(Updated) Excellent news! Tom Hudson has provided a bit more information on the subject, saying that he is “excited to be back working with the Max development team” and that he can say with certainty that “Autodesk is listening to the users and is serious about moving Max forward with new features. I’m writing code for some right now.” More on MUForums.
Tom Hudson contracting with Autodesk!
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That’s really cool. Just hope he can help Autodesk see that Max is a powerhouse and should continue development.
I know the first new feature of the upcoming 3ds Max build!
Do tell us! 😛
That is great news, for me honestly the best part is that Tom Hudson is actually in there again.
About the “Autodesk is listening to the users and is serious about moving Max forward”, I keep asking myself, will it still sound like that if the next release comes out and they haven’t done anything, not a single thing about things like Bitfrost ,OSD ,Alembic, Ptex, … ?
I’ll believe that when I can see with my own eyes that Autodesk has stopped treating Max as a second-class citizen, that may make me sound ungrateful, but really if you step back a bit and look at the whole picture you’ll be able to see it.
… http://max.klanky.com/plugins.htm 🙂
Really looking forward to what comes from this. Maybe a working, flexible referencing system?!
I really hope to see serious development and useful stuff not only for archviz
I wish to see this software trusted in biggest studios
I hope in in new release we will see really useful tools. Like a new skin modifier and improvement animators tools. Human IK, updated Unwrap, cloth and chamfer.
So Tom is writing code?
Fabulous….but wouldn’t it be quicker – easier – better to take all those nice tools they bought for Maya and put them in Max now?
Sounds like we now have a plan that gets us new features in five years or so….
Being 100% blunt/honest here: Max DOESN’T HAVE five years with me if this is the plan.
@ Patric85
It would be indeed fantastic to have a new skin in Max: If they don’t have it already 85% complete, i don’t see any chance to have in till 2015. When i think how much resources and how many time (10-20 Years) were spent on BonesPro, for example, to get something that works and does not crash each few minutes, i can’t imagine to have a new fully functional, robust and production-ready skin modifer in the next few months.
Skin Modifier is not a hobby Max-Script freeware download tool which took 3 months development time – it hooks into the core of max and demand highest level of expertise. One need few experienced Max C++ Developers with excellent math knowledge, and then there will be still those in forum who will shout: “Where is the wobble and physics!!??!X§$!”. So you need again few more Developers to start developing this part. Very long, very expensive.
I don’t know how long Keean needed for SkinFX (as far as i know this is not skinning, it is effect modifier – you need Max Skin Modifier ANYWAY to bind the Mesh to Bones with SkinFX), but i am sure he did not made it on a weekend.
Also, watching everyday what kind of “unusual” and degenerated geometries people build or import into max, and put Skin/BonesPro on it and hope it works… well, even 5 years polishing are not enough :).
The only chance i see is to port Maya Skin to Max – and then test it X-Months in order to see if it works proper. Concerning the fact Max SDK internal structure does not allow such freedom like Maya, i can not even guess how many work and compromising will be needed – and how will this Chimera look at the end.
This is also funny, I swarm about Maya Skin and yet maya users ask us when we will port BonesPro to Maya (?). There are times i do not understand world at all, no one is happy enough. 🙁
In any case – 2 years minimum production time for such crucial component.
It’s really exciting to hear about Tom’s and i wish him good luck!
Regarding max, it would be nice if they finally address:
a) graph/curve editor and dope sheet
– so there are no glitches ( like auto zoomin on keyframes ): http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-840235.html
– SPEED so it can actually be held open as you animate as in every other 3D program. and maybe update with a few features ( mute/isolate channels would be nice )
b) When will we get a working Xref/ containers? Think cinematic animation – 20 scenes 1 central character that can be edited at any time and will update in these 20 scenes(like maya). Instead we have xref/containers that hang if you attempt something as such.
These issues are essentially and work in every other application except max. Quite frankly this is embarrassing.
It would also be extremely welcome to create a way for users to extend max or its functionality without plugins. Think of smart-modifiers, perhaps python based. – after all this part of why maya’s so great to work with as it can be molded to studios specific needs. In 3dsmax case there’s either a plugin or dead end. Help users to help themselves.
We don`t need a port of Maya skin anyway.
The developer behind Skin,Skin-Morph, Skinwrap and uvw-unwrap was Peter Watje, i guess?
Afaik, he`s still working for Autodesk so why not give him some time and resources to improve on the existing code base?
Cause he is probably too busy working on Maya to do that…
Airflow, Peter Watje is currently working very hard with me on the 3ds Max team.
Unfortunately I can’t tell anyone what Tom, Peter, or others are doing for legal reasons but I can let you know that the 3ds Max user voice continues to be a major influencing factor in feature development: http://3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com/forums/80695-general-feature-requests/filters/top.
Please keep in mind that as impressive as people like Peter and Tom are they still can only do one thing at a time. 🙂
Thank you Christopher!
@Christopher Diggins,
Thanks for letting us know that, it is nice to know that, it really is even though we have no way to know for sure because you guys keep playing the ‘legal reasons’ card, so here’s what I propose to you, remember the XBR Webinar a couple years ago?.. It didn’t give any specifics but still it managed to some degree to let us know about the general road-map( which I’m only hoping isn’t being switched as often as the product managers do ), it was also a very sensible way of showing that ‘we care’ and ‘we want to let you guys know as much as possible’, so why not make that a regular thing?.. something like a quarterly or a semiannual event which can be both informative and comforting for everyone..
Correction to the last post, ‘semiannual or annual’ instead of ‘quarterly or semiannual’ ,would probably be more reasonable.