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So what exactly am I missing, because this seems actually even LESS impressive than the last meager release?
Which tiny, incremental change to the UI would never have occurred if not for the triumphant return of Hudson?
You don’t even know the full feature list. Why don’t you complain after it is released?
It’s quite an impressive release actually! There is loads more then what’s ‘discovered’ at first glance by those users but I’m not at liberty to disclose anything.
Yeah this release is a very solid one, but you will have to check it out for yourself!
lot of bugs
at the first look:
enhanced menu crashed every time
enable window / crossing button then restart app and press again
toggle ribbon button same
this can’t be release
Looking forward to it.
Just a few questions – Do we need new plugins? or will the 2016 ones work? and when will it be available?
Oh and I predict lots of moaning, just because there always is.
A link was posted to the trial on the autodesk site as part of a suite, which got pulled. Trials are usually identical to first releases aren’t they?
2016 was announced at NAB last year, I guess they’ll do the same for 2017.
2017 has a compatibility break. You Need the recompiled plugins.
Most of plugin developers (if not almost all) have everything prepared.
I have spoken with people who have used it now….unless they have hidden specific great new features DEEP in a maze of menus, I’ll stick with my gripes.
But…if it releases with the feature that’s been at the top of the votes for a very long time, I’ll apologize….
Here’s my prediction…hope to be wrong, but it’s the prediction I’ve been making since Tom Hudson rode in on his unicorn to fix everything…
1) freakish numbers of bugs, including bugs that have been there for multiple releases
2) No major film/vfx features added, including once again not even a try at fluids
3) UI changes – YAY.
4) Some new feature that’s okay but was not requested – which is what they spent all their time on while ignoring the request list
5) Requested features in the Top 100 but not the Top 10 so they can claim to be listening
6) Near complete disregard for Hot New Feature that was the showpiece of a prior release
Hey Jim,
I know you are a long time user of 3ds Max. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you post something positive about 3ds Max. You often times just endlessly complain about it. I’m surprised you haven’t switched to some other application by now after all these years. What keeps you still using it, I’m curious to know?
I’m also a long time max user and I don’t like complaining and I will wait to see the entire official list of features before commenting on it. But I also know why some people complain and still use max. I would personally switch to Houdini right now if I could learn it in a day. But since I am a generalist doing almost everything from creature modeling to fluids and compositing, it will probably take like 10 years before my switch is complete.
Just look at Houdini latest new features and also take a look at recent Blender additions (Blender is now by far the most downloaded 3D soft on the planet with 4 millions DL/year). I don’t blame anyone (far from it) but some softwares are developing faster than other. And when it’s not your software that is the most developped it’s depressing cause you know you will to switch and spend again years learning everything again.
I don’t think max dev team or Autodesk are to blame, they are surely geniuses and very competent but SideFX team and Blender team are also complete geniuses who are working in a completely different environnement and most of all they are building on a more modern and easy base to work with. I’m pretty sure it’s a lot more easier to add new features to Houdini than max.
I still don’t know for sure who will dominate in 10 years. But if it’s max then it means the max dev team would have work like 100 times more than sideFX team.
@Jim Kindly show more respect for the person who conceived and helped engineer 3D Studio / Max. Courtesy is a requirement on this website.
Autodesk and 3ds max has become as bad as it is because of the apologists that are victims of PR campaigns and brain-washing.
I have move to Houdini after being on Max since 3D studio days.
After last years little improvements I finally excepted that Max will never be the program we all once hoped. It’s over, Max will be for ArchVis And Maya will be the bloated dated FX and animation offering.
I should have made this move to Houdini a long time ago but didn’t want to spend all that time learning a new app. Now I have started learning Houdini I am so much happier, it’s so much more than Max. I will miss Vray for the time being as I’m on indie, I hope Chaos group look to Houdini going forward.
Max has played a very important part in the evolution of the 3D industry, with max script playing an important role in the development of so many plugins that drove innovation.
My parting advise to those remaining under the elution AD will develop Max is this. Now AD has moved to subscription as a business model, there is no need to develop the application to justify upgrading costs to users, you have a captured user base now for the milking. They can start reducing the workforce to maximise profits.
AD are moving to a dairy farmers business model, just herd the cows in for milking on a cyclical basis. And your voice will be heard as the inevitable moo-ing of the milking process.
@CGP I’ll be more courteous, and it’s possible his hands are tied so he CAN’T do great things even if he wanted to. But the crowd went wild, and Autodesk got all kinds of social media praise when they brought back Hudson…and I (and many others) are trying to figure out what benefit there was to having him on the team in terms of new/better features.
When he joined, and then they released 2016, no one was allowed to gripe about the horribly mediocre release because “the team is brand new, they could not impact 2016″…so now what? They haven’t had enough time to impact 2017?
How many years of UI changes and adding feature #213 & #189 down on the list before we can hold the team responsible for the product they developed?
from the current ‘leak’ of what features are coming in 3ds max 2017 it’s doesn not ‘SO FAR’ look to a bumper packed release…
1.removal of iray completely
2.removal of mental ray on main instal to now an ‘optional install’
3.adding ART renderer – no idea…we’ll see but looks to be a lite version of iray sorta but only for CPU
4. new U.I (again…geez how many “NEW” U.i’s can we put in 3ds max!!)
5.bit and misc bobs…
is that it?
surely not?
let’s wait until the official release right?
no matter what…it’s gonna be better than Motion Builder …that got ‘a ruler’ on a recent new release!
I realized that something about me isnt clear:
I love and prefer to use Max.
I’m angry because the refusal to address these gaps have forced me to use tools I dont prefer to Max.
Still not sure if that makes sense to people..m
Makes sense to me. If you are passionate about something and it’s also something that impacts your income/living, emotions tend to flare up when expectations aren’t met. I see nothing wrong with asking “why isn’t there more”. Subscription is now the only way to get the new releases so there’s that too. We’ll see when they release the full product page and feature videos what people think of this release.
Personally I am at a point where plugins are adding to Max what I don’t see Autodesk adding. Stoke 2.0 has put Houdini like control in the hands of users, PhoenixFD 2.2 beta builds with the FLIP solver seem to be going really well, I like Lucid personally a lot (and it’s cheap), + smaller plugins like SplineTools and Overmorpher are great recent additions. Not to mention Vray, TP, Frost, Krakatoa and so on. You don’t need to buy all these plugins at once, just as you need them.
So as long as I can stay with 2015-2016, I’ll just pretend that the plugins/scripts released from the community are the new features for Max :). I’m beta testing one new cheap plugin that will be essential for my future in Max and it provides a feature that’s sorely lacking from Max.
PS. MCG was a nice new feature in 2016.
I think it will be a pretty strong release. new mode of rotation around the cursor, udmi, new renderer and the material, added new maps, simplified work with pivot, markedly improved viewport performance, new unwrap features and I’m sure it’s not all that we get in the official press release.
double precision ? multithreading ? THIS would be great additions…
+ 1: what about pflow multi-threaded? that would be nice to have! 🙂
According to whoever grabbed the ‘trial’
“Dynamics, particles – no changes. They uses only 1 core, and no hardware acceleration for them.”
EVERY year when a new max version comes out, many people just complains about it, and now many complain even before the actual release, both here and the Area.
I can understand some of the complains, but most of them are just words and pure nonsense to me. Nothing is forcing anyone to use max, there are other 3D applications out there to buy, but every application on earth have bugs and missing features. Max is a very complex application, so of course there are bugs and missing features, they can’t please all of us in one single application, but the developers do work hard on it.
Right. People think that Autodesk just sits around and then all of a sudden releases a new version. If they didn’t release anything, people would complain…there’s no winning with the internet. Everyone is a critic, yet we use the software daily and make a living.
Everything will be ok, people.
Every year, past 4-5 years, whenever there’s info about new 3ds Max release, every time I see same people saying how terrible the situation is and how they are going to jump over to Houdini/Modo/Blender. Here we are, 5 years later, seeing exactly same names saying exactly same things about jumping the ship, but still not having done so. So where’s the problem? Grass is not so much greener on the other side, huh?
Don’t get me wrong, I am definitely not saying 3ds Max has taken a good development direction, quite contrary actually. It seems that Autodesk hires worse and worse people every year, but despite their continuous efforts to do as much damage as possible, 3ds Max is still one of the best and most powerful 3d packages around, especially if you are 3D generalist and have to handle many things on your own. It is a tough shell, that can take a lot of hammer blows from AD’s recent development teams, and it will still take a few years before some real alternative surfaces.
I’d say the Max development team right now is pretty solid, probably the best they have had in a long time. Look at MCG, it’s incredibly well planned out, executed, and they are continuing to develop it further rather than just dumping it in and leaving it like past features. If they keep making features like that, Max will be a contender for a long time. I think when people see they whole list of features for 2017 they will be happy for the most part.
Your comments really hit the mark. 3D studio is a great general purpose program. Every time I try to use another program I realize how daunting a task it would be to get the same overall use. Plugins fill in gaps, that and import and interoperability make MAX a great repository and vehicle for nearly any kind of project. It’s like the difference between a specialist and a general practitioner. Max doesn’t seem to do any one thing perfectly but it and it’s plugins do seem to have a handle you can use on practically anything. Autodesk is to blame here, it and it’s monopolistic tar pit. It’s good to know Tom Hudson is back. Didn’t 3D Studio’s prototype begin on an 8bit Atari and later the DOS version with him and other developers passing code cross country over 28K baud phone modems? Does anyone remember Antic magazine?
Actually, I HAVE moved about 80% of my work off of Max. For me, it wasn’t a threat, and not idle…for me the desire is to have a reason to return.
This is horrible.tI am one of those people who wants to translate to new software, but I use 3ds max for two decades, and I am really, really fast in modeling, texturing and rendering interiors for clients.
Twenty years I expect something big, but nothing happens. I see software that exists for few years already offering something max will never do, im afraid…
3ds max is far from AiO package, while almost every other app offers more… modo, maya, cinema4d, even blender… This is trully, trully, horrible…
Maybe the problem is, MAX is old. Getting patched over again and again with featurism, like AutoCAD was. AutoCAD, too, was/is general purpose and then along came Revit which specializes in Arch and Construction using BIM. Specialize vs. Generalize is the difference here. Are any of the programs you mention as general purpose as MAX?
Would be nice to get all the features I can in code bloated Max, in some streamlined program, does it exist?
Ofcourse this program exists – Blender. I was die hard max fan for almost 2 decades but learning Blender last year has really changed everything. It has Modifiers similar to max + very rich modeling tools (like max/modo). It also has one of the best sculpt modules out there. Nearly every single element of the software is being updated and refined year after year compared to max where the most tools are still from 90s. Best part of Blender is that you can have a workflow to suit you – like max, maya or any other application you wish (for modeling). I did not learn a single hotkey. It’s extremely customizable and with a little bit of python you can invoke any operation you desire within moments (no going around menus). If you are a modifier poweruser as I was then utilizing houdinis nodal modeling with Blender will really outgun anything max can offer. I’m not trying to dis max as it’s just amazing software but in modern time there are viable alternatives that do not cost arm and a leg.
I still love Max. I know everyone wants a utopian software that will have all their needs – which you can have by using Houdini. You can build your own tools exactly how you want if you want to. I started learning Houdini because it benefits me as an FX Artist.
However, what I like about Max is that by itself as a basic 3D application, you can really do a lot to a point’ which I feel is reasonable. I see everyone complaining that there is no fluid solver, but look at Maya’s implementation of Naiad. It’s still not production ready. What I’m saying is that, I’d rather have 3rd parties handle specialty facets of the software over ONLY depending on Autodesk to provide it all.
I think that’s where the comparison to Houdini is unfair. They work in completely different ways. I would say that Max is like playing with Lego blocks. You don’t have to worry about the manufacturing or shipping of the blocks. Where, Houdini is also sort of like playing with Lego blocks, but you are given the factory to create your blocks first. That seems like crude generalization, because it is…but you know what I mean.
And for personal preference, even when creating volumes inside of Houdini, I export them out as VDB files for loading into Vray in Max because it’s faster to render. Again, I love Max, I think people are asking for it to be something it’s not and want it to be something it can’t ever live up to.
Do you pay your licenses?
Because it’s easy to say “I prefer plugins” when you don’t have to pay everything that has to be paid every year, so third parties are ok. But max has to justify it’s value by itself, right now you can use Vray even with blender so your reasoning about OpenVDB is valid for any Vray supported software.
I’m not saying this is a good or bad release, I think we should wait to the official announcement, BUT there has been a change that darkens everything, the renting only licensing model and their abussive techniques, do you know that you are not allowed any more to renew your subs a bit late? If you don’t renew on time you will loose your permanent license and you will be forced on subscription… Cool eh?!
Cheers.
I agree with you. I’m starting with Houdini on a workshop from ProteusVFX. After two weeks, it doesn’t look that much intimidating.
So for me, Max needs to be solid, with less bugs, crashes and greater performance. For FX, everything an FX artist will ever need is in Houdini.
And as of yet, there isn’t a best poly modeling software as 3ds Max.
While I used to think the same as you, I’ve been training myself on Blender lately a lot and I used in a recent project specially for modelling a technical object, in fact I used as base an STP file and imported in Blender as STL, after that the editing was MUCH MUCH faster than with 3dsmax, and I haven’t miss Edit Poly at all.
If you dig in into Blender a bit you may like it for modelling much more than you think.
The only reason I keep learning/using Max is because of work. I need to have more experience before I can go freelance. And studios use a LOT of Max.
If there was a lot of studios using Blender, I would have switched already. I’ve done some CGCookie training and it’s great. Really powerful software.
I like max for years for modeling but now I tend to model everything in zbrush. It’s like 10 times faster.
It’s to hard to work in Houdini with the same speed as in Max. So yeah it’s not looks intimidating before you actually need to produce some result in restricted timeframe.
For me it depends on the task, that’s why I’m using the combo Blender+Houdini 🙂
Having looked into Houdini quite deeply, I don’t see anything (except Fluids) I can’t do with Max and some plugins (again, Stoke 2.0 gives you most of the control that Houdini has, MCG takes care of the rest).
I don’t know why some of you are defending Autodesk. A meager update is a meager update regardless of other software. Like I said earlier, when you’ve invested a lot of time in a software you become emotionally invested because it’s your livelihood. I actually don’t see many names in here who have said in the past that they are going to switch to Houdini, so I don’t see that argument standing any ground.
if 2017 is as barebones of a release as it seems to be, there’s no excuse from a customer stand point. Everyone has the right to be upset, even more so if you are on a subscription. I feel Max holds up to all other software in _nearly_ every other category if you add some plugins (I keep saying that Stoke 2.0 is greatly under appreciated/underused as it’s incredibly powerful). MCG was a good addition, I was hoping for a similar level of feature in 2017 at the very least. Why was UI changes such a big priority?
2016 got a lot of praise here, 2017 is not off to a good start. If you are going to defend 2017, do so with the specific features you think justifies the yearly subscription cost.
Let me remind you that the subscription cost is $1,470 per year (worse for Europeans, I don’t know about Asia), and it’s subscription (fancy marketing term for rental) only. Those who defend 2017, specify what you think makes it worth $1,470 for one year of use. I hope there’s a big feature not disclosed yet as all I am seeing are very minor updates.
I probably put more than 10 000$ in max and plugins. Houdini Indie is 199$, Blender is free.
I can buy 3 Houdini indie licenses and 3 engine licenses (those are now free) and so theoretically simulate 6 iterations of fluids sim on 6 computers for a total of 600$. Doing the same with max and PhoenixFD would cost me around 8000$.
And we should not complain…
If fact if there was a 3DS Max Indie subscription at 150$ a year ()with same limitations as Houdini Indie), it would be the right price for me to pay compared to Houdini Indie and Blender.
cough cough…. in theory there is no limitation…. except 3rd party plugins…
Comparing Houdini Indie to 3ds Max is a bit unfair, and the $10,000 figure is exaggerated to get Houdini level functionality in Max. Since a Max subscription is $1400 a year, what plugins are you looking at that I don’t know exist that are essential for your work that equal Houdini level control and add up to $8600?
I am not defending Autodesk, but 3ds Max vs. Houdini is getting old in my book. I don’t find the grass to be greener in Houdini land, but I do give them props for adding substantial features each year which I can’t say the same for 3ds Max.
Having said that, I don’t like subscription models, and I do wish 3ds Max had an indie version.
That’s why my solution, at the moment, is to stay with my perpetual license I had before Autodesk went subscription only and fill out the rest of my arsenal with plugins.
Jeez, you pay $1470 subscription yearly? Mine out here in the US is only $650. I think you better speak to your reseller, or find a new one because that’s crazy.
Are you talking about the permanent license subscription or about the new rental only model pricing?
I’m referring to the license subscription as Fry was talking about the subscription costs, which I have been on for years before the rental policy was created and went into affect. In the past 4 or 5yrs I’ve had this, I think my subscription price has gone up like $100-$150. So the price is on par to a year of Thinking Particles’ current price. Combine that with the cost of upgrading my VRay to 3.0 with render nodes back in 2014 which averages out to $200 a year (2014-2016, but will most likely average lower as the years go by) comes to $1550 a year. Not cheap, but still by far cheaper than what Strob says he spends. Plus, it’s all write-offs as business expenses.
People defending autodesk are quite naive. People paying for subscription are fulfiling obligations as customers, therefore AD has no xcuses bt to deliver requested features. And yes we do not need to bother ourselves with how difficult it is to code max. If it’s architecture is so old, then I feel they should do the needful by overhauling it. It’s a mutual relationship here. We make our income from max, so do they, by selling the product to us…we have every right to complain
What most people don’t think about is what is the motive for moving to a subscription or as it’s more familiar name, rent-seeking model.
Profit! Now you don’t have to develop and can cut back on staff to increase profits. AD are not in business to make great software they are there purely to make money. The innovators left long ago, those who now own AD want this cow milked, and that is what has been going on over the last few years. They know a lot of artists have invested time into learning this software and won’t want to jump ship.
So they will extract as much as possible from you each year for the same bit of software.
+1
@ralph That’s pretty obvious. How did the rental model originate? Was there a huge crowd of customers knocking on Autodesk’s door asking for permanent licenses to be dropped and be replaced by rental? No. It originated at the company. Do they care what customers think? I’ll leave the answer to you.
In that regard, Autodesk is blindly following the route Adobe goes and what works out for Adobe. Though it still is not clear to me whether Adobe’s move to rental only, really increased their income as much as they are constantly bragging about
The cycle isn’t over yet. We’ll see how much Adobe’s income is affected after Affinity Photo and Designer are released for Windows and are enthusiastically adopted. That we’ll be able to evaluate in a few years if the idea of helping the competition grow while annoying your customers is a good combination. Autodesk adopted Adobe’s idea too fast. Some bean counter seemingly needed to justify his salary.
Ah, seems that I managed to miss my subscription renewal date by 10 days (no email reminders this year??)
So now the option to renew is gone, welcome to rental 🙂
This does seem kind of draconian, eh?
I guess that means I’ll have to miss the fancy new UI
I would talk to my reseller, i guess you still could convince them to renew ( in case you are really interested ). It’s just that you can’t get back onto maintenance subscription once you dropped off – you have to go rental then, thus i would put some effort into convicing the reseller or Autodesk to let you renew.
You will miss more than the UI in case of Max 2017 (as most people seem to think ) …
It’s not about convincing them, they don’t care, they won’t renew him, it’s a new company rule to force people into renting…
My reseller is autodesk’s online store, so I guess that puts me in a bad spot.
I sent a support ticket about it, but I’m not getting my hopes up.
They can try, it was mentioned when I bought my last perpetual license, and even that was a bit suspect that they were telling me the deadline was actually a couple of days before the end of Jan.
I don’t think Autodesk are gaining anything by playing hardball with these sort of things, it just makes them look bad.
You are the first victim I know, but you won’t be the last, that is for sure… Astonishing… What do you think about this people? (The ones who support Autodesk rental I mean)
Welcome to the dairy business model, you are going to be milked on a the cyclical basis.
Adobe had to find a way to keep selling, for example, photoshop and illustrator, to customers who have had little meaningful development for a decade. They need to keep selling to same product to the same people over and over again. They came up with the old feudal system of rent seeking.
I think the good news is open source will kill these companies within the next few decades. I would keep an eye on those programmes.
There always has been a “late subscription renew fee” mechanism available, which allowed to renew an already gone maintainance subscription for the timespan of one year ( max. 1 yr after the maintainance subscription ran out). The fee was +100€ on top of the standard maintenance sub fee. I don’t know whether this option still exists or not though
It does not, I was advised by my resellers… it’s incredible how bad can Autodesk act…
http://www.cadline.co.uk/Promotions/Detail/26ef3625-918a-4842-aaa6-b2667bdab272
About half way down the page.
364 days to 0
Ouch – that sucks really
I hope Autodesk ( and not Max and it’s Dev team) gets bombarded with complaints about this. Carl Bass should get a gazillion complaining emails and he and his managment elite be made responsible for all this idiocy. I previously advertised posting rants and complaints in the specific subforum autodesk created (http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/perpetual-license-changes/bd-p/2015 ), but most people seemed happy enough with complaining on user/specialist forums like this, what is a certain way to NOT reach the correct people
Just to add to my previous post:
The Autodesk management is in a pressure pot currently already, because there are serious doubts that the transition to rental only will work in the end for them. Those doubts are coming from the investor/stock market side of things. Just recently there has been some disruption as some so called “activist investor” gained an Autodesk share amount of 11%, and Carl Bass (who previously called those investors “turds” in an interview) thought that it’s necessary to strike a peace deal with them, so they would stay relatively quiet until end of September 2016. What happens after that period when the transition to rental does’nt work out as they thought remains to be seen…
Here’s some reading related to this
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/25/autodesk-reaches-a-peace-deal-with-its-activist-in.aspx
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2016/03/11/autodesk-activists-get-on-the-board-after-ceo-compares-them-to-sports-radio-callers-turds
I got a reply from autodesk support:
“Thank you for contacting Autodesk.
A total pleasure Austris, since the subscription is expired the software will stop working, once the license is expired a new one has to be purchased, I will both link for reseller or online store in case you desired to proceed and purchase the software”
It does sound like the guy doesn’t understand what I’m asking at all and judging from the link that says grace period is eliminated, I will not pursue it further.
A total pleasure indeed.
It’s unfortunate how much they simply don’t care for their clients.
I think I still have time to switch away from 3ds Max and Autodesk and I’m considering seriously.
I’m sorry for you in either case.
The problem is that Autodesk doesn’t sell software it sells stock. Their most important clients are institutional investors. From the links that spacefrog posted above, you need to own about 12 million shares to get Autodesk to listen to you.
After some thought, I pushed the issue further and contacted a local reseller. They were able to renew my expired licence after calling autodesk, but said that the new official policy is no renewals after maintenance expires.
At the moment there is a transitional period, when you can renew an expired maintenance within 2 weeks or so after it lapses, but this transitional period is supposed to end in very near future (didn’t say when, or likely didn’t know)
phew – congrats…
Will be interesting to see how the next two years will be for Autodesk, as they are gambling their whole business on that silly rental only thing…
What happened to all the 3dmax becomes Excalibur development? Or is that all now old hat and couldn’t keep up with technology advancements? ralph is right AD has been doing this for years with its original Autocad products back in the day – they still haven’t incorporated wish-list items for things from 15/20 yrs ago. And a renting model is just that – renting to USE a product, not necessarily an updated one.
Meanwhile in 2013
https://youtu.be/X7AZpZswJaA?t=69
I think this video will be removed…
Relax guys, there is no new UI, it’s only a skin with new icons. If anyone hopes for real modern UI with abilities to scale, tear up panels or at least remove unwanted buttons from main toolbar, just relax and enjoy new era of software rental.
Of course you now this by fact?
It’s not only a new skin. Can’t let slip too much, but this is the first step in consolidating the previous mix of UI tech into one solid base tech. And regarding your maintoolbar statement: all UI files are XML since several releases, so those things are possible, even when not directly accessible from the UI config dialog.
It’s become obvious that there are various camps of Max users, with varying needs and expectations
There are the artists who seem to be interested in seeing more vfx-oriented tools like Bifrost.
It’s understandable if they feel Max hasn’t improved much at all. Though, I’ve never understood the need to compare Max with Houdini. No other app – not Maya,not Blender,not C4D , not Modo – comes even close to Houdini when it comes to VFX production.
There are generalist who go through the entire workflow , from modelling, shading/texturing,animation and rendering, doing work in various fields from Arch and Design viz, Advertising, and Game Design.
I can’t imagine this camp complaining too much about a lack of improvement in Max
Features like Improved viewport performance, Perspective Match, Placement Tool, Quad-Chamfer, OpenSubdiv, Alembic support, Improved support for various cad formats, the new Skinning Methods, and most especially MCG, if not groundbreaking are HUGE timesavers.
Even the few features exposed from 2017 are exciting to me
Then there are users from the different camps that just don’t like the rental-only model. I despise it myself, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m also using Blender.
It’s naive to think other apps (cinema4d,Modo) won’t follow suit. These apps already provide rental as an option just as it was once only an option for AD products.
Just decide on the apps that best suit your workflow and your budget
New skinning method with 3-5 fps playback animation event in middle poly character.
Oh… it’s a good improve. of course.
Today game engine work a much faster then animation playback in 3ds max viewport.
Again, if you are truly not impressed by their recent efforts with the new skinning tools or any other feature, you should switch to a better alternative, just to save yourself the stress.
If you believe a game engine does a much better job than 3dsmax for your animation work then you should stick with game engines
My 5+ years old PC can play fairly complicated custom rig at 10+fps.
I refuse to believe what is currently floating around is the final 2017 release, that would be really disappointing.
I also refuse to believe that they’ve just changed the skin of max instead of a through modernization and unification of the ui like everybody has asked for, because that would be stupid and a huge insult to every max user, who do they think we are? a bunch of children who they can silence by giving them some eye candy?
I thought we were passed those dirty tricks and halfass jobs with the new team.
How about waiting for an official release and list of features?
A few people have said there is more to it.
@Stephen Green – – I agree to wait a bit…however in the past actually BOTH camps have been true…there has traditionally been a LOT of things not immediately seen in the leaked trial that turned out to be in the release…and yet for many industries the features that were only seen later weren’t particularly useful or impressive…here I would point to the much-maligned egg spline, which has GREAT value for the engineering/viz/civil folks, but counts as essentially zero compared to what other packages have for film.
I bet there’s a ton we haven’t seen, but based on the number of folks who’ve told me the things that absolutely AREN’T there, I’m predicting disappointment for my industry.
I really didn’t want to get into this and thought people would eventually calm down considering it’s actually an unofficial premature leak(belonging to the design suit?) we are talking/arguing/shouting about here, but anyways it seems some people just aren’t patient enough, and maybe they have a right not to be, so here’s what I propose considering this isn’t the only place that people are debating the unknown and at the same time some opportunists(whom usually aren’t actually Max users) are using the opportunity to bad mouth Max and the devs in the process, why not release an unofficial list of features in Max 2017 right now before this gets more out of hand? it’s not like it’s future improvements they’d talk about, at this point it’s probably past improvements for them so there shouldn’t be any legal problems for them, they already do those tease videos a few days prior to the release, why not do it now? unless they are still working on it? if what some people are claiming is true and this is actually a solid release this would calm people down and stop those opportunists to do more damage.
About the release, I’m actually happy that they’ve finally decided to tackle the UI, I just really really really hope it’s not just an ‘skin’ job as some people are claiming, I hope we can finally see a UI that won’t flash like crazy whenever to resize/move a panel around(like it’s 1995), or a UI that you can painlessly and smoothly move around and customize(like Zbrush’s or maya’s UI), you know, a Modern UI, like every other package out there, even the ‘free’ ones, even if it’s just the start of(rather than the end result of) that process it would still make me happy, just assure us that’s where we are going with this, a truly modern interface, inside and out.
And as for other features, it would’ve been nice to finally be able to detach and have multiple viewports, and it also would be incredibly nice to have improvements to PFlow(one of the greatest features in Max), though I’m not holding my breath for it.
By law they are limited in the number of “forward-looking” statements they can make because they are traded publicly.
That will be their reason why they won’t, and frankly i think they LOVE that they have that excuse…if they didn’t, people could see what’s coming and drop…this way, they can be vague and just say “it’s gonna be AWESOME” and then when it releases….
That’s not how forward looking/safe harbor statements work. The real limiting factor is how unhappy your large stock holders are and how much ammunition you want to give them. Silence is cheaper than defending against litigation.
@snarknado — I 100% agree that’s how they work…but that’s not at all how AD has always CLAIMED they work. AD takes the broadest possible interpretation so they have an excuse to say nothing.
Common guys, A-Desk NEVER will add really needed tools like a rewrited animation module or improved particles. In 3ds max we never will see native tool for liquid simulation and modern skinning tool.
3ds max is a just a render studio very costly and for rent only !
Free Blender have almost the same tool. But FREE !
AD does not plan to do any improvements in 3d max
^ I rest my case.
Autodesk you better do something about this, these things matter, imagine people new to all this see misinformed/baseless comments like this all over the place and thanks to how fast word travels the next thing you know Max is the lame kid on the block that no one wants to be seen with just because it’s not cool, I’ve seen this happen again and again, people claiming absolutely false things about Max that they’ve had heard from someone else and were just too lazy/unmotivated to fact check themselves.
It’s really odd to me considering the sheer amount of marketing they do for maya, and at the same time the pathetic, negligible amount of care(let alone marketing) they give to the reputation of Max. it’s just a miracle how Max has survived this amount of negativity throughout the years.
Never say never.
Let’s add some fuel to the fire… with what could maybe? come in maya2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7WbSIRtpgU
😛
it won’t happen
we’ll have the official release soon enough
and with it the maya release so we can compare how dev is progressing with the 2 apps.
iRay VR 2016.
https://youtu.be/uFahmqmnKX0
http://www.roadtovr.com/first-look-nvidia-reveals-iray-vr-for-breakthrough-photoreal-virtual-reality/
the main problem is the very slow and always delayed process of development
Max is the oldest age sofware and the most solid working concept but always the last one of geeting the new techs and features
Until now using of vdb most of stuf is single thread
No usable viewport with the animation or vfx
They keep polishing the old version ui with low adaptaion every year with maximum promises on the bright futur which its never come
Think the other woftware researches and developing and you will come out with very bad imprission
For example
https://cgpress.org/archives/modo-10-0v1-released.html
OMG! you all have no idea how much better 3ds max got.
I remember when it was crashing all the time. It never crashes now (I’m in max 2014).
Also, it’s a really complex software. something as simple as procedural maps…Try to do that with photoshop.
Well I hope its a good release for those on maintenance subs – meanwhile my plugin pot for my max 2014 grows a bit again.
On a side note, it was interesting to see autodesks temporary offer to trade in perpetual licenses up to 2010 in exchange for 75% discount on 3 year subscription. What do people think of this? I mean.. I’m on 2014 and I laughed a bit at this offer. I think if anything my 2014 license has gone up in value since the shift to subscriptions! And even if someone’s on 2010 – and I know some small studios still are.. why not continue working as before, at east while its still supported by many of the big plugins.
Yeah, I thought that was a bit of a joke, like selling your car (except it doesn’t depreciate quite as much) in exchange for a discount on a rental.
People complain and troll about Max all the time. Have any of these people ever gotten on to the beta program for Max and actually voice their opinion this way? It sounds like many of the complainers are going off a snippet of what was updated without actually used the update themselves. The developers have taken many users opinions and implemented them into 2017. IMO, from what I’ve seen on the beta they’ve made some great progress in there. Until the official release, keep on trolling people.
people asking for new features for max.and they are right in some perspective,and wrong in another dimention which is, you have to ask yourself how efficient are you on max?and do you know its capabilities to the end?people say maya is this maya is that.NO!with max you can do lots of things.you don’t believe me? then believe blur studios and the magic they create.and other hollywood giants using max.do not blame autodesk for everything,expand your knowledge and do better with max as is.but of course new features are always welcome.
and what exactly are these hollywood giants? and blur is no longer a max exclusive house as i heard (correct if im wrong) they went to XSI for animation and now have maya seats. max is losing its particle, vfx ground rapidly to maya and Houdini. when its replaced by houdini and maya what else is max good at? low poly modeling? lol
The only flaw on your point is the amount of money need to be spent to use Max at the fullest capabilities.
Blur for example has Fume FX, RayFire, Thinking Particles, Frost, Stoke, Krakatoa, etc etc. And they rig and animate in Maya (maybe not now, but they are transitioning to it from what I read).
Yeah, Max is great … but there’s a ton of stuff that NEEDS plugins. That’s a shame.
Hopefully, this new version will be good. Next week we’ll know.
But.. if you use Houdini, you need max or maya.
Also max plugin doesn’t need $2,500 maintenance fee at least.
Ok,but TP is like 600/year, so we are down to 1900 maintenance.
Max maintenance is what, 600? So we are down to 1300. But you own the software.
What’s the upgrade for VRay,FumeFX,Stoke,Krakatoa,Frost? All free upgrades?
From a numbers point of view, Houdini is making more sense.
You didn’t read my postscarefully.
“Max maintenance is what, 600? So we are down to 1300”
You still need max or maya to be completed.
Would you do model and UV in Houdini?
Yes, Mantra is cool.
But, most Houdini users uses 3rd party renderer.
You can always model in Blender. From what I’m seeing, it’s on par with Max now.
Blur studio uses lot of different software.Hollywood giants that uses 3ds max may be counted on one hand.
giants who use max, not even 5 i think. aside from pixomondo, all others that “use” max use it for a very small part of their workflow.
Pixomondo uses a little and Scanline is 3ds Max heavy. But that’s it.
I heard the Digimatte dept at ILM is Max also, so that’s cool.
Anyone who still think AD have plans for better future of max, just see the stuff maya may get in its 2017 release. they have freaking dynamesh inside maya for gods sake and all max users are getting is some buggy, heavy UI with same old half broken CAT system and animation workflow that hasn’t been updated for ages. Yet still some defend AD and speak bs about a bright future for max. If max have a bright future, they will be boasting abt it all over the place like they show off maya’s future. the truth is max will be killed sooner or later. after they squeeze every bit of profit juice they can get from it to develop maya or to waste on some garbadge tech like stingray. AD only loves money. not their customers, not their own software but money. if they can kill dogs and make money, they will do it. Max is loosing seats in every vfx house and that is the reality. if a better software than maya start emerging, AD will try to buy it and infect it like a virus and treat maya like dog waste. as someone said, AD IS the cancer of VFX industry.
But, apart from that you’re happy, yeah?
Any chance that in MAYA stack modifiers from MAX will show? MAX is dead for me for 5 years. No new tools in animation field. Time to move.
Here’s an odd question someone might be able to answer….
When I stop my subscription on my PERPETUAL license, is Autodesk required to authorize that copy perpetually–meaning: if my computer breaks ten years down the road and I install Max on a new system, can they shut down the authorization servers or refuse to authorize my next PC?
they shut the servers for motionbuilder LE, so YEs they have history of doing that…it was however at the time of purchasing kaydora film box, the company (whatever it’s name was!)..dso not quite straight forward.
If I’m not mistaken, this also happened with owners of Softimage v7. After AD acquisition, some had trouble reinstalling the software.
I think that you won’t be able to install it anymore, even though it should run fine on Win7/8.
Seems that A&G Tool Company was purchased bu ADESK since in the Maya video there is something similar to their Bevel Pro Plugin.
My 2 cents. 10 plus yrs using max as a generalist as a full timer. Still today using 14 and that was after disabling caddies and all the other bling I could turn off. They ruined the layer manager and they continue to sabotage the UI. Am I the only one who hates this Nitrous and Direct X BS. I just need my viewports and UI to be fast and not blink and wizz and be obnoxious just for the sake of being pretty. STOP IT Autodesk. PLEASE just Stop it. Let me make the pretty and you engineer software that gets out of the way.
The general plan is a collapced Max and all user must go to Maya.
The same idea with Moutionbuilder, Mudbox.
In end lost oonly Maya.
Max must be closed as a XSI.
This kinds of comment is exactly what Autodesk M&E manager wants.
Unfortunately 3dsMax still outsells Maya.
Therefore, you will see the death of Maya before 33dsMax dies.
Look here:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9NjMxMDkxfENoaWxkSUQ9MzM1NTI3fFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1
Page 123.
Net revenue for M&E decreased by 4% during fiscal 2015 as compared to the prior fiscal year, primarily due to an 11%
decrease in revenue from Creative Finishing and a 2% decrease in revenue from Animation. The decline in Creative Finishing
was marked by a general decrease in the M&E industry end-market demand, partially offset by a 33% increase in sales of our
Creative Finishing hardware products. The decrease in Animation revenue was primarily due to a 20% decrease in revenue
from our M&E suites, which was driven by our Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite, partially offset by a 5% increase in our
flagship product 3ds Max.
So the only thing that had growth was 3ds Max, even offsetting a loss of Maya. So yeah, 3ds MAX is surely the next. 🙂
Why into Maya every new release AD add useful tools. But in Max is only decorative changes.
Today Max uses only in archviz. Even games in Maya.
“decorative changes”?
Have you even tried 3dsMax 2017?