"I’m OK that third-parties have this advantage because there are a lot of really clever people out there and I’d rather enable them than try to do it all ourselves”
This is all well and good, but I am sick of having to look to third-parties to get the things I need. I know Autodesk cant do it all and there are some great tools out there. ie: PolyBoost. But that is a perfect example of tools that need to be part of Max in the first place.
Anyway....... I just want to stress this again, the 3dMax UI needs to change. I am not talking about moving everything around here, but the
design needs an overhaul. To me it does not represent Autodesk at all. It may seem like everything is all well and good but it is such an important thing to me to have a modern unified UI. Maybe I am just crazy or a picky person but feel Autodesk needs to put some good design behind 3D Max not just new tools and Bug fixes. It would give me confidence that I am using an application for an artist.
I do feel the pain of using Max for Film and TV like others here. I personally think people would be fine with a UI overhaul and would get used to a new Material editor among other things. What I would like to know is this even something Autodesk is looking into?
I think the frustrating thing is that Max offers so many great tools but fails to fully deliver on them. To truly make a new release of Max must be such a HUGE task to tackle for Autodesk so it will be interesting to see the outcome. I think Autodesk has created this environment of unsure customers who are now starting to question what is the future of Max, but this is an interesting time for us and Autodesk as the next version of Max will be scrutinized more closely. I personally am looking forward to seeing them deliver.
Ok, I think you are right. You hit it quite good.
3dsmax would need a 2-3 years stop.
- Redo the interface and viewport engine. So it could be ported to other OS.
- Not only do a 64bit version but change the core to floating numbers, so we can have more exact operations (work a few more units away from the center etc.)
- As most plugins and tools are scripted it’s not so hard and you don’t loose to much.
- Then hire the developer of pflow or cebas thinking particles and add water effects (you got the core from maya).
- Add just little to the model tools, like more spline tools, better boolean and polytools like you have it in many free samples (solid chamfer and fillet chamfer like in modo).
- Then buy the powernurbs solid package and replace max own Nurbs with it.. improve it and make it work better with the interface. So you can call 3dsmax a design tool then.
- Drop SE and add a solid outliner. You can further add the material schematic editor of maya or improve it and make one for both applications.
- Think about Biped and make it little more like CAT. 4 legs or more are very important to game developer. Add a good library so, we can have horses and animals just instantly.
- Don’t care about MR so much or do it simple like in XSI, everything else is just a plugin. The advantage of 3dsmax are the many render engines and still new ones to come.
- Add a painting engine, to add least have the functionality of modo…
- You can sell this Update for 3 OS and make a lot money. Sell it for a high price, no problem. Money is not the problem if we get what we want.
So, that sounds not really a lot? But, I bet you never do it…
- Redo the interface and viewport engine. So it could be ported to other OS. - Not only do a 64bit version but change the core to floating numbers, so we can have more exact operations (work a few more units away from the center etc.) - Then hire the developer of pflow or cebas thinking particles and add water effects (you got the core from maya). - Add just little to the model tools, like more spline tools, better boolean and polytools like you have it in many free samples (solid chamfer and fillet chamfer like in modo). - Then buy the powernurbs solid package and replace max own Nurbs with it.. improve it and make it work better with the interface. So you can call 3dsmax a design tool then. - Drop SE and add a solid outliner. You can further add the material schematic editor of maya or improve it and make one for both applications. - Think about Biped and make it little more like CAT. 4 legs or more are very important to game developer. Add a good library so, we can have horses and animals just instantly. - Don’t care about MR so much or do it simple like in XSI, everything else is just a plugin. The advantage of 3dsmax are the many render engines and still new ones to come. - Add a painting engine, to add least have the functionality of modo… - You can sell this Update for 3 OS and make a lot money. Sell it for a high price, no problem. Money is not the problem if we get what we want..
I like what I see… That’s what I want!!! Who do I send the money to?
As far as 3ds max 2009, it was everything I expected! I couldn’t register it [it claimed the new serial number was invalid], it had very poor performance/stability [even compared to older versions], and after a few weeks of trying to make it work as well as 2008 [doing things like renaming the AutoCamMax.gup], I finally just uninstalled it. That said, while I don’t like 2009 [or in other words, I don’t like the AutoCamMax.gup and the simple materials], I do love the new mental ray!!! very cool, I want mr Proxies in 2008… but then again I still have my V-Ray with 2008…
In answer to the original question, yes, I like max 2009. I’ve been using it in production for the past month with far fewer crashes and issues than max 2008 or max 9. I really like mr proxies, I really like fbx from Revit, I love the new color correction map (advanced lighting gamma gain stuff). I really like the new library of ProMaterials, I really like the attenuation on Photometric lights, and they did an excellent job with the new UI in the Rendered Frame Window. I also think iterative rendering is going to save me months of time. I’m bringing files in from Maya via FBX and they come right in with UV’s and materials intact. The fbx from Revit brings in the hundreds of lights in the scenes, yay! very nice. The ability to generate FG maps without rendering the image is a huge help, since I’m stuck on 32 bit machine still.
Oh yes! Select by Name dialog is usable again, the new Select from Scene H key thingee opens instantly! Good dog!
That’s just a few of the reasons I’m saying this is a great release.
Oh yeah, I love that I can get rid of the Viewcube and Steering Wheels. I don’t need them, so it’s great they’re not forced on me.
They need to do some more work on mental ray garbage collection, seems like I need to reset max or even powerdown sometimes to get all my memory back. And file-linking for FBX would be a nice improvement as well.
Occupation: President, 4D Artists, Inc., and 3ds Max Instructor
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Total Posts: 181
Joined 2006-08-22
Hi All,
I’m generally liking r2009, and Mark summed things up pretty well. Getting rid of the View Cube solves a lot of problems; before that, things were not happy.
In other observations, it seems like it is using more memory than r9 or 2008. I have not seen the memory issue Mark mentiones, but I’ll watch levels and see what I’m getting.
I like the ProMaterials, as a great shortcut to specific (Glazing, Wall Paint, etc, etc). The Generic version is nice when I need a specific look or a little more variation from the boilerplate materials, and of course A&D is there for things that need a higher level of control or to start off with one of their templates. The new proMaterial libraries are quite helpfull, too.
A FileLink version of the FBX/Revit functionality would be nice. FBX is nice, and is another feature that should improve with time.
I don’t mind that they came out with ‘2009’ this spring instead of ‘2008 Productivity Pack’, or whatever they cal them these days. I don’t base my subscription timing on whether I am going to cancel it or not, so probably the only thing that would bother me is if there were no new releases in a given year. I’d like some value from the subscription. Knowing that the development team is growing is great to hear.
They need to do some more work on mental ray garbage collection, seems like I need to reset max or even powerdown sometimes to get all my memory back. And file-linking for FBX would be a nice improvement as well.
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!
I feel almost excatly the same way as Robert.
With the discouraging release of Max2009 my fears of having invested in the wrong software for over a decade became a reality.
The day i got m2009 i uninstalled it immediately and downloaded demo’s of maya, houdini, xsi and blender to start anticipating a hard break with Max *violins*
So far i must say the lack of new features and better technologies scares me less than the fact that i feel max is moving away from special effects and animators to become a gamedesign/architectural viz application.
I can only hope Adsk puts things straight in the next release…
So far i must say the lack of new features and better technologies scares me less than the fact that i feel max is moving away from special effects and animators to become a gamedesign/architectural viz application.
“game design/architectural viz application” is the right future for 3DS Max.
. Sorry, sorry, I’m a doofus *hides in shadows* )
