No surprise, but Autodesk has been rather vague about the difference between the two.  Probably in an effort to dodge people like myself.

The quick nutshell question… Is there a noticeable difference or loss of features in comparison between 3dsmax and 3dsmax Design?

The reason I ask… when I was charged with deciding what software our company was going to migrate too 4 years ago, I leaned heavily in the direction of Max, due to it’s ability to dabble in many industries and having tools from those industries that made doing Visual Effects work that much easier.  In particular my wife could draw up building in cad, and I could use some of the architecture related tools to do some nice set extension work on projects that called for it.

However, I see now that it looks like they’re breaking those very tools off of the package.  Is that the case?  Do I need to purchase 2 version of max?  Should I just ditch max before Autodesk makes it prohibitively expensive to keep buying upgrades that don’t offer any features? (which is a whole other issue)

I ask this here, because the sales people I’ve asked can’t give me an answer the question, and autodesk itself seems to be impossible to actually reach

Max 2009 has the SDK, Design doesn’t.
Design has the Lighting Analysis, Max 2009 doesn’t.
That’s it - those are the only real differences between the two.

All other differences are in the area of the default settings which are different out-of-the-box. However, by using Customise > Custom UI and Defaults Switcher you can turn Standard into Design or Design into Standard at will.

What will happen to the two products in the future is a different matter - one that has been discussed many times here since the release of 2009.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

i think they should have just stuck with with 1 version like they did in the past

drp281 15 August 2008 01:17 PM

i think they should have just stuck with with 1 version like they did in the past

The latest numbers I heard at Siggraph speak otherwise.
The idea behind this rather strange decision went like this.
Imagine you work on 3D design or architectural visualization. You are the guy who uses the software, but not the guy who buys it. The decision maker is usually your boss who has zero idea about the 3D industry, but has the money. You go to him and say `Boss, we should use 3ds Max in our company`. Boss looks at you and says ``But I heard it was good only for games. Why should I pay for a game development product?”
With 3ds Max Design, this situation is different. Your boss looks at you and says “Ah, so this application was designed to do LEED certification and exchange data with Revit? Now this is something we really need!” He does not have to know what “binary compatible” means ;)

Granted, this is a total simplification, but it seems to reflect the ignorance of some people out there quite a bit. Design seems to be selling like hot buns and while we used to say “Max has 300K users”, the current expression appears to be “half a million”. I don’t have the exact numbers, but it is growing really fast since the “split”.

Borislav “Bobo” Petrov

i agree with that

Borislav Petrov 15 August 2008 01:54 PM

Granted, this is a total simplification, but it seems to reflect the ignorance of some people out there quite a bit. Design seems to be selling like hot buns and while we used to say “Max has 300K users”, the current expression appears to be “half a million”. I don’t have the exact numbers, but it is growing really fast since the “split”.

Don’t forget that Autodesk Viz is discontinued, and many Viz users had no choice but to become Max users.

3DS Max Design 2011 64-bit - Advantage Pack
Dell Precision T5500, Dual Six Core Xeon X5650 @ 2.67GHz, nVidia Quadro 5000, 24 GB RAM, Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit
Minneapolis, MN, USA

I completely understand Borislav’s point.  I’ve enjoyed the oddity of impression over utility for years.  It’s makes most clients heads spin when you try to explain to them that it’s much cheaper and faster to hire 2 or even 3 skilled desktop compositors instead of a Flame for the same job.  But they don’t’ want to hear it.

As long as the realistic lighting models are still available to me in the non design version I’ll be happy, but I’m getting the impression that that’s not the case.

But I will admit that I’m happy to hear that it’s boosted the sales of Max, hopefully that will help to drive it’s development more and keep it a standard for a long time.

David Lombardi 15 August 2008 03:26 PM

But I will admit that I’m happy to hear that it’s boosted the sales of Max, hopefully that will help to drive it’s development more and keep it a standard for a long time.

Unfortunately, I have now lost about evrery little piece of hope I had about 3dsmax development. I’ve undestood that the money you put in max goes to autodesk’s Shareholders, not into development. (I just hope I’m wrong, lol)

I can see your point bobo but really, split the software like that just isn’t right, was that so difficult to just have a good presentation of the product insisting on the different areas it is used in with success? And also, 3dsmax hasnt any real challenger for viz work, so what’s the point?

The change in the release date and the really “no new features releases” we had for max 2009 feels like Autodesk doesn’t care at all about their customers, just money. And for me the worst thing about that software is that it is twice as expensive in europe, wich is about as absurd as the new release date.

My big fear here was just touched on.  A long time ago, Autocad was a single product.  and as autodesk will say, they made multiple (and I do mean MULTIPLE) versions for different sub categories to help their customers.  However some users needed to now buy several now and didn’t see it as helpful.

Ever since Autodesk purchased Max, I’ve seen a disturbing trend.  Come out with a new update every year, charge a lot for it, and no real new features added.  My facility was at version 8 and we couldn’t find a good reason to upgrade even to 2009 (3 versions up) other then the 64-bit option which had been there since 9.  Everything else has been bug fixes and I stress this… Minor UI improvements.  And as it is now, a single year upgrade is over $700, and if you’re 2 years behind, it’s full price.  Combustions upgrade charge was recently bumped up to $395 nearly half the cost of a new license (not sure what it is today) for a single color correction tool… that’s it

I’m scared that they’re going to take a tool that I rely on to make a living and just bust it apart for the sake of getting as much money from me as possible.

i remember the differences between max and viz. so my question is, in design are there bones, bipeds, particles, video post (which i thought should have been in viz for the alpha composite, or even a quick n simple starfield) and the other object/tools geared toward film/video/gaming that were never present in viz? if they are all there, why have two versions, i understand branding, hell 3ds max was put under Kinetics originally which kept people from associating it with autodesk, why not just change its name. actually my fantasy is for all the good stuff from max and maya get taken and blended into a new ‘one program to rule them all’ program. lol a boy can dream can’t he lol

xiong - Do you not bother reading the previous replies before posting?

Steve Curley 15 August 2008 07:45 AM

Max 2009 has the SDK, Design doesn’t.
Design has the Lighting Analysis, Max 2009 doesn’t.
That’s it - those are the only real differences between the two.

All other differences are in the area of the default settings which are different out-of-the-box. However, by using Customise > Custom UI and Defaults Switcher you can turn Standard into Design or Design into Standard at will.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.