal one is to delete the 3dsmax.ini and restart.
The finer one is to locate the section inside the 3dsmax.ini that holds the location of the Materail Editor dialog (something like [MtlEditorPosition]) and change the values of the upper left corner of the MainWindow value to something logical like 100 100...

[Zander]

It is possible that your editor is floating somewhere outside of the visible desktop (for example if you switched from dual to single monitor, or changed the resolution, or something else). Two possible solutions - the brutal one is to delete the 3dsmax.ini and restart.
The finer one is to locate the section inside the 3dsmax.ini that holds the location of the Materail Editor dialog (something like [MtlEditorPosition]) and change the values of the upper left corner of the MainWindow value to something logical like 100 100...
|dUDE............................do I owe you a beer.......................bumped up the screen size, and there it was...................sneeky little shit. Many thanks.

[andrewjohn81]

(This is for when peopl have the same problem later)

if you have an Nvidia card with the nView installed then you can just right click on max in the toolbar and hit, send application to monitorX. If you only have one monitor then it will be the only monitor you have.
You must have nview enabled for that to work. It happens to us all the time because we switch from dual to single monitor quite a bit. When we are in dual monitor mode, we obviously put most of our tools on the second monitor so as not to block the viewport.

[ReneAlex]

did you have a doble monitor setup??

if you save a scene in a machine that have 2 monitor and for example move the curve or the mat editor to the other monitor, when you open that scene in a single monitor pc max "remenbers" the place when you leave the editor... that other monitor that now you dont haev... so what can you erase the maxstart file and run 3ds max maybe this help you out...

[ReneAlex]

MAN! I leave the reply window open go to lunch.. then when I come back and reply... 4 replys!! before mine, when i first get here there was no replys!

well glad to help you out anyway...

[scrimski]

Simply save two different UI layouts: one for default and one for the two-monitor-setup.
My primary monitor 'died' yesterday, I started rendering, switched it off, went to the kitchen for some coffee, came back after 20 minutes and wasn't able to switch it on again. No good start for a new day.

[cutcopypaste]

For future reference to other users...

To locate an off screen menu;
Call up the menu using it's hotkey. (press the letter M for material editor)
Hold ALT and tap the SPACEBAR (release).
Hit the letter M (this letter M applies to the dialogue box "m" for move.)
Use your keyboard arrow keys and move the dialogue box back into view.

[andrewjohn81]

if you Don't have dual monitor then before you try that one make sure you try the changing screen resolutions first. If you don't know where the object went then you may be moving it further off screen and don't know it. That would suck.
of course, you could always use one of the other tricks as well.

Also, this thread is an identical repeat to one a couple months ago. Don't forget to search guys.

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