Backing Up and Archiving Scenes

If you turn on the Increment On Save option in the Files panel of the Preferences dialog, the current scene is renamed each time you save by incrementing a two-digit number appended to the end of the file. For example, if you open a file named myfile.max and then save it, the saved file is named myfile01.max. Each time you save the file its name is incremented, producing the files myfile02.max, myfile03.max, and so on.

You can also use Save As to increment the file name manually with a two-digit number by clicking the increment (+) button on the Save As dialog.

You can automatically save backup files at regular intervals by setting the Auto Backup options in the Preferences dialog (see Files Preference Settings). The backup files are named autobak#.mx, where the # is a number from 1 to 9. You can rename autobak#.mx with a .max file name extension and load it like any other scene file.

3ds max scenes make use of many different files. When you want to exchange scenes with other users or store scenes for archival purposes, you need to save more than just the scene file.

Use the File menu > Archive command to pass the scene file and any bitmap files used in the scene to a PKZIP-compatible archiving program.