Hum, just found out something interesting about the animation preview in max (animation>make preview), just thought I'd give a heads up.

If you are making one don't tab out of max while it renders, maybe for example, to check out polycount. Otherwise you will end up with a little glitchy avi of your web browsing.. weird.

I ran into this once as well, kinda funny
they just take "screenshots" of the viewport region

Didn't happen to me just now.. I ran it twice in max 5. What version is this?

I'm using 6.0. Maybe it's an added 'feature' :]

max5.1 here but I think, I saw it under 3.1 as well

no, its how it works... it quickly screen captures your viewports.
One guy was caught browsing porn when he submitted a anim test. ha hahahahahahaha