Autodesk has released 3DS Max 2018
Apr 12, 2017 by Tobbe Olsson
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(Updated) Jon A. Bell has posted more information on the features brought by Max 2018. Read his comment.
Today Autodesk released the next major version of 3DS Max to customers on rental or maintenance. Some of the new features include OpenVDB support, Arnold proxy objects that work with all platforms Arnold is available on, new VR camera, user interface improvements, MCG improvements, motion paths and more. Read the what’s new section of the 3DS Max 2018 help file for more.
Today Autodesk released the next major version of 3DS Max to customers on rental or maintenance. Some of the new features include OpenVDB support, Arnold proxy objects that work with all platforms Arnold is available on, new VR camera, user interface improvements, MCG improvements, motion paths and more. Read the what’s new section of the 3DS Max 2018 help file for more.
Source: Snakebox, Felix
Basically, no need to use this new version. Added Arnold, no batch rendering, removed Mental Ray and added small service pack. Its probably 5% of what should we have gotten by 2017. Im using 2015 version and have no intention of switching for these new releases, ehm, pardon, service packs they release very year.
the new Qt UI is getting better and better,
and love the motion paths, makes animating in Max a much better experience
3ds Max dead soft. They sprayed two software, it would be better to focus on one. I understand that a lot of people sitting on it. But understand this is not the best option, Maya is more flexible, advanced. Support two software, only creates problems.
exactly that’s why Maya should go, to focus dev on Max
I agree. Autodesk’s problem arose when they tired to please the few big name Maya users over their core Max users and tried to drive the industry toward Maya. Maya now has more advanced tools but Max is by far the best program to work with. Autodesk should sell one and develop the other. In that case I bet they will sell Maya and this will be the best decision for the company, There’s a reason why Max’s company was able to buy Maya but to then try to build Maya’s user base at the expense of Max is why I’m looking at Houdini.
it doesn’t have sense to sell Maya, you would create a competitor which you have been financing and developing for years and now is stealing a chunk of the market.
The only possibility is to kill Maya.
I’ve look at it from all the angles,
the only situation that have sense financially in the long term for Autodesk is to kill Maya and bring all the resources to Max.
If Autodesk was an Airline…it would be United!
LOL!!!
Is that a tombstone?
State Sets is also a MUCH nicer and more flexible tool to work with now. 🙂
Isn’t this post a bit late for April Fools?
another build we won’t upgrade to .. still on 2016 and looking for a replacement! 🙁
Quite thin on the new stuff which is fine if there has been lot of fixes to the core would be good to get a list of that.
the update document is not easy to read as it’s a pic not live text but
1.regard seeing motion paths in the viewport…we’ve been able to do that since what max 4?
2.re QT tear offs..no viewport port tear offs…so pretty much same as max 3.
3. re mcg – we’ll have to see on that one.
4.re arnold – crippled renderer which replaced a fully featured renderer that had unlimited render nodes via back burner plus iray…yeh…’wonderful update – way to go autodesk..and remember autodesk OWN arnold unlike mental ray so why limit it to f9?
plus WHY is it so hard to find an english version of what’s new!!!
1.regard seeing motion paths in the viewport…we’ve been able to do that since what max 4?
Not just viewable but editable … as in very cool animation tool.
2.re QT tear offs..no viewport port tear offs…so pretty much same as max 3.
Nope .. Whilst not at the finished stage .. the UI is now much more configurable with docking that works.
3. re mcg – we’ll have to see on that one.
Agreed.
4.re arnold – crippled renderer which replaced a fully featured renderer that had unlimited render nodes via back burner plus iray…yeh…’wonderful update – way to go autodesk..and remember autodesk OWN arnold unlike mental ray so why limit it to f9?
Agreed.
It was editable just by going to sub-mode on the trajectories and you could move the keys in the viewport. They just added bezier to the keys now. A free script could do it: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/protrajectoryhandles
Not much for my £700 in Feb. Seems like you have to install the thing to find out what the improvements are.
OK, you can say I’m being negative, but how can this be described as a new version of max, rather than a service pack? Can’t see the point in installing it at all. Autodesk are not even pretending now. They just want rid of us.
Not enough for new version …
I don’t know maybe the trajectories have bezier handles?
There was a free maxscript to do that anyway.
This release – calling it half-arsed is being generous, it’s pretty much a f**k you to the users on top of recent announcements, no wonder it’s being unceremoniously shoved through the letterbox.
I’m certainly in no rush to install it.
Imagine that Autodesk – something I’ve already paid £700 for, and I don’t feel it’s worth my time or effort to install it.
It’s not even worth downloading, let alone installing.
i hope it will be stable and i’ll be able to use it in production… otherwise it will be the 2nd release in a raw i’ll have to skip and honest it’s way too much to stand to me, seen the what’s new thingie i guess it’s useless to loose time to comment such a poor features release
Arnold is unimportant as Mental Ray. Nobody cares.
ANY Feature for an update ? Just one besides trajectories with bezier handles ?
It can´t be true, this must be a joke !
They finally removed the “clown button” and brought back the old file menu! Probably the best feature in this release. Now they just need to get rid of this ugly ribbon interface as well and 3ds max 2019 will be as great as 2009 was.
For those who want an official text version of “what’s new in max2018”
http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-F687E23D-6FBA-4C8A-9202-C30F2860E5BE
Haha that was perfect. Thanks
The new features look good, but if you’re a Vray user it’s not enough.
I’m thinking of quitting this year, I still use Photoshop and AE CS4 and I’m happy.
No new install, no money spent, just work.
Zbrush, Substance will have my love and money.
Arnold Render 5 is not a GPU Renderer and is very very slow with more noise
Mental Ray and iRAY is better !
They’ve been teasing some GPU stuff, but not sure how far off it is.
I’ve pretty much switched to Redshift for speed, and V-Ray for anything it struggles with, like PhoenixFD or FumeFX.
This is just dead wrong. The number of studios using Arnold vs MR is testament to how deathly slow MR is. If you got noise in your renders, you may want to RTFM, there is a much more robust set of tools in Arnold to track noise down than in MR. And there are a few no-no’s when working with Arnold to avoid noise, but the understanding of those generally just comes with experience & practice. The last time MR saw widespread use in feature studios was the early 2000’s, and it slowly died from there on as Vray & Arnold grew up, and PRMan started bolting on raytrace features. Mental Ray is a dog, and I will shed no tears over its departure. Arnold is a better “stock renderer” every single day, until AD decides to nerf it like they have with almost everything else they touch.
I think people are REALLY going to miss what’s below the top of the iceberg with this release. It’s not about really adding Arnold per sae but a lot had to be done to make Max a better platform for all renders to put Arnold in. I don’t think most user will see that. There a lot of little quality of life improvements and speed ups as well. While not a Sharks with freakin Lazar beams release, it’s there is some Sea Bass to it. Most likely the switch to Arnold took most of this releases effort, it’s not like Mental ray was not slipping away anyway, had to be done I guess.
You must be kidding.
This little, tiny life improvements have been the excuse for the past releases already.
People happy for bug fixes? You guys have money to waste! A big fix is due regardless! I don’t have to buy a broken product and pay them for bug fixes. They have to fix the product because I have to work with it, then, in order to gain my trust, they need to improve, innovate. But these words are not part of Autodesk’s vocabulary anymore: “they’re too big, there’s the fiscal year, there are the investors, bla, bla, bla…”. Guess what? There are alternatives, people who listen to their users. If all what the 3dsmax community asks for is bug fixes, then good for you. I’m out.
Carl… just one questions… how much do get payed for this :-)…?
I get paid nothing for my assessment, but here is the thing I can see that ADSK has taken steps to improve how all rendering engines work in Max. You may not think this is important, but I do. MCG is also improving while it’s not what ICE was yet, it finally looks like it could be. Finally, just like Volkswagen is making better cars after their scandal, and United will most likely have the best customer service in the business in a few years, I have optimism for Max. Is it deserved by this release? I admit no not really, but Max’s team has FINALLY gotten around to changing some things up in the package, and they have good people in place. If those people are allowed to improve the package in the ways they want Max could lose the beer gut and hit fighting shape. I dunno maybe I am wrong we will see, but like everyone better to hedge your bets than go all in on one software.
Is still MAX for artist or for scientific, they are not doing nothing to make the life or artist more friendly, don’t learn nothing from c4d ? When you see how much steps and knowledgement to do a simple cloner in compared to c4d it is just make no sense.
BTW MAX 2018 come with Arnold 5 and there is no Arnold 5 page and in Arnold page there is no info about version 5 !! Crazy
Abraham, did you not see this?
https://www.solidangle.com/news/press-release-arnold-5/
In addition, here’s the updated Arnold 5 for 3ds Max page:
https://support.solidangle.com/display/A5AF3DSUG/Arnold+for+3ds+Max+User+Guide
The Arnold 5 anouncement was not online when they post the max 2018 news, I check all over the places, autodesk post first.
When you go to the link in what’new about arnold and click in MAXtoA the link go to a broken page, you can go to check it out or just click here http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-D4401CED-4D25-4CDB-8ECC-3A46BA5D641F
This is what we get. Really! I’m not going to bother updating. very disappointing. This looks like a patch and a fix.
So basically they saved all the good stuff for maya 2018
So like usual they double dip the “new features” with the 2017.1 update that users paid to beta test last year. How many default shortcuts and menu items were randomly shuffled around the UI and renamed?
Has the DX11 crash issue with 2017 been resolved. Any update to viewport
lol wow.
im so happy to have opted out of maintenance.
the whats new:
– arnold
– mcg improvements
– qt improvements
– motion paths
– state sets sdk.
this is just incredibly bad even by autodesk standards.
i´ve not been happier to have switched software in may life.
this made my day.
hahahahhahahahahahahahah
right now i’m using max 2015 and max 2016, i havn’t installed max 2017 cos of everyone saying it’s a buggy release and now this max 2018 has all the hallmarks of a downgrade (iray and mental ray gone) now if i drop off of subs i’m left with the last activated version..i’m thinking right now it’s probably better to stay with max 2016 as my EOL max than risk 2017 or downgrade to max 2018…. thoughts?
Well, I will say is a little to early to do any coment on a filtrated release without any oficial confirmation of what it changed.
If we consider 2017.5 as part of 2018, so far what I see is not bad at all (could be more… yes) Data channels was an awesome new tool that will give a lot of flexibility to max in multiple areas.
Motionpath ajustable on viewport I think is huge! and was one of the most voted request on feedback area.
Improvements on UI with switchable docks, resizable right panel, is very welcome.
The big one, mentalray change for Arnold, well I will have to try it to decide if its good or bad, but since I never get use to mentalray, I think its dificult I can found it like a stepback.
breh check the whats new from the horses mouth:
http://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2018/ENU/?guid=GUID-F687E23D-6FBA-4C8A-9202-C30F2860E5BE
Hey everyone,
Jon A. Bell here (3ds Max old-timer, and now back at Autodesk)…
Every release, we (Autodesk) hear two mutually-exclusive comments from two different groups of vocal users. Some people want absolutely no new features, just improvements and defect fixes for the existing software. Others want more and more new features and are upset when they don’t see the exact feature that *they* want. It’s tough to please everyone, but I can say that 3ds Max 2018 fixes some major issues present in 3ds Max 2017, speeds up other features, and includes the following (this list is courtesy of Chip Weatherman, Senior 3ds Max Designer):
Arnold 5 integrated directly into 3ds Max. Further updates will come from Solid Angle. The fact that this is “one line” doesn’t serve it justice because of the amount of stuff packed in this.
Motion Paths — Edit animation directly in the viewport
UI
Qt5 framework with enhanced docking
Tabs within Command Panel
Stackable Scene Explorers
Timeline tear-off
Menu tear-off
Continuous Hi-DPI icon conversion
Faster workspace switching
State Sets
SlateSDK-based UI for more consistent look and functionality
Dynamically set properties
Chamfer modifier — quad intersections updates
Alembic
visibility track support
Shape suffix management via MAXScript
Unwrap UVW – Pack selected updates
Smart Content (MCG)
77 New Operators
27 New/Fixed Compounds
Undo in the MCG editor
Easy Map – The added ability to mapping over an operator by connecting an array of values for graph simplicity.
Live Type – Displaying computed types in the editor as you work.
MCG type resolver improvements – should no longer need to add extra nodes to provide hints about the type system in MCG.
Significant compiler improvements – This means that large complex graphs with lots of function could receive a significant speed up.
MCG packaging – No need to unpack MCG graph. This also makes sure that the MCG is using compounds from the package.
Consume graphs in package form (.mcg) by simply dragging into the viewport
Automatic Tool input generation
More artist friendly operator/compound naming and categorization
New Node Properties window with better description of operators/compounds
Updates to Data Channel & Blended Box Map
Again, you can’t please everyone. For every 100 people who are overjoyed that *their* most-requested feature was included, we’ll see 100 different people who are upset that *their* most-wanted feature wasn’t. And then we’ll see another 100 people who literally want ZERO new features — just speed improvements and defect fixes. No matter what we do, some Max users will be unhappy — while others may be thrilled.
Just wanted to note this, as both a long-time 3ds Max user and (now, again) an Autodesk employee. Thanks,
— Jon
Im one of the people that Im perfectly fine if there is no new features but fixing or improving existing tools/viwport/improved workflow.
I think the big problem here is… Where is the comunication department? Looks very sad that a company like Autodesk do a release like that without a proper oficial new release comunicate/announcement.
Not worth £700
Can you list out the actual fixes from 2017. There has been no information besides the things you listed above, and those look like all the new things with three minor fixes. I currently use 2016 because 3DSMAX Viewport in windows 10 with Nvidia Geforce Cards is super finicky and crashes constantly without generating a report. This is a known issue affecting a lot of users. I think what is bugging me most is the need for me to scour forums to find out what has been fixed in 2018. So far 2018 UI seems to have new issues, with the tabs not resizing, and the tearing as you expand UI menus. It would be nice to know what has been addressed, so I don’t have to test out on my own every scenario to find the same bugs from 2017. Where is the detailed changelog?
Michaell, that’s an excellent question, and I’ll see if we’re going to make that available. I can say from my personal experience and testing that some of the biggest issues that some people reported with Max 2017 (XRef slowdowns, viewport problems in Windows 10, and so forth) have been fixed in 2018.
Jon, what’s the situation with Max 2017? Numerous problems, some of them critical and forcing users to go back to older versions, have been known for a longer time already, yet we see no Service Pack(s) addressing them.
Regardless of the focus of a release (bug fixes vs. new features, which by the way is a questionable oversimplification not reflecting past and present concerns) a release is not usable in production as long as critical issues are not fixed.
Marcin, fixes for Max 2017 are still in the works, although I can’t say exactly when they’ll be released. It shouldn’t be too much longer, and in fact, those of us in 3ds Max technical support have already made our recommendations on the most important issues we’d like to see addressed.
Thanks for the update on 2017, Jon. I have to admit I’m surprised to read this here as I have expected a generic answer without any real information. If I’m not mistaken, you are actually the first person to publicly announce that long overdue SP for 2017 after all these months of silence.
For the record, it took months of nagging you guys to get an official info on a release that hasn’t been usable for so many users. If it wasn’t for this post on cgpress, a lot of negative comments and a sudden need for damage control from Adesk’s side we wouldn’t have heard anything.
That’s the thing we’re all talking about here: suboptimal customer support and non-existent communication together with continuous neglecting of issues with the software (btw, what’s up with all the AREA blogs that were set up for the max team to keep in touch with users and all went completely silent?), lack of business-friendly licensing options, an underwhelming marketing of 3dsmax, waste of developer time on features no one asks for (I’d love to learn more about some of the companies and studios that you speak with in order to determine upcoming features that you mentioned above), obvious lack of resources on the team for 3dsmax and no innovation whatsoever (with notable exceptions like data channel and BBM every 2-3 years) and finally the loss of any touch with the userbase.
There is a big misunderstanding here. I think that one of the problems is that many people have not understood how powerful the new MCG (Max Creation Graph) system is and how more productive the new procedural way could be. Autodesk has been focused to MCG for some years now but many users don’t know how to use it. Autodesk needs to provide much more online tutorials for this subject.
If 3ds max users are happy paying for bug fixes, good for them. I won’t try to convince the company I work for that we need to keep 3ds Max.
“that 3ds Max 2018 fixes some major issues present in 3ds Max 2017, speeds up other features,”
or
“that 3ds Max 2017 fixes some major issues present in 3ds Max 2016, speeds up other features,”
or
“that 3ds Max 2016 fixes some major issues present in 3ds Max 2015, speeds up other features,”
In the meantime, in another land:
New Network Editor
– Brand new architecture for better performance, user experience and control
– Completely redesigned look and feel
– ‘Dot’ connections to help route wires
– Customizable node shapes
– Resizeable colour palette
– ‘Flyout ring’ to quickly access node flags and node info at any zoom level
– Persistent node info dialog with live links and cut-and-paste capabilities
– Visual ‘badges’ to indicate certain properties of the node
– Multi-selectable and multi-assignable wires
– Ability to knife-cut wire connections
– Snapping guides for fast and easy node alignment
– Automatic shifting of nodes to accommodate new entrants
– Intuitive, gesture-driven network layout tools
– Quickmark hotkeys to jump between networks or within one network
– Dimming of long wires to prevent obstruction of nodes
– Visual indication of non-local dependencies, with handy jump-to controls
– Background image support for network boxes or the entire canvas
– Font size, colour and background controls for sticky notes
– Optional display of the node type
– Powerful search engine
Modeling
– Fast Boolean with exact predicates and arithmetic
– 3D and UV smoothing with advanced surface analysis kernels
– PolyFill with quads, fans, and more
– Enhanced PolySplit and PolyBevel
– Redesigned Copy/Instance and Group
– Intersection analysis and stitching
– Robust 2D triangulation
– Selection enhancements
– Fast tool access via customizable, gestural radial menus
– Infinite reference plane with rulers
– Medial axis snapping
– Vertex normal support in the viewport for cusping
– Pseudo-bevelling with Normal SOP
– Aggressive geometry compression
– Extensive OpenCL support
– ‘Compiled SOP’ architecture: parallel cooking and memory savings
– 3D Mouse support
Terrain
– Brand new architecture for procedural terrain generation
– Based on height-field volumes in SOPs
– Full and immediate access to Houdini’s modelling arsenal
– 30+ dedicated surface operators
– Powerful erosion models
– Straightforward workflow, similar to image compositing but in 3D
– Seamless optional leveraging of Houdini’s compositing network (COPs)
– Ability to mask areas of interest with freeform curves and texture maps
– Ability to paint and override any attribute
– Support for geotiff and several Lidar formats
– Native output to game engines
– Fully tileable
– Game-friendly terrain material and specialized shader for VFX use
– High-quality visualization in the viewport
– Dedicated Mantra procedural for rendering
– Very fast: hardware accelerated via OpenCL
– Native collision support for Houdini’s physical sim environment (DOPs)
Look Development
– Architecture for single-tiered shader creation in VOPs (no SHOPs required)
– Much streamlined workflow to aid both new and existing users
– Full support for nested, unlimited shader layering
– Redesigned VOP node tiles
– Ray-traced SSS BSDF with image-plane outputs
– Support for unified nested dielectrics
– Dispersion and absorption BSDFs
– Redesigned Principled ubershader with extensive features and controls
– Updated shader gallery with new entries such as skin, wax and mountain
– Easy OpenGL tagging of shader attributes for viewport visualization
– Viewport support for metallics, coat, occlusion, reflection and more
– Texture baking enhancements
– OpenColor IO support
– Per-pixel inspection of material stylesheet overrides in IPR
– Significant performance enhancements to Mantra
– Fine-grained, intuitive controls for the quality/performance tradeoff
– Direct rendering of HIP files containing curves and points with no Engine license
Character
– Many enhancements to the Animation Editor
– Flexible constraint architecture based on VOPs and CHOPs
– Biped and quadruped auto-rigs
– Biharmonic skin capturing to diminish the need for weight painting
– Fast bone placement with medial axis support
– ‘Invisible rig’ support in Pose tool
– Spring-based and FEM-based skin & muscle system
– Significantly improved FEM soft-body solver
– Optimized for performance
Hair & Fur
– Complete overhaul of hair and fur creation, grooming and rendering
– Unrestricted layering of grooming operations in SOPs
– Rich set of dedicated tools such as clump, frizz, curl, trim, extend and part
– Flexible masking tools to isolate areas of interest
– Ability to override any attribute via texture maps or 3D paint
– Total freedom to mix attribute painting with 3D brushing
– Equal editing access to grooming guides and generated hair
– Full preservation of procedural graph
– Built-in simulation controls
– Easy and accurate retargeting
– High-quality hair visualization in the viewport
– Dedicated shelf tools and desktop
– Very fast: uses OpenCL and the new ‘Compiled SOPs’ architecture
– SOP-based Mantra procedural that does not consume Engine license
Crowd Simulations
– Viewport visualization of material stylesheet overrides
– Animation clip layering
– Enhanced hip adjustment and foot locking
– Non-bipedal terrain adaptation
– Intelligent adaptation to real-time deforming terrain
– Advanced controls for looping, trimming and self-blending of clips
– Easy attachment of props such as weapons and clothing
– Support for custom collision shapes
– Robust and significantly faster computation of automatic joint limits
– Improved clip selection and randomization controls
– Clip renaming and unit conversion during FBX import
– Native support for collision with height-field terrain
Ocean Tools
– Complete overhaul of the ocean FX architecture
– Unlimited layering of arbitrary wave spectra in SOPs
– Infinite oceans: tile-free approach that eliminates concern for artefacts
– Waves can be applied artefact-free even to deformed/warped base grids
– Art-directable, animated hero waves can be mixed in seamlessly
– Masking tools to isolate areas of interest
– 3D particle foam system for a richer and more realistic look
– Guided sims: seamless blending of FLIP fluid sim with ocean surface
– Improved boundary layer that preserves boundary velocities
– Very fast: OpenCL accelerated
– Layerable ocean shader that lets you plug in foam particles
– Render-time evaluation of ocean surface via dedicated Mantra procedural
FLIP Fluids
– Physically correct simulation of surface tension
– Suction force: art-directable fluids driven by animated geometry
– Waterline feature: wave dynamics that extends correctly beyond boundaries
– Enhanced viscosity solver with slip controls
– Fully OpenCL-accelerated pyro pipeline
– Native support for collision with height-field terrains
Houdini Engine & Games
– HAPI 3.0: no longer Houdini Digital Asset (HDA) centric; packed primitive support
– Remote debugger: live view and manipulation of game engine scene within Houdini
– Many UE4 and Unity plug-in enhancements
– Dedicated shelf tools for games
– Rigid-body and breakable simulation export to FBX
– Blendshape export to FBX
– Simulation export to textures for use in real-time engines
– Much improved texture baking
– More robust PolyExpand2D
+1
I truly have huge sympathy for the regular folks at Max…you look at the new list from Max 2018, compare it to Houdini, and it’s just ridiculous. I get company loyalty and such, but I’m surprised there isn’t a mass migration of employees away from AD/Max..you need to be proud of the product you make, and at least have SOME reason to believe that it’s the best.
What blows my mind is that Autodesk is so freaking clueless to why this happens? you know all of this you could have told us about 6months ago? COMMUNICATE!! not 4 hours AFTER release.
Every year it has nothing to do with what is actually being released. Max is getting better and better and nicer to use! I love it, but what I don’t like is AD is so blind to the way they manage to misinform (by not informing) leaving the masses to hope and guess and pray every year, resulting in literally no one being happy when release finally happens, because there has been 0 expectation management from ADs side.
Let people know that release X will contain mostly Y ahead of time, and tell them how awesome those tweaks are and why they are prioritised over “fluids” yet again. (not sure why anyone really wants AD to have a go at fluids).
@Jon, I don’t buy this reasoning. If you look at a lot of other software’s releases, including the new features in the yearly update of Houdini that Marco posted, there’s not this much criticism. Not even close. If you look at other forums for other software packages this amount of criticism just isn’t there. It’s not about specific features, it’s about seeing substantial innovation that may not affect you but affects the user base of your software. I’d be very surprised if there’s an equal amount of people who want no new features and instead want just stability fixes.
That motion paths is being hailed as a big new feature when you can download a script that’s now free (Pro Trajectory Handles) that does the same thing and works pretty much the same way I don’t see Autodesk really investing a lot of innovation in max. Most max users don’t hold the programmers responsible, but the leadership that decides how much to invest in each yearly release and the choices they make in every area including taking Mental Ray away and replacing it with a restricted version of another renderer.
Agreed, this is absolutely bad reasoning, sorry.
Also please note that if you want to go ahead and do just bug fixes with minor new features for a year or so then that’s fine ONLY IF you tie it up with a very fair and reasonable price tag. You wont hear any complaints there. Right now it is the exact opposite.
Maybe all this is up to upper management but we hope that at least you guys have some reason and make your voices heard within the company.
Finally as others have mentioned here no other 3d software company receives the amount of hate that Autodesk does, and this is a vastly large amount. To add insult to injury Autodesk is infinitely larger company and has infinitely larger budget than all the rest combined yet it fails to deliver quarter of the improvements plus features others do.
Here’s another management questionable move. As good as Arnold is, Vray is equally as good if not better for max users couple that with Phoenix for full fluid sims and you got a huge package deal waiting to be negotiated with. So why the hell make a deal with Solid Angles when a better deal can be made with Chaos which already has a vast solid user base in Max. (This could also depend if Chaos wants to make such a deal, but i’m sure something could be worked out if Autodesk could make special fair offers to them if they want to if they set aside their greed with all the $$$ they are receiving).
@John — I’m stating what I have personally seen and heard from customers (not just for Max, but for Maya and a bunch of other Autodesk software.)
I have seen very vocal users demanding better VFX tools, and they couldn’t care less about architectural features. They want to animate robots and blow up spaceships and create ocean waves — not do hotel lobby walkthroughs, no matter how photoreal they might be.
Conversely, I will see large architectural/engineering clients who want 3ds Max interoperability with other Autodesk software, such as AutoCAD, Inventor and Revit, and just want to be able to render their scenes in Max. That is a huge part of the 3ds Max market, and most of these folks have no interest in VFX tools or character animation. They want to render beautiful buildings… not blow them up. 🙂
And again, I see users who think Max is fine as an overall 3D generalist tool, and they literally say they don’t want *any* new features to clutter the works — they just want everything that’s already in the program to be faster and more stable. (I’ve actually had a few users ask if Video Post — a long-obsolete feature that’s been supplanted by far more powerful, 3rd-party compositing apps — will be updated for their use.)
Now, some people are going to be disappointed in Max 2018, while some people are going to love it. If 3ds Max had to focus on only one market segment, it would be easier to please just the people in that niche. But we have to work to address the needs of many different types of users, in multiple fields, who have their own unique needs for CG software.
@Jon I feel you’re sticking your head in the sand, and hearing your reasoning, justifying what’s being going on with max the last ~5-7 years, is a bummer. You never addressed the point about other software not getting near the same criticism as Autodesk. Maya isn’t really getting the same attention it once got either. It’s in the same boat as max. XSI had a “bright future” according to Autodesk and now it’s dead. I guess you need to defend AD’s decisions but I just can’t agree. If I saw major innovation that these programs used to get that don’t affect what I do personally, I would still see the value in the upgrades. Just as I look at Houdini and other software’s videos and say “that particular feature is not useful for me right now, but I’m very happy the software is growing and that the company is really dedicated to its software. The stronger and larger the user base the better it is for me as a user of any given software.
To me, and I believe a lot of people, it’s not about the specific feature _I_ want, it’s seeing a lack of growth in max that’s not keeping up with other companies. This is just an impression but I haven’t seen MCG been widely adopted even though it’s the biggest new feature and I was even happy when it was announced and released. Data channels are great. I just expect more, and I think if Autodesk really listened, and compared themselves to other companies and the feedback they get, they would see that they are getting a lot more criticism than other softwares. It’s not about wanting to hate, it’s about a desire to see max grow at the same speed as other, non-AD, software.
@John,
There are multiple reasons why Autodesk (or any other very large software company) gets criticism from customers. Some of it is legitimate and justified, and we’re working on the cause of that. But some criticism (or appearance of same) is also a natural consequence of Autodesk being the biggest player in the 3D digital content creation industry. The more customers you have, the more widespread that negative feedback appears, and the more disproportionate it seems.
As I mentioned earlier, Max is used in multiple markets, with (by far) the largest number of customers of any 3D DCC package. The percentage of unhappy users will always seem far larger and more visible than those using other, perhaps more narrowly-focused programs, with far fewer users. It’s easier to please a smaller, more targeted audience than a much larger, much more diverse one.
Regardless, I make it a point to convey all customer feedback, good or bad, unfiltered, up the chain of command. There are limits to what I can promise people in my current position at Autodesk. But I do escalate customer concerns to the powers-that-be, to the best of my ability – and this thread will be one of them. So, constructive feedback is helpful. Thanks,
Jon, allow me to explain some things.
I am an animator/vfx person so yea i belong in that camp because it matters most. Because if that camp improves all else improves automatically. I also know arch renders. and if you ask me those Revit guys would be satisfied with VRay and max version 6 or mental ray for that matter, archviz is the least demanding of all things to implement its a no brainer just give em a proper import workflow and a render engine. Sure they will ask for forest pro but that already goes in vfx category…
Meanwhile the real deal such as character, rig, muscle, vfx tools all missing for a damn decade man! cloth is still single core and untouched! biped untouched, animation tools archaic, we have to purchase plugins worth thousands just to have proper skinning and morph targets ( bones pro, morphomatic, etc..), plus that with phoenix or fume and vray and on it goes. how does this justify MAx cost?
Finally if anyone asks me about video post I will tell him to go graduate and not waste my time, I wouldn’t even bother with a reply.
I see the priorities as clear as daylight, and so does the majority of the community the rest is just smoke and mirrors.
I have to agree to that. Several years ago I was under the beta program for a new MAX version. Character rigging is what I do as my daily job, and I used MAX extensively for years. Autodesk made us believe they were interested in adding more character/rigging/animation related features in the next versions of MAX.
Well, the only rigging related update I got to see before jumping off the MAX boat was a text field to be able to filter the names of the influences of a Skin modifier. Which after all those intentions/promises made me laugh, but also made me kind of sad. I understand Autodesk has to cater to their biggest market (arch viz) and that their resources are limited. But they were the ones reaching for people like me and others to bring useful ideas.
I have not opened MAX in years, but I reckon not much has been changed on that field…
Are you joking? We should pay for fixes? People please wake up!
Do you know when this version will be available for student users?
Hi Jon, and thanks to take the time to answer to all of us at here. I just wanted to point something, because I was actually talking with a coworker about how cool could be if Autodesk decide to concentrate on fixing all the bugs of the previous versions, but I have reported a pretty basic error that started to happen just when the latest SP for 3dsmax 2017 came, and for me and some other users is critical, and it wasn’t fixed yet in 2018, here is the link: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/thumbnail-composite-material-in-3dsmax-2017/m-p/6781181?nobounce#M128656
Now I have payed the upgrade to this version hoping that those issues were fixed because our studio pipeline is still on 2016, so I have payed for two version of the software that I’m not able to use until Adesk decide to fix them.
Thanks Jon
Can someone say if it will require plugin recompiles :(…?
I was trying to find that info in the help website but didnt find it.
I read elsewhere that it does need recompiles.
Yes to will need new compiles for this new “service pack”
Great just what one more thing we need to do :(…
I read and read, everybody unhappy.
Folks, but max was going to dead, remember?
This is the pathetic update, I agree, but anyway it’s Update.
Clown Button removed! That’s a big step forward! Hahaha
FYI; Arnold 5, Version 1.0.725.0 (2018) shipped with 3ds Max 2018 today. However, the latest download of Arnold 5 for 3ds Max 2018 is actually 1.0.812.0 — 90+ minor updates “newer” that the current Max 2018 version.
3ds Max 2018 users can download this new version from their Solid Angle account page:
https://www.solidangle.com/home/
This is what I payed for. Really! Really! With Solid Angel / Arnold Render. And I have to pay for more rendering nodes. Talk about milking me for money.
Great point. We are ending our all our seats of Creation Suite if the Arnold render nodes don’t become free. WT! Autodesk.
Also lack of arnold for earlier 3dsmax (only for 2018 is avaliable), they naively think that it will force customers to buy the subscription
Any news on licensing change?
Are you happy with a downgraded sotware?
Yes, downgraded, you cannot do network rendering in your own farm any more without paying Autodesk MORE money… well you can with some underdeveloped render engines also included in max… yay!!
Also ask the renderfarms… they will start increasing prices very fast becaue their costs are going crazy, first hand information here…
BTW forget about using AMAZON AWS as a farm… you need licenses and it’s expensiiiiiive.
Yeah… don’t care anymore, I just hope enough people realize that Autodesk is turning them into hostages and go away very fast…
Cheers!
Just say – great start https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/3ds-max-2018-freezing-viewport-bug-same-as-2017/td-p/7013196
for all the people saying they didn’t upgrade to 2017:
install 2018 and try,
lots of bugs fixed,
UI is amazing, huge step forward,
motion paths takes animation to a whole new level,
try data channel modifier presets and be amaze, and then make your own and combine it with the stack, it’s like a whole new program,
blended box mapping… flawless, fun, no UVs…
MCG, I don’t think ppl is realizing the potential of MCGs in this release,
MCG was a great addition, but now is way better, procedural modeling motion graphics…
The problem in Max now is its marketing team, but the release is fantastic.
Yeah, with presentation disasters like this is when you see the importance of a good marketing team. What happen to them? Seriously, no videos? no oficial note release,… nothing?
Eloi.
Your absolutely right. Not one video. Showing of the new furthers. Really!!
It like they tossed a roll of toilet paper. Not one announcement! Really!! Or they are not proud of what they accomplish.
Exactly, the last few years the max releases have actually been pretty good. We already have way better 3rd party solutions, which makes was made as a platform for, tools! whatever you want you can get.
But the point is, the way people are being told about the new things, and old things done way better is failing badly, the fact is this year no one was told anything! at all.
I’m super excited about max2018 and will be moving to it as soon as my other tools I need allow me to, but man the marketing team at AD is failing so hard.
I am having a hard time finding any excitement over this release. I would greatly appreciate if you could share what you find great about 3DS MAX 2018.
I like the speed of the updated UI. Hope there are not too many new UI bugs. Undocking of Menus and Timeline is great.
I never used MCG in production. I don´t like the scripted plugin .maxtool concept and the performance wasn´t fit my production requirements. I’ve opened some Max2018 MCG Samples from Area. The performance now seems much better.
Try SuperPivot. That should be a 3dsmax Standard feature.
Motion Path feature feels usefully.
Perhaps the new node-based slate view makes the slate feature ready for production use. It’s a little bit like a miniVexus.
Arnold license and pricing…. Uhhhhh
Vray 3 has some great Maps for Scanline. Not so from Arnold… but there would be a lot of interesting maps.
I’d like to see what new things the updates to MCG can offer..also I would like to see some videos covering the new features in max 2018.
hopefully they are forthcoming soon.
If you wanted a sign that Max is on life support and barely conscious then this should be it. I see work from one, maaaybe two devs for this release.. The rest is acquisition(s).
I think you meant Maya
For that logic Maya must have 1 developer only and has been on life support for more than 6 years…
have you seen the last Maya releases?
plugins and scripts acquisitions, change the icons and go tell ppl that it has dozens of new features…
Agreed, they all seem to be in maintenance mode.. No spark or innovation.
All they would need is to go on their suggestion list and see what people voted for, implement those things, they’d be heroes.
Not available to education users yet… 🙁
I really hope a gas fire breaks out at the next shareholder meeting.
so whilst the feature list looks ‘breif’ I’ll actually wait to see just what;s what as there’s a large amount of new features in MCG, how that transpires to the overall update for 3ds max i’m not sure yet…it has 70+ new operators…does that mean alot or no so much?
no idea as yet.
however, autodesk are still currently promoting the school yard bully approach to moving loyal users who bought their apps over to rent o matic
nonsense. whilst autodesk are just fine and dandy to continue subs (no rent o matic rubbish) for the EDU versions…seems they forgot to find out the very same subs were okay for that…
will they change?
that have until mid june to show me.
We didn’t even get a new splash screen!
The nerve of some companies!
There is a way of making the disparate groups of max users happy…now bare with me…it’s going to blow your minds….
how about splitting max up, 1 version for archviz and another for animators?
amiriteguys?
Hah, well maybe third time would be a charm…
Well, then the problem is that you need to split also the developers.
And is not only archviz and animators. You have archviz, animation, fx, motiongraphics, … each one wants different things to be updated so how do you split that?
I assumed it was a joke, considering we’ve had Max, then Max and Viz and GMax and Plasma, then Max and Max Design, then Design and Max being merged back together.
The astonishing thing is that 3ds Max would be fully capable of covering all those markets in one package. If only Autodesk as a company would not be that horrible, mid-management would not have no real clue and be stubborn on top of that all, and would finally recognize that with enough development resources put into 3ds Max, they would have everything in hand to satisfy the users and markets demand.
But no – they have to set themself on route to destroy everything, including Autodesk as a company,by the current leads idiotic rental license only religious war and by their industry detached product-focus decisions. And by letting internal jealousness and powergames drain resources from one product to favor another.
and don’t forget games.. I’m guessing they’re still a pretty big share of studio licenses – not everybody shifted to Maya despite AD’s best efforts over the last few years.
It is the first time that Autodesk announced 3ds Max so silently without a press release or advertisement. This is not a good sign for the future. It’s a pity because Max is more productive and feature rich modeler than Maya, one of the best out there. It would be much more clever to create at least a similar UI for modeling for Maya, or something between Modo and Max, in order to attract more users in Maya. MCG (Max Creation Graph) is the largest addition in latest years but it is mostly useless because of the lack of tutorials, as it is, it has to do more with technical directors. As things stand today, Maya can not substitute Max as an equally productive modeler in any case.
Wow, what a disappointment this year’s release is… I’m literally feeling scammed! Not that expected anything different. They should have called it a service pack for Max 2017, not a full-blown release, IMHO.
You really get how “serious” Autodesk are about development just by looking at the splash screen which they didn’t even bother to change for 4th year in a row, LOL!
Just look at the new features and changes in the latest Houdini release and cry. This is what is called a release, not the service packs that we get for the price of a full-blown release. Why should I spend that much money for lackluster releases each year when I can get the same functionality out of Max 2012 + plugins and scripts for 5 times less cost a year. Seems like I made a mistake by not cancelling my subscriptions.
I’m currently in the process of choosing other 3d package/s to migrate to and I hope others are considering the same. Blender 2.8 is on the horizon and it will include a lot of great improvements that I look forward to. C4D looks fine for my use too. The transition might be hard but I think it’s worth it in the long run.
A fairly weak release was pretty predictable for this year though, especially after the redundancies last year and now that we’re past the push to sell ‘last orders’ for perpetuals.
Aside from the drive to rental, I think half of AD’s problem is the annual release strategy. It never seemed to me to be a good thing for the healthy development of their products. Perhaps this is why they want to push people of Subs.. so they can drop the whole routine of releasing annual updates for subs. In my pipe-dreams this would lead toward a more organic and meaningful update strategy. Seriously guys.. just get back to build numbers and release updates when they’re ready.
came out wednesday – it’s now friday and there’s still nothing on the autodesk youtube channel..are autodesk even aware it’s out?
I’m guessing if we’re lucky there might be some videos to coincide with NAB.
I’m not sure why they didn’t hold it back to coincide with that show.
Maybe the marketing department took a hit in the layoffs – tutorial videos seem like a more worthwhile use of money than having someone in charge of ‘subscriber success’
The have to release it at this time, no matter the situation with the completeness is, because Max is in all the suites and industry collections. Those get released at this time, so Max is forcefully dragged out into the light too. Maya for example does’nt suffer from this idiotic entanglement, so they even can delay the new release half a year ( like Maya 2017 ) and release a Maya 2016.5 in the meantime without getting burned…
3DS user since 1993 here… I consider this not an upgrade until 5 seats of Arnold included with license. The removal of the big clown file button is an improvement. Chamfer modifier and motion paths are now as they should have been.
So the quad chamfer works like Marius Silaghi’s plugin and viewport motion paths are equivalent to trajectory handles and bezier assist from jdbgraphics.nl now?
Really glad we moved to Houdini. Autodesk lost the plot.
We been wasting our time here with autodesk products ( max maya xsi …)
not because of the product it self but because the company’s policy
look to the series of promises every year :
its defirant
no its actually big improvement
you dont know what is coming just be patient
look to the unbelievable behave in the decisions :
the give a green light to develop the Excalibur project
after a few steps they stop every thing
a regular release with a few promises to brighter future
they kick out the product manager and big changes to develop sector
big promises for unbelievable version
a regular release with a few promises to brighter future
they kick out the product manager and big changes to develop sector
a lot of blogs and ton of articles to wait for the brighter future
a buggy release
then big max ever a regular release with a useless staff and few promises to brighter future
they kick out the product manager and big changes to develop sector and CEO
suddenly we get a regular release with a confirmation of a dark future
HAHAHAHAH ok they know what we are and they where using us to milk our money and our companies money too
now we all should be one hand against the greedy policy
we should stop bumping more money to this monster so they stop the ridiculous attitude with our market and stop acting like a merchandiser and be a real software developer
Seriously ? A “new” release with less new features as the last service pack ? Wow, maybe I should buy just one AD stock to get my answer on next stock share holder meeting : What have you done with the many , many millions of dollars from your Max subscribers? This two developer shouldn’t cost so much, right ?
Remember how Arnold, rental, and most of these other enhancements were all at the very top of the customer wish list?
No? Me, neither.
Remember when SideFx announced that Houdini 16 would have no new substantial features, because apparently you can’t fix bugs and also add features?
Me, neither
I have been using 3d Studio and Autodesk Animator since the release 3 and jumped on Max right away… and until this very day I still visit Max for quick poly work but mostly i’m stationed in the Cad land (Solidworks/Catia). Let’s say Autodesk products were never cutting edge, always many years behind in terms of features and innovation.. but their pc orientation, no-nonsense approach to GUI and workflows were the magic that kept user at their doors.
So basically this Autodesk guy tells us that people are frustrated and begging the company make Max more stable and bug free. Did Autodesk never hire a PR firm to straighten out their communication? This is a joke of epic proportions.
Let me translate you what people are actually saying… “Dear Autodesk we are paying big bucks to use your software, please make it usable for us because it crashes all the time!”
Get it? The ability for a software to perform efficiently and not crash is #1 mandatory thing for every software out there. People should not beg a company to fix bugs…
This is so wrong on so many levels.. I worked briefly for a software company with about 700 000 users that took their software very seriously and I can’t imagine something like that happening. People would be fired instantly left and right and the CEO together with the project leads would leave with black eyes.
I’m glad that Carl is gone.. met him twice and let’s say I was never a fan since his visions were a complete anti-thesis to mine. However with Fusion360 they got many things right and i’m still quite shocked.
I guess I hear it all the time, but it seems like a false dichotomy/choice of sorts.
A) Half of our users are demanding that we stop adding new features and resolve all the bugs before doing anything else
B) The other half are demanding new features all the time
Therefore, they reason, it is impossible to please everyone. But the argument is flawed to an extreme.
1) I don’t hear SideFX saying that we need to choose between new features and fixes.
2) Why do customers have to assume that a new feature MUST add problems? IF Autodesk could release new features without them being broken or breaking other things, Group A would have no problem at all with new features being added. AD makes it sound like the customers are just dead set against new features…no, they’re annoyed that you keep breaking things.
3) This argument might have a BIT more weight if they were not, in fact, failing miserably on BOTH of these axes. Bugs that have been around for multiple versions are STILL there, and new bugs arise. Almost no new features were added this time around. With this small number of new features I would have hoped that nearly ALL bugs were squashed, but within days longstanding bugs were shown to remain.
I completely agree with the points you made Jim. Users expect a lot from Autodesk, and they should considering the size of the company. SideFX is considerably smaller and is able to fix bugs and add significant features with each release. Like others have mentioned, Autodesk also really needs to release videos highlighting all the changes they’ve made when a new release comes out.
Walk and chew gum at the same time? Impossible! There’s a large group of users that aren’t very demanding and it is cheaper for Autodesk to keep them quiet than it is for them to add more advanced features. Autodesk is more than happy to shift responsibility to 3rd party developers and collect the “Max Tax” from users who need a raft of plugins to bring Max up to what would be considered a generalist 3D package in 2017.
I don’t see how MCG fits into that description.
If anything it’s too niche for the bulk of users.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s also more limited/less portable than Maxscripts as there seem to be changes with every release.
So if someone develops using 2018 MCG, does that mean it’s not necessarily going to have backwards compatiblity with 2017/2016.
Starting out with Max R1.2 I jumped the boat after Max2016. Now I love the releases. It’s Monthy Python every time. As it makes my heart cry that they treat their software and user base the way they do. I have this Joker grin as they never fail to not deliver. My thoughts goes to you. You ever need a feature. Stay stable, go to scriptspot ?
Had some time to kill so installed 2018 out of morbid curiosity.
A quick buzz with Arnold, I can’t see myself using it, it seems too slow for a one-man band, Redshift really shines for me. I’ll admit I didn’t push it though – maybe it shines in some circumstances.
The trajectories are nice, but I don’t touch MCG, and I’ve not personally had any problems with 2017 crashing.
So the only feature I’d actively use has cost me £700+, not what you’d call value for money.
Of course other users will welcome the stability, or may have use for MCG. But for me, sorry this release is simply not enough to warrant a renewal of £700.
If Autodesk don’t seem to think it’s worth getting enthused about this release, why should the users?
This is going to be the new trend, they don’t need to convince anyone about the goodness of the new release, why should they? If you stop paying you stop working so no need for marketing cost… is the same with Adobe, there are no big new features, for example, can you work with multichannel EXR in photoshop? or can you work with a 360 picture in 360 mode? no, well you can do that with Affinity and much more for a lot less money, in fact I’m not using photoshop anymore either hehe
They don’t have any incentive to really invest and innovate in the software, and they know that, it’s a money making machine…
Cheers!
So, I will try to balance the opinions even I can partially agree with other people points of view:
-Here really a few people really try max 2018 in depth, I only hear complains about the list of features, but I will say the real problem here is that autodesk did the worst comunication on new features ever.
-People doing a comparison of news in max 2018 with houdini. I see most of the news in Houdini and they are done to make Houdini more friendly, half of them I will say in max are better integrated. The list also is kind of not accurate. Lets bring on this list the 70 (SEVENTY) new nodes in MCG, I dont know what they are exactly, but looks a pretty nice new development on MCG.
-People complaining about the lack of support from AdK on max for FX, only focusing on Architecture. Again, MCG is one of the strongest addition, maybe going to lowcode, so was not so spread among most users, but as I hear ILM starts using more max license to be able precisely to do tools with MCG in a fast way.
At the same time Arnold has been used widely mostly for FX.
-And… Arnold. Is a huge addition, and integrating a new renderer is not easy. For me is a huge step over what we had before. Again Im more a vray user, but if I never need to do a freelance project finally I can see myself only needing a 3dsmax license and not a separate rendered to do something “nice” Not so many people here tryed Arnold 5, and with the new GPU based coming, looks like its having an interesting future.
-Adding in top of that the complete UI readaptation to qt5 (hello linux?), modificable path, bugs, etc needed on any release, I makes a nice list of changes.
Again, I dont want to be an autodesk defensor, but I see all the work done from the developers on this release. I will say the worst thing on this release was comunication from Adk with what they change.
– Disagree, I think several people here has been in the beta, and their opinions are based not just in coms but also in experience… I won’t say names due to respect and I don’t know if that could break the NDA so… sorry but no names
– MCG is targeted towards a small group of users, while I can understand it’s a great tool it comes very late, and it’s only oriented towards a pretty limited areas of max, yes, you can do tools, and it will perform better than maxscript and worse than a plugin, it will be easier to do than a plugin but harder to do than a script, and in the end they will be tools that you will be limited to use in max, of course that is completely normal and can be useful… but does it justify the upgrade costs? I don’t think so, and I think many other people wont either.
– Yes… Arnold… pretty limited, and yes it will have GPU support soon… and it will stay limited and limited in features also due to the limitations of translating a CPU render engine to a GPU architecture, the same happened with other engines, unless you develop the engine from the ground up to be CPU/GPU compatible you will have a limited GPU render engine, and… you won’t be able to render outside the max GUI… and in fact if I’m right you won’t be able to open two max instances at the same time and use one for render and the other for work… because yes, render still locks max out… with a render engine that lasts forever it’s cool eh! So forget about doing a final render while you work in other part of your project applying shaders or doing lighting…
– Forget about it, it has been stated a lot of times, max won’t be on linux, it’s impossible due to it’s deep internal architecture being completely tied to windows so… don’t dream it won’t happen, the UI is the less important of those limitations.
Do you think those things justify the upgrade? I don’t… in fact I’ve already decided that won’t be upgrading to any future max/maya releases, in our studio we’ve decided to leave Autodesk completely and we are working on Blender, so far we did not miss anything, not just a single thing… they simply are in different places… well let me correct myself, we missed ONE thing, the layers, but they are coming to 2.8 in a MUCH MORE powerful way than how are they in max so… no big problem here.
Cheers.
Autodesk has three main products. Fusion 360, Maya and Revit. All the others are considered minor applications and their updates are mostly a maintenance release. 3ds Max is very expensive for a maintenance release, the same with Maya’s price, and its price should be dropped.
And this are the three main products from autodesk just because you say it? Give me numbers and I will belive you. As I know 3dsmax has way but way much more licenses than maya. And even they try hard to implement BIM softwares autocad still the king as number of licenses sold/rented. Maybe Im wrong, but I will like to see numbers to prove that.
Eloi, this is just my opinion, but I think that has not to do with numbers of sales only. If you see the home page of Autodesk’s it has just three products: Fusion 360, Maya and Revit and of course the suites. If you see also the wealth of new features in these three applications every year you will understand what I am talking about. There is no comparison to the other applications. For example, Maya 2016/2016.5/2017 were huge updates. They are working on it like crazy. I believe that Maya 2018 will be also a blow-mind update, that’s why they delay and changed the usual release date cycle. Fusion 360 is for free and relatively inexpensive because it is trying to attract users from SolidWorks because Inventor was not so successful, Maya is trying to keep users away from Houdini (version 16 was an out of this world update and it is so cheap for indies for what it does).
So I think that the main reason is that they have chosen these three applications because they have the bigger potential for the future, they have the best architecture, the best and most forward-thinking core for development. Maya is a huge product with the biggest capabilities, ready for all platforms and it is considered the most prestigious among studios. That has not to do only with Max, Autocad and Inventor have the same route in favor of Revit and Fusion 320. They try to join their development forces to the best possible tools. Also, they try to attract artists to these. That has not to do with the sales but with the way that applications should work in the future in order to be competitive.
Don’t get me wrong, I love 3ds Max, I believe that it has extraordinary modeling tools (even if Fusion 360 is better for NURBS and Modo for polygons respectively). I believe also that MCG is a breath of fresh air because procedural modeling has a great potential even if Houdini has the biggest advantage because of the interoperability of Houdini engine. But how many Max artists use it? It is very nice that ILM started to develop tools and procedural model with it, as you said, I didn’t know that.
Also I will agree with you that Arnold is a great renderer, in fact, it is much better than Mental Ray and way more prestigious, but I think that it is easy to see that Max is not their main development focus. Fusion 360 is an excellent tool for nurbs and it is free for indies, even if it is not Solidworks, Maya has started to be built from the ground up and Revit seems to be the most capable and forward thinking in architecture. But Arnold has already been implemented for Solid Angle. The new thing here is that Max has a better renderer with one drawback, no free licenses for network rendering, the same that happened to Maya.
But it’s not only this: In fact, I think that nowadays Autodesk sees 3ds Max not as a product of its own anymore but as a part of a suite. That’s why it updates it only for modeling and visualization. That’s why the best value for money for someone is to rent the whole Media and Entertainment collection if he can afford it. The problem has to do with some Max artists that they insist on working with only a specific tool, Max. That’s what I have understood from observation. Maybe I am wrong of course.
You completely right. Main soft AD – Maya. Revit and AutocAD (maybe)
3ds Max is DEAD. Forget about its. Go to Blender + Houdini.
Ok, now I see your point and I can agree with you on that.Is that Im tired of the max will be dead next because blablabla. Yes, while I like max and I do most of my work on max, I go usually to maya for ncloth where I think is really nice integrated. They should focus on interoperability with this two softwares, right now is kind of… well, can be better. 🙂
While I agree with you Eloi, I think he says that becuase it’s what he feels due to Autodesk’s marketing campaigns, it’s not that those three softwares are the bigger players, it’s that those software are the ones that are more promoted I think.
Cheers!
-People doing a comparison of news in max 2018 with houdini. I see most of the news in Houdini and they are done to make Houdini more friendly, half of them I will say in max are better integrated. The list also is kind of not accurate. Lets bring on this list the 70 (SEVENTY) new nodes in MCG, I dont know what they are exactly, but looks a pretty nice new development on MCG.
Not sure if your point is about the fact that you find Max more friendly or the fact that what SideFx did is filling a gap.
If it’s the former, it’s not even a discussion as of course everything is debatable when it comes to user preferences, especially in a case like Houdini where the UI paradigms and the workflow are different from Max.
If it’s the latter, meaning, SideFx is just catching up, the point is missed. In fact, what needs to be noticed here is not that they added (among some really cool new features by the way) something that was missing before, but the fact that they DID IT! And they keep doing it every new release, and every .5 release as well.
Carl W — imagine how stupid I feel each year. I jumped on this ship in 1990 – I’d been married to 3dStudio / Max a decade before I met my wife.
I defended Max a LOT in the early days…oddly enough against Maya and Softimage users in many cases. When I think about those days, and how (though perhaps at the risk of more bugs) Autodesk POURED features into Max.
Then they bought two competitors, and suddenly they didn’t think it was all that important to add features…for me one of the last big shocks was when they basically laughed at the idea that people wanted fluids in Max. I shifted from staunch defender of Max/AD across multiple forums to the Mr. Gripeypants that I am now.
It’s a bit like the fall of the Roman empire. Success after success leads to overconfidence and complacency, enjoying arbitrary power, the leadership makes poor strategic decisions which overstretches resources. Eventually increasing numbers of citizens become dissatisfied with their offering, until the community fractures and rebels. Finally, external groups grab the opportunity to crush the empire once and for all.
Basically it’s a question value, what do you get for your money.
For Max this is an issue since many years, and it’s slowly getting worse, imo.
For years there was at best a slow evolution of Max, to stay in business, to stay head on head with competitors’ software. But there weren’t big steps, no wow-moment about cutting edge. Just the carefully planning of CEOs, to not deliver too much, just barely enough.
In the last 2 years, I got at least a tiny bit of hope. Seeing little things like text/shape-map, MCG, Data-Chan-Mod…these were at least fresh (and useful) ideas. But still small steps for ~1.000,-€ per year.
Sure, thanks to a lot of scripts/plugins Max still plays in the upper-class, but ADSK should wonder about frustration of users, if a Max-update contains a plugin that ADSK purchases/re-created, something that users had already purchase from 3rd-parties and used since years.
Bundled with the new rental-model, that is mostly a benefit to big studios that need to scale up/down flexibly, but ignores the needs of small buisinesses/freelancers who just want to pay for a permanent licence once, and maybe for updates later.
Personally I’m not sure how fast I’ll leave the Max ship. It takes a few years to learn a new softare to the point where you can “work blind” in it. But certainly I recommend newbies to start their 3D-life with Blender, or an indie-license from Houdini. Simply because in the first years, when you earn a little as freelancer, then rental for ~1.500 € per year is A LOT.
Time will tell. Maybe other software than Max will become more and more popular for beginners. Maybe the guys at ADSK simply forgot that some of the small, bitching newbies/freelancers of today might become the big players of tomorrow…on non-ADSK tools then.
I wonder how many Houdini fanboys here actually have used Houdini in production.
It seems you think you already know the answer to that question…
I wonder why anonymous commenters are anonymous…
They post anonymously because it would be a bit awkward if Mr. Bass posted his real name.
Well folks – one thing I didn’t see here is….Why should we even buy software that is put out on the market without the bugs fixed? I mean really! This alone reflects an attitude of just getting by. I have been very sorry to see AD gradually become poor quality software, and it seems evident they are just playing off the learning curve that has been invested by their users. Frankly, I will never purchase or recommend purchase of AD anymore. I will just use the best legacy version and supplement it with other programs until I either bail completely or retire. Selling buggy software is nothing we should never have been satisfied with. It gets more ridiculous with each version!
I’ll happily defend max in this regard. Compared to all other major 3D packages, max is at least as stable for the work that I do which includes very heavy environment work and fx. I rarely ever experience a crash. I do remember several versions ago max was a bit unstable but not these days.
Bugs are not always about crashing, but about tools not working as they should.
Have you tried CAT? half of it’s features are unusable…
Are you sure that what you use is max, or you use a bunch of plugins inside of max and those are what are stable?
Cheers.
I barely do any character animation so I am not qualified to say if it’s stable or not. Max without a lot of plugins and scripts installed is very stable. There are several crashes that can happen that are out of AD’s control. Scripts can crash Max, so can some plugins. In the past when I’ve encountered lots of crashes I’ve removed all plugins and scripts and Max got really stable. Then I added only the ones I needed and since it’s been running fine. Not saying Max is without bugs but not more than any other 3D software. That’s my experience and opinion.
@Michael – – -No no no…clearly you don’t understand. It was pointed out to me that Autodesk needs to strike a delicate balance between adding new features and squashing bugs…it’s apparently impossible to do both at the same time.
So since I’ve looked at the list and there’s essentially NO new features of any great impact here, this MUST have been a bug-fix release, and so there CAN’T be huge numbers of bugs left. They would have to be INSANE to release as few new features as they did without resolving nearly ever bug…
I see some of the coments with a base, but others, Im considering how serious this threat is.
What software do you use without bugs? If you use anything else that “calculator” you will have bugs. Can be on the same software, can be because new hardware appear on the market, can be for new features added. You have bugs on ANY program!Max, maya, cinema, houdini, and any plugin.
Any program/plugin
@Egress – – all my earlier sarcasm aside, comparing Max stability to Houdini Indie stability makes Autodesk look like complete amateurs. I know systems have differences and people’s mileage can vary, but Max still does complete CTDs on me at least twice a week, and after months and months of use Houdini has crashed on exactly zero times. Add to that the earlier comment about things not crashing, just not working right (CAT), and it’s a mess.
@Eloi – – obviously YMMV, and everyone stresses different things, but Max is a nightmare for me, and – – perhaps entirely due to what features I’m using – Houdini doesn’t crash.