Taking it to the Max!

Register Now – Live Webinar on iray in 3ds Max

Shane Griffith — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:56:58 UTC

Join us for an “Introduction to iray in 3ds Max” which will provide an extensive overview of iray, explaining both what it is and how it differs from previous rendering technology. The webinar will be led by George Matos, VP of Technology and Visualization at Chipman Design Architecture, and myself to provide additional info and help answer questions. You will gain expert insight and analysis from a rendering pro's perspective and help you determine if iray is the right solution for your rendering needs. Attendees should have a general knowledge of Autodesk® 3ds Max® / 3ds Max design and computer hardware.

Register Now >

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

3ds Max 2012 Service Pack 2 is now available

Shane Griffith — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 19:00:00 UTC

Our goal is to continue to deliver the highest value and quality products to our customers, with a single objective in mind: your success.

In effort to deliver on this goal we've recently released another monster Service Pack with 87 fixes to issues and crashes reported through Autodesk Support or our CER system.

Important information:

3ds Max 2012 Service Pack 2 is a cumulative update, it includes the following Hot Fixes and Service Packs:

Hot Fix 1 – Autodesk 3ds Max 2012
Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 Service Pack 1
Hot Fix 2 – Autodesk 3ds Max 2012

Previous 3ds Max 2012 & 3ds Max Design 2012 Hot Fixes and Service Pack 1 are not required.

Based on your product version, download one of the following self-extracting executable files to any temporary location:

Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 Service Pack 2

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012 Service Pack 2

What's Fixed?

Feature Area	Description
Animation	Horizontal & Vertical constraints in the Curve Editor now work correctly. Using Undo to disconnect a parameter-wiring wire would cause a program error. This has been fixed Using soft selection in the Curve Editor no longer causes a program error. In multiple cases, incorrect values were being set in the Reaction Manager. This has been fixed.
CAT	Service Pack 1 introduced an issue with IK/FK and Num IK Bone parameters causing motion to be incorrect. This has been fixed. Moving bones no longer distorts the character rig. Twist segments added to the Crab preset could cause a program error when opening the Motion Layer. This has been fixed. Adding a leg to a non-pelvis hub now works correctly and no longer moves the leg to another position. Multiple issues with twist bones have been fixed. Adding bones no longer affects the rest of the hierarchy. Some users reported a program error when toggling animation mode. This has been fixed. Shift-cloning CAT rig elements could cause a program error. This has been fixed. Resetting the program no longer leaves CAT foot platforms in the new scene after using the CAT motion layer path node. Using the ‘Add extra controller’ button on CAT objects now works correctly. Right-click to cancel a CAT base human now correctly cancels the creation. ‘Manipulation causes stretching’ now transforms and animates correctly. The femur bone in the Horse preset rig now transforms correctly. The Horse preset rig skull would deform incorrectly when checking the Keyframed & Procedural checkboxes in Spine Control. This has been fixed. The Twist Bones Segment field in the Marma Blue Jeans preset rig now works correctly. Setting Num IK Bone to zero in the hand no longer causes incorrect animation. In some cases, bone shapes would change when translated. This has been fixed. Selecting options in the CATParent CATrig Parameters rollout before creating a CATParent no longer causes a program error. The ‘Auto Map’ button in Capture Animation no longer causes a program error. The Human preset rig leg would disappear when translating the foot platform and ankle sub-objects. This has been fixed
Compound Objects	ProCutter via MAXScript would give unpredictable results or program errors. This has been fixed.
Customer Error Report (CER)	Many customers reported a program error related to multi-threading. This has been fixed.
FBX & FBX File Link	Files now load correctly when using the Combine By Category, Combine By Family, and Combine As On Object options. New geometry now uses the current material definition when Preserve Material Definition is enabled. Daylight systems in the scene no longer get removed when using the FBX File Link to reload a scene that has the Daylight System option Disabled in the reload options. Revit FBX files with missing maps on Revit export no longer import with incorrect map paths.
iray	A common program error users were encountering with the iray renderer has been identified and fixed. This was caused by GPU rendering being enabled when no GPUs were available. Fixed support for “no diffuse bump”. The mia_material’s “no diffuse bump” option, along with both “standard” and “overall” bump maps are now respected. Fixed glossy refractions using a new glossy refraction lobe that loses less energy than the mia_material’s. Fixed an issue with translucent surfaces incorrectly calculating light samples on the backside of a surface, resulting in improved render times for translucent surfaces. Fixed index of refraction behavior with nested geometry volumes. The mr (mental ray) Sky Portal object now more correctly “gathers” existing sky lighting in interior scenes, resulting in improved render times. Large resolution images can now be rendered where the GPU previously failed due to insufficient memory. The iray renderer automatically enables this whenever the frame buffer is too large to fit on the GPU. GPU memory overrun was fixed for large-resolution imagery in exchange for a small performance loss.
MassFX	Fixed rollout state changing to Advance. Fixed order of rollout menus. Very small objects used in Composite mesh generation no longer cause a program error. Changing the high-velocity collision minimum speed value now works correctly. The Sleep setting in the World tab no longer causes a MaxScript error. An nvpx.ExportPhysXScene error dialog has been updated to be easier to understand. Bake now works when the scene contains Bipeds. Having the Dynamics Explorer or Scene Explorer open no longer negatively affects previewing the simulation. Remove Skeleton now removes all Kinematic Skeletons, not just the first one selected. Calculate At Current Frame now works correctly. The Rigid Body modifier UI no longer redraws multiple times when opening. The inflation value in the Multi-Editor now supports negative values for convex mesh types. Selecting and moving MassFX constraints now support the type-in transform. Using a Plane with box mesh type now simulates with the correct collision mesh shape. You can now Undo the Convert To Custom Mesh function. Rigid body collisions now behave correctly with back facing geometry. Undo now works after grouping bones in a kinematic skeleton. The MassFX SDK now correctly supports contact reports. Creation of a new mesh in MassFX rigid body can now be undone.
Compact Material Editor	Double-clicking to add a material from the standard material library now correctly copies the material name as well.
Nitrous viewports	The Align tool now works correctly with scaled groups. When using ProBoolean and ProCutter, the operands now display correctly. XRef objects now display textures in viewports. The Autodesk library material ‘Andiroba’ no longer causes a program error. Dummy objects now display correctly in Nitrous viewports. Fixed a case that would cause a program error when opening a .max file. When using File Link, FBX files from Revit via Combine By Material geometry would appear transparent when using ‘Show Realistic Material With Maps’. Such files now display correctly.
Rendering	Directional lights were not casting the correct shadows when set to ‘Adv Ray Traced’ shadows. This has been fixed.
Ribbo	A program error could occur when you pressed Tab or Space Bar while using the Push/Pull paint options. This has been fixed.
Samples Conten	The volumeSelToVcolors.max file would cause a program error when you opened it. This has been fixed.
Send To	Send To from Mudbox now loads animation in 3ds Max Design 2012. Send To to Softimage XSI now behaves correctly when no objects are selected.
Unwrap UVW	The Stitch tool custom button now uses the settings from the Stitch dialog. Filtered selections now display correctly.
Viewports	Zoom Extents now works correctly with helper objects. Autodesk Materials now display transparency correctly. Realistic materials now respect the ‘Use Environment Background’ check box. Using hardware shading, Skylight, and mr Sky Portals viewport settings together no longer cause a program error. Additional improvements have been made to correctly support unlocking the computer when the program is running.
Viewport Canvas	In some cases the paint tool would cause a program error. This has been fixed.

Please note that iray in SP2 converges faster than before. A single iteration may take slightly longer to compute in SP2 than previously, but that is only because it is now computing more per iteration. So essentially, it takes fewer amounts of iterations to come to a noise-less image. If you simply set a given a mount of iterations and compare the results the actual clock time will be higher in SP2, but only because it made an even cleaner image than it would have previously.

Experiencing additional problems or crashes? Please make sure we are aware of these issues and have the right information to solve them. Reporting stability problems, defects, or feature ideas to web forums is not the best way to get the results you desire. The 3ds Max team provides several ways for you to get this information to us, please see below for a few of the most common ways...

Running into an application failure or crash? Autodesk’s Customer Error Reporting (CER) makes it easy for you to send the details of the software error to us for analysis.

For more information see: www.autodesk.com/cer

For issues not resulting in a CER we provide a web form to report general product problems/defects.

For more information see: www.autodesk.com/3dsmax-defectsubmission

Have an idea for a feature or tweaks to existing workflows? The 3ds Max team values this feedback and has created an uservoice feedback forum for collecting 3ds Max feature priorities along with new ideas.

For more information see: 3dsmaxfeedback.autodesk.com

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

B2M from Allegorithmic

Shane Griffith — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:00:00 UTC

Recently I've been playing around with Bitmap2Material from Allegorithmic. It's kind of like using Crazybump plus an automatic tiling system all directly within 3ds Max.

Here is how it works: feed B2M with a diffuse texture, a photograph, or anything else, and it will create all the outputs you would need while sparing you the pain of making your textures seamless. Normal map, height map, ambient occlusion, specular, everything is here, ready to feed any material.

As B2M is actually a substance, it's fully integrated in the 3ds Max UI: just drag&drop the substance node in the slate editor, browse for the B2M file, put your diffuse in input, and voila! Here's video from Allegorithmic that demonstrates this simple workflow:

B2M also comes with a bunch of parameters to tweak your material and obtain the result you need: choose the relief frequencies, adjust the specular, the tiling, cancel lighting, etc. All you need to transform a raw bitmap in a high quality material is here. Of course all these changes are previewed in real time in the Nitrous viewport. :)

I have to admit it's quite an impressive tool and definitely a no brainer for Max users looking to save a lot of precious time with a quick and efficient texturing workflow all directly within 3ds Max.

For more information on how to purchase the B2M substance and other substances, please visit www.allegorithmic.com

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

XTREME hardware for the serious 3ds Max user

Shane Griffith — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 19:00:00 UTC

I had the opportunity to spend last Thursday at BOXX Technologies headquarters in Austin, TX. BOXX builds professional-grade workstations and rendering systems which also happen to be great hardware platforms for 3ds Max, Maya, Revit, and other Autodesk applications. Unlike many other hardware manufacturers, BOXX is also a major reseller of most Autodesk apps, and almost one third of all BOXX workstations are quoted for 3ds Max workflows. During AU2010, I had the good fortune to demonstrate a 3DBOXX 8550 XTREME workstation, and having long admired BOXX creativity and innovation, I eagerly accepted Shoaib Mohammad’s (BOXX VP of Marketing and Business Development) invitation to visit the company, conduct some sales and support training, and test drive some upcoming products.

After a round of presentations for the BOXX top brass and sales crew, I sat down with founder and VP of Engineering Tim Lawrence and demonstrated some 3ds Max projects on the 8550 XTREME—the one BOXX refers to as “the fastest workstation in the world.” It was hard to argue against that. The top of the BOXX line, XTREME features dual Intel Xeon processors (12 cores) running at 4.3 GHz, and four GPUs, provides outstanding performance for 3ds Max, as well as some incredibly fast rendering using iray. Sitting directly on top of the XTREME was the compact BOXX renderPRO (PRO stands for Personal Rendering Option) which is designed to provide dedicated rendering at the user’s desk side. It did just that, quickly and effectively rendering images (in this instance) using mental ray.

I wrapped up my time in BOXXlabs by taking a turn on the innovative 3DBOXX 8500R, a remote access system featuring PCoIP technology by Teradici. The speed and interactivity of the 8500R was truly amazing—impossible to tell that I wasn’t using a desktop workstation. We also discussed some new product ideas (and future prototype hardware) and it was clearly evident that BOXX takes their role as a solution provider very seriously. Their expertise and knowledge of hardware, software, and workflows, was instantly apparent. In fact, all the people at BOXX, where the machines are designed, built, shipped, and supported, are passionate about high performance, and are clearly committed to remaining on the leading edge of innovation.

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

EUE 2011 - Get there!

Shane Griffith — Wed, 25 May 2011 19:14:47 UTC

This is a must-go event for you 3ds Max lovers out there! If you’re in Europe then you really don’t have any excuse not to go. Just the food and drinks alone are worth the price of admission and add to that the world class talent that’s going to be there presenting… you’d be a fool not to attend.

If you don’t know what EUE is all about, it’s a serious learning and networking event for people working in the 3D visualization, Games, Motion Graphics, and VFX industries. Classes are condensed into a two day mind melting experience with plenty of time to chat with the top talent in the biz. Add to that the beautiful Holland summertime and the nostalgic Florin pub and EUE easily makes my top 5 most favorite events to attend. Go to www.enduserevent.com to get more information about the event, program and registration. Note, the classes are NOT recorded or streamed live anywhere. This is more or less a not for profit event that 3DStudio.nl graciously hosts each year and you MUST be there in person to take in all the vast knowledge.

Oh and, if you do make it to EUE be sure to sign up for the super secrete NDA only session that yours truely will be hosting! You’ll get a chance to hear about some cool Animation, Rendering and Data Exchange research we’ve been working on. Our friends at 3DStudio.nl will contact you if you express interest in the NDA-only session or to schedule some 1 on 1's with the Autodesk team (time permitting).

Still not convinced?! Just read below about the presenters that will be there:

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Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Sneak Peek at XBR Graphics in action

Shane Griffith — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:00:00 UTC

Here's a quick look at some of the many things we've been working on behind scenes.

The top priority of the Excalibur (XBR) initiative is to re-architect the viewport system and provide dramatic improvements in performance and visual quality. Some of the possible capabilities include support for unlimited lights, soft shadows, screen-space ambient occlusion, tone-mapping, and higher-quality transparency. You also might notice the progressive refinement of image quality without blocking changes to the scene. To achieve this we've been researching advanced scene management techniques, together with multithreaded viewport scene traversal and material evaluation, the anticipated result is a smoother, more responsive workflow.

Enjoy!

San Francisco Scene File Stats
6.6m polys (15.1m faces)
4587 nodes
2 lights

The screen capture and compression causes the video to stutter a little, but actual interactivity was much smoother than this. An Nvidia FX3800 was used to generate this result (in case you were wondering). However, the viewport technology is not limited to spcific hardware manufacture or make. The main requirements are a DX 10 capable card with a min of 1GB texture memory.

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Happy Holidays from Tractor Media

Shane Griffith — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 18:00:00 UTC

As we head into the holiday break I wanted to share with you an iray animation created by Tractor Media. If you've ever tried to animate a clock before you will appreciate the challenge behind this.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

New Blog - Jamie's Jewels

Shane Griffith — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 18:00:00 UTC

There is a new blog which I thought you’d like to know about. This European blog is created by Jamie Gwilliam of Autodesk. It concentrates on 3ds Max/Design and Design Visualisation in general and covers many of his past email newsletters as an archive. Jamie has also included articles he has produced over the years on image creation. So, although this is a new blog it's certainly packed full of great information already!!

Jamie, based in London, has a background in Industrial Design and Architectural Visualisation as well as experience with working with Games companies.
The blog is called ‘Jamie’s Jewels’ and promises lots of gems of information. Have a look!

http://bit.ly/1jamiesjewels

Studio Lighting Made Easy

Shane Griffith — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 18:00:00 UTC

I just had a chance to check out the Studio Light Rig from A&G Tool Co. It's a great new tool-set that makes studio lighting in Max easy and fun.

It comes with several light types and cyc walls and a simple gui that is easy to understand. It supports both mental ray and Vray renderers and network rendering is free. What I liked about it was how easy it was to get great results quickly. The light types and templates are perfect for product or vehicle renders. I could see this tool working for the entertainment folks or the design visualization groups. The lights also have these nice little imperfections (wrinkles, gradients) that make them ultra-realistic in your reflections.

A&G Tool Co. has also taken the time to set up five scenes with light rigs already set up for you, this creates an almost single step process to setup a scene for high quality output or to tweak to your own needs. They also have some great training that covers some studio lighting basics. Good stuff. A very easy way to enhance your studio renders and should easily pay for itself in time saved on just one project. Big thumbs up.

http://www.agtoolcompany.com/

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Hotfix 4 – 3ds Max 2011 & 3ds Max Design 2011

Shane Griffith — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:00:00 UTC

While I was out of the office last week the team was busy cranking away at releasing another Hotfix patch for the 2011 release. This makes for number 4 for the year so far and our goal is to continue being as responsive as possible to critical customer issues.

HF4 includes the following new fixes and all previously released fixes in the Service Pack 1 and subsequent Hotfix releases. and for the first time we released all supported languages simultaneously!

As always make sure you download the correct installer for the flavor of product you are using:

Hotfix 4 – Autodesk 3ds Max 2011

Hotfix 4 – Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011

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Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Going to AU2010?

Shane Griffith — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 18:00:00 UTC

Are you one of the lucky ones joining us for a week of mind melting training and social networking? Well be sure to check out these classes being presented by the 3ds Max Design team.

Join the revolution: rendering with iray

DV220-3 | Lecture | Tuesday 10:00am - 11:00am | 1-Hour

Primary Speaker: Shane Griffith, Product Manager - 3ds Max

Class Description: Creating life-like images has never been easier with 3ds Max Design, using the newly integrated iray® rendering technology from mental images. Learn how iray enables you to more quickly set up the scene, press “render,” and get predictable, photo-real results without worrying about rendering settings— just like a “point-and-shoot” camera.

Learning Objectives:

Understand the differences between mental ray and iray
What are the benefits of GPU accelerated rendering
Scene limitations with rending in iray
Hardware requirements and system setup
Iray rendering performance optimizations

Co-Speakers: Michael Kaplan

Subscription Class for Media and Entertainment Software Users

SB225-2 | Panel | Tuesday 12:30pm - 2:00pm | 1-Hour

Primary Speakers:

Sarah O'Rourke, Sr. Manager, Marketing Communications
Shane Griffith, Product Manager, Autodesk M&E

Class Description: Come join the Media and Entertainment product management team to discuss what is new for Subscription customers. Come get a sneak peek at the research being conducted around XBR, Rendering Revolution and People Power, and provide direct feedback to the team. Subscription customers who use Autodesk® products for the Media and Entertainment industry are welcome to attend. For quick entry to class, please make sure to wear the Subscription ribbon that you will receive at registration.

Learning Objectives:

Learn what is new for media and entertainment product Subscription customers
Provide feedback to the media and entertainment product management team

Visual Communication Strategy and Research

DV316-2 | Lecture | Wednesday 8:00am - 9:00am | 1-Hour

Primary Speaker: Kenneth Pimentel, Director, Visualization Solutions

Class Description: Learn how Autodesk's Media & Entertainment organization is pushing forward in visual communications and discuss some of the research that is being conducted around Smart Data, Rendering Revolution and People Power.

Learning Objectives:

Learn about "push-button" photo-real rendering
Learn about the simulation of crowds in spaces
Learn about a new way to simulate physics
Learn about advancements in GPU-accelerated solutions
Learn about changes happening in rendering and simulation

Introduction to Creating Autodesk® 3ds Max® Plug-Ins with Microsoft® .NET

DV419-1 | Lecture | Thursday 9:30am - 10:30am | 1-Hour

Primary Speaker: David Cunningham, Software Developer

Class Description: You may have heard of Microsoft .NET, but did you know that you can use this platform to interface with many Autodesk products, including Autodesk 3ds Max? This course will show you how. You will learn about the Microsoft .NET Framework and see how it might be applied to a visualization project. An overview of the platform will be given, along with a discussion of some of the tools required to work with .NET in the context of Autodesk 3ds Max. We will demonstrate a "Hello World" example, and follow that up with two real-world examples. Finally, we will discuss the strengths of .NET and how it can be used in the day-to-day work of a visualization artist.

Learning Objectives:

Learn to develop plug-ins with .NET
Understand .NET framework development tools
Learn about the .NET SDK in Autodesk 3ds Max
Understand the pros and cons of using .NET vs. native plug-in development

AEC Workflow for Autodesk® Design Suite

DV430-1 | Lecture | Thursday 3:00pm - 5:30pm | 2-Hour

Primary Speaker: Guillermo Melantoni, Senior Product Manager

Co-Speakers: Marion Landry

Class Description: Maximize the use of Autodesk Design Suite by learning some best practices around interoperability between AutoCAD®, Autodesk 3ds Max®, Autodesk Showcase®, and Alias® Sketch for AutoCAD.
Expertise Level: Intermediate

Learning Objectives:

Use AutoCAD 3D tools to create conceptual design
Visualize your concept in real time with Showcase and create a compelling presentation of your design
Validate your design using 3ds Max Design with Exposure® technology and shadow analysis
File link your DWG and create stunning animation and photorealistic rendering using 3ds Max Design
Composite your photomontage and use sketching tools with Alias Sketch for AutoCAD

Color Management and Linear Color Workflow

DV327-2 | Lecture | Wednesday 1:30pm - 4:00pm | 2-Hour

Primary Speaker: Pierre-Felix Breton, Product Designer

Class Description: Ever struggled with color management, gamma settings and color profiles? The first part of the class is for you. An overview of the techniques and limitations around color management and calibration will be provided. You will learn how to deal with the problem of capturing textures properly, load them in Autodesk® 3ds Max® appropriately and render out images with the correct color settings. The second part of the class will demonstrate how a linear color workflow can bring flexibility in image compositing software. We will explore how HDR imaging can be used to change lighting scenarios in real time and how render elements can be leveraged for controlling objects reflectivity, indirect lighting, and image exposure. This class applies to V-Ray™ users as well as mental ray® users, Adobe® Photoshop® (32bit), and Autodesk Composite users.

Learning Objectives:

Understand color management
Understand how to correctly use gamma settings in Autodesk 3ds Max
See how linear color space can be leveraged in compositing
Understand how to maintain color consistency between Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk 3ds Max
Get better results because of all the above

Can't attend AU 2010 in person? Register for Free!

AU Virtual Standard passes are free to everyone. Get access to 30 expert-led virtual training classes and product clinics with live interactive Q&A. Enjoy a wealth of other content including insider interviews from the Las Vegas conference, roundtable discussions, real-time viewing of keynotes, industry news, interviews, and more.

Oh and here's a little teaser of what I have been working on for my class. Yes the class will be about more than cars, please attend.

The extreme rendering performance is powered by a BOXX 8550 w/ Dual Xeon 5600 6-Core, 24GB RAM, Quadro 5000 + 3x Tesla 2050s
Click the screen capture for a video of the rendering in action!

total render time less than 1 minute for each layer.
Model courtesy of aXYZ Design, see the 3ds Max/Design Samples disk for more and a 20% off promo.
Lighting setup courtesy of Jeff Patton

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

What is GPU-based rendering?

Shane Griffith — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 19:00:00 UTC

Recently, there has been a lot of development around the use of GPUs for accelerating the production of rendered images (either photorealism or non-photorealism). There are two basic approaches to using the GPU to accelerate rendering. One approach takes advantage of the GPU’s ability to process triangles, lighting, and pixel-shading techniques as used in games, DirectX, and OpenGL. In 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design 2011, you have access to the new Quicksilver renderer that takes advantage of this technique. The other approach to using the GPU is to have it calculate how light interacts with matter and create an image by tracing the path of photons into the scene in a physically correct manner. The GPU acts as a massive supercomputer to process the scene and deliver a photoreal result. Subscription users of 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design 2011 can now download the new iray renderer from mental images that uses this technique. There are many other third-parties that are pursuing these GPU-accelerated approaches for 3ds Max. The Chaos Group, for instance, has recently made available a beta of VrayRT for GPUs that leverages some of the same tricks as iray. Unlike the regular VrayRT (which only uses the CPU), VrayRT for GPUs takes advantage of your GPU and not your CPU. In the video below Richard Kerris, CTO, ILM, discusses how GPUs enabled the creation of breakthrough visual effects in the films "Harry Potter" and "The Last Air Bender".

Try out these new rendering technologies and enter the worldwide Autodesk Rendering Revolution contest before October 31 for a chance to win a trip for two to AU and other great prizes.

The making of "The Last Airbender" by Industrial Light and Magic

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Fun with iray and PhysX

Shane Griffith — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 19:00:00 UTC

Our friends at Delta Tracing shared with me some of their early test results while playing with the new Subscription Advantage Pack for 3ds Max Design 2011.

These early tests were just quick itterations to get a better feal for the lighting and composition. Average render time was 2-5 minutes using a single machine configured with a with a Quadro 5000 and a Tesla C2050.

Next they let it run a bit longer for a 10 minute test to get a sense of the final look.

and last the 3000px X 3000px final, rendered in 4hrs 40min!

In a couple weeks Dionissios tells me they will double this GPU confing on a single machine and send me the new test results.

Amazing work! Everything seems so real and the lighting detials look fantastic!!

UPDATE: New High Res Images from Delta Tracing

All images courtesy of Delta Tracing Srl

www.deltatracing.com - info@deltatracing.com

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

The iray FAQ

Shane Griffith — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:00:00 UTC

The Autodesk® Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2011 & Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design 2011 software integrates the latest state-of-the-art technology from NVIDIA and Mental Images who are working with Autodesk to revolutionize rendering and simulation workflows. This exclusive Autodesk Subscription only release features one of the world’s first physically accurate “point-and-shoot” renderers, the iray® rendering technology from mental images. Creating realistic images has never been easier with 3ds Max, using iray eliminates the need to spend countless hours tweaking sample settings and other tedious render settings. Unfortunately for a few of you this means fewer coffee breaks, but at least there’s no more need to do the magic numbers dance each click of the render button. The workflow is now simplified to the point where you feel like you are rendering with a digital camera. You can now spend your valuable time focusing on shot composition and more creative aspects of creating the imagery rather than tweaking some settings, clicking render, go get coffee, chat with your cubicle neighbor, drink more coffee, “oh crap got it wrong”, tweak some more settings, click render, go get coffee, chat with your co-worker, drink coffee again, “oh crap..”, repeat until time to go home….

However, with this new dawn of GPU accelerated processing comes a whole new set of technical knowhow and hardware understanding. As some might have already experienced results can certainly vary machine config to machine config. This makes it difficult for us to provide more general best practices, but what I have gathered here is a list of common questions that have been raised so far today. If you have additional questions please feel free to drop a comment at the bottom as we plan to take all this information and create a more formal FAQ to be placed on the
3ds Max product center page.

iray FAQ

Does 3ds Max use both CPU & GPU hardware while rendering with iray?

Yes – iray uses all the CPUs and CUDA-capable GPUs it finds within your system simultaneously.

What graphics hardware is required to use iray’s GPU acceleration?

The iray renderer within the Subscription Advantage Pack for 3ds Max 2011 takes advantage of the NVIDIA CUDA architecture and gains considerable acceleration from any CUDA-capable NVIDIA GPU. This allows iray to gain acceleration from over 250million GPUs shipped over the past 4 years.

What are the performance differences for iray between NVIDIA’s GeForce, Quadro, and Tesla products in 3ds Max?

NVIDIA GPUs vary in their compute performance according to the number of CUDA cores they have, the GPU’s clock speed, and the GPU’s architecture. The GPU brand will not impact iray performance beyond these characteristics. Put into formulae, GPU ray tracing performance looks like this:

(CUDA Cores#) x (Clock Speed) x (GPU Architecture) = Relative Performance.

This means that for a given GPU architecture and clock speed, iray performance will scale linearly with the number of CUDA cores present on the GPU, and for a given architecture and core count iray will scale linearly with clock speed. The GPU family (Quadro, Tesla or GeForce) does not have additional influence on how iray uses it.

Note, an exhaustive list of GPU characteristics can be found here

What are the advantages of Quadro and Telsa boards over GeForce cards?

At a high level, GeForce products are designed for the ultimate gaming performance, Tesla is designed for the best compute performance and capabilities, and Quadro is a superset of both the best in graphics and compute. While each GPU family has different features, for GPU ray tracing the primary difference is in reliability and maximum scene size. NVIDIA oversees the manufacturing of its professional products (Quadro and Tesla), ensuring each product is available for three years and warranted for three years. Consumer products (GeForce) are manufactured by numerous companies and have much less availability and warranty. NVIDIA’s professional products may have slower clock rates than their comparable consumer products to fit within the power constraints and reliability needs of workstations and server rooms. Quadro and Tesla products also offer much more memory than GeForce products, allowing far larger 3ds Max scenes to be accelerated by the GPU. NVIDIA only warranties Tesla and Quadro products for running in a server room environment, where non-stop computing is typical – as with a dedicated render farm.

While it’s much more affordable to outfit your workstation with a GeForce card, in the long term you may have to replace that hardware more frequently and there might be risk of a major meltdown if you don't take extra precautions. With iray renderings you will be putting the hardware under unusually long strains that the card is not equipped to handle.

Do I need an SLI certified motherboard to use multiple GPUs for iray rendering?

No – SLI is not needed to use multiple GPUs for iray. Iray will use whatever GPUs it sees within the system, regardless of whether the motherboard is SLI certified or the boards are placed in SLI mode.

What NVIDIA Driver settings should I make to ensure iray runs as well as possible?

For best iray performance, please ensure the following are set within the NVIDIA Control Panel:
- SLI should be OFF (for multi-GPU systems)
- ECC should be OFF (for Quadro and Tesla GPUs based on “Fermi”)
- PhysX should be set to CPU

Do NVIDIA GPUs support Direct3D and OpenGL in 3ds Max?

Both GeForce and Quadro boards support Direct3D and OpenGL, although the drivers may behave somewhat differently as GeForce drivers are tuned for Games performance while Quadro drivers are tuned for Tools performance. Direct3D is the most feature rich graphics API for 3ds Max, and Quadro products include a 3ds Max Performance Driver for additional performance when using Direct3D. In contrast, Tesla boards have minimal graphics API support and are not recommended for driving graphics applications. Tesla products based on the Fermi architecture have DVI ports, but this is solely to make it easy to load the NVIDIA driver (earlier Tesla products had no video out).

What NVIDIA GPU rendering options are available for data centers?

NVIDIA’s Tesla products are designed for server rooms, with the “M” (Module) series being add-in boards for 1u systems which provide their own active cooling. Solutions vendors can be found here. NVIDIA also provides some “S” (Server) solutions that are 1u systems that connect to a CPU unit via a PIC Express cable. The S2050 (Fermi class) is the latest product here, but it’s also likely the last, as NVIDIA has found third parties are better equipped to provide such solutions from Tesla M class products.

Can I setup data center GPUs for use with workstations.

No. Tesla M products are passively cooled and do not include fans, so they will not operate in a PC or workstation. Conversely, there’s no issue using Tesla C products (which are actively cooled with their own fans) in a dedicated server.

What is RealityServer and is it required for data center rendering?

RealityServer is a platform product for Web developers to create server-based applications that employ 3D Web services that enable Web clients to interact with 3D data remotely. RealityServer provides numerous rendering modes for processing server-side data, with its iray mode being compatible with the iray renderer within 3ds Max. This commonality allows a RealityServer application to accept 3ds Max scenes (prepared for iray) and deliver a result that is identical to what a 3ds Max session renders. While RealityServer provides a unique and powerful option for processing 3ds Max content remotely, it is in no way required for 3ds Max users to render with iray across their LAN using Autodesk Backburner.

I’m using just one NVIDIA graphics board – can it be used for iray as well as my viewport graphics?

Yes. The same GPU powering 3ds Max can also be used to accelerate iray. When this is done, you may find your Windows GUI interaction is sluggish while iray is rendering.

What options are available for NVIDIA multi-GPUs and 3ds Max?

Iray will automatically take advantage of all CUDA-capable GPUs within the system – as it does with CPUs. Iray will run well on all classes of NVIDIA GPUs – GeForce, Quadro, and Tesla.

How does the performance scale with NVIDIA multi-GPU cards (are two cards twice as fast as one)?

Performance for iray should scale nearly linearly between the same GPUs – as it is across CPUs.

Does NVIDIA GPU cards accelerate Distributed Bucket Rendering (DBR) or support parallel rendering in 3ds Max?

No. iray is not currently compatible with DBR within 3ds Max.

Will iray work with 3ds Max BackBurner network rendering?

Yes - GPUs on networked machines will be used in the same way that CPUs are when called upon to render individual frames.

How do I enable GPU rendering in 3ds Max?

Iray automatically leverages any CUDA-capable GPU it finds within the system, along with any CPU. There is no user interface for enabling this (or tuning it off) – it just happens.

What are the performance differences with 3ds Max CPU rendering verses iray GPU rendering?

This will vary between the GPUs and CPUs being compared, but between newly purchased, top-end processors, a Tesla GPU is rougly +6X faster than a single quad core CPU.

How can I tell how much performance I’m getting from either the CPU or GPU if iray is always using both?

3ds Max 2011 doesn’t provide a user interface for controlling how iray uses CPUs and/or GPUs. There are MaxScript commands that can be used to control which processers are used. Just enter these lines in the MaxScript Listener to control what processors iray uses:

mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray devices" "0 1"

Controls what GPUs iray will use. The last string states which GPU is in use with “” meaning none, “0” being the display device, “1” being just the secondary GPU, “0 1” being both GPUs, and so on.

mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray threads" 4

Controls how many CPU threads iray will use. The last string determines the number, with 0 not using the CPU at all and 4 being typical for a quad-core. To set iray to use all available CPU threads enter:

mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray threads" sysinfo.cpucount

*Be careful note to set “iray devices” to “” and “iray threads” at the same time because there will be nothing for iray to use when you render.

For example:
Use only the CPU:
mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray threads" sysinfo.cpucount mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray devices" ""

Use only the GPU (when you have 2):
mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray threads" 0 mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray devices" "0 1"

Use both CPU and GPU (when you have 2):
mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray threads" sysinfo.cpucount mental_ray_string_options.addoption "iray devices" "0 1"

or you can just try this tool

How much GPU memory is needed for 3ds Max iray rendering?

The entire scene must fit into GPU graphics memory in order for iray to take advantage of GPU acceleration. If the scene does not fit unto into a GPU’s memory, that GPU is ignored and all processing takes place on the CPU and in RAM and run much more slowly. If the scene exceeds RAM, then iray will use virtual memory and run more slowly yet. For estimating memory usage, budget about 1 GB per 8 million triangles, to which you must also add 3 bytes/pixel for any referenced bitmaps.

Do NVIDIA GPU cards also use system memory for iray rendering?

3ds Max uses system memory for processing the scene, and iray uses it for utilizing the CPU. When iray is rendering, the CPU and GPU will be consuming a similar amount of memory in graphics and system memory (respectively).

If I have three NVIDIA cards in my workstation that each have 1GB of video memory can I render scenes that use up to 3GB of memory?

The entire scene must fit entirely into GPU memory on each GPU in order to use that GPU for processing. In this example, the maximum scene size is 1GB, and scenes over 1GB would be rendering exclusively on the CPU.

What if I render a 2GB scene and have one GPU that has 1GB and another that has 3GB?

In this case, iray will ignore the 1GB GPU and only utilize the 3GB GPU (along with the CPUs)

Do NVIDIA GPU cards support ECC memory?

Yes, the latest Quadro and Tesla “Fermi” generation boards support ECC, but using it will not increase accuracy or performance for iray. It is recommended that ECC is always turned OFF when rendering with iray.

How can I view my NVIDIA GPU load and GPU memory usage?

There are third party utilities for this such as: http://www.evga.com/precision/ and GPU-Z www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

What companies offer NVIDIA Tesla or Quadro configured workstations?

Most vendors have preconfigured options, including HP, Dell, Lenovo, PNY, BOXX, etc.
For Quadro solutions see: http://www.nvidia.com/object/workstation_wheretobuy.html
For Tesla solutions see: http://www.nvidia.com/object/tesla_wtb.html

Can I build my own multi-Tesla computer?

Yes. Telsa “C” (card) products are similar to standard graphics boards and are easy to add to standard PC’s. Tesla “M” (module) products are designed for 1u heights in rack mounted systems that provide their own cooling. A motherboard layout for accommodating the number of full length boards you wish to include, and an adequate power supply for powering them, will be two of your primary design choices.

Can I mix Quadro, Telsa and GeForce boards? If so, what driver do I use?

Yes. For drivers, you should load the one driving your Windows display.

Can I mix GPUs of different generations and memory size?

Yes, iray supports the use of different generation GPUs.

What do you recommend for optimal iray performance?

For workstations, a Quadro graphics board and as many Tesla “C” boards as can fit in the box will give you the most reliable, high performance blend of interactive graphics and GPU ray tracing performance while also accommodating the largest possible scenes.

For dedicated render servers, the Tesla “C” or “M” products deliver the most reliable, high performance for GPU ray tracing. Quadro products can be used here too, but will not provide added benefit over Tesla unless they are also serving Direct3D or OpenGL graphics in applications other than iray rendering. GeForce products are not warranted for data center use.

For portable rendering, there will soon be laptops with mobile GPUs based on the Fermi architecture that will provide very reasonable performance (the equivalent of several quad-core CPUs). Because NVIDIA never made a GT200 mobile part, these new laptops will be many times faster than any laptop from earlier this summer.

When building a system for iray performance, is it best to add an additional CPU or GPU?

Given that a new GPU is worth numerous quad-core CPUs, it’s far more cost effective to add an additional GPU rather than a CPU for increasing iray rendering speed.

How much slower does iray run when my scene exceeds graphics memory?

When your processed scene size exceeds the memory on your GPU, iray automatically switches to only using the CPU, and will run at the speed your CPU(s) can process.

How much slower is a GPU placed in Gen1 x8 PCI Express slots versus in a Gen2 x16 PCI Express slot?

For operations that are constantly updated, like viewport interactive graphics, Gen1 is much slower than Gen 2. For compute-intensive operations that keep the GPU very busy before sending its results across the bus there is nearly no difference between the two PCIX types. In the case of iray and GPU ray tracing, you might see a GPU render faster on a Gen2 slot when the scene is very simple, but nearly no difference on a Gen1 slot when the scene is reasonably complex.

Can a render farm mix the use of GPUs and CPUs – some using only CPUs, some with GPUs?

Yes. Iray delivers the exact same result on GPUs and CPUs and so can be used in highly heterogeneous GPU & CPU environments.

Can a render farm mix GPU generations? e.g., some using Quadro FX 5800 (GT200 generation) and others using Quadro 6000’s (GF100 generation)

Yes. Iray delivers the exact same result across GPU generations, and can be used in farms having different GPU generations.

Does iray render depth of field and motion blur effects?

Yes - iray can render depth of field effects
No - iray does not render motion blur effects at this time

Can I render animation sequences with iray?

Yes. you can set iray to render the same number of iterations per frame that will create predictive results frame to frame. You can also specify time spent rendering per frame if you need to get results within a fixed time period. For example: if you have a 2 minute animation sequence to render overnight (12 hours), then you can set iray to render 12 seconds per frame. If you use BackBurner to distribute the frames across several machines you can then increase the time per frame to get better results.

Autodesk Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design 2011 Help

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Wow that was a lot more than even I thought I could hammer out!! Truth is I had a lot of help ;) but now that I've become the encyclopedia for GPUs and iray please ask away. If I don't know the answer then I’ll try to get one of the real experts to help us out.

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Rendering Revolution Contest

Shane Griffith — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:00:00 UTC

Check out the Rendering Revolution Contest sponsored by Autodesk, CGarchitect, and NVIDIA, the contest promotes the new GPU-based rendering capabilities in 3ds Max/3ds Max Design 2011 and celebrates the 20th Anniversary of 3ds Max by requiring entrants to submit an architectural rendering that creatively incorporates the 3ds Max 20th Anniversary logo. Prizes include a trip to AU 2010 for two, a copy of the Autodesk Design Suite Premium, and NVIDIA Quadro cards.

Rendering Revolution Competition Site

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

New 3ds Max 2011 Training

Shane Griffith — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 19:00:00 UTC

Eat3d has just released a new training DVD on 3ds Max 2011. It includes techniques on animation, lighting/rendering, character/muscle rigging, node based materials and much more. The focus is on using these tools in a production environment. Check out the short preview on their site for more detials!

http://eat3d.com/3dsmax2011

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Project Helix Update

Shane Griffith — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:00:00 UTC

The internal name for the point cloud tool for 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design is Project Helix.

Yesterday the Autodesk Labs Team posted an updated installer for the Point Cloud Tool for 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design.

Based on your feedback to labs.3dsmax.pointcloud@autodesk.com, this update fixes the following issues:

Reloading a saved .max file with a point cloud does not refresh/load the source cloud data. The user had to manually reload the ptsb file on each file open.
Render LOD -> Custom LOD does not work. It would render at Level of Detail setting.
Render with Additive Volume resulted in mental ray warnings and errors, but the render would still complete.
When Use Display Volumes is unchecked, point clouds would still render with assigned Volumes.
After multiple Display Volumes are deleted, point clouds would occasionally still render with previously assigned volumes.
Render Color -> Use Display Color didn't work.

In addition, the following changes are part of this update.

Animated parameters are not respected by the renderer when rendering frame sequences.
All properties were made non-animatable except LOD.
Color Leaves do not seem to work.
This is no longer supported. Color Leaves have been removed from the UI.
PTS to PTSB Converter Utility, Batch functionality not supported by BackBurner 2011.
This too is no longer supported. It has been removed from the UI.
PTS to PTSB Converter Utility, Batch functionality does not work for on a Vista nor Windows7 machine. "Process cannot be added to job group" error prevents successful job completion.
This is no longer supported. It has been removed from the UI.

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Hot Fix 2 for 3ds Max 2011 and 3ds Max Design 2011

Shane Griffith — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:00:00 UTC

Hopefully the multiple updates are working for everyone, the feedback we have been getting is showing that you like it so please let us know if this strategy is not working for you. The HF2 update has a number of important fixes for CAT script errors, scaling bipeds, fbx importing of Revit data, jumpy viewport issues, and is localized in all languages.

If you have installed HF1 then you can simply install this on top of that, no need to uninstall. If you did not install HF1 then HF2 also includes all the previous fixes contrined in HF1, no need to install both.

Below is the list of fixes contained in HF2, as always make sure you download the correct version of teh HF for the flavor of 3ds Max that you are using.

Autodesk 3ds Max 2011
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15475206&linkID=9241178

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=15471410&linkID=10381720

Resolved Issues in this Hot Fix

Feature	Resolved Issue
Autodesk^® 3ds Max^® CAT	When enabling the Transform Type-In checkbox in the Load Limb Pose dialog and clicking the Reset Transforms button a MAXScript error occurred. This has been fixed.
Autodesk^® FBX^®	FBX files from Autodesk^® Revit^® with RPC content loaded as empty scenes; all of the content now loads correctly. * An empty scene was created when loading RPC assets from Autodesk^® Revit^® through FBX. An empty scene is no longer loaded. * When using Autodesk Revit 2011, FBX texture maps were using GUID labels for naming texture maps; texture maps now use their appropriate file names.
Autodesk^® Materials	* A program error occurred if the Autodesk Materials were uninstalled and Autosave or Save was used. The error no longer occurs and the files are saved correctly. * Autodesk Materials presets failed to load correctly on operating systems that used commas to define decimals; these presets now load correctly in this environment.
Biped	When loading a Biped BIP file, Xtra bones would not scale properly. The Xtra bones now scale properly.
Help	* The "Download Vegetation" link in the Help menu now loads the proper page.
Lights	* When importing IES lights their orientation would rotate, this rotation no longer occurs.
mental ray^®	* When using mental ray proxies and setting mental ray to use BSP2 when rendering to a sequence, some of the memory was not released . This has been fixed. * When setting mental ray to use BSP2 in 64-bit versions of 3ds Max, speckled artifacts could appear when rendering; these artifacts no longer occur.
Optimize Modifier	In 3ds Max Design 2011, when applying any modifier after applying the Optimize modifier, the modifier display was not correct and 3ds Max Design 2011 would stop working. Modifiers now work correctly when applied after the Optimize modifier.
Performance	* The program error on start-up when using sixteen or more CPU cores has been fixed; also, all cores are now used.
Quicksilver	Mesh corruption no longer causes corruption when rendering more that 100 frames. Some geometry was reversed and would render black because cullmode was not restored properly after rendering double-sided materials. This issue is now resolved.
Slate Material Editor	* When minimizing the Slate Material Editor, the keyboard kept selection focus with the result that the Delete key wouldn’t work; this has been corrected.
Viewport	Gamma: When using the DirectX display driver with Gamma and Exposure Control, banding could result in the viewport. This issue is resolved. Gamma: Various refresh problems in wireframe mode have been resolved. Gamma: When locking and then unlocking the computer, Gamma would be disabled. This no longer occurs. Gamma: Enabling Snap modes with Gamma turned on caused ghosting and other viewport artifacts; this no longer occurs. When the viewport was maximized the Active viewport hot keys would not work. This is resolved. SteeringWheels^® & ViewCube^®: These navigation tools would flicker. This problem has been resolved.
* Denotes fixes from previous hot fix: Autodesk 3ds Max 2011 / Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011-2010.06.07 Hot Fix.

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Wear your 3ds Max Apparel to Siggraph!

Shane Griffith — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:00:00 UTC

To honor the 20th anniversary of 3ds Max, we will be giving out 3ds Max 20th anniversary t-shirts in the Autodesk booth, #500 South Hall at Siggraph. In order to be eligible to get the 20th anniversary t-shirt, you must be wearing an 3ds Max shirt, sweater, hat, pin, scarf or whatever you can dig out of your closet. Just make sure it’s a 3ds Max item – or features the 3ds Max logo. Yes including one of the many variants, the older the better ;)

Don’t have any old 3ds Max gear? No Problem! Make it yourself, and you will be eligible to get a new 20th anniversary 3ds Max t-shirt.

Lastly, you should be aware that we only have 1500 t-shirts to give away, so make sure you show up early! First come, first serve, no matter how much old 3ds Max clothing you have!

See you all there!

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Maskarad

Shane Griffith — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:00:00 UTC

Di-O-Matic.com the makers of Voice-O-Matic, Morph-O-Matic, and other great lip syncing plugins for 3ds Max has recently annouced a new tool for capturing facial animation without even using motion capture markers. I haven't personally used the tool yet but a quick scan of the intro videos has me wanting to get my hands on it asap.

Shane Griffith
Product Manager - 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design
Media and Entertainment Division
Autodesk, Inc

Taking it to the Max!

Register Now – Live Webinar on iray in 3ds Max

Register Now >

3ds Max 2012 Service Pack 2 is now available

Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 Service Pack 2

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2012 Service Pack 2

What's Fixed?

B2M from Allegorithmic

XTREME hardware for the serious 3ds Max user

EUE 2011 - Get there!

Sneak Peek at XBR Graphics in action

Happy Holidays from Tractor Media

New Blog - Jamie's Jewels

Studio Lighting Made Easy

Hotfix 4 – 3ds Max 2011 & 3ds Max Design 2011

Hotfix 4 – Autodesk 3ds Max 2011

Hotfix 4 – Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011

Going to AU2010?

Join the revolution: rendering with iray

DV220-3 | Lecture | Tuesday 10:00am - 11:00am | 1-Hour

Subscription Class for Media and Entertainment Software Users

SB225-2 | Panel | Tuesday 12:30pm - 2:00pm | 1-Hour

Visual Communication Strategy and Research

DV316-2 | Lecture | Wednesday 8:00am - 9:00am | 1-Hour

Introduction to Creating Autodesk® 3ds Max® Plug-Ins with Microsoft® .NET

DV419-1 | Lecture | Thursday 9:30am - 10:30am | 1-Hour

AEC Workflow for Autodesk® Design Suite

DV430-1 | Lecture | Thursday 3:00pm - 5:30pm | 2-Hour

Color Management and Linear Color Workflow

DV327-2 | Lecture | Wednesday 1:30pm - 4:00pm | 2-Hour

What is GPU-based rendering?

Fun with iray and PhysX

The iray FAQ

iray FAQ

Autodesk Subscription Advantage Pack for Autodesk 3ds Max & 3ds Max Design 2011 Help

Rendering Revolution Contest

New 3ds Max 2011 Training

Project Helix Update

Hot Fix 2 for 3ds Max 2011 and 3ds Max Design 2011

Resolved Issues in this Hot Fix

Feature

Resolved Issue

Wear your 3ds Max Apparel to Siggraph!

Maskarad