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Magma Flow window won't display properly in Windows 10

Hi, I had to get my PC updated to Windows 10 by the guys in IT here and now when I try to use Mamga Flow with Krakatoa the Magma flow window won’t display properly at all. The tool depot won’t display unless I put it on the left, the tool properties window won’t display at all and if I open a preexisting magma flow the output node is out of the view no matter how much I zoom in and out of the view. If I try creating a new output node that disappears from the view as well. Also, I’m using a 4K monitor and the depot (when displayed on the left) and the tools show up really tiny by default. Zooming into the view helps with this a bit.

Strangely, I’m not having the same issues with Genome’s Magma flow at all. That seems to be working just fine. :confused:

Has anyone else had these issues with Windows 10 and 4K monitors? Does anyone know of a solution? Magma flow for Krakatoa is unusable for me now unfortunately. :frowning:

Can you provide the version of Krakatoa you are running?
I see from our release notes that Magma scaling on HDPI monitors was addressed in v. 2.6.1:

thinkboxsoftware.com/krakato … e-log.html

If you are running 2.6.1 and you are still having a problem, please let us know.

Also, note that SHIFT+CTRL+O will unlock the Output nodes to float as regular nodes, so they won’t be docked at the right side, and will hopefully be seen even in the broken version…

I’m running v2.6.1

Bobo, thanks for the keyboard shortcut to undock the output node! That does help but the node properties panel on the right still won’t show up. Sometimes it flashes on briefly when I select a node but then disappears soon after. So I still can’t edit any of the nodes’ properties.

I forgot to mention I’m running 3DS Max 2016, not sure if that makes a difference

I am unsure why Genome would work but Krakatoa wouldn’t. I have never had a 4K monitor, and have zero experience with HDPI. (I am on a laptop right now, but will be back home next week).

Unfortunately, Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving, so we will be back online on Tuesday. The Krakatoa developer is away for the day. We will look into this ASAP.

What is the Windows Scale factor?
I tried changing my Windows scaling, but on a 1600x900 laptop monitor, I have no way to reproduce what you are seeing (Max and Magma both scale correctly).

Thanks Bobo, luckily we’re in between projects right now so this isn’t too urgent at the moment. So enjoy your Canadian Thanksgiving!

My 4K monitor is running at 3840x2160 and my text and menu scaling is at 150%.

I tried to test Magma flow at 100% text and menu scaling but the problem is still there (also, at this scaling level on a 4K monitor many menus items have text that is absurdly tiny).

I also tried changing my screen resolution to 1920x1080 and the problem is still there too.

Hi Jim.

Max 2017 introduced proper support for high DPI monitors, while Max 2016 and earlier relied upon windows automatically scaling the UI. Because of this, we had to make some changes in the Magma UI to support high DPI displays properly. These changes only affect Windows 8.1 and later I believe, so if you upgraded from Windows 7, it’s possible that the changes broke support for high DPI-displays in Max 2016 and earlier. Unfortunately we don’t have a lot of these monitors in our office yet, so testing was a bit limited. While the change will affect Stoke (and thus Genome), I don’t think it’s been included in a public Stoke release yet, so that might explain the difference.

Does Magma display correctly for you if you run Krakatoa MX 2.5.2?

Hi Evan, thanks for your reply. I am running Krakatoa v2.6.1 now and I don’t have an installer for v2.5.2 so I can’t test that version. I’d also prefer to avoid having to go through the process of uninstalling Krakatoa and reinstalling an earlier version if possible.

Hi Jim,

No problem. I’ll see if I can get access to one of the displays we do have and try to reproduce the issue on our end.

Hi Jim,

We tried testing Magma with Krakatoa 2.6.1 in Max 2016 on a 4K high-dpi display with both 100% and 150% scaling, and weren’t able to reproduce the issue.

Would you be able to send us a screenshot that demonstrates the problem?

Thanks for the reply Evan. You were testing in Windows 10, correct? It may be hard to fully demonstrate the problem with screenshots but here I go:

If I create an Output node and it’s docked on the right it won’t show up in the view

If the node Depot display is set to the bottom it won’t show up, even if I try hovering over it.

The worst problem of all is that the node properties panel never shows up on the right, so I can’t edit any of the nodes’ properties - making Magma flow unusable.

The only other thing I can add is that I checked for and installed any available Windows updates and I restarted my PC but the issue was still there.

Hi Jim,

This is a quick and dirty hack, but I hope it might help you in the mean time while we are figuring out what is going on with the 4K resolution.

*You will need Administrator privileges to edit the content of the \Scripts folder of the Krakatoa installation.
*Locate the file called “Krakatoa_MagmaFlow.ms”
*Set the file’s Properties>Security to allow full access to your User account.
*Make a backup copy to be safe.
*Open the file “Krakatoa_MagmaFlow.ms” in the MAXScript editor.
*Search for the line "on MagmaFlowEditor_Rollout resized val do " - should be around line 12314…
*Replace the whole event handler with the following code

[code] on MagmaFlowEditor_Rollout resized val do
(
hc.width = val.x-182
hc.height = val.y-18

		prg_bar.pos = [val.x-178,val.y-31]
		
		btn_RecorderToStart.pos = [val.x-178,val.y-56]
		btn_RecorderBackOneStep.pos = [val.x-178+25,val.y-56]
		chk_RecorderPlay.pos = [val.x-178+25*2,val.y-56]
		btn_RecorderForwardOneStep.pos = [val.x-178+25*3,val.y-56]
		btn_RecorderToEnd.pos = [val.x-178+25*4,val.y-56]
		btn_RecorderClose.pos = [val.x-178+25*5,val.y-56]

		leftCommandPanel = true
		if leftCommandPanel then
		(
			hc.pos = [180,0]
			NodePropsSR.pos = [0,21]
			NodePropsSR.height = val.y-20-100
			bmp_navigator.pos = [0,val.y-100]
			
			chk_autoUpdateModifier.pos=[0,1] 
			btn_updateModifier.pos = [62,1] 			
			
			btn_Undo.pos = [val.x-78,val.y-18]
			btn_Redo.pos = [val.x-39,val.y-18]		

			edt_log.width = val.x-98
			prg_swatch.pos = [179,val.y-18]
			prg_errorswatch.pos = [189,val.y-18]
			edt_log.pos = [200,val.y-18]
		)
		else
		(
			hc.pos = [0,0]
			NodePropsSR.pos = [val.x-180,21]
			NodePropsSR.height = val.y-20-100 
			bmp_navigator.pos = [val.x-180,val.y-100]
			
			chk_autoUpdateModifier.pos=[val.x-180,1] 
			btn_updateModifier.pos = [val.x-118,1] 	

			btn_Undo.pos = [val.x-78-180,val.y-18]
			btn_Redo.pos = [val.x-39-180,val.y-18]			

			edt_log.width = val.x-176-80-22
			prg_swatch.pos = [-1,val.y-18]
			prg_errorswatch.pos = [9,val.y-18]
			edt_log.pos = [20,val.y-18]
		)


		drawDepot init:false	lock:true
		if val.x > 100 and val.y > 100 do 
			setIniSetting (theIniFileLocation +"MagmaFlowEditor_Preferences.ini") "Editor" "Size" (val as string)
		--updateMacroRecorderControls()
		MagmaFlowEditor_Rollout.autoReorderFlow createUndo:false
		--if AutoZoomExtents do MagmaFlowEditor_Rollout.zoomExtents createUndo:false		
		if val.y > 50 do 
			MagmaFlowEditor_Functions.setEditorProperty magma "DialogSize" val
		
		updateNavigator fullUpdate:false
	)		

[/code]

*Save the modified file.
*Open the Magma Editor

Since we added the variable leftCommandPanel and set it to true, the node properties should now appear on the left side of the window. With floating output nodes and the command panel on the left, you might be able to do some Magma editing until we figure out the issue.

Changing the variable to false will return the command panel to the right side. We could expose it to the UI eventually, but for now it should be enough of a hack to get you going…

Hi Bobo, thanks a lot for the advice. Unfortunately this didn’t fix it for me. I made sure to restart 3DS Max and I double checked the script to make sure it’s using the new modified one but still no luck.

Also, I’m not sure if this has something to do with the issue but in my Krakatoa MX folder I see folders (that contain the KrakatoaStartup script) for 3DS Max 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017 - but nothing for 2016, which is what I’m using. Could that mean anything?

Restarting 3ds Max is not necessary - each time you press the Open Magma Editor button of a Magma modifier, the script Krakatoa_MagmaFlow.ms is being run anew from the Scripts folder of your Krakatoa installation, which should be by default under
“C:\Program Files\Thinkbox\Krakatoa MX\Scripts\Krakatoa_MagmaFlow.ms”

3ds Max 2014 uses the plugin of 2013, and 2016 uses the plugin of 2015, because they are plugin-level compatible.
We only make new folders for versions that break the compatibility due to SDK and compiler changes. So that should not be related.

The change I made to the script tells the node control to appear 180 pixels to the right of the left border of the window. I wonder what values are circulating through the UI in your case, if this change does not show the command panel at the left side of the UI, and the nodes next to it… From the screenshots you posted it appears that the width and height of the node control are significantly higher than they should be. Can you post another screenshot with the modified script?

Yes, that’s correct.

Hi Bobo and Evan, Thanks again for your help. First I’ll post a few screen shots to confirm with you that I’m editing the correct Maxscript file and that I pasted your edited code correctly:

Also, here is how the Magma flow view looks for me now. I had created an output node and it is still placed out of view by default. The node properties window still doesn’t show up on the right either.

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