3ds Max 2027 released

Autodesk has released 3ds Max 2027, the latest version of it modelling, rendering and animation tool.

The release includes Smart Bevel, a new tool for creating post-Boolean bevels by following mesh topology outward from selected edges and building a continuous transition surface between two distances. Autodesk says the tool is designed to produce cleaner results than Chamfer on dense or irregular Boolean intersections, reducing manual cleanup on complex meshes.

Modeling and spline workflows have received several changes. The Extrude modifier now lets users extrude splines with a Gizmo-based direction instead of relying only on local Z, making it possible to add depth along any axis or a custom direction. The Spline Chamfer modifier gains a fixed-radius option for consistent circular corners and an auto-weld function that merges overlapping or near-overlapping vertices created during chamfering. The Boolean modifier has improved recursive welding for cleaner output geometry, and the Array modifier adds surface distribution with Z growth and pack element distribution on splines.

A new Noise Plus modifier uses Simplex noise, includes built-in fractal types, supports tileable output across X, Y and Z in most fractal modes, and provides controls for clamping, inversion, per-element random seeds, object or world space, and deformation along normals. Some fractal modes include a Phase parameter that can be keyframed for animation without scripting. The legacy Noise modifier has been moved to the Qt interface, now supports Paramblock2 for user defaults, and uses linear interpolation for animated Phase values.

Autodesk has introduced a new Field Helper for selection and procedural control. The helper works as a 3D volume with the Volume Select modifier, allowing users to select vertices, edges or faces by shape rather than painting or flat boundaries. It supports constant Float and Point3 outputs, Material Editor maps, primitive shapes such as Box, Sphere, Torus and Cylinder, a Linear mode, and watertight scene objects used as selection volumes. Falloff Distance is available on non-object field types, and new animation controllers let the helper drive animatable channels on objects, modifiers and materials.

The viewport and grid system have been revised. The default viewport background is now a solid color instead of a gradient, viewport axes are color coded, and the non-adaptive grid remains fixed during zooming and navigation. Grid controls have been reorganized with separate color settings for positive and negative axes, major lines and minor subdivisions. Terminology has been renamed for clarity, a Show Subdivisions toggle has been added, and users can save preferred grid and background settings as session defaults.

Arnold for 3ds Max 5.9.0 is included, using Arnold 7.5.0.0. Autodesk lists performance gains in lightweight USD instancing, global light sampling, CPU OpenVDB volumes, GPU volume rendering and TX file processing. The release adds a new Inference imager, a live Render Report in Arnold RenderView, new hair scattering modes, new line and nearest_points shaders, improved thin film in OpenPBR Surface, more flexible light sampling, negative-density light blockers, bloom aperture mode, bloom color dispersion, GPU support for NVIDIA Blackwell cards and motion vector shaders, reduced GPU memory use for instances, and a broad set of USD, Cryptomatte, Render Report, EXR metadata and kick command-line changes.

Other parts of 3ds Max 2027 focus on performance, workflow and platform support. Autodesk reports faster processing in Attribute Transfer, Retopology ReForm, Shape Map, Shell Material evaluation, Volume Select soft selection on poly objects, and Map to Bitmap generation. Flow Retopology has moved to Tools > Flow Retopology. The release updates core technologies including .NET Core 10, Qt 6.8, C++ 20, RealDWG and ATF, adds environment variables for startup and data location control, updates color management with scene color sampling and OpenColorIO 2.5.1, includes USD for 3ds Max 0.14.0 and Substance 3.0.6, and removes DirectX 9 support.

Visit Autodesk’s website to find out more.