3DS Max 2016 review

Conclusion

3DS Max 2016 sends a clear message to its vast and varied userbase that the future of the 3D industry’s ‘Swiss Army Knife’ is in great hands. The newly re-formed development team has stretched all resources to deliver the first release in years that truly tries to cater for as many of the diverse usergroup as possible. If 3DS Max 2016 contained only MCG and Alembic, this would be a ‘good’ release in the vein of 3DS Max 2011-2015. Instead, these 2 great features are accompanied by a laundry list of additions, enhancements and fixes that will put a smile on even the most jaded 3DS Max user’s face.

The new Physical Camera co-developed with Chaos Group improves upon the VRayPhysicalCamera with a new UI and viewport display of focus planes

The real losers with this release are Character Animators and FX Artists. Dual Quaternion skinning is a token addition arriving 4 years too late and no work has been done to the crippled 3DS Max ‘MassFX’ dynamics system, despite 3 years of advancements to PhysX on NVidia’s side. 3DS Max has no true fluid, pyro or gas solver despite continued advances to Bifrost in Maya. Meshing compound objects are outdated and volume and particle rendering options are sorely missing. Finally, it must be said the UI is just too outdated with no support for hi-DPI displays and constant flickering, user experience design and customisation issues. That said, it’s understandable that these features have been neglected this cycle as the features that did ‘make the cut’ really do benefit every 3DS Max user, no matter what your discipline.

Is it production-ready? Far more so than previous 3DS Max initial releases. MCG alone makes the time and cost investment in deploying 3DS Max 2016 worthwhile. Technically minded users will love MCG and non-technical artists will gawp at the plethora of powerful MCG objects, modifiers and tools that are being released daily. There are just a few ‘new’ bugs introduced with this release and hopefully they will be squashed in the first service pack.

As the owner of a perpetual license with active subscription, I happily give 3DS Max 2016 a 4.0/5. 3DS max 2016 is certainly a release worthy of a subscription renewal. But is this release really worth the outright cost of investment for legacy and new users alike? Since 3DS Max is used across so many industries in studios large, small and tiny, you must answer this question yourself but pricing options – a crucial element of a customer’s purchasing decision – are hindered by Autodesk’s highly inflexible licensing options. If you’re a ‘legacy’ 3DS Max owner, Autodesk has removed the ability for you to upgrade and soon you will only be able to rent the software. If I was evaluating this software with this in mind I would remove .5 marks from the final score. The current perpetual license and rental costs are simply not in sync with the features on offer and 3DS Max has no scaled pricing options like Houdini Indie, Cinema 4D Prime and Maya LT.

For me, 3DS Max 2016 is worthy of the title “Biggest Max Ever” and I recommend it. I’m impressed with the work the development team has done and sit happy knowing the future of 3DS Max is in such capable hands.

Michael Wentworth-Bell is a 3D Motion Graphics Artist based in Melbourne, Australia. He works at Reel Pictures using 3DS Max in video projection, permanent installations, corporate videos, TVCs, interactives and print. You can find out more about Michael and his work at thelode.com.au.