It’s very hard to find an application that can do architecture, design, animation and FX in the flexiblity 3dsmax does.
3dsmax is used in all areas of 3d production and in this it beats everything else.
While XSI is pure fucusing on CharacterAnimation and Gamedesign it lacks in FX, Design and of course Architecture.
Houdine is pure FX tool. It’s functions are to limited for Character Animation or Modeling.
Cinema4D is one of the closest to 3dsmax applications. Anyhow, it lacks tools and a good render engine yet. But there are great things to come. One of the best things in C4D is that it supports Osx.
Maya lakes good modeling tools like 3dsmax spline/modifier tools. Anyhow it one of the best tools for filmmaking, but nothing for a small company.
Blender is a nice freeware tool, but it is very limited and a lot tools are simple not working correct.
Modo/ zBrush etc. They are all good, but only work in connection with other programms and you simple loose a lot with exporting/ importing.
I compare them all… and I’m still waiting for something better to come…
Well as another long time max user (Dosr3) my 2 cents as everyone else is giving theirs. Robert lee if you don’t want to use something or it’s broken for you solution don’t? It is really about that easy. If you didn’t know that even with all it’s pains Max is the superior product even with it’s flaws if you where sane you wouldn’t even protest you would just move on right. Sorry my tact regulators program runs on leopard so it spends 20 mins working a day and then plays itunes the rest because it won’t stop crashing if I try to do anything with it.
But now to serious business. Everyone has the stuff they want in Max and their own set of priorities for what’s a feature and what’s a useless feature. While it’s been said you cannot please all of the people all of the time here are a few constructive wishes I would wish if Autodesk is listening.
* Discrete the company you bought back in the day remember them? Well they where famous for compositing true but number 2 was user interface design. A good user on a inferno or flame could do amazing things in seconds where in other programs it took minutes and labyrinthine tricks and work around on others. If you (Autodesk) want to do a real favor for your users start with an interface that is the most powerful and most RND’ed part of the entire program. Max has features enough to choke 9 horses, I would gladly trade in any of those horses for a good set of reigns for the other 8. There is so much that can be simplified and collected polished and pruned that if you want to really perk up your users a set to 2 ui wheels is not really the way of doing it.
As you can read from the other posters one of the big complaints is Max has grown so expansive that it’s now part of it’s problem. Please consider some sort of interface design team move to make Max a program that is more like Photoshop, in that you can either turn off what you don’t use or unless your looking for it never get confronted with parts of the program you don’t use? It would make Max load faster, work faster and generally behave better. In short the kids grown up but instead of getting ripped and muscular he needs to go to fat camp.
Next the subject of OP do I like 2009 yeah, you know it’s grown on me like Max 6-2008. Sure there is nothing really huge that has changed my life but really I was happy with 6 and the performance improvements are worth the pains looking back. The only thing I can say is really gotten worse is the documentation and the generally noxious “they must all be using AutoCad right?” corporate approach from Autodesk that leaked into the Max install process among other places. Sorry no matter what industry your in if your a Max guy or gal your ART first.
About the documentation problem. It’s not that you at Autodesk have been doing a bad job but rather in concert with the “need better UI paragraph above” we need clear comprehensive documentation and tutorials for all of max in one place, accessible at all times. I would LOVE to be able to click on a term in the UI and be able to find out what it does and what it’s related to. I would be in heaven if that help also provided where in say a tutorial that function could show it’s use? Right now in max how many different help files are there?
Long story short as I love to say...I like it, but I could love it again.
Since this thread has shifted more toward do you like max generally rather than max 2009 specifically, I figued I’d take the opportunity to say that I do really love 3ds max.
It’s true that I have been very vocal lately in venting my frustrations with max and concerns for it’s future. I have noticed that Ken has been really great about addressing everyone’s issues, real or exagerated. Though I don’t often say it, I for one do greatly appreciate his responses. I’m much happier replacing a speculative fear with actual concrete information.
Having worked in the video game industry for all of my adult life, I’ve always been a strong and vocal supporter of max amoung my peers, especially during the max--maya wars. I put my money behind that conviction quite a while back, and have convinced others to do the same.
I think I have a unique experience with max in that I have been dedicated for several years to a somewhat insane and overly ambitious personal animation project. Working on one project over the course of several max versions, I think has given me a different perspective. Certainly a positive one over all. Plugins have come and gone and I have learned that it’s best to stick mostly with core functionality. Luckily core functionality has grown with my project in a very serendipitous way.
Working so long with complex software like 3ds max ( or maya ), is much like any other relationship in life. You learn to love the good parts and tolerate the bad parts, and hopefully the aggregate experience is a positive one. It certainly has been for me.
....
Cinema4D is one of the closest to 3dsmax applications. Anyhow, it lacks tools and a good render engine yet.
Cinema 4D has pretty most of the render options as max has with the exception of mental ray.
I also agree that 3d studio max GUI is in dire need of a redesign. Although you can run in expert mode which makes it cleaner, in general I feel that we need to take it a step further.
so - to spice things up a little - here is what Blenders devteam does in a half year release cycle....
And don’t forget this is freeware - no money payed software....
please don’t let this get into a blender UI sucks or Max v.s Blender thread -
only note the things Blender people are able to achieve in 6 month and compare to
that what “huge loads of money earning ADESK” isn’t able to come up with for Max ...
Again - please no Max vs. Blender or so…
just think about it.... maybe even if your name is Ken
Very cool tool!
It really seems to focus on animation at the moment, some feature look even better then in 3dsmax.
The UI in Blender is quite strange, but I learned zBrush so it shouldn’t be too difficult… ;)
Anyhow, Blender offer little modeling feature. Some of the current features are cool, but others are to buggy.
For a freeware tool this is still truly amazing!
It all comes from the community and to me it shows how much autodesk is missing by keeping away from it.
If you look back in the history of 3dsmax you have to know, that many features came from the inspiration of beta testers in the early days.
I remember many examples like the transform gizmo, trackbar toools and color pickers. Some tools got implemented just a few days before the release (back with 3dsmax 2 & 3).
Again, I think Autodesk could use the input of the users instead of commenting ‘..we can listen to everyone.’..we know what we do.’
If I could develop 3d tools, I would now try to help the developers of blender, in this forum my wishes, my ideas don’t reach an ear....
Occupation: Director, Visual Communication Solutions
Gold member
Location: Milford, CT
Total Posts: 71
Joined 2006-07-17
Unlike Blender, we’re restricted from discussing what we’re working on or making any promises about the future. This is hugely frustrating for us, because we want to tell you where we’re headed and how we’re addressing your concerns. This is simply a restriction of any public software company. None of us like this restriction, but we all have to live with it.
I can say that some of the complaints I’ve heard on this thread are very well known to us and are factors in how we set our priorities. We’ve already stated that we have research in character animation (Geppetto) but that isn’t all we’re researching. The fact that we acquired Kynogon and RealVIZ show that we’re very interested in entertainment-related technology. I can’t tell you how/if these things will impact you, but the fact is we now have these in our portfolio (along with Mudbox). Yes, it may take us awhile to leverage all of these in the ways we want to, but this is quite a rich treasure chest of solutions that could be combined/integrated in interesting ways.
You’ll just have to decide for yourself if you’re going to join us on the adventure. We know that we have to demonstrate to you all that entertainment remains a core focus. I think you will just have to watch our actions - as words are cheap.
I do like max 2009. It doesn’t crash whenever i press F3 in direct3d anymore. So the speed difference from opengl to direct3d for me, is a great difference.
I do hate all the new features that are quite useless (viewcube etc.) but i have given up on Autodesk ever listening to customers anyway. I think this however has more to do with the size of the company. A mail conversation with someone at Autodesk who is truly able to change a small thing would be grand.
That however, is not what this topic is about.
So i do like it yes, its way more stable. I still have to get a lot of things done before i can truly work (disable new scene explorer, put the rename script on “undo off” so its much quicker, remove the viewcube and infocenter)
At first i hated the way they removed the crop/view/blowup dropdownmenu, but now i just use the one in the render screen.
Its just a shame they keep adding new (bad) things such as Turbosquid etc. They should focus on fixing bugs and/or add NodeJoe to 3dsmax. Now that would be an update i would really adore Autodesk for.
[Edit]
What i really dislike however, is that they are trying to make the Design and Normal version. I personally don’t use design because MR seems to much integrated (At my work we use Vray). I’m afraid they will stray away from the all-around program and divide it into two separate programs.
"Yes, it may take us awhile to leverage all of these in the ways we want to, but this is quite a rich treasure chest of solutions that could be combined/integrated in interesting ways.”
Ken thanks for getting in on this. For me that sounds great that there is a focus on Film, but its the way it is “integrated” into max that concerns me. I think Reactor is a good example of a good system that is not integrated well into max. If Autodesk can get a UI design that allows all these systems to feel part of the application and not a set of add on tools this will be a nice change for artists using 3ds Max.
