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No Geodesic Voxel Binding for us 🙁
As a max user that;
doesn’t use aftereffects (nuke)
doesn’t use scene explorer (outliner)
doesn’t use nitrous/mentalray (vray)
doesn’t do stereo work (does anyone want it anymore?)
has wasted hours today waiting for pflow to chug along with 1 core
i’m obviously exstatic.
So basically, a bit more than what was in the sneak peek video? Surely there’s more to it.
Make sure to check this:
http://areadownloads.autodesk.com/oc/2015releases/Whats_New_in_Autodesk_3ds_Max_2015.pdf
then this for comparison:
http://areadownloads.autodesk.com/oc/2015releases/whats_new_in_autodesk_maya_2015.pdf
I really don’t know what to say.
@Peter_B Ouch. I foresee many unhappy comments in this thread.
Well I should have a plan a day off today. Because I’m so frustrated to compare maya and max feature list! JEALOUSY!!!! Max has some tweaks to the interface and maya gets all the top notch technology!
Now we have to hope for Bifrost in max in the next service pack….
In the mean time, I will use PhoenixFD for my liquid sim. But I guess I will have to buy a maya license…
This is like……..nothing.
It’s the sheer lack of any sort of creativity they demonstrate. Especially when compared to the amazing things the plugin and script developers do.
Like they are just not interested.
At least now I know there is no need to install it when released.
So they ignored Naiad implementation inside 3dmax 15 and put it only in Maya 15 , as they where planing to do all along… the plane to terminate max is going as scheduled I think…
The page for Mudbox 2015 is up as well, most of the new “features” starts with the word Maya.. Very disappointed..
Happy I didnt renew my sub last year..
@Peter_B
After reading the Max-pdf I though “Oh my, quite disappointing” and closed the pdf-viewer.
Now after comparing it with the Maya one, I wanted to turn off the whole computer – a very sad “Oh my god.”
And because the Max-pdf was a bit boring to read, I counted the blank pages: 11 out of 34 are empty, on 8 pages you find only a single sentence or word.
It came like many expected. Maybe I just move on now.
Is that max pdf for real?
half of it is blank pages, like they’ve used triple line spacing to make it seem longer (a technique i used at college many times).
I think this pretty much settles the question whether to update my subscription this year or not.
I mean, come on. seriously.
status = notGood
if maxVer == status then
(
hateWagon.count += 1
execute “download blender”
)
else
(
Gstats = check xref option
if Gstats == true then
(
check fluid option
check multi cores option
)
else
(
execute “download blender”
)
)
wow….that PDF is an embarrassment….
To be fair nested layers and quad chamfer were highly requested features.However, nothing the Max team came up with was ever going to beat Bifrost .
Quite disappointing. At this point I don’t care what they say, they’ll eventually kill Max as they did with Softimage already.
I mean, quad chamfer is probably the most interesting new features…really?? Do AD see what Blender can do with the ridiculous amount of devs compared to what AD can employ instead?
Really??? Come on! That’s a joke.
I wanted to wait after the early sneak peek video, I though (hoped) there was gonna be something more serious in this release. But then look at what they did on Maya… Cool, if AD wanted to loose more customers they’re doing a great job. My Compliments!
hahaha! At least you made me laugh today! A college student trick to make people believe that Autodesk is not killing max today… A very sound strategy!
I told myself when I clicked on this link, “don’t post Tobbe, don’t be ‘that’ guy.” But I can’t help it. They say they listen, Tom Hudson is now onboard and say they are listening. I spoke up to the developers on the forum, I voted my votes on what I want, I got plenty of others saying they want the same thing. What do we get? Basically nothing that a few scripts that already exists already do.
Where do we get innovation from? Thinkbox, Cebas, Chaos Group, Sitni Sati, Ephere, and all the Maxscript writers out there. Without them Max would be pretty much dead. I know for sure I am not updating to 2015 and I’m fairly certain our studio won’t be either.
Presumably, if this thread gets going, we’ll get another message of “we’re listening” but in another year we’ll have nothing really innovative added to Max.
And what pisses me off more is that now I’ll have to get our studio to buy licenses of Maya to get Bifrost so we can get state of the art fluids, still giving money to Autodesk which at this point I don’t feel they deserve.
I’m not sure what people were expecting – when it all kicked off and people were brought on board it was too late to do much about the 2015 release.
We´re leaving the boat here too. That´s just too disapointing. still the same crappy skin modifier and Maya gets tons of nice new rigging/animaton tools and enhancements. They´re just lying about 3ds max, plain and simple.
That´s it for me.
I did LOL at the trolling ‘fluidic’ description though.
Talk about rubbing salt into the wounds.
so 10 ‘new features…
1.quad chamfer is 20 euros…you ca buy it today…
2.the placement tool is just an enhancement of auto grid that came in max 3 and more like the tool that came in modo 401
3.shader fx was a plugin for $199 a few years back…it went to maya first when the developer came onboard to autodesk.
4.point cloud is a thing in max 2014
5.populate..meh
6. stereo camer…3dsmax is prbably the last 3d app to get the stereo camera…
7.enhanced scene management looks like a free script
8.Accelerated viewport performance…autodaesk fixed the viewport then…
9.improved active shade rendering..still looks like it’s a iray thing ie: useless…too many things don’t work in iray.
10.python…just like blender!
just back from the local store with some booze to toast bye bye to 3dsmax…it’s dead.
Sure, that’s true.
But should we give them a free pass this year, because ‘it was too late to do anything in this release’?
A decent company would’ve slashed the subscription price in half for the current year instead of increasing the price once again (by the end or March). They obviously knew how ‘great’ this release will be.
Like i said Maya is the program of the choice. The Prodigal Son.
It is a bit silly to say buy Maya to get bifrost, at least Next Limit Realflow is a committed company.
Don’t hype Bifrost, it is pretty well undeveloped in this release. No viscosity, even doesn’t came with foam and spray. So it is pretty much unusable.
So so so sad. I have to admit, I had my hopes up from all the Autodesk promises and big gestures, but sadly this is disappointing. My guess is that Autodesk will answer these complaints with “Things will happen in the extension” and then we get Greeble implemented…
Being a paying 3ds/3dsmax user since a very long time (DOS 3ds r4), I finally cancelled my subscription a few months ago because of all these dorderline ridiculous pseudo updates we get since a few years.
I had second thoughts about this decision ever since. Now I know that I did the right thing.
As a Max users looking through the new additions, I was kinda happy, I finally got my quad chamfer modifier, I finally got a new explorer and I finally got shaderfx plus the cool new placement tool, also I see that the pflow’s UI has finally been updated, nice, but I’m going to say this for the last time, autodesk, saying Max has a great future and then going about putting all the new tech into maya, even though Max needs them much much more(talking about Bifrost and Skinning tools) isn’t going to work forever.
That being said, and to be honest, Bifrost along with some other much needed features(not skin though, common) are currently under review and I’m actually optimistic to see them in the near future.
I guess I’ve to start going through the long threads over @ SI list reading all the comments about “where we go next?”
Yes, I guess I can start look for an alternative (even though that won’t be easy) and that’s not because with Max 2013 I’m not productive (even if I’ve to do several back and forth with C4D), but because at this point I don’t believe AD will ever add any substantial new features to Max.
Considering recent Softimage users experience, I just wanna stay away from a company like this.
There, I said it, finally out of my chest.
I think it’s just rude to put this:
Material XML Export (the Material XML Export utility) has been discontinued in 3ds Max
2015.
Into the “whats new” PDF under the category “what’s New in Material Editing”
And this:
Discontinued Shader Format
The DirectX Shader material no longer loads CGFX shader files
for “whats new in hardware shading”
Unbelivable. That’s the worst release in a long time…
Tobbe, I would wait to see how they develop bifrost. If it’s anything like Mudbox or Compositor, you might as well stay with Realflow.
Maya has a stellar release this year. Good to be a Maya user. This Max release actually has some things I think are great – unified layers/scene explorer, faster viewport, python support – all great. Not something I would put down money for, but my company might to stay current. I’m hopeful with the staff shakeup that 2015 will produce a great 2016 release, unless Autodesk plans on phasing it out like they did with Softimage. I really have a hard time trusting them when they say Softimage has “an exciting future” and then announce its (premature) death a year later. Stay vigilant, users. Maybe next year they’ll fix the deplorable referencing system(s).
I feel stupid to invest for many years at max. I am very upset with this current update, blender with a size of less than 100 mega has outstanding features.
MAYA : you asked we delivered
3DSMAX : you asked, AD say sorry is not kind application, sorry max is not an application for such a thing, but for 9 industrial applications, so we should not be more than MAYA because MAYA just for game and intertainment.
mudbox build for maya, motion builder build for maya, brifost for maya, vray for maya, Phoenix FD for maya, xgen for maya, fumefx for maya, arnold for maya, best character toolset for maya, best modelling toolset for maya, vewport 2 with dx11 displacment, and etc for maya
3dsmax is dead!!!, they lose veteran, the newcomers do not use max.
Maziar, I am literally on the fence right now. I do FX, so I wouldn’t even bother with Maya, I would have to go straight to Houdini. And honestly, I do not want to. The ONLY reason I am still using Max is because of the plugins. But even those are being ported over to Maya. If Cebas ever releases TP for Maya, I’m gone.
It just really pisses me off because it’s not like Max doesn’t have a big user base or it’s like this underachiever. It’s a robust 3d application that has 100% been decided to just be neglected. I mean, you think they would have added 1 single rock star feature so at least hint that they care. Or even hint at a killer feature soon to come.
All in all, we got basically a videocard driver update and a sprinkle of things that should’ve been there years ago.
Well, I wouldn’t give them a free pass but it’s as disappointing as the past few releases – so, what I expected.
My expectations of Autodesk and Max are pretty much subterranean.
After SI, their words have a best before date of about a year…
@Steve. They’ve been saying for years that they are listening, well before the previous big thread here. I can’t say much but I can say that my experience directly with Autodesk the last 6 months has shown zero actual proof that they are listening — either by communication or by results. So yes, I still get pissed off even if I am not surprised.
Anyone knows is max core updated? Max2014 plugins will work with this release?
Nothing about CAT or new skinning/rigging features or anything to do with character animation? Nothing about PTex or mudbox workflow? Is that PDF the final release or is it possible that it’s incomplete? If that’s it, why even bother updating…just wait and release max 2016…2015 (like all other odd numbered years) can be skipped. I wouldn’t go through the hassle of updating.
Ah sad, I really was thinking they put the mental ray layer shader in.
The thing with Autodesk is communication with them, even when you are writing in an area that is supposed to get their attention, is really difficult. Most often your requests or suggestions that have nothing to do with the features they already have planned are ignored, or in other instances you occasionally get pretty much outright hostile responses even when you try to be really respectful in the way that you put forth your criticism. That’s not really reassuring. At best you’ll get a “we are looking into it and will take about it in a meeting” type response but with no follow up.
When a company does things wrong year after year, it doesn’t give them a free pass to keep doing it. Especially when they’ve cornered the market. After buying Maya and XSI, they pretty much created a pseudo-monopoly. Houdini is widely used but not to the same extent as Maya and Max. It’s also not the most artistically friendly software out there. Other 3D software like Modo and Cinema4D just doesn’t have the history that Max/Maya has so it would take them a long time to catch up.
I do get upset when a company says one thing they they are really doing something else. Be honest with your customers. Bifrost developers told us “don’t count on it” in regards to Bifrost coming to Max, yet Autodesk willingly created the illusion that it was a possibility. But Bifrost developer knew what was going on, and he probably got flack for being honest.
Stoke 2.0 is an _amazing_ piece of software that rivals any feature set found in any 3D software, including Houdini and certainly Maya. Especially in the ease of use department while still having massive control. It’s a love/hate relationship. I love the 3dsmax community. The last few days I’ve been wondering “is there a script that can do this” and I search and of course there is. I’m even in touch with a few that are eager to take on-board feature requests. Thinkbox are excellent at customer support and communicating clearly what they are doing (and not doing).
Stoke 2.0 will change how FX are made in Max and it will make other packages jealous. If we had Bifrost inside Max, Stoke 2.0 in combination with Bifrost would be _killer_. But now we’ll have to buy a couple of seats of Maya (frustrating/costly) and hope that Bifrost still accepts PRT I/O.
Stark, they have hinted, what do you think reviewing a fluid system for Max means, and yes I know that’s just a status, but I really doubt they would mess with our heads like that.
And I just wonder if there will ever be a release for Max that won’t get this typical reaction at first? I think right now Max has an image problem, meaning no matter what they add to it, people will still look at the things that could’ve been added instead of the things that ARE added, yeah I wish Bifrost was in there, but it not being there for this release doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore everything else or say things like the hell with this, I’m out, just because I didn’t get the thing I wanted this time.
Already bought a plugin for the nested layers so not excited about that, slate style pflow UI could be good but knowing AD its probably gonna break if we use that mode. Yah to quad chamfers ? sad 🙁 ..gonna start looking into other apps seriously now.
Hey Tobbe, and all the other guys, I really understand you, 100%.
BTW talking about Bifrost, it seems there are some news for 3ds max users. If you read all this in-depth look on FX Guide about it : http://www.fxguide.com/featured/bifrost-exclusive-first-in-depth-look/ (it was released today), you can read that now Bifrost developer says that actual situation is that the Max development team have to decide to connect or not it to 3ds max, so maybe something is going better. I think that new Product Manager is moving in the right direction, if you check the post about Arnold Render, he is trying to get in contact with Solid Angle too, so maybe this time something will truly happen….I hope.
It seems we have to wait again, but hope to see something in near future.
I dont feel it soo bad. Better integration with AE is good, better viewport performance is quite good. quad chamfer, improved scene explorer unified wit layer manager is very helpfull, loading pointclouds i will use it a lot, I will not use populate but is a very interesting feature for archviz, shaderfx is quite good for gameartists.
Maya has bifrost and is the best and blablabla? Wait! maya has a semimplementation of naiad, no viscosity, no foam or splash, no graphs,… Is quite nice but is not a complete solution right now. In general even 3dsmax new aditions/improvements are not wow one by one, the overall looks quite positive.
The FXGuide article posted today about Bifrost states that the plan is to make Bifrost standalone like the Houdini Engine as a self-contained plugin, but the engine has been incorporated to Maya 2015 first. If the Max team wants to “harness Bifrost” it is up to them to decide to support and include the code. So it’s definitely capable if they decide to.
As Steve Green said above, this small-ish 2015 update shouldn’t be that surprising considering we’ve been hearing for months about new people being brought in. I DO think the Max Dev side has been more open in terms of listening to people lately from what I’ve read/heard/seen. Hopefully we won’t be disappointed. They’ve been stabilizing/updating the architecture up till now so I am expecting 2016 to be the real update … just have to tough one more version.
i don’t think its lack of innovation or anything that pisses the crowd, but the way they put up the thing. that pdf is awful. its better not to have it than publishing something that badly designed. and i still have hope. i think next year is the year to look.
Someone needs to tell ADSK that it isn’t called a white paper because of the amount of empty space.
“But now we’ll have to buy a couple of seats of Maya (frustrating/costly) and hope that Bifrost still accepts PRT I/O.”
I don’t understand why somone would say this.
So.. I guess what max users want is…
1) More half-baked feature like BiFrost.
2} No features from existing script or plugins.
3) Only features “I” need,
Chris Murray just posted this on twitter re the PDF
They are looking into it… don’t know for sure but may have been a case of versionitis. Its not the only thing I caught. 🙂
What surprised me the most from watching the Maya videos was that Maya 2015 got a new Texture Deformer! It actually survived for 15 years without one?
Just trying to spread the green on both sides of the fence 😉
I’m not giving up just yet. It really is too early to expect the major changes at Autodesk to show up this early. I was really just hoping to see some improvements/further development to features that already exist with the Character Animation Tools. Maybe they will be there on release day.
Okay…let’s accept that there are tons of new people brought on board. Let’s change the question:
Those people who were working on Max from the time of 2014s release until today…have they all been FIRED yet for complete incompetence or laziness?
I get it, I can’t blame the new folks for not having done anything yet, but Autodesk better have absolutely fired every single loser on staff who sat on their hands for an entire year to bring us this non-event.
Honestly, we were disgusted, yet laughing at the idea that a company would even bother to announce this. Great use of white space in that pdf…isn’t about 50-60% of that Max pdf blank?
There was a great campaign to get Tom Hudson INTO Autodesk… I think there needs to be an equally passionate campaign for the firing of everyone who…um…I can’t really use the word “worked”…on Max 2015…
…or were they fired last April, which would at least explain the ridiculous lack of new stuff.
$500…Autodesk effectively took $500 from me for nothing. Oh wait, quad chamfers…
Maybe that’s the problem – their userbase is so heavily skewed to other industries that – – no wait…if that were the case there would be pages and pages of new features for SOMEBODY.
This should never have been an announcement..it should have been a formal apology.
@Well: I get that you like Autodesk and want to defend them, which I guess I understand because 15 years ago I was the same way. But no one is saying they want ‘half baked’ features…that’s a distortion of the argument…what we are saying is we want production ready features that are comparable to the competition…or (Holy Cow! How Dare I??!?) actually BETTER than the competition.
And yes, I will always demand the features that “I” need….I’m not sure if it makes much sense for me to demand features that I don’t need.
They are a huge company, and can probably defend themselves…if this release weren’t indefensible.
They start pdf strong: with new icons for undo and redo.
I can’t see them killing max anyway, they’re too strongly rooted in viz world, but to me it seems like they’re pushing it away.
More modelling tools are going from max to maya, so the inevitable transition (for a modeler) won’t be so hard.
However I would choose more exiciting application like modo or blender.
It’s sadly funny that Autodesk’s Max has the angriest userbase in the industry.
They just don’t care about time and effort (plugins) we have commited to their product…
They never even had strategy for their product, buying plugins for past couple of years, putting consistency of product’s design to graveyard.
I want my 3d software to excite me like zbrush or modo.
3dsmax is lacking that ability for some time.
What I can’t understand is why all 3dsmax users ever do is try to understand internal AD logic, who is doing what, how many developers there are, who was fired, who should be hired and how decisions are made. This should not be the concern of the user. Frankly I shouldn’t care who the product manager is, what they base their decisions on, etc.
Users pay them for a product with expectations of improvement and further development. How they achieve their goals or what goes in AD meeting rooms should not be my problem. I should not have to care that a new product manager joined. It is AD’s job to figure it out. This excuse doesn’t hold in any other type of industry, and it shouldn’t here.
R.I.P 3Ds Max. It was an Honor growing up and working with you.
Good point, Rotem, in an ideal world we would just be making great things (and things with liquids!) in Max.
The only other thing that bothers me is that people keep saying that the new team is here and is “doing things”…they are “saying things” that are encouraging, but we won’t know if ANYONE is actually DOING anything until we waste $500 on the next renewal. Again, they must really LOVE that they can’t make forward-looking statements sometime, because people have to pay “to find out what is in it”
are you nuts!…i’ve gave them a free pass for 5 years…we has the F.D. is coming back…it’ll all be epic…but wasn’t now we’ve had we have T.H back at the helm it’s all be epic…it’s not epic it’s awful adn quite like a very large slap in the face too…they do not care…it’s dead, get over it.
they have up until june to turn this dead donkey into something that doesn’t small of cash grab and then i’m out of here.
Yes like Bobo said, let’s spread some green on both sides of the fence!
Now I watched all the videos about max new features and I have some positive things to say!
The viewport enhancement can go unnoticed in a list of new feature cause it’s easy to just say “we made it faster” without the numbers. But when the numbers come out, we see if it is truly amazing or not.
This one looks like truly amazing to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmhqeLZteUU
It’s the kind of improvement that will allows you to save money by not buying a 5000$ quadro card. (maybe some money we can use to upgrade to an ultimate suite with maya and mudbox (4780$ I think) ).
I really like the new layer and scene explorer editor and the placement tool. Both tools I will use everyday.
And still they fixed a lot of anoying things with the new system they put in place and we have to be patient and wait the next version or next extension to really see wha the new developement team will come up with.
So after some emotional moment when seeing the confirmation about bifrost not being in max, I still have great hope for 3ds MAX!
In fact if the next extension has Bifrost, I see a great future for 3ds max and I see myself still using 3ds max 2055 when I’ll be 80 years old…
And I just saw on the FXguide interview that Bifrost in Maya has no viscus fluids or surface tension, no smoke or plume style gas sims, no foam and spray… ( so yes, it’s not production ready like someone said). Stuff that has already been implemeted in the amazing Chaosgroup’s PhoenixFD for 3ds max (and maya too). So we may get it in max once it is ready anyway… They also talk about Bifrost standalone acrhitecture being also vital if the 3ds Max team want to harness Bifröst. So we may get it in max once it ready with splash and foam and viscous liquids!
Considering the high cost of MAX subscriptions and the absolutely extortionate cost of upgrades, and considering the utterly piss poor level of this “update”, it might seem appropriate if Autodesk let us take a year off from subscriptions without a cost penalty, after all they have obviously taken a year off from development :shrug:
‘Tools for Ninjas’
Those must be all the blank pages in the PDF – so good at stealth we can’t see them.
as the new features always comes from the polishing side with the insistence for the annual release and no new concept of thinking AD will never offer real develop for max
they cant come with new tech because its more easier to buy some stuff from the market and be reserved on our table and we will eat
they know houdini is full with the tools and modo is very promising and c4d is cool but you have to take our package because you invested time of your life with it and its not easy to drop it
think box is great because they think creatively not to repeat thy self or to copy some one AD cant go for
we have to wait for 2016 release teal me why ? why i have to west a full year of my life to feel good ??
what is the concept of killing a software in such a ridiculous way … if you cant develop so pass it for someone else
its not a mater of bitfrost or else but its matter of developing concept dos they have one ??
@ rotem :
look at japanese culture. their work ethic, even its insane..
they work by mastery their skill.. their goal is satisfying their customer.
customer is 3d artist. can u feel their pain if the software doesn’t meet the industry standards? how many hours spend each day to tweaking a pipeline? for one years, how many hours spend wasted.
and the end of the year, the boss say. “we change our software, its to painfull for the artist.” and again so so so much wasted time.. that’s the fact bro. trust me.. i’ve trough this. it’s a catastrophic earthquake.
dont worry!!!, I think the .PDF its just broken, Autodesk make a servisPatch. 🙁
Autodesk slowly want us to understand this:
The future of 3Ds Max is like XSI and 3Ds Max Design will be the only Max in the future targeted for Arch and Vis. Maya gonna be the only application from Autodesk for tv, film and game.
I Really wish Autodesk to burn in hell! as a modeler, I can confidently say that I will be doing fine without any of the autodesk software and yeah Maya can burn in hell with Autodesk as well.
It’s all politics. You want this just because everyone else has it. Well if everyone else has it go use what everyone else is using. A lot of you ‘FX Artists’ who don’t wanna go to Houdini are ughh just as ‘lazy’ as Autodesk is for not giving you your beloved fluids. There are always two sides. Look at yourselves, change programs, don’t be lazy and just complain all freaking day. Don’t wanna pay, then don’t pay. There isn’t a gun at your head. Max artists are talented but seriously getting on my nerves.
The reason Max has fallen behind is that in the past there hasn’t been a clear vision of the future for what 3dsmax will be. Call me an idiot but I truly believe the new team is working hard at that. There is a lot of catching up to do but we’ll never catch up without innovation. I think that’s the key word….
Yog has a valid point…3dsmax 2015 is a freeby transitional ‘sorry about this year’ and we won’t be required to pay this years subs…everyone will be up for subscription only on April 16th 2015 for 3dsmax 2016…afer we’ve seen the feature videos.
Autodesk put our money where your elbow grease should be.
Bitfrost isn’t beating realflow for now, but it is free, so 3ds max is just too much without this tool out of the box. The horrible thing is that they are putting the integration responsibility on the 3ds max development team. IMO, the responsibility should be on the Bitfrost team, so that each release of Bitfrost can have both max and maya integration at the same time. The way it works now, the max version will always lag behind the maya version.
Anyone asked Thinkbox if they fathom to create a 3D application?
“dont worry!!!, I think the .PDF its just broken, Autodesk make a servisPatch. :(”
So the first service pack for 3dsMax will be a service pack for the bugged Pdf 😉
Max’s future, only to destroy like soft image
Did worthless to everyone in this field
@nickolay411 : It is common for someone to come onto a forum like this attempting to defend or help a company, but the end result is quite the opposite. Do you really think Autodesk shares your opinion? They think that people who have purchased, paid, paid, and paid again for this for years should just switch?
If everyone took your advice, Autodesk would not be better off.
Well here’s a news flash, I already have switched in part.
We were once 100% Autodesk and now we are not, and the odds are high that we will just drop this stagnant product after nearly 25 years, because 2015 was a whole lot of nothing, and my subscription will unfortunately expire before they can show me the next version. It’s silly, actually, because I’d be less annoyed if they just moved my subscription end date to [Day after Max 2016 releases]
I love Max, but people need to recognize when they’re in an abusive or one-sided relationship…so you’re right: most of us probably are going to be better off leaving Autodesk completely.
huh huh, this is a again a new napalm bombing thread… 🙂
To be honest, i think this release is not so disappointing – i was counting with much less! There is definitely no way to accuse Tom Hundson and new workers in Max Team for the current situation. I think he signed the contract on the day when the beta was feature complete.
Maya 2015 feature list looks really amazing. On the other side, if i talk about my own small visualization productions, the improvements in Max2015 are exactly what i need: we have and we will never have expensive jobs for calculating oceans, and the new Maya Skinning looks like what we have in BonesPro (i can not judge anything from the abstract tech video how it really works, but the interpolation and calculation behaves in the same way – probably massively enhanced), Xgen seems to be something we have in Itoo Forest, MultiScatter, VrayScatter etc, ShaderFX is i think also in Max2015… from this perspective Maya is adding tools Max already has since years. Please correct me if i am wrong.
For some reason and after reading all Tom Hundson has written here, i look optimistic in the next 365 days. He can not fix 2015, i am sure they will present new production values in SubscriptionPack and 2016. It is at leas my only last hope i hang on.
The old tricks are the best ones, so the intern’s at AD say …. LOL
It’s humorous at this point to see a ‘feature’ for max is a single new modifier for ‘Chamfering’ which has already been around for over 2 years thanks to Marius. But yet this multimillion dollar company with a team of developers spends money re-inventing the wheel. I agree it should be in 3ds max, but it shouldn’t be one of the head lining features of 3ds Max. Instead it should be one of the 5 most voiced things on the area, or any other slew of huge requests like Alembic Support, or Bifrost, a ton of other things. A modifier is not going to convince me to drop even 100 dollars to upgrade.
Looks like from that absolutely pathetic pdf the Max dev team is going to be heading to Singapore, like it or not. The place were software goes to die.
Softimage team went that way.
Fast Forward Two years from now…. bye bye Max. Then your licenses stop working.
AD will then tell you, in some screencast – you can always migrate to Maya – just keep paying those subs.
this may or may not be true, but this is how i’m feeling today….cast your minds back to the whoo har on previous releases that were awful from 3dsmax..enter well known ‘celebrity’ name…hire him…everyone say ohh…about time too…phew we’re saved…3dsmax will be cool….then he stays for a couple of months and moves sideways out of the 3dsmax spot light…then we get max 2014…lack lustre edition….
and another hoo harr erupts…even spreading to old timers in other areas on the net…enter celeb number 2.0…now he’s on board it’s all gonna be cool…
and yet here we are 3dsmax 2015 feature list with a list of stuff that could be free scripts of 20 euro plugins…..
have we been sucker punched twice?
Does anyone saw the list of improvement in Unity 5 !!??, Shame on you AD !!, Shame on you !!
Honestly, Frank mentioned that they were concentrating on improving the core of 3DS Max so that updates can proceed quickly without breaking things. They were trying to match the Maya much improved core. This is probably part of completing the dead Excalibur project, but with a smaller team. So frank had to decide on completing the core or start building new features. Its a bad situation since he didn’t have the proper development staff to support both.
It’s too bad Autodesk is not transparent anymore with the state of 3DS Max core development. If I knew they were actively working on improving the core (Excalibur continues?), I could understand why the feature list is so sparse. Since they are not saying anything, we can only assume the worst.
@Strob:
Regarding the 2015 Viewport Performance – the video looks nice, but the mesh is not animated… which is still a weak point and it would be interesting if this has been solved.
Another point of interest – plugin compatibility to 2013/14?
It’s already been confirmed by Kelly Micheles, plugins will need to be recompiled for MAX 2015.
God knows why, nothing much seems to have changed ??
On the same line of RS comments I would add, how does the viewport perform with particles? I mean… lot of particles?
Plugin compatibility is broken.
@rs
Deforming mesh performance was already improved a lot in 2014.
Many calculation heavy modifiers{Skin, SkinWrap, Shell} has been multi-threaded,
Nitrous also has faster new mesh builder.
PointCache plays at least 7-8 times faster. Modifier heavy scene plays at least 3-4 times faster. PFlow plays 100times faster.
Max breaks SDK every 2 years. Therefore, 2015 plugin would need recompile.
@Jim Todd
Actually max has what competitor does not have in 2015.
Nested Layer,
Quote: “But now we’ll have to buy a couple of seats of Maya (frustrating/costly) and hope that Bifrost still accepts PRT I/O.”
I don’t understand why somone would say this.
End Quote
Elaborate. How can you not understand why someone would say this? I’ve used Naiad on several feature films and other projects in conjunction with Max and I often use PRTs (both in and out). If I had Bifrost in Max and it supported PRTs and Stoke’s fields, I could do things much quicker and much better. So, while not surprising, it’s a big deal that Max gets very, very little development (especially innovation) over the years and that they rely on 3rd party for this.
Tobbe, I’m with you on this! That’s exactly where I’m at. I was looking at Maya’s features and I still think Max is way above Maya for FX work. Although it is the 3rd party developers.
If we all switched to Maya what would we use for an actual particle system? nParticles is fine for basic stuff, but what about fracturing? Pulldownit? NO. What about production-level particle systems like TP? What exists? Nothing.
That’s what makes me nervous. It would be different if there was an equivalent in Maya, but there isn’t. I know a few people have said “Just go to Houdini!” I’m sorry but you don’t just simply start using Houdini the way a lighter in Max would go to Maya, or a Modeler in Max would go to Maya or even Zbrush; not that I’m trying to minimize other specialties but you know what I mean.
And also Tobbe, just like you I’m the same way with PRT’s. I can’t stress enough how much flexibility and options Thinkbox’s plugins have brought to me. In fact, that was the first thing I thought of when I saw Bifrost today. “I know you can’t get to the data natively but I bet Krakatoa will be able to.”
In short, I think I might be too harsh and sort of expected this release to be lacking. However, Max is on it’s last legs with me. They have a year to show some sort of direction and commitment to improve it’s technology or I’m going to have to be forced to leave. No more of this buying and abandoning plugins.
P.S. I’m not even mad about pflow. I’m just amazed how each year they have dragged out the original single-threaded plugin. I thought after the 2014 release including Box 3 that they would be forced to have Orbaz add some new functionality because it literally includes all of the Orbaz features. Nope! They just changed the look of it.
@nickolay411
Man! That’s your argument, that we are as bad as Autodesk because we complain and don’t want to throw away all the investment, both monetary and time wise and learn a new software from scratch? Transitioning completely to Houdini would take a long time but that’s not even the point and we would loose a lot of things that are great about Max and have been for a long time — but for the last 8 years the majority of innovation have come from 3rd party. I do love how fast and stable the viewports are now, I will give that to Autodesk. But it’s not enough.
A great company innovates, they don’t need users telling them what to come up with, but they should also listen. Look at Thinkbox as a good example. Bobo has implemented several features in a few days based on forum requests. On the other hand, they have also come up with plugins that no one has specifically asked for but have become almost essential for FX artists and I am massively excited about Stoke 2.0 and what it will allow me to do as an artist.
No one is saying 3ds Max is bad, but it’s stagnant. 3rd party is driving it forward. Yes Bifrost in Maya isn’t complete, but according to FX Guide it sounded like by Siggraph much more functionality will have been added and that they were a bit behind schedule but that we’re not going to have to wait a year to see it more a more complete feature set. Bifrost is just one example of innovation though.
Let me give you another example, if they decided to add crowd features (Populate), why not do it properly like Massive? You should expect those level of tools from a company the size of Autodesk and the userbase Max has. Right now it’s very, very basic and useful in only a limited amount of scenarios. I don’t mind if both Maya users and Max users get it.
People have every right to complain, people also need to make decisions based on what’s happening. I am still sticking with Max, but I am repeating myself now, it’s not because of Autodesk but because of 3rd party.
LOL
@tobbe and @stark… That’s what I’m saying. It’s either max or houdini for effects. Thinkbox is doing amazing things, that’s why I know you’ll stay. 😛 Muhaha. Who in their right mind would migrate to Maya for effects…
@Chris… “Max dev team is going to be heading to Singapore, like it or not. The place were software goes to die”.
Hate to tell you but MAX development has been “outsourced” (in the definition of, yes, low-wage geographical areas in Asia, shall we say) for many years already. Nothing new there.
As for places to go where software goes to die… it’s not the place it’s outsources to where software goes to die. It’s AUTODESK where good software goes to die. I’ve said that before and someone before me did as well (http://www.stefandidak.com/2011/12/time-for-a-change-an-autodesk-free-one/)… Unfortunately, it is true and with recent happenings with Softimage… well, I don’t understand why anyone would need more proof than the proof they’ve had in the past few years.
That’s very very bad for animation and vfx artist if compare with maya 2015. Autodesk bring 3dsmax down. always disappointment from one version to another version, i feel hopeless to use it
Heh same feeling as Bobo – Maya didn’t have viewport displacement till now, wow!
I only see two important cool things in the Maya release – Bifrost and the fancy skinning. The Bifrost release looks like a great start, in a couple years it could get feature complete.
Max NEEDS Bifrost, we gotta make sure we press them up for it.
I so sad, What do they do to 3dsmax?
All good new features for Maya only, always … always …
Dear MaxUnderground,
First, let me thank many of you for your support, kind words and constructive criticism. As I have demonstrated here and in other forums, I will gladly discuss the future and success of 3ds Max in a professional and polite manner, anytime, anywhere. I know that there is a silent majority that is rooting for the success of Autodesk and 3ds Max. Even for those that choose to take a less than respectful tone, I hope that in most instances, it is a display of passion and concern for this application we all know and love.
But, when there are reports that are blatantly false, I must set the record straight.
First, the 3ds Max development team is a global enterprise with teams in Canada, U.S., Germany, Shanghai, Sweden, England and more. To imply that any one of these teams is less than capable or committed to the success of 3ds Max is unacceptable. It is thanks to their expertise and skill that we have many of the great features in the product that we all enjoy. I am constantly amazed at the capabilities of this team. To imply that they are “lazy or incompetent” is offensive.
Secondly, recent decisions regarding the continued development of software titles at Autodesk are never easy. Nor are they sweeping. Software titles are evaluated on individually and do not reflect on the entire portfolio or the other titles in it. 3ds Max is one of the top performers at Autodesk.
This brings me to my final comment. As Mark Twain is often misquoted, “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”. Again, I will point out all of the positive steps Autodesk has taken for 3ds Max. Growing the team in expertise and experience, focusing on the UserVoice and Charter advisory boards to make sure your voice is heard, streamlining the development process and returning those savings to R&D. All that and so much more. And the good news is that all of that hasn’t even taken the field yet. From a software development aspect as well as a life aspect, these are exactly the steps you would recommend if the roles were reversed.
Please don’t tell me you’ve heard it before. You didn’t hear about Tom Hudson, Martin Coven, Jenni O’Conner, Nicholas Fonta, Sonja Muller and others you know and respect coming together to join Kelcey Simpson, Mike Russo, Kelly Michels, Chris Young and Chris Bradshaw. That isn’t speculation, these are real, talented people committed to making a difference in your experience and what I call “proof”.
Actually, I think I might be on to something. In the U.S., we are in the middle of college basketball tournaments or “March Madness”. Using the hashtag #maxmadness, twitter the software development steps you would recommend. Not features, that’s what UserVoice (http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com/) is for. I’m talking role reversal; you have the keys, steps you would take if you ran the candy store. I will read some of them during the Expert Challenge March 26th (http://area.autodesk.com/expertchallenge). It may win you a 3ds Max t-shirt. I will be posting this on other forums as well. But, let’s keep this professional. We’re doing this for the greater good.
is this update for 2014 allready avaible for the download???.. errrr wait.. is this a new release???? come on AD…
@Eddie
I respect what you’re trying to do and the ginormous task that rests on your shoulders. I do not envy you. I also respect your willingness, energy, and drive to basically do what amounts to running into a burning building to try and save what’s in it. I wish you luck and I hope you’ll succeed. I’m very skeptical of that, though. And that has nothing to do with you or your intentions. After all, “things change” and things can change at a very rapid pace. The things you are doing now, trying to do tomorrow, may all be in vain a year from now. Just ask the Softimage users and colleagues how that works.
I completely agree with what you’re saying that it’s unacceptable that people who don’t know any better would imply that certain teams or members on any teams are less than capable. They have no way to make that determination and it’s nothing more than insulting.
Having said that… I *have* worked with/along various members of the various teams you speak of. And have done so at various points in time for a very long time. I’m very happy that I no longer do and that is in most part because I no longer need to grumble and yell every other day about the frightening levels of incompetence I had to deal with. It is much better on my blood pressure. 🙂
Just before your response I decided to take an hour or so and write my thoughts down on what’s been going on lately. I’m sure it will sound extremely insulting and unacceptable but it is what it is. I truly understand what you’re trying to do (there were others before you that also tried) but unfortunately it isn’t just one person or two, or a team, or the size of any development team, or even their competence that will make the difference that users have been wishing for. Anyway, in case you wish to read my thoughts, you can find them here; http://www.stefandidak.com/2014/03/autodesk-the-metastasizing-cancer-of-the-3d-world/
Eddie, thanks for clearing some things up.
But people are disappointed for a reason, even if they don’t always say it nicely, it would be a mistake not to listen.
For example, look at Morpher who hasn’t been updated in years, it’s so easy to improve, it sometimes feels like the Autodesk people don’t use their software…
We don’t understand why such simple things don’t improve or get fixed.
@Eddie
Sure things take time, but as it has been stated before, a lot of the missing functionality exits in the plugin market and it’s very disappointing to see AD praising itself for bringing features after so many years. Not to forget they have been much cheaper to buy than the subscription fee itself.
That’s why I’ll probably end my subscription and rather buy some plugins (aka the innovators) worth the subscription fee of the coming 2-3 years. After that I’ll see what AD has achieved or if it’s better to change the platform.
Overall the situation feels like an unhappy marriage, where you say to yourself repeatedly that the next year will be better…
Thanks for posting here, Eddie. After seeing how Max was announced yesterday it’s good to see you and the devs care.
However, I don’t get how a multi-billion company dares to announce a “top-performer” in such a way. If this would happen in any of the companies I’ve worked with those people would have a really hard time. That’s where Stefan’s comment fits perfectly to what we see.
One thing that shocked me with every release (2010 upwards) is to see how much dev time was spent on re-arranging the UI, hiding things from the user instead of making the app more accessible. Honestly, no one here cares for the ‘undo’ button. Should the user interface ever find its way onto your list of things to change in the future, please UNIFY it, for good, and then never touch it again.
Whatever the masses are saying, this is the short version:
There are some good things in this release, they were presented in an absolutely horrendous and unacceptable way.
Dear Mr. Perlberg
Would you call that pdf “professional”, I certainly would not.
If the roles were actually reversed, I would not have approved it, I would have – if it was done, clearly state that there were core architecture issues addressed and listed clearly what they were and the exact reason for them being done. What and where it takes Max into the future and how these items will make the product better.
I know that’s not as sexy as voxel skinning, but it’s at least honest, and people will respect that, as well as see that there is a future for Max.
You can list a litany of names, in fact every one that is on the board of Autodesk for all that it matters, because what ‘actually’ matters is the way, the presentation, and the details of that, that has be dumped on paying customers via pdf’s like this.. THAT’S what customers see.
That to be honest shows less than good faith, less than respect, to the people that actually generate the profits for the company, and who earn their livelihood using Max.
Without this kind of respect, concern and consideration for customers, don’t be surprised that people are upset, this is the tool that they use to generate income. Remember if someone adjusted the tools that you use to generate your income. You too would be upset. Think like a customer.
Further it seems an anathema that AD seems unaware of the impact on the community when things are done like this. I know only too well once inside a corporation it’s all too easy to get involved in the politics, the day to day grind, the meetings, the project plans.
But for goodness sake, put a poster on the wall (or every desk) saying “Think like a customer”.
@Well
“Actually max has what competitor does not have in 2015. Nested Layer”
Well – 2 points, whilst I accept Maya (another Autodesk product) may not have nested layers, most other “competing” software has had this feature built in for years. In fact I’ve been using nested layers in MAX for several years, both using PJanssen’s excellent FREE Outliner, and Esphere’s Zookeeper.
Lets face it, the 3 “biggest” features in MAX 2015, ShaderFx, Layer/Object manager and Quad-Chamfer, either are, or have been based on existing MAX 3rd party plug-ins (cheep or free).
Well, I quite like the new features, sure the list isn’t that long but it has a few things that I REALLY wanted. Nested Layers! – at last! If this works properly and is reasonably fast it will make a huge difference to my workflow. BiFrost in Maya looks interesting but it also looks only half done. I’d rather they finish it off first, I can just imagine the thread here :”I paid $500 for my subscription and BiFrost is only half done, blah, blah, blah” There seems to be some good features in 2015, but I look forward to 2016 with interest.
As I’ve said before, I’m off subs and the value from 2013 to 2015 is not worth the £2K odd cost.
For that I could buy a couple of plugins that give me more production value.
It’s pretty desperate when you’re pitching removing a features as a new feature.
By 2016 it will be buying a new seat due to AD policy. And I can’t honestly see how that will justify the price of a new seat over 2013 either.
The excessive upgrade prices for lapsed users is the biggest hurdle – I dropped subs because I didn’t think I was getting much out of it, paying for a whole new seat is pretty much out of the question.
@ Eddie
Your words are soothing but it is still pretty obvious that Autodesk is dedicated to migrating segments of the Max user base over to Maya. All game developers are now directed to Maya LT. Maya now has a modeling toolset modeled after Max’s. And next I’d imagine CAT will show up in Maya. New purchases by AD, like Naiad, go first to Maya. It’s obvious where AD is directing the future. You just can’t hide it or sweet talk it away.
Max has value to me but mainly because of the plugins like BonyFace and BonesPro that allow me to completely rig a character, body and face, in less than an hour. Scripts like ProSequencer, do the camera switching job Max’s team of engineers still failed to add to the product.Some of Max 2015’s new features ( stereo camera and chamfer) were already available through scripts and plugins. I can go on but you get the picture.
In all honesty, as some have pointed out here already, even Maya 2015’s new features are not all that revolutionary. Bifrost is nice but it won’t replace RealFlow or FumeFX, not this year. And I doubt in the future Bifrost will keep pace with the development of RealFlow or FumeFX, but it’s nice to have for smaller jobs. So Max users want it.
Autodesk is not a great innovator of software. Now don’t get mad at me. But let’s face it, CAT, Particle Flow, heck, even Character Studio back in the day, were all developed outside of Autodesk as plugins and became the biggest “new” features of Max. Of course, the same can be said for Naiad/Bifrost.
Plugin developers are the innovators. Really, can you compare Populate with Golaem Crowd or Massive. Plugin developers livelihood depend on staying years ahead of companies like Autodesk.
That’s actually fine with me, Autodesk provides the platform many can improve on.
What bugs me about AD and the way the company attempts to direct the future away from Max, is that because Autodesk is perceived as taking this approach, certain plugin developers shy away from developing for Max because they see no future. Thinkbox now begins to develop products for Maya and that’s good business but I can’t help but feel they also see the writing on the wall for Max.
That’s really the only thing I find myself angry about. That AD has created the perception that Max is dead. (Rumors of Max’s death are based directly on Autodesk’s actions) That hurts what plugin developers, the true innovators, can invest in Max.
We all know perception becomes reality.
Dear lord, some of you are just impossible.
Almost no-one realises that the big changes (new staff, etc) happened in the last couple months. You expect them to turn around max (rewrite the core, include a massively complicated fluidsim thing into this rewritten core, and god knows what else) in that short timespan? Do you guys even listen to yourself when you speak?!?
I have to say, I’m completely with Eddie on this point and some of you are downright offensive and unreasonable, even demanding people to be fired while you have absolutely no idea who they are, what kind of environment they had to work in the last years, if they have to support a family. Maybe they are too as frustrated as you are, seeing this software they love being wrecked and neglected, while they are working on it!
*sighs*
regarding Undo buttons:
I DO actually care about the undo buttons: the one in the QAT had less functionality and the whole QAT simply is a Max alien interface item i tend to ignor, together with the Jewel Icon ( aka “Clown button” ).
Now Undo buttons are back in the maintoolbar like they were up to Max 2010. Now i don’t hae to do this step myself on each new installation.
This is a good thing.
They certainly do not count as a new feature though
Regarding Eddie’s post:
I still believe in the things he talks and the proposed change in Max’s development. I ‘m not expecting wonders, like others seem to expect from a pre-mature Bifrost implementation or similar, but i expect a definitive change in feature picking focus for the new dev-cycle.
Now I have a somewhat privileged position here, as my sub is valid until mid 2015,and i’m on beta too, which helps getting info early on…
That gives me the benefit of having time to let things settle…
@Josef
It’s more the UI thing in general that always kills me.
There are tons of examples why Max’ UI just doesn’t make sense, adding redesigns on top of a (partially) wrong concept will not change much.
A simple example (let’s admit it’s one of many): adding a viewport bg image is done via a simple shortcut – fine. Changing the UI color of the bg is done in an entirely different way (Customize UI etc.) – legacy way, I know, but why not make both accessible in one window?
This lack of concept behind the UI is just woven into the whole software.
I really don’t want to discuss the UI here but all past attempts have failed to unify it and whenever a new release introduces another patch on top of the messy UI it gives me the feeling that a lot of time has been wasted.
@Eddie
“Proof” is what you deliver.
I “we” need Max to compete with other 3d software applications. Having to buying plug-ins for everything and all their upgrade costs is making this program uncompetitive.
BiFrost in Max even if it’s “work in progress” would be a strong signal to users that ADSK is serious about new features and future.
Hoping there are some extra features to be announced in this release.
PS I don’t want a T-shirt.
@spacefrog – yes, I envy your subscription renewal date…and is ‘t that a pathetic commentary?
It would not solve all problems, but I would be a lot less annoyed if they would either move my renewal date to May, or allow a prorated opt out for Max 2016….basically
“To restore your confidence in our promises that Max 2016 will show our restored commitment, anyone on subscription who is unsatisfied with Max 2016 can either immediately switch their subscription to Maya at no extra charge, or can receive a refund for the unused portion of their subscription”
Wouldn’t that be a lot better than these ridiculous pleas for us to trust them after years of ‘this year will be different!!!’ ?
The trial of both maya and max is already up on Autodesks servers… so you can all look for youself… however I can sadly inform you that if you are looking for miracles outside of that max-pdf, you will be disappointed.
Damage control time for team Autodesk I’m afraid. Maya customers get BiFrost (formerly $5k package), Max subscribers get quad chamfers ($20 plugin). For the love of god dig down into the existing toy box and pull out a consolation prize before release day. Mudbox maybe? At least that would be something to show for the thousands of dollars I’ve dumped down the subscription hole over the last several years!
Well Personally, I would rather see them keep fixing bugs before they eventually abandon max, instead of implementing lots of features on top of the buggy hell max has become these past 10 years.
But yes, I know its not what we pay for. Expectations lower with the year. Would be nice to be able to use the scanline renderer together with skylight and batch render again.
I would gladly trade the horribly slow hair and fur for that.
Mudbox 2015’s features list doesn’t read any better than max’s. In fact, some of the “new features” apply ONLY to Maya… Perhaps another piece of this puzzle that we’re all putting together about the future of 3ds max… Or 3d Studio Design as we’ll all be calling it in a few years.
Each year the releases seem to get worse. Thank god for HairFarm, Chaos Group, Rayfire, and all the other plugin and script developers that keep this software relevant.
Watch 3ds max and Maya 2015 Sneak Peek vids….
Compare…and Curse Autodesk lol…
But, Seriously Max has lots of features that have to be improved but are remained untouched and Max already lacks Fluid system (FX people madly want one in the max) Maya is getting more and more stronger every year.
-New Modeling and UV enhancements….
-Bullet and Bifrost added…
number of features for Maya and max got Nothing as compared to Maya.
If these would be the updates every year, Max will definitely gonna die. I don;t want to see another great software dying.
Hey Thomas, can you point me in the direction of these servers? Got the boss’s subscription details to hand for any logins or does it require something completely different? cheers
I have an issue with this because i dropped off subscription at 2012 and now with the way Autodesk is forcing people to upgrade and get back on subscription…i either pay $3000 or buy another seat after April. That’s if i wanted to get more current then 2012. Now i look at what has changed since 2012 and i look at what i could buy for that money in plugins or other software and its really hard to justify upgrading…even though i see control of my 2012 MAX seat slipping away from me and back into the hands of Autodesk.
I just can’t trust that if i throw down the cash that there is going to be a MAX version worth the value in the future…or if there are future versions for that matter!
Hey guys, lost of valid points in here about why keep 3ds Max. I mean, I see what Thinkbox is doing and it’s amazing and even though I don’t have money to buy their plugins, I want to.
But let’s say you guys, great Max artists, were starting out today, from scratch. Would you guys still choose 3ds Max? If you buy all the needed plugins (some must-have like TP, Fume, Krakatoa, Stoke, V-Ray), wouldn’t you guys consider just starting in Maya (money-wise)?
Just a question out of curiosity really.
First at all, i am 3dmax user, but this is my opinion.
Poor 3ds max features like always. This is the reason why some 3ds max users switch to another 3d platform, meanwhile every realease from maya or houdini has amazing features, 3dmax is updated with not exciting features .
@MauricioPC If I started out today, there would be 0 doubt that I would go strait to Maya and Houdini, no questions there.
I see all the valid points from people complaining for 3dsmax lack of new features. Considering the diference in size from autodesk team to other smaller studios (cebas/sitnisati/thinkbox) when this ones presents bigger updates on new releases. But also its because: 1- This studios are focused mainly in vfx (and is what people in this forum want), and 2-They dont have anual updates (or releases).
Forcing a new release per year I think is too much, I will prefer a new version every two years with major new options and with little updates every half year focusing to improve existing stuff/bug fixes.
I will move to another soft if I have to start fro scratch? NO. Houdini is amazing, certainly but plays in another division (not to be better, simply to be diferent) is very powerfull with a lot of built in features, but face it, is not as fun an “artist friendly” as max is. Maya…. well a part that I dont like the interface, what extra features I will have that I dont have in max? Pflow is great with toolbox 2 and 3, particles in maya beats the power of pflow?, better skin and character animation tools? I dont work with charanim so.. no. Built in fire/smoke simulator? People is using Fumefx now in maya so I guess that is because is better. Last thing… now bifrost. Right now is incomplete, no splashes, no viscosity,… I can rent realflow for 150$ for a single project, and I dont work so much with liquids… (I will love to see liquids implemented in max but right now I will not move to maya or houdini for fluids) And last… there is Thinking particles for maya, no? So definetly I will stay on max.
I expect to see important improvements on usability on the new max releases, the scene explorer is a good move, but float script/wire parameters are really outdated in max in comparision with other softs. Things like link one parameter to another and create little expressions has to be possible inside the sliders! If they improve workflow, and performance, all the good and amazing tools will come from the third parties.
Why do not make these features into max design only,give us back a powerful max to do VFX and animation,we dont need max to be a VIZ program,you (AD)already separated max to 2 directions,why do not make some different between them?
Food for thought. When Max was one of the hot young kids on the block with new concepts and workflows Max had a fantastic user base and developer base. They made things to fix workflows that did not meet their needs. We made plug-ins to do new things. We integrated our own tools into Max as a community. To be honest this is not there anymore really. This means a substantial potion of the package strength is missing. Is it fair to ask Autodesk to make up this portion of the package? Truly I am asking? I am not saying it’s fair or not but not having the same level of user development is exacerbating Max’s lack of development or rather lackluster development. Look at how many plug in packages stared with Max and have now diversified. Add all this to this Autodesk’s obsessive need to make things the same cross packages with the CAD for Max, and the need to put in a Maya mode into Max but not vice verse and you see a lot of development must go toward other products needs and not necessarily the current users needs and you have a vacuum not going “development” but to standardization of features that apparently Max, and Max users had no say in? Just because Max sells well does not == product health. Blackberry sold well till it busted, but just look what happened to their industry, ours could be/is changing fast too just food for thought.
I subscribed to 3ds-Max, and all I got was a lousy T-Shirt :).
Do you even expect us to advertise for this?
We at Thinkbox love Max.
I think you can tell that everything we have developed has started there, and i can tell you as a past VFX user that we went through the same issues with AD, as early as ’99. In fact we switched to Maya during Swordfish VFX bank explosion for some of the assets, because AD wasn’t moving fast enough. We even bought Houdini. Guess what we did immediately after delivering that movie? moved back to MAX and wrote the stuff we needed on the next 40+ projects spanning Film and Television. That technology and experience is now the basis for what we are writing now.
As much as I am personally attached to that love/hate relationship we call Max, our clients are asking us to move our tools to other platforms. We comply as best we can with our resources. In the end, Krakatoa for Maya is selling well, and Maxon C4D users are lining up to test Krakatoa C4D. In fact, the largest response we have ever had for a beta was Krakatoa C4D..by far the most enthusiastic user base in the last few product releases. Compare that to Stoke 2.0 – IMHO [biased of course] the most innovative fx technology in any 3D product; which, with the exception of a few key people [you know who you are] has had a lackluster response to our beta announcements.
So here is my feedback to MU folks and anyone out there: Get invested. Talk to us. Tell us what you want. Join our betas and help refine our tools. Use the stuff and experiment and leave feedback on the forums. Buy it when it does what you need. Tell us your hopes and dreams for the future. Have a beer with me at Siggraph or NAB or wherever. I’m the founder, 100% owner, President, CEO and individual without any board, or stockholders to be accountable to.
if i’m convinced: it will happen.
cheers,
cb
Now that’s an awesome post @Chris Bond
First of all I really don’t know what people expected to happen considering what was planned for max 2015 was more than likely settled months before any of the new happy talk started.
And don’t get me wrong. I like the happy talk.
I actually think Eddie is honest about where he wants to take the program. I just hope AD lets him do it.
In the mean time I think it would be really important for AD as a show of good faith to put something like alembic support or open sub d in the expansion pack when ever that comes out so we aren’t all waiting around another year to see some proof that they mean what they say.
@Chris,
I think the problem is that you’re dealing with a number of hurdles.
I can only speak from a freelancer view.
Uncertainty over Max – is it worth investing more money into plugins for that if Autodesk have just axed one of their DCC apps, and have had disappointing updates?
Stoke requires a third-party plugin to get the most out of it, compared to Frost. Although Genome looks fantastic, it also looks daunting for the casual user/generalist (I’d say the same for Box #3)
Krakatoa is more immediate solution for a problem as is Frost, whereas Stoke and Genome are bit more toolkit/tweaky type approaches. It’s the one area where I’d suggest a dumbed down/presets/hand holding as an option would help – that may appall the technical artists, but I think it’s the way to make it more attractive.
From my point of view, I’d much rather have the Chaos Group approach to licensing, via a programmed dongle (as an alternative) rather than setting up the license server – or both. It would make things easier to take on site.
As it stands I only have Frost – the maintenance contract is also a bit contentious to me – I let my Frost licence lapse because I’m still on 2013 and I haven’t seen anything evolve on that front.
Cheers
Steve
Would just like to re-iterate 4 important points that have for the most part been discussed in this thread already.
1) The new 3dsmax management team came on after the new features for 2015 were already finalized. While everyone has the right to be angry at the new features list, it would be really tragic if everyone leaves max now just before the new team gets their chance to try and set things right.
2) Max is not going to be discontinued. Well, never say never, but some HUGE shift would have to happen in the market to lead to the death of max. Max is the current best selling 3d software, it has the most users, adesk is not going to kill it. Soft, god rest its soul, had a tiny userbase, unofficially I heard like 2-3% of the market. So it’s a very different situation.
3) To the people who are saying “that’s it, I’m moving to maya”, you will be trading one set of problems for just a different set of problems. As someone who uses both max and maya a lot, neither one of them is the clear leader in all fields. I’d really suggest you write a list of the 10 most important features you need to get your work done, not the 10 coolest features, or 10 most innovative features, but the 10 things that you specifically need to get your daily work done. Then get a trial of maya and spend time specifically on those features. If you feel maya has more to offer with regards to your personal list, then certainly make the switch. But you may discover that max has the advantage when it comes to the 99% case, even if its lacking in that feature you may use once in a blue moon.
4) I have talked to the new max team a lot over the past several months, and there is indeed a very new strong feeling that they may finally be able to take max into the areas it needs to go for the future. Of course that’s all talk until it becomes tangible features, but I personally am feeling quite optimistic, and I haven’t felt this way in close to a decade. So personally I would really like to see them get their chance to take this feeling and turn it into a reality.
– Neil
@Neil Very well written hype->reality conversion, I very much agree.
what Neil said 🙂
@Steve
I can assure you that Stoke 2 will blow your mind and that needing other plugins to get the most out of it is not what you think. In fact, I would go as far as saying the 3rd party plugins need Stoke to get the most out of them.
But I’ve been refreshing this thread a lot. I feel the general consensus is that it’s not so much that this release of Max was bad. I think people just wanted SOMETHING to show that Max isn’t going to stay stagnant. I mean even in that .pdf, list something that is being worked on. SOMETHING.
Even though there are ways to interact with the Max team, it just feels so informal and anonymous. For example, I made something using Thinkbox’s plugins. Chris responded to me on twitter, got me on the beta. In the forums I can interact with him and Bobo and they will respond. Not only that, Bobo will work out a problem you are having and have an image and thorough explanation. These are 2 people!
So far in this entire thread, the most we got regarding Max from an official source was “Don’t say mean things about us!” Not that I don’t disagree with that, and I understand AD is a publicly traded company and can’t list details. Just like the software itself, say SOMETHING. We are not against you, we want Max to succeed and be the best because that’s how we see this application. We just wish Autodesk did too.
Now that I think about it, it’s not that critical for max to get bifrost at this stage. It does make Maya look like an overall better value than Max though.
With that said, if I want to do any serious liquid and gas simulation, I would currently still need to buy Realflow and fumefx for Maya too. They look better, work faster, and gives you more features. Now that the dev are looking at integrating bifrost into Max, we will know that once bifrost starts to support gas, splashes and a bunch of other required features, we’ll get them in Max too. We just need a promise, hopefully from Eddie, that we’ll get them before Max 2016.
When Max gets bifrost, I would think Max would be the better program to take advantage of bifrost over maya. Simply because we have pflow, which I hope would integrate bifrost. Most likely we will get that Physx implementation of liquids first.
Even if we don’t, I’m still looking forward to thinking particles 6, which is aiming to be the equivalent to Houdini in Max.
@Neil and @Rotem, I agree too.
I’ve same feeling, but it needs time to see some real feature or fixes to 3ds max, so maybe to next advantage pack and then on 2016. And I think it will be useful to show how 3ds max is used in great team/companies to talk about it in a better way as for Pixomondo, Blur, Platige etc etc, you can see a really great video about 3ds max in production with Platige here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wV-foDRWM8 it was released by Autodesk today and that’s the right way about 3ds max marketing I think…
this is new version ?! really ?!! I don’t believe !
I think AD Joshed all of users ! this is a new version or small update/service pack ?!
free blender realize 1 small update at every 2 or 3 months period and every blender’s small updates have more new tools than one new max version for their users !!!
I so don’t believe ! this is new version ?! really ?!! ….
@steve
thanks for the feedback!
re: Stoke: it plays well with others, but you can do very impressive things with it out of the box. it works with the legacy particle systems and makes them modern [adding fluid motion for example to spray] and we include a volumetric renderer so that you can render out of the box. It isn’t Krakatoa, but including that would have put Stoke out of reach for users who can use Stoke, but don’t require Krakatoa.
re: Frost support – i won’t argue that we haven’t had a 2.0 release since it’s introduction, but we *have* actively maintained it for our users. That means it has been updated with minor features and improvements as well as fixing bugs. Since we aren’t on a yearly schedule for our artist tools team, some of our development fits outside the standard subscription term. In that case, it’s a gamble regarding a feeling of value vs support and maintenance in that period. If you have support concerns, phone or email us and we’ll be happy to look at them. I would prefer feature requests happen on our forum, so we can gauge other users response.
Like anyone, we make mistakes, and our evaluation of the market and what people want or expect hasn’t exactly aligned. I think the lack of rapid release of a new Frost is something I place under ‘lesson learned’.
what that means is a lot more than i can type in this box ;-p
cheers
cb
@Chris Bond
We at the Max team love Thinkbox
@Neil Blevins
We at the Max Team love us some Neil Blevins
@stark
thanks! this is what i mean by getting invested. it’s not just buying the product, it’s showing up on the forum and talking to us.
cheers
cb
Eddie, come back and give me your opinion again after the 100th time I’ve bonked you over the head with my wishlist 🙂
right then on subs give us the option of either motion builder or mudbox until the new 3dsmax team is in place and can deliver a upgrade that is worth it….
really simple put your belief in your company and your new team and what it will deliver. I’m not going to throw money out the window again…you’ve fooled me long enough with your re write that never got finished and your celeb postings that got moved sideways after only a couple of months…time to demonstrate it with actual offerings not vapourware.
my countdown timer has started you have until June 2014
another option is to drop subscription to $199 for this year as the new team settle in… these are VERY reasonable option to stop the flood of people abandoning the 3dsmax platform and going elsewhere.
It’s a difficult matter. I understand the new team started quite late to show more for 2015 release and I get that. But I’m also wondering what I can actually hope for next releases. My job requires lot of motion graphics, even though there are several scripts/plugins on the market, there isn’t anything comparable to C4D MoGraph yet. I can combine them all and besides the fact that it won’t be a coherent solution (meaning one tool, one work flow/gui for the job), still I wouldn’t get all I need. I can switch back and forth to C4D via Alembic (by the way, considering 2015 will need recompiled plugins I expect Alembic will stop to work, that’s another issue), but that’s not feasible for the long term. I have to explain my supervisor why I’ve to keep 2 packages running on my machine, that’s a cost. I’d use Max all day, but just I can’t.
So, I guess my question is: assuming I can post my wish list for next releases, what are the chances to see a MoGraph tool added to Max? By MoGraph tool I mainly mean: advanced-parametric cloner, there’s a Clone plugin already, it’s a modifier and it works well. But does just what it’s meant to do: clones. Whereas with MoGraph I can easily clone (using surface, arrays, splines…) *and* then apply effectors to my clones. Something I can do not so fast with PFlow setups and yet I don’t get the same result.
So, I guess I would be more than happy seeing a Cloner in conjunction with effectors in 3ds Max, is that even remotely possible or am I asking something I’d better forget once for all?
Hi Chris,
thanks for your reply, I’ll swing by the forum again.
I don’t have much time spare for betas these days, but look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Cheers,
Steve
option 3. give option of subscription for $99 where the user does NOT get 3dsmax 2015 licence but keeps his/her subscription alive until 3dsmax 2016 is available where he/she can opt to jump back on if/when a proper release is due. basically we put our subs on pause…we still get to use 2014 and the @work and @home but do not get max 2015.
@Steve,
yeah it’s really the punitive price of upgrading that stops me – I think some re-think, a special offer for 2016 is the only thing that would get me back on board.
I suspect I’m not alone.
what’s the rules on cancelling subscription.
How long after cancellation can i jump back on to subscription if the actually deliver a upgrade that I find compelling?
My subs are up for renewal in June 2014
I know it’s nowhere near mograph, but have you tried ATK for max?
It costs 25$ and does amazing things for its price.
@Steve Gilbert
Option 3 please.
@Marco that was meant for you of course
Thanks Simone,
yes I’ve tried almost them all 🙂
ATK, it’s great but as the name suggests is meant for animation and what I mean is that ATK works with animated sources whereas MoGraph is somehow more designer oriented, meaning you don’t need to animate in order to see what you get. Does that make sense?
PolyFX, another nice script, even though I find it quite slow, and again works once you animate your elements. Same goes for Spline Curve Control and so forth…
Hope that makes sense, sorry not sure I could explain it better…
@Simone I agree 100%! and for that $25 they are always adding to it. Heck look at all the nice stuff at great prices A&G tool Co, or XRayCAT is doing, sure they are not of the scope that the old school plug in’s, but boy are they handy! I only wish these things would go into the main package.
@ Simone
I guess what I was trying say is: with tools like ATK you first have to animate the objects in order to get the effects, that makes things more complicated because you can’t predict or have a clue of what will actually look the final result until you’ve done with the animation.
Whereas with MoGraph effectors already give you a *status* meaning you see what you get at once and then you can animate therefore starting from something you already know how it looks. Basically their work flow are pretty much the opposite.
I’m very sorry to leave subscription this year. In Norway, we’re paying around 1300 dollars for our yearly subscription. That’s almost the price of a full Modo license. But as I am paying this out of my own pocket, there is no way I can justify the cost any longer.
I love Max, it’s my favourite software by far. I’m not moving to anything else, but I’m crossing fingers the 2014 release will be enough for me iuntil Adesk lowers their prices. I just cannot afford to be part of this weird waiting game.
I think AD now have to seriously consider shutting down Maya and Max , and Design a new modern Software that is merge of both worlds, it will save them a lot off time / money to developed the two software and as well help 3rd party plugins developer unify their efforts and development.
I thinks the time is “now” to do it , any delay will make it harder and harder. it will the best option for the user base of both too.
More food for, rather obvious, thought. If we are forced to buy a plugin to do 90% of the day to day tasks (rendering, sub-d/displacement modelling, simulation of any kind as pflow just doesn’t cut it), what in the hell are we using max for? Those plugins are moving elsewhere, and not for no reason…
Think about it.
That time of the year agan? 🙂 Thanks Eddie for the assurance, I do feel that he is the right man for Max.
As a VFX person, these days I’m spending most of my time with the tools hosted in Max and made by the utterly fantastic Thinkbox team, SitniSati’s FFX, Cebas’ TP and even the old Naiad. Getting the cutting edge stuff from them and relying on Autodesk for improving the core works alright for me – Neil Hazard’s team is doing great work on the viewports, for example, and it’s awesome to see Python getting in. But I do understand the frustration on some people’s side. People do need something inspiring to light them up. Bifrost would definitely be great in Max. Imagine it in PFlow! It is a standalone system, the Max bridge shouldn’t require as big an investment as the core dev. The controllers interface and gears could use some modernization, so can the skinning. There is definitely room to shine.
@Steve – Best ask your dealer – there have been a few backdated renewals (a month or two), but I’m pretty sure I had one which was a year after my sub ended.
I seem to recall you still had to pay the subs for the period you missed (even though you didn’t use it)
I’m not sure if there’s a concrete policy though.
aymito, sadly, the amount of money it would take to build a new full featured 3d app from scratch is WAY more than it costs to keep max and maya running, so I doubt we’ll see that happen. Just take a look at how long its taken Modo to develop to get some idea how much of a big undertaking that is.
so the new team is well.. new.
it has not worked on 3D max for long.
so what?
what was the old team doing.
coding a 20 dollar script (quad chamfer)?
have you seen what other developers can do with only 2 or 5 coders?
AD want our money for nothing. that´s a fact!!
and it´s a bad joke how AD company people try to sell us this release. beggng for understanding.
how about understanding our frustration with minor updates that are not worth the subscription fee?
we are not sitting in an AD office finding ways to part people from their money doing as less as possible……
@Neil Blevins I think it’s great that they are communicating to you, I guess it would be great if they did that to the rest of us so we know what’s going on. I was on the beta, and 90% of the time I was ignored or a couple of times I got hostile replies so I gave up on participating. My experience with all other developers have been nothing like this.
@Eddie I don’t know if I am considered non-constructive in my remarks in Autodesk’s eyes — I certainly don’t feel I am as I always try to suggest solutions to mine and others frustrations. It seems fairly obvious to me that part of the frustration is Autodesk’s lack of communication and the past 8+ years of lack of innovative features in Max (be that FX or not).
Of course it’s passion driving Max users getting frustrated and their various ways of expressing that frustration — that should not be taken personally as very few people purposefully mean to be mean and writing can be dry when you don’t know the person in real life.
Max has been floundering and the large group of Max users have for years tried to get AD’s attention so if things are truly changing now then you’d forgive us for being a bit skeptical.
Lastly, I have read through the posts in this thread and I don’t see anyone saying (or very few) that they are considering switching to Maya (or Houdini) — and the clear message is that they don’t want to.
You can say “Weak” and “Sauce” together…that might help describe the sentiment accurately enough. 🙂
Max users get hosed yet again. Please explain, Autodesk, how you can justify giving one application that already has a capable fluid/smoke/fire simulation system, yet another one….while your best-selling app (Max), still doesn’t have one…at all?
What is wrong with this picture?
I saw a number of messages with people saying they plan on moving to maya or modo or whatever on this and other forums, which is why I commented as I did.
The communication I speak of is more informal communication, I am lucky enough to have a lot of old friends who either work or have worked at autodesk, and so see them face to face in social situations pretty frequently. For the last 5-10 years or so, when I’ve spoken to said people, they were just disheartened, when you ask “How’s work going?” or “what have your heard from your old autodesk friends?” the response is grumbling, frowns, a sad look on the face. Then late last year all of a sudden I started seeing a big shift, I’d say “How’s work?” and people would smile or excitedly say “Well, I’m not allowed to talk about it, but I’m having a great time right now.” That shift has given me hope.
Sadly, since many people’s main form of communication with adesk is net based, its harder to get a vibe from a forum or through email then it is to get that vibe from a living breathing person. People are skeptical, because so far talk has not led to useful features. I get that. But when I see friends of mine energized in real life when they haven’t been energized in a long time, that’s exciting. Hell, I met Tom Hudson for the first time in person at a friend’s wedding a few years back, and had a great talk with him. His heart is really in the right place. And then I see he’s developing for max again? That put a huge smile on my face. Again, that excitement is tough to get across in a message or forum, so I understand being skeptical.
Anyways, there’s plenty of ways this new optimism could still not end up leading to the features that we all need, but there’s at least a fighting chance now I feel. Don”t stop putting pressure on adesk, don’t let them deliver a bad max release. But also don’t give up hope.
– Neil
Thanks for the reply and well written.
Ok so let me get this straight, people moan that Autodesk don’t listen to what you want. That take the stuff at that top of your list quad chamfer, nested layers(if you take the timer to look you’ll see it does much more than that) but not you’re complaining that they just added stuff you can get for $20, well why were you asking for them if you could get them already for so little.
You know recently I was growing increasingly concerned that all the nitrous development was wasted development, so what I can see this or that in the viewport, but now o can see where they were going with it, but now its not just better but better and quicker, I get more without having to get yet another mew graphics card. Zap has posted today he’s spent the past year working on getting mental ray into activeshade, a year! Last year was bugs and stability and I still think that populate has so much potential beyond people, but if you stop yer head wobbling and think maybe, just maybe, there are some foundations and a core there now that CAN be built on and listen to what the many voices are saying then I see a bright future.
Eddie I hope my t shirt is in the mail
Neils opinion is correct. Even if there is no plan to kill 3dsMax, after the half of the users have canceled their subscriptions, AD chairmen would consider 3dsMax less and less interesting for further development and financing. It is like a chain-reaction.
The whole situation looks for me now as an unfortunate marriage: we live together and share everything with a person who got depressive, unpredictable, lazy, unemployed (we have to finance her) and we can not leave her since we would lose a half of everything we have invested in the last 10-20 years.
The question is only if our partner will get healthy one day, or if we will get courage (or panic), and simply walk out no matter how much it will hurt.
In this moment i still feel i would lose more than gain if i move out.
@Adrian Personally insulting a large number of people for their opinions (quote: ‘stop yer head wobbling’) isn’t constructive for anyone. Lots of intelligent people have added their two cents and everyone is entitled to an opinion but insults only lead to conflict.
While I can understand people working at Autodesk take things personally as they might feel some bond with Max or feel a lack of appreciation for their work I feel that perhaps they shouldn’t — especially when there are no personal attacks happening (except from perhaps a couple of rotten eggs). When their customers invest a large amount of time and money in a product over a long time they also have a right to express this displeasure when they feel that investment is causing issues.
Not all developers get this amount of flack so more often than not, when it happens, it happens for a good reason. If Max 2016 is when things turn around, I’ll be there praising them and patting them on the back.
Cut the patronizing, Autodesk-defending BS routine. Max is the only 3D application on the market still…with no volumetric effects engine (ie, Afterburn or Pyrocluster) or Fluids.
Autodesk didn’t just buy Naiad yesterday. They could have developed it to work in BOTH Max and Maya, but especially for Max…seeing that it has no native solution for fire, smoke or fluids.
CAT had/has the potential to be a stellar Character Animation toolset…but AD hasn’t done a damn thing with it, since it was added. PFlow has been in need of a multi-threaded solution for the longest time.
This is the kind of crap folks are pissed about…and rightly so
Also, if Autodesk feels I am a pain (I really have no idea either way), I should perhaps also say that even before Maxunderground existed I ran a website called Max3D back in 1995 that was the first real source for Max news, collections of plugins and tutorials. That was still fairly early days of the web but I had about ~10k unique visitors per month each viewing an average of 20 pages each month. Then MU came along and of course Maxplugins and Scriptspot.
I’ve always been in Max’s corner even if I am no longer that 17 year old. I’m not a “fanboy”, I’m just an artist, but my livelihood is affected by the tools I use (of course 3ds Max is not the only one). I know I can adapt if things go bad but I like Max, I want Max to evolve. I see how Zbrush evolves, how Houdini evolves and how even Modo evolves and I want that kind of evolution with Max releases.
That’s why I speak up, that’s why I am active and share my voice. I feel that’s to the benefit of a developer and it’s frustrating when they don’t communicate back. When I see others feel the same way, I feel reaffirmed that it’s not just my own personal perspective.
In Sweden we have a saying; “Misunderstand me right.” If I ever come across hostile, then you can count on that it’s not my intention.
That all sounds great, Eddie. Except for one thing. We’ve been promised better things to come every year now, since the Max 2010 release. And yet, it’s only gotten worse and worse. Fewer and fewer noteworthy additions while Autodesk takes very coercive/punitive measures to tighten the screws on the consumer….stay in line (subs) or you will have to go to the back of the line and start over again (forced to buy a new license all over again)…just for simply skipping a version cause it didn’t offer anything you needed.
Right now, Autodesk is putting the squeeze on the consumer, while offering little more than “We’ll get ’em next year!” promises. Jim Todd was being a little facetious in his rhetoric about those who were working on the team before the new group arrived.
Everyone, is saying “well, we have a weak release once again because the new guys just arrived.” Jim is just saying “what the hell was AD planning on before you arrived…to give us a tasteless bowl of oatmeal and demand we love it or starve?”
They should keep the old XSI team and add them to the 3ds Max team. Maybe we can get some new inovations into Max, like ICE and so on – the technology is already there just put it into Max mr. Perlberg.
Lots of Xsi users would switch to max then and max future will be good 😉
As i understand it if you don’t renew your subscription you have 364 days after it’s due date to jump back onboard…after that you’re options end.
So once i can confirm this then i’m not renewing subs in june….i’ll wait until max 2016 and then look at that release in march/april 2015 and see if it’s worth jumping back onboard or not.
I think it just boils down to trying to imagine any other software company telling you that their latest release is terrible because they had a shift of personnel.
You can’t imagine Microsoft using that as an excuse for a bad release of Windows, and you can’t imagine Adobe using that as an excuse for a bad release of Photoshop.
We’re not talking about a 3-man start-up, we’re talking about a corporation of thousands of employees, and a multi billion dollar annual revenue stream, which can obviously get it right for other software (Maya) if it wants to invest the resources.
@Eddie:
Take a look at the innovation rate of the realtime tools like Unity or Unreal Engine, AD should be in fear they will replace non-realtime 3d applications like the slowly crawling max, all because of their instant results…
@Tobe I fail to see where in my post I insulted anyone? I merely suggested those who are crying out for a partially implemented software integration are failing to stand back and look at the big picture.
Last year after Siggraph the outcry was no Bifrost, no Open Sub-Div, no Ptex, now that Maya has BiFrost its all, we need BiFrost too, where is the continued call for the other features people were demanding they needed? Oh wait we want BiFrost because Maya has it. Listen to those who used both on a regular basis the grass isn’t greener over there.
If you watch the meet the experts webinar Eddie did after he took over there’s lots of I can’t answer that ‘its the law’ and smiles and nods and winks, look at the user voice, last week there were lots of requests changed to under review, I know I got the emails.
Things are happening, yes progress is slower than we would like but things take time, all the noises coming from those involved are forward thinking and positive. There is no way MAX is going anywhere for the foreseeable future, if ever, there are too many users out there.
Can you imagine them trying to get all their AutoCAD Users to switch over to Inventor? Inventor can do what AutoCAD does would they try and push that massive user base on too something they don’t want by adding more and more features to Inventor and neglecting AutoCAD? Simply would, not, happen.
To be fair, Max is a content creation tool while those listed above are content authoring tools, these are really two different planets.
What could be learned from however is how they present their new releases.
BTW, another thing that has led to the situation being uncomfortable and questionable for Max users is that two PMs left their seats rather unexpectedly (for us) and left us in uncertainty. I am glad we now have a team that obviously wants to do better but there was a time when things were really misty and it’s not that long ago. Did we ever talk about this and why this happened? What’s more important, can we now finally believe this won’t happen again?
“Dont get angry, or we wont talk to you”. Or the constant litany of 1/2 baked releases for the last 5 years. While squeezing us for more money, by constantly changing the rules of the subs game is a joke.
Now we told, “Please…give the new team time.”, and to those that think there will ever be a discount on subs – your living in a dream world.
This is EXACTLY the same strategy that was used and abused on the Softimage users. Just look what happened to them.
After making my decision today, not to continue on with Max subs, I honestly feel freer from all this ‘Never ending story of excuses’ crap.
I dont really understand the demand of fluid, smoke, fire etc need to be developed by autodesk. We HAVE already a great smoke/fire tool that works in max,… There is fluids through Phoenix FD or Realflow in max.
Maybe it is just me, but why should AD invent something that is already there, spend time and money on it, while most of the people , who work with fluids/smoke etc. (i am sure) already own such plugins/tools?
What benefits do i have then when I get what I have already, but now from a company like Autodesk?!?
this vesrion have 2 meaning :
1- max will go to the softimage way
2- for ever max will be in maya’s shadow
Unless max 2016 will be “super version” , I think 2016 and 2015 extension will be last chance ….
@Marcin
I feel it’s shifting from content authoring to creating with these tools… look at their way they allow to build landscapes, create particle systems, shaders, etc… and as stated, all in realtime…
The company says its
Any time. Money. Future.
We play them.
Why is the game??
Max Nafs problems on one side
Dependency plugin too
At least
Population System for Cats
Hair
A rendering flawlessly.The
Particle-cutting techniques
Lybsyng
At least fix the sand
Max’s at least try to solve problems
Why not use the same techniques in Maya to Max??
I ll be on the “waiting for the 2016 release” bandwagon.
I have patience&resources for one more year. Then, if there is insignificant progress still. Yeah I am sorry.
But I actually believe in the developers this time .
I’d like to say something about the rant going on here. @Jim Todd. I think it is very rude to call developers lazy. It is downright unacceptable to wish for their unemployment. I mean, what the hell ? You are angry at the company. The salesman. Not their workers. You dont really know what’s going on in there. But at least you know this: They are workers. They dont call the shots. They dont arrange the budgets or subscription fees. So stop being rude.
Another point,
Autodesk opened a website called 3dsmaxfeedback. Check out the top requests:
http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com/forums/80695-general-feature-requests/filters/top
There are not many people over there, not as many people as here.
Most opinions are not strongly supported although they are valid, There isnt a flood of votes on a website where one person can give 3 votes to an idea. We speak of hundreds of thousands of max users. Where are these people ? The feature request for better skinning gets about 410 votes. While quad chamfer gets 747.
410 votes gets skining overhaul on the list, but doesnt make it a priority. Lets check out the fluid system vote . 565 votes. Really?
Developers actually read everything on there. They respond. You have already got into the internal developing workflow of AD with the outstanding reaction last year. They hired new people. You have 3dsmaxfeedback now. So why not give strong feedback and start the dialogue there, as well ?
Anyways, on the feedback website, bringing ICE and a liquid system to 3dsmax recently got into the list, liquid system even got “in review” status. Which usually ends up getting done.
Just my two cents.
Hell, yes it looks very cool. Still, it’s a different world… for now.
Btw, the sound mixing/fx section totally blew my mind, crazy.
I too recommend looking into Unreal 4 – you’ll only need an inexpensive modeling/texturing app for most assets, maybe something (blender) for characters & anims but the realtime benefits are HUGE!
And its only $20 per month now with full C++ source code (for you own custom physics and renderer 🙂
Rotem: I have to disagree slightly on your point about Maya. Saying that Maya is getting it right really depends on the sort of work you do with it. If you’re mostly a modeler, their modeling tools basically got no update for close to a decade. The last version they did a get an update, but that update was they bought the NEX plugin, and provided it with their new release. That sounds very much like the way recent max development has gone. And trust me, users complained with some of the very same phrases that max users are using now. Plus, even with those new tools, I recently counted something like 60-70 modeling tools I use from max that maya has no equivalent for. So if you’re a modeler using maya, you are likely to be just as frustrated with the software as the fluid sim people are with max. The grass is always greener.
@Neil: I’m not trying to say that Maya is perfect, or even better. I don’t use Maya and was very frustrated with the workflow any time I tried.
What I meant to say was that from a ‘first impression’ perspective, one gets the impression that resources are being split very far from the middle.
Judging from what I’ve seen on forums the prevalent response is “Maya wow! Max wtf?!”, indicating that for a lot of Maya users, AD did “get it right” with this release, making the Max release look like even more of a debacle.
Going back to the “make a new 3d dcc app” topic…Unreal 4 could be a good modern graphics foundation for a modeling/texturing/lighting/animation tool.
yeah,…sitting that one out…
camped out on 2010 until 2014 and I am a happy camper 🙂
@Markus, I may be missing something in your point but they aren’t really developing a fluid system from scratch, they are just improving an acquired technology, so don’t worry about reinventing the wheel, and the way that new technology is being developed is that it can be plugged in any package as painlessly as possible, and considering how much Max needs a fluid simulator, it wouldn’t make any sense to drive the users into paying for things that can be easily part of the base package.
@mavinova, all valid points, except that the site that you are talking about has literally been up for years, and those first page request along with it. but again, as you pointed out correctly the number of those votes should be much much higher, in other worlds there are a lot of people who are simply ignore the feedback all together and then just come here after the fact and curse the world, not suggesting that all the negligence by adesk towards Max is because of this but it certainly has made it easier for them.
@Ben Steinert, Not really, simply forget about the first two parts(Modeling/Texturing), and 90% of the rest, it just doesn’t work that way, there are some technologies that could be implemented in a DCC tool, the viewport technology, the visual shader creation tools(which have actually been implemented in Max 2015 thanks to ShaderFX), navigational meshes for say Populate,viewport LOD switching, etc… but not the fundamental parts that you are talking about, because they are pretty much nonexistent in a game engine…
Rotem : “Judging from what I’ve seen on forums the prevalent response is “Maya wow! Max wtf?!”, indicating that for a lot of Maya users, AD did “get it right” with this release, making the Max release look like even more of a debacle”
Maybe we’re just visiting different forums then 🙂 From what I’ve seen, the maya users are complaining just as hard about maya, and in almost an identical way to how max users are complaining about max. And at least in some cases I’ve seen, the people saying “Maya wow!” are not actual maya users.
But anyways, that’s just been my experience, I’m not saying you’re wrong, the impression you’re getting is obviously based on what you’ve seen, but personally I’ve been getting a very different impression.
– Neil
@Anselm “yeah,…sitting that one out… camped out on 2010 until 2014 and I am a happy camper 🙂 ” you’re missing out with Nitrous I believe 🙂
The issue i see about Max business model is at the same time, its strength and weakness, for the FX guys. We need FumeFX,TP, Frost, XMESH, Krakatoa, Rayfire, Stoke, phoenixFD,…etc..etc to do the type of work the audience is expecting or the producers think they expect. That brings the bill pretty high, not mentioning we have the freelancer instable statue and need to learn from home too during down time. Then Instabilities quick in, we need to make sure those plugins work nicely together when we upgrade one of them ( kudos to those companies btw as they show real commitment to fixing reel fast those issues). So how can Max is as expensive as the other packages while only offering an environment to the plethora of plugins. For my part i moved to Houdini some time ago. I still use Max.
AD didnt have to re-invent the wheel for Max/Mudbox, all they needed to do was read the list that was created and voted on.. It cant be any clearer on what the community wants..
As for Softimage, saying it’s only a small market share as an excuse, if you dont push a product for years, of course it’ll slip market share.. Dont blame the neglected puppy for not being pet.
@Neil B
It’s not only Max, have you seen the release notes for Mudbox 2015?
Embarrassing.. it’s a patch level update.
@Maziar…That is why I said a good “foundation” for someone to build those features upon.
Don’t know why “it doesn’t work that way” since we know those apps are built to handle that 90% of other things from many different sources…why not as native? Actually wouldn’t it be reasonable to believe that there would be some efficiency benefits if there were native tools to handle those other things?
Guys,
As others have said, the new team (including my best friend, Tom Hudson) had little to do with the final features of max 2015, since they came on-board relatively late in the process, so please adjust your criticisms accordingly.
However, speaking of criticisms: if you want to attack Autodesk, don’t just criticize max — you need to address the issues with Maya as well, and here’s why:
I haven’t played with Maya in several years, but I just downloaded the Maya 2014 30-day trial on my 17-inch Asus laptop… and it’s unusable, to me.
Maya’s UI has a zillion tiny icons scattered all over viewports, and they’re damn near impossible to make out. I can use max all day on a laptop; if I had to switch to Maya, I’d find navigating around its UI to be almost impossible on my laptop. (And I’d love if someone could tell me, just for grins, how to switch Maya’s UI from its current crappy “dark” palette to something brighter. I absolutely despise, with a passion, the increasing trend towards dark, monochrome program UIs.)
So, if you’re concerned that Autodesk is going to one day move you from max to Maya, then you need to be bitching about how miserable the Maya UI is as well.
FYI; belay the above question about changing the Maya UI color scheme; just discovered how to do it via adding various lines to the Shortcut Properties.
My comments about the icons still stand — it would destroy my eyes to work with this Maya on a laptop for an extended period.
max for me is great wen i use fluid solvers like realflow, not even bothered bout the underdeveloped bifrost
@NossGrr, yup, tiny update as well for mudbox 🙁
I think most people know that the new Max dreamteam is not responsible for the 2015 release, BUT the fact remains that some team was on this for a full year. A full year! And this is all there is to show for it?
My hope is that there was a bunch of non-glamorous work going in to improving the foundation, stuff that wouldn’t really show up as a bullet-point on a features list. But still, AD marketing should make a bigger deal over these improvements if that’s what’s actually going on so people can get a better idea where their subscription money is going! Otherwise for an entire year of development and for what AD charges, this seems pretty unacceptable.
I’m all for waiting to see if 2016 can deliver on all the hype but it still doesn’t excuse this release. Whether the seeming neglect of Max is real or just perceived AD has not done a good job providing real PROOF to it’s customers that Max is getting it’s fair share of the resources over there.
I totally don’t care about bifrost or some other funny plugin we might get or not. It’s a nice-to-have, that’s it.
Fact is, max has a very broad range of plugins and scripts available. Surely more than every other DCC on the market. Some things simply don’t have to be done by max developers, others should better be laid in their hands. So why not investing time in things we all profit from, not just the fx guys or archviz or motion graphics.
Some thoughts what would really be a good thing to work on:
– faster animation playback (incl. Curve editor performance)
– Unified UI (e.g. slate which simply doesn’t fit into max’s slim user interface. You always have to use the whole display (or a second one) just for slate. Look at the new ShaderFX node view. It doesn’t waste space.)
– fix the old not-working bought plugins and features. I don’t know anyone using containers – it never got popular, why not simply fix Xrefs? There’s a lot that could be done about it. Another example is State sets. Looks different, feels different, didn’t really find acceptance in the community yet (afaik).
– make stuff multithreaded (we’re in the 21st century now!)
– get the state of the art techniques in there, like open subdiv. It’s not a new tool, it’s a modernization.
– and so much more … There are a lot of good tools out there, very few of them are used because they can do everything. Make sure plugin developers can provide good tools we can use if we want to use them and concentrate on what’s really important about the usability of max.
@Markus….you could say the same EXACT thing about any number of tools in 3ds Max. Particle Flow, Hair/fur, Cloth, Graphite Modeling Toolset, Mental Ray/iRay, MassFX. Character Studio, CAT, etc., etc.
Most of Max’s entire toolset consists of former 3rd party plugins. So, your argument is dead in the water…bro.
Does Anyone Know If Particle Flow multithreaded In This Release ?
Max made Autodesk popular not Maya
@ mavinova: good points!
I’ve to review my previous opinion. After reading all the comments about what happened (meaning the transition time), considering that on the AD feedback the Quad Chamfer ended up having more points than other ideas, I mean… after all there’s so much to complain about.
So, yes, I guess this year is *the* year. I don’t have any hope for my personal wish, the MoGraph thing I was mentioning before. I’m well aware that’s just a minority of users that could desire something like that. There are many other experienced well known users here who definitely have the rights to demand and push for their ideas.
If not will be a MoGraph tool I guess I can live with that, I just hope others request will see the light in the next year. Right now I simply can’t move to something else, besides the delusion many have and considering that there’s no perfect 3d app out there, to me 3ds Max still remains the best solution.
There are things that really take me a few minutes to do in Max and that would take me surely more time in C4D! 🙂
edit: after all *there isn’t* so much to complain about
sorry, long day 🙂
The fact that Max hasn’t got any progress this past year and vague promises about 2016 release make us students confused over here – its about our future AD!. Our teachers cant say what the future holds for us, sorry to see them helpless and sorry for us. Some were visibly shaken and hearthbroken with SI EOL announcement.
These applications can be more than tools, they are what paint and brushes are for rembrandts at best. Worldcreation stuff people!
Could someone well connected user organize an avalance of max users to enter suggestions to this user feedback page – there are thousands of users and students all investing in Max, lets get our voice really heard.
We now need solid reassurances that there is a future for Max.
How could they add quad chamfer without uniform mitering wtf !? http://peeba.gfxile.net/roskaa/uniform_mitering.gif
@Rotem “You can’t imagine Microsoft using that as an excuse for a bad release of Windows…”
Microsoft is always choose easy way, they says that new version of Windows is very cool, including Visa and w8 and then using aggressive marketing strategy for selling this crap. But… we see whats happens with IE and Windows for mobile devices. It seems ADSK repeats these steps with own products.
Why not put the feedback points directly into max somewhere. Maybe a script can do it. Kinda like a list with ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ that u can vote on when u r actually needing it. They would surely get much more points to sort through but at least more would vote if they had the list there a few clicks away.
I don’t care about high end fluid simulations (for specific job there is already some Tools), I would prefer that AD focus to polish and update (up to date ?) the basis : modern connections between nodes (wire linking ui is outdated), modern motion mixer, a real cam switch, better skinning, external links that work, multitreading, a better-easier Scripting,…after there is a lot of people that can make specific Tools.
I understand that people are disappointed to see Tools going to maya not to max, because it looks like a AD strategy to praise to the sky maya….
Does anyone have downloaded 2015 and tried? Is it faster/more stable? I guess that’s important.
As for the Platige video, really great. I’ve always been a fan of Platige work. But know I have a question. I read that Platige was switching to Maya some time ago (when The Witcher cinematic was launched), so why would they advertise 3ds Max?
Does AD offer some suites in return? 😀
P.S.: I’m not accusing or anything, again, just curious and since they were switching to Maya, wouldn’t make sense to advertise Maya?
P.S.: it’s always nice to see the guys of Thinkbox to appear here and say they’ll continue to support and develop great tools for Max. I never used any of theirs tools (don’t have the money to buy yet), but I can say that knowing the tools are going to stay here makes me want to still learn Max.
@marco. @maziar
Thank you. I know developing 3dsmax is not just up to the feedback website but they take those votes pretty seriously . I have seen a few of my requests about small annoying things got completed. Watched a number of requests get done. The votes really count.
I ll repeat myself one more time to reach more people , please encourage all 3dsmax users to go to
http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com/forums/80695-general-feature-requests/filters/top and submit specific detailled ideas & vote for existing ones.
We are a user community of hundred thousand people, top feature request gets 750 votes in 2 years. And that is quad chamfers. It’s ridiculous. Please read through the existing skinning, animation, particle/liquid effects requests and give feedback, upvote them so they become top priority.
Thank you.
@ MauricioPC: trial is not out yet. If I’m not mistaken is a matter of a week or two.
@Chris Bond we homegrown VFX artist love Thinkbox
#thinkBoxRocks
😀
Well… this is disappointing if not unsurprising. Max 2013 introduced quite a few new features, but was plagued with many show-stopping bugs. 2014 was essentially a bug-fix release which really tightened max up nicely and has been rock-solid for me – no complaints – at least nothing major. 2015 should, therefore, have brought a nice new feature set to the table, buggy or not. This PDF is underwhelming in the extreme. Viewport performance has been just fine for me in 2014 for most scenes, even complex ones, so a speed boost, while welcome, is far from important for me.
I was really hoping for some innovative modeling tools, new analysis tools and maybe even some UI enhancements. And some new CAD import tools, which are woefully inadequate currently. All very sparse on those fronts, it seems. They have that enormous wish-list website with literally thousands of requested features and changes by the userbase – yet we are looking at what – perhaps 10 really quite minor things being added? That’s really poor.
Being in arch-viz there is basically no viable alternative at the moment. This is the main issue for us. If you want to be able to bring in staff to work with you, you have to be a Max studio, because everyone else is trained and experienced in Max. If you want to work with other viz studios, you have to be a Max studio. If you want all the latest and greatest plugins… yep – Max studio. Jumping ship and going with Blender is just not feasible for these reasons, at least in arch viz. And I don’t see that changing for years. Perhaps this will be the beginning of a slow but steady exodus?
When I first used Softimage XSI way back in the day, the software excited me, as geeky as that sounds. I felt like it offered up so many unique features and workflows and would really change the way I worked compared to Max. Ultimately in order to fit in with the industry I had to use Max, otherwise I would certainly have stuck to XSI. Now of course AD has killed off XSI. I really hope the Max, or something else, is capable of doing that one day soon.
It’s clear that AD really need to step up their game and bring some real, useful innovation to the table. Speeding up your viewports and adding features already created by scripters (their paying customers, no less) is just not going to cut it.
They’re perfectly capable of this. Here’s hoping their equally willing under their new leadership.
I am a MAX power user for 20+ years. Not in a bragging way, but I work on a handful of projects simultaneously for several clients at any given time. Although I applaud new features and systems to enhance MAX in new versions, I feel myself spinning wheels and losing a lot of time when working on projects.
My biggest wish is that ADSK would simply add some history functionality to all “open file” dialog boxes (every one), such as recent folder history or an option to add favorites.. anything would save a half-hour or more per day (searching around for folders), and would be a super-easy feature to add!
I have requested this feature before, only to have it vanish into the web-o-sphere. I am hoping there are some developers at ADSK here that may decide this a worthy plea.
Other super-important and simple upgrades would be:
-uv unwrap type-in scale values (only uses gizmos currently)
-render-to-texture non-square option (only will write to square textures)
-uv scale in relationship to camera
-intelligent uv packing tools that will also pack small uvs into holes or miscellaneous unique spaces.. window holes on a wall are just an example
-more versatile uv distort and warping tools
-extend edge (extrude) modeling tool that follows mesh flow beyond mesh border
I will keep my subscription going for a little while longer. C4D looks promising future, keeping an eye on them, but for real-time 3D production they have a ways to go.
Cheers,
Eric
@Eric:
regarding history – check out the following 3rd party tool:
Gives you history in every file dialog (in all apps), plus lots of other great small features http://www.listary.com/
@Eric:
I like this one for file history http://codesector.com/directfolders even though it’s not always fully compatible with all file dialogs…
I’m not happy with new 2015 release as well, But I didn’t expect so much either!
I’m a passionate Max user that if AD do discontinues it, I’ll still use it. Max has all the things I need and I don’t bother switching to another packages. I also feel A LOT OPTIMISTIC about the new development team and believe they didn’t had a chance to release some serious magic in 2015 release. So …
Where can I get my T-Shirt now ?! 😀
PS : Love you all, and Max rocks ! No matter what AD attaches to it ! lol
why buying maya for liquids when you can use realflow?
I dont know if it s relevant but in case you missed it , I want to share this video.It show how an ”all in one” package for vfx could look like …
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1h7fwy_rhythm-hues-oscar-winning-technology-voodoo_shortfilms
http://www.rhythm.com/labs/
@ daniel :
why using max for wasting your money when u can use blender? for free!!!!
Whilst Blender is indeed rather amazing it’s currently not a 1:1 replacement for 3dsmax. some things blender has is way ahead of 3dsmax and other things with far far away. I’ve started to play with Blender 2.7 and it’s really helpful that blender has a 3dsmax key config option on the lpash screen when you boot it up..that certainly helps the learning curve.
Blender? No cage baking, no smooth groups, thanks.
Max is dead. How long you will wait for some really useful feature ? AD not planned investing into old and unpromising software.
Try to understand this and don’t don’t wait anything new.
Looks like 2013 was a bad year for software:-
3DS Max 2015
Softimage XSI – End of Life.
Avid DS (Originally Softimage DS) – End of Life.
Adobe going Subscription Only.
Mac OS Mavericks
Windows 8 and its’ Start Button
Land Rover Discovery ECU Software
And my Cuisinart kettle not boiling properly.
Maybe we expect too much? Maybe it would be better if it all went back to a time when software would get released when it was ready and not on a yearly basis.
However, Autodesk, Avid and Adobe have a big impact on myself and my friends and my family being able to meet our bills and rent payments. These bits of software are all we know and if they’re pulled away from under us we’re left with nothing – back to square one. Twenty years down the drain. And what the software companies are all doing now is scaring my clients away from MY business and undermining what I do for a living.
And no doubt, almost everyone else here has a lot vested in these software giants – houses, business & employees – and we’re not even pawns in their game.
I’ve looked on their feedback site and there is plenty of new useful features ‘under review’. So it’s still living dead.
id simply suggest waiting until the trial comes out before anyone puts a gun in their mouth or jumps off a bridge.
load a scene from whatever version you are using and see how well it performs in 2015. you will feel the difference i promise you. this is not marketing BS but facts in your hands you can feel. there are great new tools and enhancement to existing workflows that are going to affect *everyone* in *all* industries with every day stuff, not just the 1% guy who needs to crash waves on a beach.
wait_for_the_trail. test it. then decide. base things on your experience and facts, not a PDF or URL.
0.02
//g
Fluid simulation is not just for those who ‘crash waves on the beach’
In the past few months I’ve had three jobs (2 medical anims, one TV title sequence) where that would come in handy.
The question is 2015 worth $3840+, (not including a subscription) and I doubt even the most pro-Autodesk person could say, yes it’s worth that.
“not just the 1% guy who needs to crash waves on a beach.”
With all due respect Mr. Davis, your 0.02 is welcome, valuable and reasonable, but the subtext of the quoted part is exactly what most comments in this thread are condemning.
Dear Autodesk Customer,
Over the past couple of years, Autodesk has introduced new subscription-based offerings giving you more purchasing flexibility. On March 28th we are rebranding the options to make it easier for you to differentiate, evaluate and decide which offerings best meet your business needs.
Here’s a summary of the branding changes:
Autodesk Subscription is no longer the name of the software maintenance program offered by Autodesk; it is now the brand name for all of the Subscription offerings provided by Autodesk, including the following options:
Maintenance Subscription is the subscription offering previously referred to as the Autodesk Subscription program related to Autodesk perpetual software license.
Desktop Subscription is the subscription offering previously referred to as rental plans.
Cloud Service Subscription is the name of the subscription program for customers who want to purchase standalone subscriptions to any of the various cloud services provided by Autodesk.
that brand change on subs sound quite confusing
Wow… I guess that is pretty telling.
Maybe they have actual data to prove the 1% number, but if they believe that fluids are only needed by 1% of their users, there is no way they are going to bother… we will get more Arch stuff.
Max CAN’T do everything perfectly, I get that. But if the people asking for these higher end features really are the 1% (and if we have learned nothing in America lately, it is that “The 1%” deserve contempt), then it is just good business to ignore us and make more incremental changes for the masses.
Mr Davis short funfact: Fluidsims are not only used for crashing waves on the beach.
It’s when I hear “3ds Max is one of the top performers at Autodesk” I do ask, well by what criteria?
By popularity (I was told that is bundled with the architectural software)?
IF that’s the case, you could say Composite is a top performer.
By revenue vs subscription income? Well, I couldn’t get a straight answer on whether the past few releases of Max had a straight division of subscription income, or if funds got thrown into one big pot.
If you said, “We had fewer people on Max (or SI) than we did on Maya, but charged the same subs” that I could believe.
So I’m not sure what “Top performer” means really.
“Max is dead. How long you will wait for some really useful feature ? AD not planned investing into old and unpromising software.
Try to understand this and don’t don’t wait anything new. – See more at: https://cgpress.org/archives/20745_3ds_max_2015_features.html#respond”
Hmm. News to me. I think we are working on some pretty cool stuff.
Support for python’s, Max far worse than the Maya, especially the editor.
I am very envious of Maya’s Python Editor
Don’t buy that. It’s completely different from max. I made that mistake to and put a lot of efforts in it. It’s in the trash now. It’s clear that they will fade out the max development, but use the old versions for what they have. Just like thousends of people still use Combustion. For future products…stay away from Autodesk products.
It’s good to see that “Blender” is mentioned several times across this page.
While it’s NOT a direct replacement for 3ds Max but at least, when I request something from Blender’s development team and provide enough details, I find what I requested in the next release..
I guess that’s a big plus here…
a friend also told me about this quick deliver at blender, and he told me the blender foundation projects to rewrite Blender’s Code. it’s quite amazing. for sure it’s not autodesk who’ll rewrite max’s core to make more efficient
I didn’t realize the Autodesk rental plans started already. You can now rent max or maya for 200 a month.
http://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/morechoice
watching live nab stream of max2015 and the presenter said quad chamfer was one of the most requested features. i guess if so many users asked for it what eles could AD do but give it to them.
Yeah … can’t complain if everybody is asking for Quad Chamfer.
Must admit the Maya presentation was cool. But the C4D ones are also top notch (minus the lag).
Quad chamfer is all good, but it should be so easy to implement that it should absolutely not be a main feature. The problem all my coworkers and everyone else I talk to mentions is that all the new features are more or less small things that already are available as scripts.
It’s good that they’re being implemented into Max, but they should be a side note on the new features list. If you buy them as scripts and plugins they’ll cost a fraction of the subscription costs.
Where are the features that can excuse the subscription price? I know we’re not paying for support…
“Must admit the Maya presentation was cool. But the C4D ones are also top notch (minus the lag).
I really enjoyed the maya presentation.I started watching the C4D live stream but the lag is bad so i couldn’t bother.
“I really enjoyed the maya presentation.I started watching the C4D live stream but the lag is bad so i couldn’t bother.”
I was looking forward to the Gravity presentation but it’s not being streamed and that’s a shame. It would be cool to take a peak inside Framestore work.
Quad Chamfer in 3dsMax have a problem.
See how it performs vs the Quad Chamfer Pro by Marius.
(I don’t have both of them, so I am not the ahtuor of the image.)
[img]http://www.scriptspot.com/files/max2015_chamfer_glitch.jpg[/img]
AFAIK the quad chamfer problem is known and worked on …
So it was released with a glitch and now it’s working properly?
Either way, it’s funny, no?
Whats funny about that?
It just means that me and others reported it earlier on and that it got confirmed, but a fix did’ nt make it into the release version apparently.
I thought it was funny that a major (yet simple) feature came out with a glitch.
They didn’t even change the splash screen on 2015!