I’m not using 3dsmax 2009 yet, because of:
- To many new bugs (Network rendering)
- Just 1-2 useful functions
- recompile of plugins (.net) and yet I’m still waiting for some
- Performance disimproved.

Well, this makes it all hard for me. I would like to see a good 64bit 3D Application and at least a company that listen to it’s costumers instead of ignoring them since years… Less arrogant product managers etc. So why should I be happy?
Just look to the features other 3D Software gets every update, plus bug fixing:
- Muscle animation tool, Water simulation, Speed improvements, Model improvement, Displacement painting, Render improvements....
You know what 3dsmax 2008 & 2009 brought: Scene Explorer and well nothing I can remember…

Well it’s now 12 years that I’m using this Software and I’m getting sick of it!
Ok, there is still nothing that can beat 3dsmax at the moment, but that’s what bother me most.
I want a program that runs on a fast OS (not Windows), don’t connect to the internet, work stable and has all the features I want.
So, 3dsmax has simple 2 of them that no other package has: Splines and Modifiers!
Everything would be fine if Autodesk would use the money we spend for improving 3dsmax instead of using it to become a monopolist. Once 3dsmax had a 60% market… now it’s about 35%, but with Maya Autodesk now has almost 80% or more. This only shows how they lost nearly half of the market just because they didn’t improved the tool!

Robert,
I would challenge that you have any data to back up your market share statements. Clearly, that is just your opinion. Since I do have the data, I can tell you that what you’re saying is wrong. 3ds Max has grown market share ever since we purchased Maya. We sell more seats, get more revenue and have much higher growth rates. We took that growth and doubled the dev team. That happened during 3ds Max 2009. There are a ton of features in 3ds Max 2009 and most users find it more stable. Those are the facts, if that matters.

I’m sorry we didn’t build the features you specifically want.  I hope you’ll be patient and see that patience rewarded. I’m sure your frustration is just because you feel a lot of passion for this product and you only want it to get better. While we disagree on many things, I think we both agree on this. Thanks for the feedback.

robert_le - 14 May 2008 04:06 AM

I’m not using 3dsmax 2009 yet, because of:
Well, this makes it all hard for me. I would like to see a good 64bit 3D Application and at least a company that listen to it’s costumers instead of ignoring them since years… Less arrogant product managers etc. So why should I be happy?
Just look to the features other 3D Software gets every update, plus bug fixing:
- Muscle animation tool, Water simulation, Speed improvements, Model improvement, Displacement painting, Render improvements....
You know what 3dsmax 2008 & 2009 brought: Scene Explorer and well nothing I can remember…

Well it’s now 12 years that I’m using this Software and I’m getting sick of it!
Ok, there is still nothing that can beat 3dsmax at the moment, but that’s what bother me most.
I want a program that runs on a fast OS (not Windows), don’t connect to the internet, work stable and has all the features I want.
So, 3dsmax has simple 2 of them that no other package has: Splines and Modifiers!
Everything would be fine if Autodesk would use the money we spend for improving 3dsmax instead of using it to become a monopolist. Once 3dsmax had a 60% market… now it’s about 35%, but with Maya Autodesk now has almost 80% or more. This only shows how they lost nearly half of the market just because they didn’t improved the tool!

I personally appreciate someone who knows, from Autodesk, chiming in here.  This could have become a complaint fest, which in not constructive for anyone.  I think you’ll find very few hard core users in this forum so you’ll be getting the opinions from people with little experience influencing other new users.

I have to chime in here as I have been part of the complaint department lately. Let me start this by saying I have used max since version 4 and now just got my Subscription Edition of max 2009 but have not installed it yet. I also want to say that there are so many things that make Max great. So here is what I would like to share.

I have just purchased XSI Foundation as I have stated over and over that I would (was too scared to actually commit to it at first). So far I am totally enjoying learning this program. The one thing that I find myself drawn to is how solid and clean the interface is. I mean right down to the wire frame display. In max I feel the display, UI and wire frame looks fragile, if that makes any sense. Here is my point..... I think max needs to fix its UI from the ground up. Just focus on how it “feels” to use the program, how it looks and how responsive it is. I guess just over all it needs change, for me anyway. The dynamics integration as well as the cloth in XSI just out perform max in every way. Its this feeling of every part working together that I want to see in max. I can not stress this point enough.

So where does that leave me? Well I now own two 3d apps and I think I am better off for it. There are some GREAT things in max and I now have some perspective as to what else is out there. I feel Autodesk is at the breaking point (at least for film and commercial users) to truly make a stand and rise up to the occasion.

This is just my two cents and feel strongly with what people are saying in these forums for the good and the bad.

So far, I like it. I have been using 3D Studio since release 1, and every version of Max since it became Max. The new MR materials work great, and the working pivot is terrific. Being able to finally unwrap multiple objects at once really helps as well. Perhaps I have a different perspective as I use and teach both 3ds Max and Maya, but I think that some of the things that have made their way across are actually helpful. The new render dialog is not unlike IPR in Maya, and coupled with the MR cache functions has proven very handy in tweaking the look of things. The view cubes are silly in both apps, but perhaps I am just a big hot key fan and prefer to navigate that way. I also look at things this way: Autodesk is not going to announce a roll back to 3ds Max 8; they are going to keep releasing new versions, so it is in my best interest to stay up on what is new. My students also want to use the latest greatest out there, so I have to keep up; however I welcome this constant drive for innovation and exploration rather than reject it.

Adam Crespi
Assistant Professor of Animation
DigiPen Institute of Technology

Ken Pimentel - 14 May 2008 09:35 AM

We sell more seats, get more revenue and have much higher growth rates. We took that growth and doubled the dev team. That happened during 3ds Max 2009.

Ken,

I hope this doesn’t mean now we will get a new release every 6 month. I surely will not be able to follow this race.

ivan

Ken Pimentel - 14 May 2008 09:35 AM

Robert,
I’m sorry we didn’t build the features you specifically want.  I hope you’ll be patient and see that patience rewarded. I’m sure your frustration is just because you feel a lot of passion for this product and you only want it to get better. While we disagree on many things, I think we both agree on this. Thanks for the feedback.

If we disagree on many things I don’t see why I should calm down and wait till you come up with another useless release. I guess that’s what feedback is about and if you don’t learn from user compliments then it’s your problem. I don’t know if this affects your job and if someone else is more open to user demands then you, but honestly I’m not angry about the last two useless release, but only about not having someone who gives me hope for an improvement in the future… not counting that you own me money for 2 useless release. Indeed you proved only that you do less then a free time hobby script coder did, not to mention that you never come close to plugin developers.
What a company to trust…

Again Robert, thanks for the passion and dedication to our product. It’s impossible to perfectly please 100% of 300,000 users with every release. I’m sorry that you are stuck being the person that finds zero value in the two last releases. I’m sure there are others out there that feel the same and I know we have more to do to make sure that every single user and the smallest shops feel that their voice is being heard. Until they hand out magic wands, I’m just doing the best I know how to do. I hope you stick around for the ride, because we’re inventing the future right now as we speak…

re: 6 month releases
I think the team would rebel and storm the gilded offices where product managers reside and take away our massage chairs if we tried another 6 month release…

Just fix the problems I stated in my last post and I will be more happy with 3ds Max as I have been since v7. Every time I go to work, I have to reset 3ds max, make a box, convert to polygon, go to vertex mode and finally load the model I want to work on to get around the disappearing vertexes issue. The other bugs would be nice if they were eradicated too in a future service pack. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy the new features like the iterative rendering work flow, ProMaterials, OBJ presets and the spline UV mapping features in v11.0/2009.

Ken:
Thanks Ken for jumping in here. thats always good, even if ADESK keeps ( i think they will) doing many things to Max that are not welcome or unterstandable from my POV , while other areas where improvements/fixes are so much needed keep getting ignored and deserted
*(look for a Example down in this post)

And i guess there are many other people who feel the same, but do not post on boards or take the whole Max thing with that amount of passion..

robert_le:
You really sound like you’ve passed the point of no return, which would mean - stop giving ADESK the money - look for a concurrent product…
And I think you are a little bit to personal against Ken here, but that may only be my subjective view of things…

* Example
Just read this thread -
click on the link
since Max 2008 the Render Final Image button disapeared - don’t know if there are bug reports for this, but if even only one dev people would have been browsing this forum on a regular basis, he would have learned of several clitches people complain about but never get fixed.
Always some hi-profile users like Bobo or PEN, (who even dosen’t use this forum - why not you may ask ? are needed to push this message up to some ADESK dev . This is a problem of your closed-mind mentality which only allows you to fix things that come from 5 mio. low-level user crashes or mio.s of bug reports or requests like the now so much complained about (but minor problem IMHO) “lets make the photometric lights now the default” (mostly archviz - i guess ) .