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v2024.2 Autodesk 3ds Max

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Autodesk 3ds Max
 

Create massive worlds and high-quality designs

With Autodesk 3ds Max you can create expansive virtual worlds with high-quality renderings and precise designs. Get professional results for your 3D modeling, rendering, and animation projects. It’s time for you to design larger-than-life!

What Is Autodesk 3ds Max?

3ds Max® Professional 3d Modeling, Rendering, And Animation Software Enables You To Create Expansive Worlds And Premium Designs.

  • Breathe Life Into Environments And Landscapes With Robust Modeling Tools.
  • Create Finely Detailed Designs And Props With Intuitive Texturing And Shading Tools.
  • Iterate And Produce Professional-grade Renders With Full Artistic Control.

Why Use Autodesk 3ds Max?

Power creativity with easy-to-use tools

Fuel the imagination with world-building and asset-creation tools.

Boost Productivity With Automation

Automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks so you meet deadlines.

Enjoy a rich, flexible toolset

Stay in the creative flow with tools in an artist-friendly UI.

3ds Max 2023

What you can do with Autodesk 3ds Max

Create Realistic 3d Designs With Powerful Modeling Tools

Whether You’re Building Expansive Worlds For Games Or Visualizing Intricate Architectural Designs, 3ds Max Has The Modeling Toolset You Need To Bring Your 3d Assets To Life.

Produce High-quality Renders

From Light Mixing To Color Correction, The Built-in Arnold Renderer Provides A Rich Experience With The Ability To Handle Your Most Complex Characters, Scenes, And Effects.

3ds Ax High Quality Renders

3ds Max Overview: Model your Vision


What’s New in Autodesk 3ds Max 2024 – Drop jaws, not quality with robust tools

autodesk 3ds max whats new 2024 robot kangaroo

3ds Max brings new capabilities and improvements to modeling, animation, and rendering tools so you can focus on being creative. The new Boolean modifier offers a modern and intuitive way to produce clean geometry while updates to Array enable you to create beautiful nature-like scenes procedurally. You can also confidently rely on Color Management to see colors consistently across the pipeline – from Viewport to the final render. 3ds Max continues to add animation improvements to help you bring characters to life.

Build complex designs with robust modeling tools

Boolean Modifier

Produce clean geometry with a modern and intuitive Boolean modeling workflow in 3ds Max. The new Boolean modifier within the trusted modifier stack enables you to edit and manipulate mesh output with ease and speed. This includes a new Boolean operand called Split as well as Mesh and VDB-based Boolean operations.

Array Modifier

Create beautiful and complex designs procedurally with new features and updates to the Array modifier.

  • Generate spiral-based distribution patterns with the new Array modifier distribution type called Phyllotaxis which works from the center out and generates natural designs.
  • Assign Material IDs to mesh data on a per-face and per-element basis using new methods like random, ordered, first, middle, and last. Additional controls for N times and Phases are also included.
  • A new “progressive” option in Array’s Transform controls for Radial, Spline, and Phyllotaxis distribution types lets you alter transform data so you can progressively change from first to last mesh distribution.

Retopology Tools 1.3

Use the latest version of Autodesk ReForm with the Retopology modifier in 3ds Max.

Editable Poly & Edit Poly Modifier

  • Editable Poly and Edit Poly bring improvements to the re-triangulation of polygonal face data like Face splitting by insertion of edges, Slice, Cut, Bridging, Vertex extrusion, and Edge extrusion.
  • Similar to the capabilities found within Editable Poly, Edit Poly now includes the same automatic re-triangulating of polygon faces when a vertex, edge, or face component has been adjusted to cause edges and hidden faces to cross.
  • When performing a Cap option on an Editable Poly or an Edit Poly modifier, the faces that are generated are now also applied to the same smoothing group so you can create beautiful results.

Symmetry Modifier

When a new Symmetry modifier is applied, it will now operate on the X-axis by default allowing you to better match the operation to how you create your art content.

Editable Mesh and Edit Mesh Modifier

Improvements to AutoSmooth enable you to achieve better results when operating on an Editable Mesh or Edit Mesh modified object.

Spline Vertex Welding

Enhancements to weld operations of Spline objects enable you to generate complex assets with accuracy. Use the Spline vertex weld operation to bond a destination vertex to your target vertex with better precision and achieve predictable results when performing a Spline Extrude operation on Knot components and edge components.

Faster STL Import

STL, a file format commonly used for 3D printing, can contain millions of triangles of data. You can now load STL files faster with improved performance to the File Import. The STL Import dialog UI also brings enhancements for better efficiency.

STL Check Modifier Processing

Significant performance improvements to the STL Check modifier allow you to perform operations on dense polygonal meshes and objects with greater speed.

Material Modifier

Applying the Material modifier to a Spline object that is renderable via settings of the Spline or the Renderable Spline modifier will preserve it as a Spline object type. The Material Modifier will also now retain explicit normals when applied to a Mesh-based object.

Produce high-quality visuals with interactive rendering tools

Color Management

Effective color management tools built around the Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) and OpenColourIO (OCIO) are a must for today’s modern pipeline for Film and TV production. You now have complete control over colors with Color Management in 3ds Max. From input to output, the viewport to final render – colors will be predictable and consistent, giving you the confidence that colors will match and fit in with the colors in the rest of your pipeline.

Compound Notes

Managing complex shader graphs can be difficult due to the large number of nodes and connections that can be employed. With Slate Material Editor (SME) Compounds, you can collect any number of graph nodes into a single compound representation in the Material Editor, enabling a method to reuse a collection of nodes in other shaders and simplifying the representation of this data.

Material Switcher

The Material Switcher is a new node in the Material Editor that enables a simple control method for you to manage the display of multiple material variants that can be applied to objects and USD data in your 3ds Max scene. It will allow you to organize and store thousands of materials in one convenient Switcher material. You will also be able to swap the assigned shader of your objects easily and quickly. These changes will be updated in the viewport and your render.

Slate Material Editor

The Slate Material window has been improved using QT, a cross-platform software for creating graphical user interfaces. The window can now be docked anywhere inside the 3ds Max UI, letting you optimize and customize the interface the way you like. Additional updates have been added such as a new SME Element under the Colors preferences that gives you total control on how the different maps and materials appear in the SME. An option to draw the connecting wires behind nodes has been introduced, helping you keep your shader graph cleaner and more readable.

MaxtoA

MaxtoA and Arnold now support Color Management workflows if you choose OCIO mode inside of 3ds Max.

Arnold now enables the automatic generation of optimized TX textures from source textures as part of the rendering process. Using optimized textures is critical for rendering speed and memory usage and having the TX conversion as part of the core rendering will help users without a dedicated TX workflow to achieve faster renders.

  • Arnold and the Arnold Render View have been updated to work with Color Management in 3ds Max 2024.
  • MaxToA now passes all color information from 3ds Max to Arnold for rendering by handing over the entire OCIO configuration for rendering.

Seamless workflows with USD

USD Export SDK

Plugin developers can now wrap USD Export extensions into a context that consolidates all the necessary settings for the plugin to properly run. You can choose which plugins are being used at export time. This helps you better control how the plugin works when exporting data and reduces the checkboxes to check when exporting USD with specific plugins.

USDSkel Support

The USD Exporter now supports exporting Skin modifiers into USDSkel. They are preferred when re-using skeletal animations across many characters, scenes, and projects. USDSkel creates much smaller USD files than vertex animations.

Bring characters to life with enhanced animation capabilities

Transform List Controller

The Transform List allows for multiple Transform controllers to be added to an object as layers of blended animation data. A new method enables you to easily refine and iterate upon your work through unique animation data for each layer and controls how and when the layer of data can blend.

  • Mix Transforms: Previously, only nodes could have a transform controller. With the Transform List, you can now blend node transforms directly without additional scripting or complexity.
  • Isolate Isolation: You can now choose to iterate on options and edit list entries in isolation for better control.

Updates to Motion Paths

Motion Paths now support a larger set of position controllers enabling animators to have a wider range of support to manipulate animation data directly in their viewport.

Artist-friendly updates

Mesh & MNMesh Changes

Experience improved stability and performance gains with an updated. The internal structure of Mesh and Poly data has been updated to offer improved stability and performance gains.

Search in the Modifier List

Navigate, find, and apply your desired modifier with a new search capability in the Modifier List. You can now type in the modifier you want to apply to filter a search to those results.

MAXscript Improvements

Based on community requests, improvements to MAXScript include an option to not show scripts on error, the ability to enable/disable change handlers via code, the ability to set a spinner control scale at runtime, and other small changes.

Substance and ATF

Substance comes installed with the latest version of 3ds Max. NX import now supports NX 2206.

Revit/Inventor Importer

The RCE and Inventor Server installers have been removed from the initial download bringing a faster install experience. They will remain downloaded from your account portal or included in deployments. They will also install when you attempt to import this type of data into 3ds Max when needed.

Autodesk Media and Entertainment Collection

Autodesk Media and Entertainment Collection

End-to-end creative tools for entertainment creation

The Media & Entertainment Collection lets animators, modelers, and visual effects artists access the tools they need to create compelling effects, believable 3D characters, and massive digital worlds. Move assets quickly between creative tools with one-click workflows. Includes Maya, 3ds Max, Motionbuilder, and Mudbox. In addition get Character Generator, Recap 360 Pro, Rendering in A360, and Cloud Storage.

Learn More

Key features of 3ds Max 2024

From intricate details on characters and objects to jaw-dropping environments and worlds, 3ds Max® software is the tool of choice for creating immersive game experiences and visualizing complex designs.

3ds max 2023

Retopology tools

Automatically optimize the geometry of high-resolution models to create a clean, quad-based mesh geometry.

Smart Extrude

Extrude faces on 3D objects in an intuitive and flexible way. Rebuild and stitch together adjacent faces automatically.

Open Shading Language (OSL) support

Create or use pre-existing procedural OSL maps with any supported renderer.

Baking to texture

Experience streamlined, intuitive, and fully scriptable texture baking.

Integrated Arnold renderer

Arnold for 3ds Max (MAXtoA) supports interactive rendering directly from the interface.

Interactive viewports

Reduce design iteration with render-quality viewport previews, displaying PBR (physically based rendering) materials and camera effects directly.

Software security

Use Safe Scene Loading to protect your work from potentially malicious scripts that could be part of scene files.

3ds Max Features

3d Modeling

ENHANCED

Retopology tools

Automatically reconstruct polygonal mesh data as clean quad-based topology with uncompromising accuracy. These tools can be used to reduce complex and high-resolution assets and enhance generative designs and traditional modeling work inside of 3ds Max.

3dsd max 2023 extrudeENHANCED

Smart Extrude

Interactively extrude faces on 3D objects using flexible Smart Extrude operations like cut-through and overlap. Rebuild and stitch adjacent faces automatically without needing to manually repair hidden faces or geometric data.

3dds max mesh and surface modelingMesh and surface modeling

Create parametric and organic objects with polygon, subdivision surface, and spline-based modeling features.

3ds max modifier stackModifier stack workflow

Rapidly conceptualize, iterate, and explore design ideas using a range of unique modifiers.

3ds max spline workflowsSpline workflows

Create and animate geometry in several intuitive ways with spline tools.

Texturing and Shading

3ds max oslOpen Shading Language (OSL) support

Generate high-quality textures that display accurately in the viewport using new or pre-existing OSL maps with any supported renderer.

baking to textureBaking to texture

Experience a streamlined, intuitive, and fully scriptable texture baking experience with support for PBR (physically based rendering) materials, overrides, and OSL workflows.

material editorMaterial editor

Add material finishes, change textures, and use vibrant colors to create photorealistic designs.

3ds max lightingLighting

Illuminate and enhance your scenes using photometric lights and standard lights.

3D Rendering

3ds max arnold integrationIntegrated Arnold renderer

Use the Arnold GPU renderer to view scene changes in real time, including lighting, materials, and camera.

interactive viewportsInteractive viewports

Reduce design iteration with render-quality viewport previews, displaying PBR (physically based rendering) materials and camera effects directly.

active shade viewportsActiveShade viewport

With an interactive rendering experience, see your scene in a near-final rendering quality as you’re working.

physical cameraPhysical camera

Simulate real-life camera settings such as shutter speed, aperture, depth of field, and exposure.

cene convertorScene converter

Seamlessly and consistently change materials, lights, cameras, and renderers from one to another.

Animation and Effects

character animation toolsCharacter animation tools

Create procedural character animations and rigs with CAT (character animation toolkit), biped, and crowd tools.

3ds max motion pathsMotion paths

Preview and adjust animation paths directly in the viewport.

3ds Max fluids

Create realistic liquid behaviors, such as water, oil, and lava, as well as replicate gravity and collision effects.

Particle flow effects

Create sophisticated particle effects such as water, fire, spray, and snow.

Extensive plug-in library

Access hundreds of industry-leading third-party plug-ins from our extensive community.

Workflow and Pipeline

ENHANCED

Software security

Use Safe Scene Script Execution to protect your work against malicious scripts that could be part of scene files and the Malware Removal functionality, which detects and removes known malicious scripts from scene files and start-up scripts.

Python 3

Get tighter pipeline integration with support for Python 3.

ENHANCED

Pipeline integration support

Easily customize 3ds Max to fit your production pipeline needs.

Modern UI and workspaces

Create your own custom workspaces with a more modern, responsive, high-DPI-ready user interface.

NEW

GL Transmission Format (glTF) support

Publish assets from your 3ds Max scene to glTF 3D content for use in web applications, online stores, browser games, and other online outlets.

 

System requirements for Autodesk 3ds Max 2024

Software

Operating system64-bit Microsoft® Windows® 11 and Windows 10. See Autodesk's Product Support Lifecycle for support information.
BrowserAutodesk recommends the latest version of the following web browsers for access to online supplemental content:
  • Microsoft® Edge
  • Google Chrome™
  • Microsoft® Internet Explorer®
  • Mozilla® Firefox®

Hardware

CPU64-bit Intel® or AMD® multi-core processor with SSE4.2 instruction set
Graphics Hardware Refer to 3ds Max Certified Hardware for a detailed list of recommended systems and graphics cards
RAM4 GB of RAM minimum (8 GB or more recommended)
Disk Space9 GB of free disk space for install
Pointing Device Three-button mouse
Autodesk is not responsible for errors or failures of Autodesk software arising from the installation of updates, extensions or new releases issued by third-party hardware or software vendors for the certified software or hardware identified in this article (or for any other third-party software or hardware that you may use in connection with Autodesk products).

3ds Max 2024.2 Update

November 15, 2023 | Full Release Notes

Updated Assign Controller rollout

The Assign Controller rollout has been modernized with options to help animators work more efficiently.

Learn more

Boolean Modifier Updates

The release contains several Boolean modifier updates, including better sub-operand manipulation in the Modifier stack, improved performance and OpenVDB processing, and various bug fixes.

Learn more

USD for 3ds Max 0.5 plug-in

Updated Universal Scene Description (USD) support in 3ds Max lets artists work seamlessly with USD in conjunction with 3ds Max workflows.

Learn more

Retopology Updates

The introduction of a new version of Autodesk ReForm improves processing times by up to 30%.

Learn more

Spline Shape Angle Constraint

A new Enable Shape Angle Constraints option in the Snap Options lets you define your angle constraint to better assist you with angle snaps (when holding Shift or Ctrl) while creating lines or line objects.

Learn more

Color Management

OCIO-based color management has moved out of the Technology Preview phase. Colors in 3ds Max can be controlled from input to output, enabling end-to-end color-managed workflow.

Learn more

Volume Select Modifier Updates

The Volume Select Modifier now features a significant performance improvement and the ability to animate Material ID and Sm. Group values, providing more immediate results.

Learn more

Data Channel Modifier Additions

Several updates including new presets, expression engines, and a Maxscript Process Operator improve the Data Channel Modifier’s usability.

Learn more

Reduced Scene File Sizes

Scenes are no longer saved with empty Animation Layers, Note Tracks, and Note keys, reducing file size.

Learn more


3ds Max 2024.1 Update

Technical Release Notes

Boolean Modifier Improvements

The release contains several Boolean modifier improvements, including a new caching method, support for normals, and various bug fixes.

Array Modifier Updates

New Array By Element methods are now included in all of the Array modifier Distribution Rollouts, giving you greater control over the arrangement of elements.

Create Custom Defaults

User-defined defaults now available through the context menus in the UI.

Animation Controller Improvements

Modelers and animators will benefit from improvements to the Copy and Paste Animation commands that previously existed in 3ds Max.

Smart Extrude Improvements

Updates related to smoothing and normals have been made to the Smart Extrude workflow.

What else is new?

This release of 3ds Max also includes the following changes and improvements.

  • Spline Improvements – The following updates accelerate spline modeling and let you model splines more fluidly:
    • Connect open knots: When manipulating a spline that has more than one open element, you can now use Automatic Welding and Insert mode to quickly draw/continue from an open knot of one element to an open knot of another element. This workflow results in two elements that are correctly welded and connected together as one continuous element.
    • Close Spline prompt: A Close Spline prompt no longer appears when using operations found in the Edit Spline modifier or Editable Spline object, or when using Automatic Weld to close an open spline element. This update lets you continue your spline creation workflow without interruption. See Editable Spline (Vertex).
    • New vertices respect neighboring knot types: When inserting new vertices on a spline, the knot type of the new vertex is based on the knot types of its neighboring vertices:
      • If both neighboring vertices are the same knot type, like Corner, the new vertex inherits the Corner type.
      • If the neighboring vertices are not the same knot type, for example one is Bezier and one is Corner, the new vertex inherits the Bezier type.
      • This update affects the Edit Spline modifier and Editable Spline’s Refine, CrossInsert, and Divide operations as well as Shape Booleans, Chamfer/Fillet modifier, and the Boolean modifier.
    • New Vertex Type parameter is now respected: When working with Editable Splines or the Edit Spline modifier, creating a new vertex in Create Line and Insert modes respects the selected New Vertex Type parameter (Geometry rollout)
  • VertexPaint performance – The performance of the VertexPaint Modifier is now up to 10x faster when using the brush tools to apply or modify vertex paint values.
  • FFD performance – The following performance improvements have been made to the FFD Modifiers:
    • FFD 2x2x2: up to 1.13x faster
    • FFD 3x3x3: up to 1.14x faster
    • FFD 4x4x4: up to 1.34x faster
    • FFD(box) 8x8x8: up to 1.91x faster
    • FFD(box) Space Warp 8x8x8: 2.06x faster
  • Slate Material Editor Improvement – You can import multiple images at once into the SME. Simply select the desired images in a Windows Explorer window, then drag and drop them into the Slate Material Editor.
  • Physical Camera Improvement – The physical camera custom depth of field is now working in the viewport.
  • USD for Autodesk 3ds Max – USD for Autodesk 3ds Max version 0.4 is available from your autodesk account. To see the highlights of this version and review version-specific notes, see Release Notes for 0.4. For advanced documentation guiding python and scripting users, see the MaxScript USD Documentation.
  • Color Management – There are several improvements to the OCIO-based color management introduced as a technology preview in 3ds Max 2024:
    • Sliders in the Color Selector dialog indicate values that cannot be reproduced on your display. In addition, there is a warning when the selected color is out of gamut for your display or rendering space.
    • For UI colors and non-color data, the numeric columns in the Color Selector show the same values in float and integer format, rather than the scene and display values.
    • When using a custom configuration, you can now select OCIO archives (.ocioz files) instead of only config files (.ocio files).
    • Color management in the viewport is disabled when using the Nitrous Direct3D 9 (DX9) or Legacy OpenGL display drivers. However, images are still rendered correctly.
  • Customizable Scrollbar sizes – You can now choose from three different scrollbar sizes in the Preferences: Small, Medium, or Large.
    This is particularly useful when working with 4k monitors, as the default Small scrollbar size can be hard to select. To change scrollbar sizes, choose a size option from the Scrollbar Size drop-down in the Preferences Settings General tab.
  • ATF Importer – 3ds Max’s Autodesk Translation Framework (ATF) importer now supports NX 2212, SolidEdge 2023, and SolidWorks2023.
  • Arnold for 3ds Max 5.6.2.0 – 3ds Max ships with MAXtoA 5.6.2.0 for Arnold 7.2.1.1 which introduces an updated AOV manager, Automatic Cyrptomatte setup, and the ability to set Crypto Asset tags on objects.
  • Additional fixes from MAXtoA 5.6.1.0, including a new distance shader, the ability to define the Auto-TX Path, improved translation of the Bitmap shader, and a new default for the Re-translate scene on Frame Change option are also included as part of this update.

What’s new in 3ds Max 2024

Color Management

OCIO-based color management is a technology preview that brings the benefits of a modern color pipeline, assuring accurate reproduction of colors and compatibility across a variety of applications.

Boolean Modifier

The Boolean modifier introduces an intuitive, art-directable workflow that facilitates procedural modeling and interactivity, while producing clean geometric output.

Boolean Modifier: OpenVDB

The OpenVDB meshing method produces topologically independent results from watertight geometry, highlighting the interactivity of the Boolean modifier.

Array Modifier Distribution Method: Phyllotaxis

The Phyllotaxis Distribution method creates clones in a spiral pattern, mimicking what is found in nature.

Array Modifier: Material ID assignment

The Array Modifier’s Material ID rollout now includes new parameters that let you assign material IDs to clones on a per face or per element basis.

Array Modifier: Progressive Transforms

The Radial, Spline, and Phyllotaxis distribution methods now include a new Progressive method in the Transform rollout, letting you adjust the transform progressively from the first to the last distribution.

Transform List Controllers

The Transform List lets you add multiple Transform controllers to an object. Animators can refine and iterate on each controller individually before adjusting the blending of each animation transform.

Material Switcher

Material Switcher is a new node in the 3ds Max Material Editor that enables a simple control method to manage the display of multiple material variants.

Updated Motion Paths

Motion Paths visualization and editing is now available for more controller types.

Compound Nodes

Compounds are nodes that contain subgraphs consisting of other nodes, possibly including other compounds. They can be used to organize and simplify large graphs for better readability.

Slate Material Editor

The Slate Material Editor has been improved for 2024, enabling improved optimization and customization capabilities to improve your material editing workflows.

New Modifier List search filter

The Modifier List has been updated to be searchable.

Read full release notes

What’s new in 3ds Max 2023.3

Create stunning visuals in 3ds Max with enhanced rendering tools, increased import/export synchronization, speed improvements and more. The new Organic Noise OSL map paired with the new 2D & 3D Randomizer OSL maps enhances the look of your scenes – bridging the divide between fiction and reality. Additionally, speed improvements to polygon mesh to triangle conversion offer a smoother and faster artist experience.

  • Organic Noise OSL
  • UVW Randomizer 2D and UVW Randomizer 3D OSL
  • Autodesk Translation Framework (ATF)
  • Substance
  • Improved Performance
  • MaXtoA 5.4.2.7

Read What’s New in 3ds Max 2023.3 for all the details.

What’s new in 3ds Max 2023.2

The update to 3ds Max 2023 release spotlights productivity for users and teams. It also includes new features for the array modifier. In addition, they updated Delta Mush computation. For all the fine technical details, go to the release notes. Below, read a few highlights.

  • The parametric Array modifier lets users make arrays with an expansive toolset. This includes transformation and randomization controls, and parameters to adjust material IDs and UV data.
  • Chamfer updates
  • Editable Poly Retriangulation
  • Track View updates
  • And there’s a lot more. Read What’s New in 3ds Max 2023.2 for all the details.

What’s new in 3ds Max 2023.1

  • Spline Extrude – Spline objects are an important part of many modeling workflows within 3ds Max as they let you easily create and augment 3D content for games, film, graphic design, and visualization. A new Spline Extrude functionality enables you to extrude or extend segments as well as open spline vertices on any Line, Editable Spline, or Edit Spline modified object – directly from the Viewport. This will greatly reduce mouse movement fatigue and improve overall productivity.
  • Morpher Modifier Performance – The Morpher modifier, which is widely used to create realistic morph target-based animations, brings significant animation performance improvements that enhance the Viewport playback of any morph animation. This will considerably benefit your ability to review and iterate upon your work.
  • Skin Modifier Performance – Improvements to the Skin modifier provide a noticeable boost to the Viewport playback framerate of Skin deformed objects, and further enhance your ability to review and iterate upon your work.
  • Material Library – Save to Previous – Material Libraries are an important part of many production workflows as they enable you to share material data between scenes and projects. This update features improved support and compatibility to save newly created or edited Material Libraries to the current or previous versions* of 3ds Max using a new “Save as type” option found in the Material Editor.

    *Version 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023

  • File Merge Performance – Improved file merge performance enables you to share and reuse data more efficiently when merging large amounts of data from one scene to another inside of 3ds Max.
  • Zoom Extents on Isolate – A new “Zoom Extents on Isolate” mode has been added to the Isolate Selection Tool below the Time Slider in 3ds Max. When activated, 3ds Max will isolate the selected objects in the scene and perform a Zoom Extents Selection on the result. When exiting from Isolate Mode, 3ds Max will return to the previous Zoom level in the Viewport. This will enhance how you use the Isolate Selection tool to focus on a specific object selection across workflows.
  • Alembic 1.8.3 – Alembic has been updated to version 1.8.3 inside of 3ds Max providing a range of bug fixes and improvements including faster read times of Alembic files.
  • Turbosmooth Performance – Turbosmooth is a popular modifier in 3ds Max used to perform non-destructive, sub-divisional surface modeling and to aid in look development. Enhancements to Turbosmooth performance allow you to apply and see results much faster.
  • Chamfer Updates – Chamfer operations performed through the Chamfer modifier and Editable Poly now include an enhanced retriangulation algorithm which reduces the chance of long and thin edges, or misaligned edges from occurring and potentially causing visual distortions on the geometry.
  • Vertex Paint – You can now capture any existing Vertex Color information that exists below the VertexPaint modifier on the modifier stack for an easier method to further edit and manipulate Vertex Color data.
  • Unfold3D Relax – When using Unfold3D Optimize option to relax UV data, you can now pass an active UV component selection to this operation to limit the Unfold3d relax to be applied to the selected area only.
  • Perspective Match – The Perspective Match tool has been improved with a new “Allow Distorted View” option that enables the view to be distorted in a non-uniform way to better match the image that is being used.
  • Spline Vertex & Segment Type Change – When working with the Editable Spline or an Edit Spline modifier, changing a Spline Vertex type to Smooth, Bezier, or Bezier Corner will automatically adjust the adjacent Spline Segments to a Curve type.
  • Smart Extrude Face Generation Enhancements – Smart Extrude now includes an improved algorithm to detect overlap or cut through between a pair of faces and to form replacement faces when dealing with concave information. Other improvements have also been made to help with face generation, face triangulation for colinear and concave corners, and hidden edge visibility.

3ds Max 2023.1 release notes

3DS Max 2023 Update Release Notes

Retopology Pre-processing

Handle larger amounts of data with less setup and preparation by enabling the Remesh option as a pre-processing step.

Retopology Data Propagation

Use the display mode pull-down menu to view the input and output mesh results of the retopology action.

Snap Working Pivot

Introducing a new way to modify your Working Pivot.

Autobackup Toolbar

A new Autobackup toolbar has been added to the default user interface in 3ds Max.

glTF Material & Exporter

Use glTF materials and export your 3ds Max files as compact .gltf or .glb files.

Physical Material Aligned with Autodesk Standard Surface

A new mode has been introduced to the Physical Material called Autodesk Standard Surface Compliant.

Arnold Renderer – MAXtoA

3ds Max 2023 includes MAXtoA 5.1.0 which introduces new features, bug fixes, performance optimizations, and production improvements.

Smart Extrude

Smart Extrude allows for a partial cut-through on an Editable Poly object.

What else is new?

Occlude Selection Improvements: Occlude Selection is now three times faster than before. In addition, its accuracy is also greatly improved, especially when using various marquee-style selections, such as rectangle, circle, and freeform.

Unwrap UVW Keyboard Shortcuts: New user-requested keyboard shortcuts for the Unwrap UVW modifier were added to 3ds Max for 2023. They include shortcuts for Stitch, Pack, Grow, Shrink, and much more. Please see the Keyboard Shortcut Table for a full list of the new Unwrap UVW keyboard shortcuts.

Compressed Scene File Save Performance: For many releases, 3ds Max’s ability to compress scene files while saving has been freeing up storage space for our users. In 3ds Max 2023, compress scene file on save has been optimized to be almost two-times faster than before thanks to a new archiving library, multithreading, and other optimizations.

Active Manipulator: Users can now only display the manipulators for the active level of the modifier stack that the user is on (instead of displaying all possible manipulators). Please see the Gizmos Preferences for more details.

Per-Viewport Filtering – Multi-Select: Users can now work with the same style of multi-select options they use in 3ds Max to interact with the Per-Viewport Filtering dialog. This includes using Shift to multi-select in a sequence, and Ctrl to multi-select one-by-one.

Safe Scene Script Execution (SSSE) for Scene Script Assets: 3ds Max’s SSSE feature has been extended to ensure that execution of unsafe scripted commands found in Script File Assets, such as pre and post render scripts, is blocked by default.

On-Demand Installer for Revit and Inventor imports: 3ds Max now includes a new On-Demand Installer for Revit and Inventor imports, letting you install the Revit Interoperability and Inventor Interoperability components only when you need them, instead of during product installation. For more information, see On-Demand Installer for Revit and Inventor imports.

Python 3.9.7 Update: 3ds Max ships with the visual effects platform-recommended Python 3.9.7. Python 3.9.7 boasts performance improvements, new string functions, and improved quality that will aid Technical Directors and pipeline integration.

Support for Visual Studio 2019: 3ds Max 2023 supports Visual Studio 2019, enabling the software and all third-party plug-in developers to benefit from compiler optimizations and run-time improvements.

Full Release Notes

3ds Max 2022.3 Update Release Notes

December 8, 2021

Smart Extrude

Smart Extrude’s partial overlap cut through and merging operations have been further enhanced to help you produce better and cleaner geometric results. You can now cut across multiple edged bodies on the same mesh with Smart Extrude, while additional support allows for clean cut-through of non-planar quad and n-gon polygons. This enables you to perform complex modeling actions more easily than ever before.

Per Viewport Filtering

As scenes become more complex, a great deal of data gets displayed in the Viewport, making it difficult to discern the different types of objects in those scenes. A new Per Viewport Filtering option in 3ds Max makes it easier to control what is displayed in the Viewport by enabling you to filter by category and object type. Objects that are filtered only affect visibility in the Viewport and not the render.

  • Left-clicking the Viewport Filtering icon in the Viewport controls will turn Per Viewport Filtering ON and OFF.
  • Right-clicking the Viewport Filtering icon found in the Viewport controls will bring up the Per Viewport Filtering dialog, which enables customization of what is displayed in the Viewport.
  • The Viewport Filter menu can also be found under the Display menu of the Viewport.

Occluded Region Selection

When working with the Editable Poly or Edit Poly modifier, the Occlude selection filter will now process region selections like rectangle, circle, and fence when used on the Edge and Face component levels. This update to the Occlude selection filter will allow you to easily add or remove visible component data to your active selection.

Robust Pipeline Integration

3ds Max’s Pipeline Integration capabilities have been updated to make it easier for you to configure the software. You can now seamlessly switch between tasks that require uniquely configured environments, including project settings, user preferences, scripts, and plug-ins.

Advanced Wood in OSL

A newly implemented Advanced Wood in OSL has been developed to meet the demands of studios that require rich and vibrant wood textures that are easy to configure; closely mimic wood types such as maple, walnut, and oak; display beautifully in the Viewport; and can be used in any OSL compatible renderer. Advanced Wood OSL can also be baked to a custom bitmap texture using the Bake to Texture feature.

File Save Performance Improvement

Continuing upon the work done in previous 3ds Max updates, scene file save has been further optimized enabling you to experience an additional 25% boost in file save performance.

MaxtoA Updates

This update ships with Arnold 7 and adds support for the following features:

  • Tonemap Imager support for LUTS: The Tonemap Imager now supports “LUT Mode” which enables you to apply LUT files in any format supported by OCIOv2.
  • Ignore Imagers Flag Exposed: The option to ignore Imagers has been added to the Diagnostics tab.
  • Arnold Lights: Arnold Lights now has new defaults that give better first-render results. Sticky settings allows you to create lights with the same settings as the light previously created.

Symmetry Modifier

A new Slice Cleanup Threshold spinner has been added to the Slice Along Mirror option of the Symmetry Modifier. This new threshold option will allow you to have control over the cleanup of vertices that are close to one another along the cutting plane before the mirror and merge actions of Symmetry take place.

Enhance Peel Results in Unwrap UVW

When performing a Peel action on a poly-type object, 3ds Max will perform additional clean-up actions in the Unwrap UVW modifier to ensure that the data is manifold before attempting to peel with the Unfold3D algorithm. This will help reduce the chance of distortions occurring. To help with automation and tool development, a method has also been exposed to MAXScript enabling packing commands to operate with the Unfold3d algorithm.

Chamfer Modifier

The Limit Affects functionality in the Chamfer Modifier has been updated to generate better results on non-planar faces and non-collinear chamfered edges.

Animation Updates

  • Show Selection Range UI: “Show Selection Range” in the Time Slider Config is now ON by default making it easier for animators to quickly scale the range of a selected set of keys in the time slider UI.
  • LookAt Contraints Viewline Length:  To assist those of you working with complex rigs, the “Viewline Length Absolute” option of the LookAt Constraint is now set to OFF by default, and the “Viewline Length” is also set to 0. This will help reduce Viewport clutter and provide a better animation experience.

Usablity Updates

  • Auto-Expand Selection in Explorers:  Auto-Expand Selection in Explorers is now OFF by default to help improve productivity. This enables you to set up separate views of your data through hierarchical representation in Explorers and spatial organization in the Viewport.
  • Recovery of Orphaned Layers: When loading or merging a scene into 3ds Max, orphaned layers and objects with no parent layers are now automatically recovered and added to the current scene’s Layer Manager.
  • Software Security: To further reduce the risk of exploits through 3rd party malicious script embedded in scene files, enabling Safe Scene Script Execution will prevent scripts from writing to folders that represent the 3ds Max and plugin package installations as well as user-defined script and plugin paths.

3ds Max 2022.2 Update Release Notes

September 22, 2021

What’s Fixed

Animation

  • Fixed issue where the user could not add Tracks to Track Sets. MAXX-60667
  • Fixed corruption of Animation Layers when an object having an animation layer is deleted from the scene. MAXX-62692
  • TCB Rotation Controller default WindUp setting now honors setting in Preferences. MAXX-55303

Core

  • Fixed issue with enabling ‘Pick Material from Object’ in Material Editor, starting a new action such as Animation Playback, exiting Material Editor. and then exiting that new action. MAXX-42165
  • Fixed handling of parameters in ParamBlock2 that were previously flagged as containing external file assets, but now are not flagged as such. MAXX-57392
  • Fixed an issue that caused log entries to be missing from Max.log and from the session log file when more than one instance of 3ds Max was running at the same. MAXX-63493
  • When merging XRef objects in the scene, custom attributes are now properly cloned on merged objects. MAXX-59971
  • Fixed SME node parameters not being exposed in Trackview. MAXX-63076

MAXScript

  • SaveNodes now returns a boolean value as documented. MAXX-64000
  • Fixed issue in MAXScript Debugger where if a temporary hang occurred while printing out the MAXScript stack variables, a crash would occur. MAXX-63453
  • Fixed issues related to cloning of script editor tabs in MAXScript editor. MAXX-53004
  • Fixed a bug that caused 3ds Max to not start when a menu item or tooltip with certain characters was added to its UI. MAXX-60901
  • Add argument count checks to the setVertSelection, setEdgeSelection and setFaceSelection MAXScript functions so that users see appropriate errors when they call those functions without the correct number of arguments. MAXX-62208
  • Fixed a bug that caused 3ds Max to crash when a scripted plugin declared a parameter block with the type:#class option before any other parameter blocks. MAXX-61180
  • Fixed a bug that caused certain functions of the ATSOps MAXScript interface to only work after the ATS window had been opened. MAXX-61426
  • Fixed an issue that caused the getINISetting MAXScript function to change the encoding of the files it read to UTF-16 LE with BOM. Now the original encoding of files is always preserved when they are read using getINISetting. MAXX-62470

Material Editors

  • Fixed missing indication in the material preview when it’s applied to a selected object or selection of objects. MAXX-64116
  • Create Physical Mtl when new materials are added in the Multi-Materials MAXX-49844

Modeling

  • Improved Smart Extrude stability when quickly moving the results back and forth before committing to a final position. MAXX-64121
  • The Symmetry modifier’s welding algorithms have been updated to provide even more predictable results by finding matching pair vertices on the mirrored surface. The tolerance threshold now enables welding to solve across open gaps along the symmetry line. These enhancements will make symmetry operations faster and more accurate than before, even on open surface models. MAXX-63866
  • Resolved an issue with the Symmetry modifier where it would merge vertices there were in close proximity to one another together before stitching the mirror results together. MAXX-64434
  • Improved stability of the OpenSubDiv Modifier when it is applied to an object where no map channels are defined. MAXX-64433
  • Improved stability when using Save to Previous to save your scene data to an older 3ds Max file format. This issue would occur when you are saving an Edit Poly Modifiers Smart Extrude actions that are not supported in that previous version of 3ds Max. MAXX-63896
  • A Helix Spline Object with a “Renderable” option will display properly once again in the Viewport when a Smooth Modifier is applied above the spline object on the Modifier Stack. MAXX-64187
  • When performing a Smart Extrude operation, the Smart Extrude code has been enhanced to produce more accurate results that might occur from numerical precision on overlapping faces. MAXX-63713
  • Brush pressure from pen tablet input devices is now properly captured by 3ds Max and can be utilized once again in various tools/functions within the application that supports this functionality.3ds Max will now also support the full range of pressure sensitivity that is offered by the pen tablet device by checking with the Wintab32.dll on your local Windows system.For best results, turn off Windows Ink when using 3ds Max. MAXX-59353
  • Resolved an issue where users were not able to save Presets for various tools in 3ds Max (i.e. Fluids Solver, Fluids Meshing, Chamfer, TextPlus Bevel Profile/Bevel Profile modifier) that they could then later load and apply. MAXX-63717
  • Symmetry now performs a check for non-manifold edges and vertices. It will attempt to clean incorrect mesh data when these errors are found. This will help resolve issues with vertices being accidently welded to other vertices on other elements after using Symmetry. MAXX-63386
  • Resolved a crash issue that occurs when the user is attempting to lock a modifier variable in the Curve Editor on an object that is a part of a Container. MAXX-63568
  • Resolve a stability issue when attempting to copy the Edit Normals modifier MAXX-57431
  • Resolved a threading issue where it was possible for the mesh data of object primitives to not match with what was displayed in the viewport (such as missing edge loops). MAXX-62782

UVW

  • Manipulation of UVs in the Edit UV window has been made more performant. This will greatly assist artists that are crafting unique UV layouts. MAXX-55812

Python

  • It is now possible to execute pyc files in 3ds Max. MAXX-59646
  • Some PySide2 (for example PySide2.QWebSocket) modules could not be imported because the underlying Qt dlls needed by these python wrappers were not provided with 3ds Max. The Qt dlls needed by thy PySide2 modules are now packaged with 3ds Max. MAXX-63710
  • Fixed the issue of 3ds Max failing to start if Unicode characters were present in the Python home path. MAXX-63475
  • The python interpreter embedded in 3dsMax no longer uses PYTHON env vars (in a manner similar to the -E switch in command line python). MAXX-62248

RealTime Workflows

  • Fixed the Bake to Textures ambient occlusion map name not recognized by the PBR importer by default, removed white spaces from map names. MAXX-64546
  • The Rounded Corners bake map does not use the expected sampling parameters. MAXX-63885

Rendering

  • Fixed crash with Edit Poly and OpenSubdiv in GPU mode. MAXX-61371
  • Improved loading performance when loading scenes with heavy shading trees. MAXX-58971
  • Fixed Targa file format slight noise in color when rendering or baking, MAXX-24695

Rendering Materials

  • Viewport background will now correctly display background color if Env/BG switcher without having to manipulate viewport. MAXX-55609
  • When saving scene file containing OSL textures, the associated .osl file is no longer flagged as an external file asset MAXX-56703
  • HDRI Lights helper objects can now be deleted and renamed as expected. MAXX-56639

UI

  • Fixed 3ds Max freeze caused by being able to open multiple camera warning modal dialogs and other “hotkey” functionalities of modal dialogs. MAXX-64150
  • Some text fields and UI elements cannot be typed into after loading a scene file. MAXX-64047
  • Some text fields and UI elements cannot be typed into after cloning an object. MAXX-62494

Viewports

  • Fixed possible clipping when using Zoom Extents Selected on a vertex MAXX-62276
  • Fixed: Viewport hangs when attaching a multi/sub material to a cached alembic MAXX-46271
  • Track View and Scene Explorer will now continue to work as expected after another viewport has been maximized then minimized. MAXX-56643
  • Custom Background will now remain when clicking Home button in viewport. MAXX-57015
  • Fixed Shape Display Mode for Arnold Procedural/Alembic/USD MAXX-62723

 

What’s new in 3ds Max 2022.1

June 16, 2021

Animation

  • Anim Layers were not being removed when the controlling node was deleted. Now when a node is deleted any anim layers referencing that node are also deleted. Also on file open/merge anim layers that are orphaned are deleted. MAXX-62018

Core

  • Removed the “Civil View Plugins” entry from plugin.ini, since that plugin package is now a 3ds Max component. MAXX-62902
  • Fixed crashes in file merge and light exclude dialogs MAXX-63337
  • Fixed crashes in file merge and light exclude dialogs MAXX-58810
  • Fixed a crash related to the undo system by not allowing the undo stack to be flushed while in the middle of undo operations MAXX-63301
  • Fixed bug that caused MAXScript errors to be displayed when Pop-up Notes were read, deleted or suppressed. MAXX-60380

FBX

  • FBX import support for vertex colors from some 3rd party applications is now working as expected. MAXX-50829
  • Interop
  • Fixed a crash when importing a large JT model. MAXX-62009
  • ATF SketchUp import now correctly handles cut-out maps. MAXX-60140

MAXScript

  • Fixed issue introduced in 3ds Max 2022 where strings used as initialization values for structures, scripted plugins and scripted rollouts were not properly handled, resulting in code that could change the content of the actual string literal. MAXX-63459
  • Fixed issue with MAXScript Debugger dialog appearing on Alt-Tab dialog on 3ds Max startup when dialog is not open. MAXX-58148
  • Fixed bug that caused the vertex, edge and face selection MAXScript functions to fail when working with scripted modifiers. MAXX-62573
  • Fix crash that occurred when a MAXScript exception was thrown while a rollout was being added to the modifier panel. MAXX-61909

Material Editors

  • Improved the performance of the selection of objects in the viewport with SME opened. MAXX-51872

Modeling

  • Fixed a crash error that would occur with the Slice modifier when attempting to animate or change the topology in the Mesh class object underneath the Slice modifier MAXX-62924
  • Resolved an issue where the Subdivide modifier was not correctly identifying if it was applied to one of the operands in a Boolean operation, and not the base Boolean Object, which would result in calculation errors with display of the operand parts it is applied to in the final output result or even possible instability. MAXX-63042
  • In very rare occurrences, when the Smart Extrude operations re-stitched the mesh to make it water tight, a spur edge could occur. Smart Extrudes processing has been improved to remove the possibility for this to occur. MAXX-63435
  • The user can now utilize the Right Mouse Button to cancel mouse driven actions such as those that enable the Smart Extrude and Cloning actions on component level selections within the Editable Poly and the Edit Poly modifier. MAXX-61989
  • Improved Smart Extrude stability when performing Smart Extrude actions on a polygon that contains malformed normal data. MAXX-62458
  • Swift Loop will now work properly with faces and edges that are created/destroyed through various poly modeling operations by properly supporting the MN_Dead function of MNMesh, enabling Swift Loops to understand the mesh geometry data in it’s current state and properly apply the Swift Loop where the user clicks. MAXX-63018
  • Fluid Loader now properly contains Particle ID data, making it easier for systems to identify each unique bit of particle data that is contained in the
  • Fluid Loader object. MAXX-62000
  • Weighted edges that are set as 0 in Editable Poly or the Edit Poly modifier Chamfer by weight will now produce proper results when using Chamfer and “By Weight”. Any Chamfer modifier applied within 3ds Max 2022.1 Update will now utilize this new code to handle edge weights when chamfering.
  • Scenes created prior to 3ds Max 2022.1 Update that want to utilize this new code to handle edge weights when chamfering will need to use this MAXScript command to promote the previously applied Chamfer to the 3ds Max 2022.1 Update version:
  • ($.modifiers[1]).SetVersion #VerLatest MAXX-62703
  • When applying the Smooth modifier to a Mesh or Poly based object, the modifier will now clear all explicit normals and smoothing groups that are stored on the object. This will make it easier for the user to temporarily disable explicit normals (for faster animation playback of deforming objects in the viewport) or to permanently clear the explicit normals or smoothing groups so that the user can apply new information. MAXX-62431
  • The bounding box for the TextPlus object will now be properly calculated when the TextPlus object is generated from a script. MAXX-62593
  • When using the Vertex Paint modifier you can now properly use Zoom Extents Selected and have the viewport correctly orbit your selected vertex, edge, or face. MAXX-59859
  • When using Delta Mush or Tension Deform from the Data Channel modifier, isolated vertices (floating vertices that are not connected to a polygon) will no longer cause the operation to crash. MAXX-62236
  • Resolve a crash that can occur with Weighted Normals when dealing with badly-formed, but not invalid mesh data (such as a pair of consecutive edges on a face). MAXX-62312
  • Improved the speed at which the Edit Poly modifier performs the Smart Extrude cut-through treatment introduced in 3ds Max 2022.0 MAXX-62286
    When working on a Poly object through Editable Poly or the Edit Poly modifier, the Target Weld and Bridge tools will now work better with Ignore Backfacing and Ignore Occluded MAXX-61653
  • Sub-object component selections are now also passed up the modifier stack to the Vertex Paint modifier and can now be utilized to mask where you can paint. Vertices of hidden faces are no longer selectable with your mouse, restoring functionality that was once found in the Vertex Paint modifier. MAXX-59741
  • Improved the performance of the Noise map computed by removing its ability to become thread locked when computing its cache.
  • Improved the Path Deform modifier performance to make it benefit from the enhanced threading of Explicit Normals.
  • The speed at which 3ds Max internally converts mesh data to its internal GPU mesh format for rendering has been enhanced and should result in improved performance.
  • MAXX-62586
    Improved threading method used by several 3ds Max modifiers for improved performance (between 2 to 4x) when dealing with explicit normals from Mesh or Poly data. Modifiers that use the new map method are Bend, Affect Region, Linked Xform, Xform, Mirror, Noise, Skew, Taper, Twist, Skin, FFD (all), Melt, Skinwrap Patch, Spherify, Stretch, Surf Wrap.
  • MAXScript options to turn off this optimization for Polys is “MeshInspector.UseOldDeformerThreading = true”
  • and for Mesh is “MeshPerformance.UseOldDeformerThreading = true” MAXX-58806
    When using a Section shape, Move Transforms can be entered via a transform dialog. MAXX-62209

Python

  • Fixed a bug that prevented maxscript from writing to the listener window when called from python. MAXX-63391
  • Prevent Python object not properly reporting on their attributes availability from being (improperly) interpreted as probable pymxs/maxscript elements. This fixed a defect preventing to retrieve the perforce client from maxscript when connecting to perforce (using p4python). MAXX-62821
  • Fix comparison method of Maxscript booleans, floats, double, integers and strings with Python ones to avoid logging exceptions. MAXX-62658
  • Fixed a problem in python import that resulted sometimes in an incorrect error message being reported when import failed. MAXX-62564

RealTime Workflows

  • The Roughness Common map in Bake to Texture now uses a more appropriate render element in Arnold, resulting in more predictable results. MAXX-62387

Rendering

  • Only 1 click necessary to work with Render Setup properties if focus is elsewhere in Max. MAXX-59336
  • Solved issue with .psd files locked in Photoshop. MAXX-61825
  • PBR Importer rules can now recognize spaces in texture names. MAXX-63382

UI

  • Fixed command panel rollouts not expanding or retracting MAXX-63409
  • Fixed crash when hovering partially offscreen Qt UI elements with tooltips. MAXX-62641
  • Render Setup dialog position not preserved between session. MAXX-61395
  • Preferences saving issue with V-Ray installed MAXX-63353

Viewports

  • Resolved an issue where the bounding box for Xform was always displaying in the viewport, even when the object it was applied to was not selected and it was not the active modifier on the stack. MAXX-56425
  • Fixed Perspective Match handles behavior. MAXX-63003
  • Fixed the save of sequences from Make Preview when Multi Pass is enabled. MAXX-53168
  • Animation keeps playing while the view is moving/panning/orbiting. MAXX-63031
  • Objects no longer display as black if material is assigned via drag and drop, or the Assign to Object button in material editor. MAXX-56040

New in 3ds Max 2022

March 2021

  • Safe Scene Script Execution offers protection against malicious scripts embedded in 3ds Max scene files, regardless of whether these scripts use Maxscript, Python or .NET commands, by blocking the execution of unsafe commands.
  • The Malware Removal functionality detects and removes known malicious scripts from scene files and startup scripts. This prevents the spread of malicious code to other users. The malware removal functionality is powered by the Scene Security Tools plugin, which is updated whenever Autodesk becomes aware of a new malicious script.In 3ds Max 2022, users are notified when a new version of the Scene Security Tools is available on the Autodesk App Store.

Smart Extrude

  • Edit Poly modifier support: Smart Extrude has been extended into the Edit Poly modifier, providing the same functionality and features users have come to love from the Editable Poly implementation. This extension of Smart Extrude enables artists to further benefit from this freeform modeling method, and complement their poly modeling workflows in 3ds Max.
  • “Cut Through” implementation: When first introduced in 3ds Max 2021.2, the Smart Extrude functionality enabled artists to extrude with fewer constraints during the creative modeling process. “Cut Through”, the latest addition to Smart Extrude, further enhances this functionality to give artists the extrude they deserve.

When performing an inward or outward Smart Extrusion (Shift+LMB drag operation on an Edit Poly or Editable Poly), complete intersections of these results will now add, unify, or completely cut-through and remove faces of the operand result with your mesh geometry. This new Smart Extrude enhancement enables artists to freely construct unified mesh geometry, enhancing the poly modeling experience in 3ds Max.

Slice Modifier

3ds Max includes performance enhancements to the Slice modifier, and new modeling features based on user feedback. These enhancements and new features are powerful complements to 3ds Max workflows, as they reduce data processing operations for Autodesk Retopology Tools in 3ds Max.

  • Capping: Open holes created by the Slice operation can now be capped along their boundary edges on both Mesh and Poly objects.
  • Multi-Axis Cutting: Perform a X-, Y-, and/or Z-aligned planar slice of your mesh based on the position of the slice gizmo through a single modifier.
  • Radial Slice: A new Radial slice operation enables control of the cutting results based on a set of user-defined min and max angles.
  • Alignment options: Quickly align the cutting gizmo to faces on an object, or reference another animatable object in your scene.

Extrude Modifier

The Extrude modifier, one of the most frequently used modifiers in 3ds Max, offers significant performance improvements to the speed of the initial extrude calculation, and to the responsiveness of the output when adjusting the amount parameter. This allows complex splines, which used to take minutes to process, to be operated on in a matter of seconds. Artists can achieve a desired look faster and more interactively.

Symmetry Modifier

The Symmetry modifier, a commonly used modeling modifier in 3ds Max, includes new features and enhancements that benefit modeling and retopology workflows in 3ds Max. Symmetry can now produce faster results, and offers a more interactive experience in the Viewport.

  • Multi-Axis Symmetry: Planar symmetry has been updated to perform, X, Y, and/or Z symmetry results on the symmetry gizmo.
  • Radial Symmetry: A new Radial symmetry function allows artists to quickly duplicate and repeat a geometry around the gizmo center. This new feature based on user feedback enables artists to rapidly create new variations.
  • Alignment options: Align the symmetry gizmo to faces on an object, or reference another animatable object in your scene.

AutoSmooth

AutoSmooth operations, which are used to improve the visual quality of mesh data throughout 3ds Max, have been updated to generate new smoothing data faster, regardless of whether you are smoothing thousands or millions of faces. This update helps artists when adjusting smoothing data on objects like Mesh, Poly or Spline. It also benefits other modifiers such as Smooth, Chamfer, Edit Mesh, Edit Poly, ProOptimize, and many more.

Relax Modifier

3ds Max now includes a “volume preserve” option which has been added to the Relax modifier. When active, the Relax algorithm will perform additional calculations to reduce small detail and noise out from models, all while retaining the shape and definition of the overall mesh that the modifier has been applied to.

This functionality is especially useful when working with data containing a large amount of unwanted small or microsurface detail, as seen with Scan and Sculpt data. Reducing this small “noisy” data with Relax can improve the processing time of the Autodesk Retopology Tools for 3ds Max.

Rendering

  • New render configuration window; faster, snappier, all QT-based UI.
  • Quicksilver render settings are now QT-based, for a faster, more responsive experience. The Viewport Bloom settings have also been synced to the Quicksilver settings.
  • By utilizing the new Viewport Ambient Occlusion sampling value in the Viewport configuration settings, users can further refine their Viewport lookdev and optimize their GPU performance by increasing or decreasing the Viewport Ambient Occlusion quality.

Arnold

  • The ‘Auto-tx’ can now be used to automate the process of converting texture files to .tx file format at render time.
  • Imagers can now be applied, removed, re-ordered, and edited directly in a dedicated tab of the Arnold RenderView to post-process rendering without additional render time.
    • A new Light Mixer imager makes it possible to interactively edit the contribution of each light group AOVs during and after rendering, without restarting the render.
    • Bloom or “glow”, a post-processing effect, has been added to the Lens Effect imager to blur pixels above a given threshold across the frame and simulate light bleeding on an imperfect lens.
    • Noise Denoiser is now a post-processing effect. Artists can automatically denoise images every time they render a scene. Edit the denoising settings and see the resulting image directly in the render view.
    • OptiX Denoiser: The OptiX™ denoiser is now available as a post-processing effect. This imager also exposes additional controls for clamping and blending the result.

Bake to Texture

  • The Bake to Texture interface has been simplified to offer easier navigation and selection of baked map types by grouping render elements under common map names. Now, users don’t need to remember the specific element name in the render engine they are using to bake frequently used map types like color maps, normal maps, and other PBR compatible maps that are needed in production.

Bake to Texture now features a number of new utility maps, such as Rounded Corners and Material ID maps. This enables artists to quickly arrange, what was previously a complex material setup workflow, quickly and easily into Bake to Textures results , using only a few clicks.

Viewports

  • Turn any floating Viewport into a full-screen, borderless view. When using Presentation Mode, all gizmos are hidden allowing your 3d scene to be the true hero.

Use the “CTRL+Space” hotkey to jump in/out of full-screen Presentation Mode.


New in 3ds Max 2021.3

December 2, 2020

Fixed issues

MAXX:Animation

  • Cloning keys over existing keys in the curve editor, timeline, mini curve editor, key info floaters, motion panel and dope sheet no longer creates incorrect tangents. MAXX-58984
  • Fixed a defect in the Skin modifier that permitted adding duplicate entries of the same bone into the system. This will prevent the problem in the future. Current scenes affected by this must still be manually cleaned. MAXX-52825
  • 3ds Max no longer crashes when you select Edit > Hold while in Motion Paths sub-object mode. MAXX-46764
  • MAXX:Animation, MAXX:Modeling
  • Resolved an issue with the Edit Poly modifier, introduced in 2021.1, where animated vertex component data would not play back properly. MAXX-58780

MAXX:Cloud

  • When exporting Blend material with a mask, textures are now correctly blended. MAXX-58708

MAXX:Core

  • Fixed issues causing undefined and repeated values when reading data from and Excel file using MAXScript’s OLE automation capabilities.
  • The OLEObject:range object’s outer limit is now inclusive. Example: To specify a range covering cells A1, A2, B1, and B2, the range “A1:B2” can be specified instead of “A1:C3.” MAXX-59505
    Fixed crash when loading Scene Explorer instances from scene file where instance had a null name.
  • Fixed issues with persisting the new name of a Scene Explorer instance. MAXX-58561

MAXX:Interop

  • Fixed the empty wall material preview in Civil View Building Style Object Editor. MAXX-57116
  • Road markings display the colors and lines as configured in Civil View Road Marking Style Editor. MAXX-54840

MAXX:MaterialEditors

  • Hide Unused Nodes now correctly hides unused input and output slots. MAXX-56592
  • Fixed a crash in Slate Material Editor when quickly deleting nodes. MAXX-57772

MAXX:MAXScript

  • Improved robustness of dotnet.getType when handling paramters with invalid format for a class name. MAXX-58938
  • Fixed issue with MAXScript when wrapping a controller/dimensioning in a MAXControl, the code in some cases was improperly using an existing MAXControl value with different dimensioning. MAXX-60138

MAXX:Modeling

  • Improved the knot position output normalization/positioning on the Spline Chamfer through improved calculations. MAXX-60211
  • Adjusted the way the Chamfer and SplineChamfer spinners increase and decrease in value to be step instead of adaptive, bringing them in line with how other spinners in 3ds Max should work. MAXX-60002
  • Improved stability with the Spline Mirror modifier. MAXX-59846
  • Fixed a memory access crash that could occur when inserting normals into a face that is too small when the normals on the mesh are corrupt. This fix does not propagate to STP. MAXX-59735
  • Improved the results of Spline Chamfer with enhanced tangent length calculations and UI options. MAXX-59723
  • Improved the fillet results of Spline Chamfer to be similar to expectations from within the Edit Spline options. MAXX-59591
  • Updated the Bridge operation to provide improved mesh stability to look for and remove dead vertices to make the mesh safe once it has completed its action. Other poly actions in 3ds Max have also been enhanced to look for this same problem as well. MAXX-59457
  • Resolved an issue with the Path Deform modifier where using the Stretch spinner value could sometimes cause a crash. MAXX-59439
  • Improved stability with the Data Channel modifier when loading a preset by adjusting the handling of how the DCM adds and removes UI rollouts. MAXX-59352
  • Resolved a crash error that sometimes occured when updating the translation or rotation of the Slice gizmo. MAXX-59245
  • Improved how the Chamfer system handles zero area vertex chamfers, which can be created when the amount value is set too small, to provide improved stability. MAXX-59082
  • Smart Extrude end results has been enhanced to better reconstruct and stitch the end results and further minimize side polygons. MAXX-58997
  • Disabled the ability to set animated keyframe values on face components when using Smart Extrude, as adding and removing mesh data doesn’t work well with component data. MAXX-58961
  • Enhanced clearing component selection when using point to point selection. MAXX-58887
  • When performing an undo and then a redo of an operation that affect the explicit normals on a poly object, those normals are now properly restored at all times. MAXX-58836
  • Changes made to parameters on the base Freehand Spline object will now properly notifiy changes up the modifier stack. MAXX-58679
  • Use Pivot on Path Deform now maintains the object’s form as it traverses along the path and works with multiple elements on the incoming shape to maintain their form. MAXX-58273
  • Improved the output color result to be within a valid range (0 to 1) by performing improved calculations to calculate each color component. MAXX-57867
  • Resolved issues with how the Unwrap UVW modifier was saving data that might cause a crash if data (such as name selection sets) was deleted. MAXX-57042
  • Chamfer modifier amount values lower than 0.001 are now correctly respected in your scenes, values smaller than 0.001 are no longer rounded up to 0.001. MAXX-57034
  • When using Path Deform on a group of objects, the group’s spatial positioning relative to the other objects within the group is maintained, based on the incoming shape data. MAXX-56458
  • Improved performance of the Path Deform modifier by improving normalized spline and bezier interpolations and recoding Path Deform to be a deformer based modifier. MAXX-56247
  • Improved the calculations of Path Deform to maintain the objects form better when traversing along the path. MAXX-55750
  • Malformed Meshes (repeated vertices on same face) no longer result in the Slice and Symmetry modifiers locking up when moving or rotating the gizmo for these modifiers. MAXX-51723

MAXX:Modeling, MAXX:Performance

  • Enhanced processing and threading for specified and explicit normals with TriObject and PolyObjects; this can result in performance gains on various modifiers and deformers. MAXX-59052
  • Solved an error with how Vray handled materials, causing 3ds Max to crash when you opened the Edit UV window of the Unwrap UVW modifier. MAXX-57413

MAXX:Python

  • The Python version can now be set using the ADSK_3DSMAX_PYTHON_VERSION environment variable for 3dsmaxcmd.exe MAXX-60073

MAXX:RealTimeWorkflows

  • Baking normal maps with scanline no longer produces specular artifacts. MAXX-59733
  • Baking multiple UV tiles no longer bakes at the same time repeatedly. MAXX-59240
  • Baking self-projected normal maps no longer produces artifacts and noise. MAXX-59075
  • Baking with Arnold no longer applies unexpected filtering, resulting in a blurred result. MAXX-59072
  • The Enter key no longer commits unexpected changes in the Bake to Texture window. MAXX-58962
  • Save to the previous function no longer triggers unexpected warnings when the scene contains Bake to Texture data. MAXX-58132

MAXX:Rendering

  • Changing EV values in the camera’s properties will now update Activeshade in viewport renders as expected. MAXX-58415
  • Deleting a locked camera refreshes Render Setup UI and turns the Lock OFF. MAXX-56319
  • Added Sun Positioner in Create>Lights menu. The menus need to be reset to see the new entry if 3ds Max is updated. MAXX-55040
  • Time-dependent OSL animation will now update when the timeline is extended. MAXX-44752
  • Framing is now correct when rendering with ActiveShade in the viewport when Safe Frame is enabled and the image ratio is narrower than the viewport view. MAXX-57620
  • RenderMap() now supports 32bit as expected. MAXX-58589

MAXX:RenderingMaterials

LUT settings no longer reset when using PBR materials. MAXX-58438

MAXX:Viewports

  • Fixed corruption of 3dsMax.ini file with the GFX setup logic. MAXX-59549
  • DirectX material alpha now works as expected. MAXX-57633
  • Resizing the viewport when rendering with ActiveShade in the viewport no longer stops the render. MAXX-58888
  • Maximizing then restoring a viewport running ActiveShade will no longer cause a crash. MAXX-58904
  • Zoom Extents All now works as expected when one object is selected. MAXX-59091

Known issues and workarounds

MAXX:Rendering

  • Render times may be slow when using emissive materials to light a scene. MAXX-54969

What’s new in 3ds Max 2021.2

Fixed issues

MAXX:Animation

  • Fixed a crash in a CAT Parent object when pressing the time warp button. MAXX-57295
  • Fixed the buttons to open Curve Editors for a CAT Layer displaying empty curve editors (no keys or curves). MAXX-57284
  • Playback performance degradation has been fixed when TrackView is open. MAXX-48640

MAXX:Cloud

  • SvfExporter no longer exports the wrong normal values for vertices in Shared View. MAXX-57925
  • The PBR material (Spec/Gloss) now generates standard material when exporting to SVF format. MAXX-57851

MAXX:Interop

  • Mirrored or copied linked models are now imported through direct Revit import or Link Revit import. MAXX-57610

MAXX:Modeling

  • Corrected an issue where 3ds Max could crash when you tried to remove a vertex where each surrounding face was triangular on a model with specified normals. MAXX-58681
  • Chamfer amount will now correctly reset to its default value when you right-click on its spinners. MAXX-57689
  • Meshes that have negative vertex integer values and have unallocated map channel vertices will no longer crash the IMeshValidator. MAXX-57667
  • The Mesh commands of RemoveDegenerateFaces() and Mesh::RemoveIllegalFaces() have been updated to support multiple threads, enabling these actions to be performed much quicker on more dense data sets. MAXX-57665
  • After using the Cut tool, the dotted preview line denoting where your cut operation will take place is now properly removed from the viewport. MAXX-57359
  • We now perform enhanced explicit comparisons between the cached mesh and input mesh passed to determine if topology changes to faces or verticies should invalidate Unwrap UVW data above the stack. MAXX-56960
  • Spline Influence helpers will now be visible in the viewport if created through MAXScript. MAXX-56225
  • Fixed an error where you were not able to undo some spline operations through MAXScript. MAXX-52577

MAXX:Python

  • The exception triggered when using ‘quitMax()’ from the pymxs module to quit 3ds Max is now properly handled by the Python wrapper and the script execution is aborded to shutdown 3ds Max. MAXX-57459

MAXX:RealTimeWorkflows

  • Baking Metalness or Roughness maps with Arnold only considers map inputs, ignoring parameter values. MAXX-58195
  • Stability issue when using Bake to Texture when the Slate Material Editor is open was fixed. MAXX-58163
  • Performing multi-editing of the material output in Bake to Texture no longer leads to unwanted instanced material creation. MAXX-58108
  • Bake to Texture dialog now displays the Arnold_map_override Map Options when switching focus from another dialog. MAXX-57820
  • Canceling a texture baking process in Bake to Texture can sometimes save a partial bitmap to output path. MAXX-57119
  • Background Color is not used when baking with projections. MAXX-56982
  • Global Super Sampling settings are not taken into account when baking with a Physical Material or without a material assigned using Scanline renderer. MAXX-56762

MAXX:Rendering

  • Fixed support to UV channels over 32. MAXX-57439
  • Editing a PNG file outside of 3ds Max will no longer crash 3ds Max if the PNG is being used in a scene. If the PNG is very large, the texture may disappear from the viewport. If this happens, it needs to be manually reloaded using the Reload button in the Bitmap map. MAXX-56799
  • Improved zoom extents behavior for perspective viewports. MAXX-56742
  • Enabled the option to change instantly the value of Motion Capture Float Controller>MIDI Trigger: Note input>Speed parameter, on the arrival of a new MIDI note. MAXX-54921
  • Loading scenes with many deep OSL shading trees is no longer very slow. MAXX-53240
  • A warning is displayed when collecting materials from the scene in Slate Material Editor; the default number of materials in the scene that triggers the warning is 10. You can change the default number using the “Warn on Get All Scene Materials” flag in the SME.ini file, or set it to 0 to restore the legacy behavior. MAXX-47844

MAXX:Viewports

  • Files from older versions of 3ds Max will no longer have viewports set as User Defined. Note: There are still issues with files containing multiple viewport tabs. In this case, only the tab that was opened when saved will be correct. The others will still be set to User Defined. MAXX-56435
  • Files from 2021 used as templates will now have all their viewports set to Standard in all viewport tabs. However, templates from older versions of 3ds Max will still have unselected tabs with viewports set to User Defined. MAXX-56434
  • Saving and reopening scenes with multiple viewport tabs will now have all viewports set to Standard as expected. MAXX-56433

What’s new in 3ds Max 2021.1

Bake to Texture:

  • Output now supports multi-tile UV mapping (UDIM)
  • Animated map outputs are now supported as well as multiple animated frames
  • Various usability improvements.

Fluids:

  • The Fluid loader is now exposed so that object types such as particle systems can work with the data
  • The Velocity channel now reports correct information when not using meters as your default scene scale. This fix will enable motion blur in your renderer
  • PRT now supports a signed and unsigned integer values (via .ini change).

Interactive Extrusion and Inset:

  • Users can now utilize a Shift+Drag (left mouse button) with the Move transform tool to extrude polygon component selections when using an Editable Poly or an Edit Poly modifier
  • Shift+Drag with the Scale transform tool now performs an polygonal inset action on selected polygon component selections when using an Editable Poly or an Edit Poly modifier
  • Clone/Copy actions are now performed with Ctrl+Shift+Drag when using the Move transform tool on the polygon component on and Editable Poly or an Edit Poly modifier.

Viewport improvements:

  • Depth of field now affects the environment map
  • Vignetting scale is now the same value as defined in the camera
  • Matte/Shadows material now work in the viewport
  • Each view can now have its own exposure, white-balance and vignette settings.

Arnold renderer:

  • MAXtoA 4.0.4
  • AOV token system
  • Animation support for Alembic
  • Increased shader spinner accuracy
  • Bake to Texture support for projection of normals from high to low resolution, normals spaces, and Mikkt.

Enhancements and Changes

  • Installation – You can now install updates such as this one without installing 3ds Max 2021 first.
  • Weighed Normals Modifier – Now includes support for multi-threaded processing to enhance speed and performance when performing calculations as well as other stability improvements.
  • Explicit Normals Preservation for Mesh – Applying an Edit Mesh modifier no longer invalidates explicit normals, nor do the following actions: Attach, Detach to Object, Detach to Element, Clone to Object, Clone to Element, Detach as Clone to Element.
  • PBR material – Both PBR materials now support displacement.
  • Shared Views – Shared Views now supports Physical material.
  • SketchUp model importation – There is improved handling of internal edge visibility, improving the imported mesh quality, and SketchUp 2020 models are now supported.
  • Slate Material Editor – The Slate Material Editor now pans and zooms smoother and faster when using a 4k monitor. In addition, the Search field has been improved to perform global search through all materials and maps in the editor. For example, if you were searching for the Advanced Wood map and typed “wood,” the old search would not find it but now it will.
  • Render output size – HDTV resolution of 1280 x 720 is the new default output size.
  • UDIM display – When you work with UDIM, you are now able to view all textures in the viewport when using the Bitmap Lookup OSL shader, instead of just viewing one as when using the Multi-Tile map.
  • User Defined Defaults – Allows you to set your own default values for ParamBlock2 supported spinner, radial, checkbox, or input field through MAXScript calls.
  • Viewport – Depth of field now affects the environment map, the vignetting scale is now the same value as defined in the camera, Matte/Shadows materials now work in the viewport, and each viewport can now have their own exposure, white-balance and vignette settings.

What’s New in 3ds Max 2020.3

Over 55 user-reported defects fixed, including:

  • A user on the public forums identified issues with how SketchUp files were being imported when using 3ds Max 2020.2 Update. Issues were found with edge visibility and welding imported geometry.
  • A manufacturing customer reported that JT files were being misrepresented in the Scene Explorer compared with industry standards. After a thorough consultation, this has been fixed in a manner consistent with how other formats are imported.
  • Over a dozen defects were fixed for Chamfer that caused unexpected results, and that improve the overall stability.
  • The Transform Toolbox has been fixed so it now uses world units.
  • Several issues related to Unwrap UVW have been fixed, including:
    • Texture selection fixed when changing Material ID
    • Texture drop-down no longer loses all textures when reset
    • Select All and Inverse no longer selects hidden or frozen uvs
    • Zoom Extents Selected now zooms to the selected geometry as expected.
  • An incompatibility between MAXScript and Python due to case sensitivity, which caused some members of Python modules imported into MAXScript to be inaccessible, has been fixed.
  • PySide2 was updated 5.12.4 to match the version of Qt used by 3ds Max. This fix will resolve instability issues.
  • Physical cameras can no longer get into a state where they become unusable, making it impossible to see anything in the viewport.
  • Bitmap files used in an OSL map can now be edited outside of 3ds Max, as the file no longer locks.

What’s New in 3ds Max 2020.2 Update

Chamfer modifier improvements:

  • Updates include new corner mitering types Patch and Radial which provide higher-resolution quadrilateral intersections.
  • The Invert and Open options now work for all miter types.
  • The new vertex chamfering implementation respects any set segment count or depth.
  • New chamfer options are now available in Editable Poly: Uniform, End Bias, Radial Bias, Tension, and Depth

Importing SketchUp files:

  • A new importer allows any version of SketchUp files to be imported into 3ds Max, whereas the legacy importer can only import files up to SketchUp 2014.
  • Able to maintain compatibility with future versions.

Synchronize with Display Mode:

  • New viewport background mode
  • Automatically uses the Environment background.
  • If Environment background is black, displays a gradient background.
  • Some displays modes are exceptions.

Enhancements and Changes

Modeling
Viewport backface culling is now respected when clicking to select elements in EditPoly and EditPoly modifier and open edges and vertices remain selectable unless Ignore Backfacing is enabled. Double-click selection is now supported in the PolySelect modifier. Additionally, scripting access for TextPlus “Set Value as Text” functionality now gives you greater control using TextPlus in MAXScript.

Animation and performance
Performance has been notably improved in creating keys, Trackview, Slate UI, and file reset.”Average weights” has been renamed to “Normalize weights.” List controller evaluation is now just as fast regardless of whether the “Average Weight” option (now “Normalize weights”) is on or off.

User interface
3ds Max now uses the decimal separator that you set in your Windows regional settings.

Viewport
Image based lighting (IBL) is now automatic when an environment is added to the scene; you no longer need to add a skylight. The Physical material’s roughness parameter is now supported in the viewport’s Realistic mode. Shadows have been improved and are now supported in the default lighting mode.

3ds Max 2020.1 Feature Updates

You can now easily customize, merge, and visualize shortcuts keys with a new hotkey system and enhance your workspace experience by extending your viewports across various monitors.

Plus, building upon the feedback we received on the 2020 chamfer modifier updates, we have polished and provided an additional update to bring you a more predictable modeling tool.

View the full 3ds Max 2020.1 Release notes

What’s new in 3ds Max 2020

  • Create Animation Preview improvements
  • Chamfer modifier presets and save default settings
  • 14 new OSL shaders
  • Revit import new “Combine By” types
  • MAXtoA PFlow instance node
  • Copy+Pasted modifiers maintain their custom names
  • Validity intervals (animation is only calculated if there’s a change in object location)
  • Autobackup is more responsive to ESC request
  • Civil View textures update to render with Arnold
  • Change color of MAXScript listener window
  • 270+ 3rd party plugins launching around 3ds Max 2020

See full release notes

What’s New in 3ds Max 2019.3

Interactive ActiveShade Viewport:

With the new improvements to ActiveShade, you can now interact and render simultaneously in the same viewport.
The ActiveShade viewport mode extends your rendering workflow so you can now see the final result of your adjustments as you make them.

Revit Version Compatibility:

You no longer need to upgrade your file when importing a Revit 2018 file, provided you have 3ds Max 2018 and Revit Interoperability for 3ds Max installed.

Enhancements and Changes

  • Alembic interoperability with Maya Alembic support continues with improved interoperability with Autodesk Maya software. Custom Attributes from Maya are grouped to support attributes on transforms and shapes, and vertex color sets are now compatible with Maya import and export.
  • OSL Map (Open Shading Language) Improvements to the OSL source editor include improved bracket highlighting, syntax highlighting, and better docking ability. The viewport has also been enhanced to support OSL features such as node properties and improved Bump map support.
  • Revit Import Importing Autodesk Revit files is now twice as fast as before (depending on the dataset), lights imported from Revit (via FBX/RVT) now work and render correctly, and the Import dialog has been improved so it is easier to understand and use.
  • General improvements Over 100 existing issues have been fixed, many of which were originally submitted by the 3ds Max user community. See the Release Notes for details on customer-facing issues. Thank you for your input!

Fixed Issues in 3ds Max 2019.3 Update

MAXX:Alembic

  • Fixed an issue with AlembicExport where Material IDs would not export if all Material IDs for an object were the same. MAXX-46831
  • Custom attributes now import and export compatible with Maya. MAXX-45522
  • Fixed vertex colors that were incompatible with Maya and other DCCs. MAXX-45511
  • Fixed playback performance of Alembic transform objects. MAXX-43953
  • Alembic performance mode now respects Alembic file frame range. MAXX-41008
  • Fixed an issue with animated UVs getting corrupted. MAXX-29542
  • Fixed Alembic not able to use relative paths. MAXX-23058
  • MAXX:Animation
  • Fixed crash caused by long strings in Biped. MAXX-46030
  • Fixed crash when painting weights on the Skin Modifier with a TurboSmooth and “Show End Result” on. MAXX-45502
  • Fixed crash when using a long string in Biped save/load. MAXX-45461
  • Fixed skinOps.selectBone access violation when the skin is not selected. MAXX-45410
  • Fixed crash when copying/parting with Biped track tool. MAXX-44831
  • Fixed crash in TrackView when canceling after shift+dragging. MAXX-44814
  • Fixed crash with Particle Flow when converting a linked sub-operator from integer to complex. MAXX-44783
  • Fixed Motion Flow crash after closing the Biped Motion Flow Script window. MAXX-44731
  • TMCache is now properly caching. MAXX-43507
  • Fixed crash when renaming Layer Controller to clean animation layer while loading. MAXX-42783
  • “Select File to Export” in now translates properly into different languages. MAXX-41107
  • Tooltip for “Display Physical Meshes/Selected Objects Only” in MassFX Tools window now translates properly into different languages. MAXX-41106

MAXX:Animation, MAXX:ParticleFlow
Fixed an issue where Particle View would not display the Depot or node graph. The workaround is no longer needed. MAXX-37366

MAXX:Booleans
Fixed a crash with scripted Boolean operations. MAXX-45365

MAXX:Cloud
In Shared Views, texture maps on objects could be wrong if 3ds Max files contained images with the same name but a different folder path. Only the first one found was being used. MAXX-45036

MAXX:Core

  • Fixed issues with selection sets not filtering objects in the Exclude/Include dialog’s object list, and then crashing. MAXX-46223
  • Fixed crashes when typing in the Exclude/Include dialog’s “Scene Object” field if the scene contained geometry and light objects. MAXX-46222
  • Visual issues in localization of the 3ds Max Security Tools for French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese are fixed. MAXX-45467
  • Improved error reporting when attempting to render with the “max quick render” MAXScript command while the rendOutputFileName is not set. MAXX-45285
  • The File > Save Selected and its corresponding MAXScript counterpart saveNodes have been updated to ensure they also save all the nodes that influence the set of nodes being saved. MAXX-44922
  • Fixed a crash occurring when opening 3ds Max scene files while reading file custom properties on Windows 7. MAXX-44693

MAXX:Fluids

  • Fixed a crash when solving fluid scenes with loft objects. MAXX-45873
  • Fluids: Fixed a crash when clicking the Solver menu in a scene with no Fluids objects. MAXX-45601
  • Fluids MAXScript commands were not updating the UI. MAXX-45518
  • When loading the cache, the Cancel button now works all the time. MAXX-45055

MAXX:Interop

  • Fixed an issue where some large exports (>20k poly count) to Collada would fail. MAXX-46543
  • Fixed an issue where non-reflective Autodesk materials converted to physical materials using the Scene Converter were turned into mirrors. MAXX-46417
  • Fixed multiple issues with lights, which were causing incorrect renderings in 3ds Max. The first was resulting in grossly over-scaled light source objects. The second was resulting in a black filter being applied to all light sources. MAXX-44182
  • Fixed an issue where some lights imported from Revit via FBX were rotated 90 degrees. MAXX-38734
  • Fixed an issue where some lights (rectangular and linear) imported from a Revit file were rotated 90 degrees. MAXX-38508

MAXX:MAXScript

  • Improved robustness of handling group members, to make sure they can exist only as part of groups. MAXX-46307
  • Fixed improper reporting by the showInterface MAXScript command of floating point parameter range values. MAXX-46059
  • Improved robustness of MAXScript’s cfgMgr.getFloatArray() method when attempting to read string values. Improved robustness of MAXScript’s cfgMgr.getIntArray() method when attempting to read floating point values. MAXX-45745
  • Improved robustness of deleting nodes from within callbacks triggered on node deletions. MAXX-45015
  • Fixed issues with adding user defined properties through MAXScript being linked to property values. MAXX-45012
  • Fixed problem with Camera Tracker Utility not displaying. MAXX-43346
  • isDeleted and isValidObj MAXScript commands now work reliably for xref scene values. MAXX-38533

MAXX:Modeling

  • Fixed issue with Pick mode not working with Scene Explorer in some cases, such as with the Align tool. MAXX-46479
  • Fixed a crash when using Vertex Pain with multiple objects. MAXX-45767
  • Improved UI redraw speed for EditablePoly Edit panel when switching component modes. MAXX-45728

MAXXraspberryython
Fixed a problem with pyside2 error reporting (traceback) when passing in a functools.partial object into a slot for a QSignal. MAXX-45210

MAXX:Rendering

  • Added some logic to mitigate OSL related crashes during startup. MAXX-46867
  • Improvements were made to the OSL Editor, improving workflow and correcting some missing and incorrect syntax highlighting, as well as some cosmetic fixes to the “default shader” pre-populating the OSL

Map. MAXX-45476

  • The Candy shader no longer renders the plane Z=0 differently from a nonzero Z, causing artifacts on flat surfaces. However, it may now appear slightly different. MAXX-44914
  • When an OSL map is assigned to the bump slot of a physical material and any value of bump is less than 1, the object will appear almost transparent. MAXX-41312

MAXX:Rendering, MAXX:UI
Fixed crash when accessing render presets and using Effects dialog. MAXX-46249

MAXX:RenderingBackBurner

When using an OSL Map, it would cause network rendering errors. MAXX-45619

MAXX:SDK

  • Fixed a problem where arrays of C++ objects (template  class Array) with trivial constructors didn’t have their elements initialized. For example, creating an array of integers with a default value of 0 would leave the elements of the array un-initialized. MAXX-45616

MAXX:UI

  • Fixed crash related to State Sets dialog. MAXX-46250
  • Fixed crash when performing a reset on menu customization. MAXX-45915
  • Fixed crash when reassigning bitmap path containing invalid characters. MAXX-45884
  • Selection Lock toggle no longer loses visual icon cue/styling when opening Object Properties. MAXX-45351
  • Xref window is not being recognized as a Drag and Drop target for Xref workflows. MAXX-44557
  • Animation Layer toolbar was cropped when Windows scaling was set above 100%. MAXX-41013

MAXX:UVW

  • Fixed a crash when closing Unwrap UVW editor with the Properties dialog open. MAXX-45574
  • In non-English versions of 3ds Max, the Unwrap UVW Editor Options dialog had overlapping checkboxes. MAXX-45570
  • Fixed a crash when using Peel with Unwrap UVW. MAXX-44669
  • Fixed backwards compatibility with older scenes using splines. MAXX-41939
  • Fixed an issue with Unwrap UVW when canceling texture picking. MAXX-41650
  • Fixed an issue with Unwrap UVW Editor getting stuck when canceling Select Texture dialog. MAXX-40752

MAXX:ViewportsMaterials
Bump mapping in the viewport was not working with OSL maps with multiple outputs. This and various other bump mapping problems caused various artifacts in the viewports. MAXX-44227

What’s new in 3ds Max 2019.2

Fluids update 

  • The new Fluid Loader is an object that makes it easy to load and manipulate fluid simulation data. With the Fluids Loader, users can load cached fluid simulations, adjust the transform of the sim, offset the playback, assign materials and render the sim.
  • We added support for rendering fluids data channels such as Vorticity, Density, Age, etc. with Arnold
  • You can adjust the meshing parameters for liquid and foam of a loader and the render settings such as data channels mentioned above. Even reuse simulations and control each playback independently.
  • When working with complex simulations, you may have many emitters, colliders, and motion fields. This can make iterating on fluid simulations cumbersome, so we have added the ability to disable and enable emitters, colliders, motion fields, etc. for faster, more finely controlled sims.

Open standards Alembic & OSL Improvements
Alembic support has been updated to version 1.7.5, with this comes with improvements to export and speed.

  • Alembic UV export is now compatible with Maya by default
  • Support for instances allows files to be much smaller while maintaining complexity and can dramatically improve export speed.
  • We have included a better tree-view arrangement and searching in the Alembic Inspector Window.
  • The OSL editor now displays line numbers.
  • In the OSL editor, the “Compile” shortcut is changed from Ctrl+S to F7, and Ctrl+S is now the much more sensible “Save”.
  • The OSL editor now highlights matching brackets, e.g. if the cursor is on a left parenthesis, the matching right parenthesis is highlighted.

Arnold 5.2 Update
Arnold 5.2 delivers several usability and performance enhancements, plus significant new features to improve workflows.

  • Texture Baking is now supported with the render-to-texture workflow.
  • Shade enhancements include a new Cell Noise shader and new Sheen function in the Standard Surface shader to render cloth-like microfiber materials or the peach fuzz.
  • RGB clamping in clamp shader can now be configured to either a scalar or color mode.
  • Edge detection can be controlled in Toon Shader using the STRING type user data, toon_id.
  • The stability and usability of the high-quality Noice denoiser has been improved.
  • GPU memory consumption of the fast NVIDIA OptiX denoiser has been greatly reduced.

New Subscription Benefits – Autodesk Drive
Autodesk Drive is a cloud storage solution that allows you to securely store, preview, and share  your 2D and 3D design data. It supports 60+ types of Autodesk and 3rd party files for viewing and organizing, preserving your local storage where you only download when you need to. More on Autodesk Drive Here

Community Updates
Autodesk is committed to responding quickly to 3ds Max user feedback. That’s why this release includes over 70 fixes, many of which were submitted by the 3ds Max user community at 3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com.

  • Track View and Scene Explorer panels are now windowed again.
  • Data Channel can now output vertex alpha.
  • Projects workflow, users can have more than 60 paths associated with a project.
  • New 3ds Max security tools set offer protection against the CRP and ALC 3rd party scripts.
  • Shared Views now export Autodesk materials and V-Ray Materials with textures.
  • Decimal separator now identified in Windows regional setting.
  • MaxScript operations on the Skin Modifier no longer require objects to be selected.

 Check out the full release notes here!

 

What’s new in 3ds Max 2019.1 Update

Playing nice with Alembic files

As a standard exchange format, Alembic is used to interop across different DCCs. As such, we have made several improvements:

  • You can now inspect the contents of an Alembic file before adding it to your scene.
  • Alembic helper icons are resizable and can be toggled on or off.
  • 3ds Max Object properties are included in Alembic export and import.
  • Custom Attributes created in 3ds Max are now included in Alembic export and import.
  • We fixed an issue with Alembic content not being rendered with Arnold.
  • Alembic objects with duplicate hierarchy/names now have unique IDs.
  • NURBS import and export now behave predictably. Note that any scene splines will be automatically converted to NURBS when exporting.
  • … and several stability fixes.

OSL performance improvements: It’s now easier to see what you’re working with

  • Improved rendering performance for complex OSL shaders, especially with Scanline Renderer.
  • Improved viewport representation of OSL shaders, with native support for over 80 of the included OSL shaders.
  • Most user-created procedural OSL shaders can now be viewed in the viewport.
  • Improved OSL Editor, including font customization.

Included updates from Arnold 5.1

  • Adaptive sampling gives users a streamlined way to tune images, reducing render times without jeopardizing final image quality.
  • The OptiX Denoiser based on NVIDIA AI technology is now integrated into Arnold and can be applied on the beauty pass without needing to create extra AOVs.
  • The Noice Denoiser can be run as a standalone tool or from a dedicated UI, exposed as a new tab in the rendering options.
  • The new Toon shader is included as part of a non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) solution.
  • Native Arnold ramp shaders are now available and are particularly useful when tonemapping the toon shader components.
  • The new native Alembic procedural provides maximum control and flexibility, helping to eliminate important production bottlenecks.
  • Message logging system: the target file for the Arnold messages can now be set directly from the rendering options.
  • Structured stats and profiling: render statistics and profiling info can now be output to json files.
  • Fisheye, cylindrical and spherical cameras are now available. The VR camera layout has been updated.

Scripting improvements

  • Python dictionaries now support any MaxScript value as keys.
  • Working with user-defined object properties through MaxScript now supports all value types correctly.
  • The maxVersion() MaxScript command now reports the full product version.
  • Converting a large object set from MaxScript (pymxs.runtime.objects) to a Python list is now instantaneous.

Generally making life easier

  • Switching between projects is now more manageable, with a new toolbar indicating project status, and the option to set your own defaults for switching.
  • Share your vision more easily — Shared Views now supports all bitmap types and most procedural textures.
  • Using a short MaxScript command (FBXExportSetParam “ExportAnimationOnly” true) allows you to export FBX animation data without needing to include geometry.

Bringing your ideas to life in 3ds Max 2019.1 Update

We are committed to responding quickly to 3ds Max user feedback. That’s why this release includes over 80 fixes, some of which were submitted by you – the 3ds Max user community – at 3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com.

A few highlights:

  • Archiving and scene file compression now supports large data sets (greater than 2GB)
  • Vault users can check large files in and out, and auto-login
  • Attaching large amounts of meshes is up to 7 times faster
  • Fixed an issue with boolean operations with multi-element meshes invalidating UV data

Full release notes | 3ds Max 2019.1

2019 Update Highlights

3ds Max® 2019 introduces new features that speed the creation of intricate 3D scenes, and faster workflows that make it easier to collaborate on and execute complex projects.

Simpler project and pipeline management

  • Structure project folders in a way that makes sense for your pipeline — and automatically switch between projects when opening a file from a different project.
  • Custom data can be stored within a 3ds Max scene file, and accessed without loading it into 3ds Max.
  • It’s now easier to share Alembic data between 3ds Max and other 3D tools, with support for UVs, layer names, material IDs, and vertex color.

Faster content creation and editing

  • Extensive support for Open Shading Language maps, including over 100 included shaders.
  • Advanced wood procedural textures, including maple, cherry, oak, pine, mahogany, and more.
  • With a new Shape Boolean object, users can perform Boolean operations parametrically on geometry created around splines.
  • Edit scenes directly in VR with 3ds Max Interactive.

More efficient collaboration

  • Sharing assets with reviewers and collaborators from 3ds Max is now simpler than ever: Assets can be shared to the online Autodesk Viewer directly from the 3ds Max interface, so reviewers don’t need to install extra software or sign in to view the content.
  • Reviewers can view, markup, and take screenshots of content directly in-browser, and feedback can be reviewed from within 3ds Max.

Also in 3ds Max 2019

Autodesk is committed to responding quickly to 3ds Max user feedback. That’s why this release includes over 150 fixes, many that were submitted by the 3ds Max user community.
3ds Max 2019 also incorporates refinements to previously added features, including Max Fluids, VR workflows in 3ds Max Interactive, Max Batch, and Spline Tools.

See full release notes

Plugin Compatibility

*Note: the 2022 and 2023 lists may be out of date. They are no longer maintained with the release of 3ds Max 2024. Please check the system requirements and try a free trial or demo of a plugin before purchasing.

 

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