3ds max 2015 vs 2016 vs 2017

yukonwanderer

Which one should I get?  I did my trial with 2015.  From my experience with AutoCad, the newer versions of these things are always annoyingly buggy.  Is it worth it to get the 2017 version or are they all basically the same?  I will also be using a not so good laptop for a couple weeks and don't know if 2017 will overwhelm it.  2015 worked fine except uving anything but simple meshes.

gfelton

From what I've experienced, both 16 and 17 appear to be more unstable than 15. From my experience, I also know that the UVW tools in 17 are significantly more buggy than 15 and 16. If I were you, I'd get a copy of 15.

musashidan

From my experience, 16 latest sp is rock solid and what I still use. 17 latest release is in dire need of the next sp. I'm currently a beta-tester so can't say more than that. 15 I skipped completely as I jumped from 14 to 16 so have no direct experience. 

Mant1k0re

16 is pretty stable as mush says, I didn't have any issues with 15 either. 17 in its current state is not working for me, too many annoying little bugs.

demilich

I remember 2015 been buggy for me, even after installing the updates on it. I can't remember specifically what the bugs where, maybe viewport bugs and the material editor not loading the material/map browser. I would have to restart to get that working.
For 2016 which I've been using most of this year I've had specific bugs that crash the program. Using the UVW soft selection on verts and then using the Relax Tool/Start Relax button would cause an error. The other one is the most recent for me is the FBX exporter freezing the program.
All in all I think you will be ok with whichever one you pick.

Hope that helps.

thomasp

demilich said:

All in all I think you will be equally screwed with whichever one you pick.

fixed that for you.

Macebo

The biggest issue i have with 3ds max 2016 SP 3 so far is the UV relax tools (edge and polygon angles). Every single crash i had so far was because i pressed the damn button, to a point where i save the project every time i'm going to relax some UVs. By the way, i had this problem with 2015 as well, but i heard that fixing bugs is not Autodesk $trongest point.

Tomiajayi

If 15 works for you STICK with it.
there's nothing revolutionary in the next versions, expecially if you're in any way a novice.
You KNOW 15 works on your laptop, so why try something that might not work?
17 has a cool looking new ui skin, but it brand new and kinda buggy (just as you predicted)

Honestly you'd probably be fine all the way back to 2013, so why worry about 15/16/17 ?

spacefrog

Max 2016 SP3 for the stability - but Max 2017 for the speed. But as others have already said, Max 2017 needs a SP2 to become usable.
I would'nt want to go back to Max 2013 ( mostly because of huge performance improvements you will miss ). Previously i favoured Max 2014 by any means, but now it's the same with Max2016 for me . Max 2015 passed by and i did'nt really used it much for real work ...

TheGabmeister

Sorry for the necrobump.

Just wanted to hear your thoughts on the stability of the latest 3ds Max 2017 update. Is it a good time to go for it?

I'm currently using 2016 at the moment. I tried 2017 during its first few months to test the boolean and UV features, but went back to 2016 due to a lot of bugs and crashes. 

musashidan

2018 is much improved from 2017. 2017, even with SPs was a dud. 

spacefrog

musashidan said:

2018 is much improved from 2017. 2017, even with SPs was a dud. 

While i know that many people had problems with Max2017, the latest version Max2017.1 (incl SP3 ) is totally stable for me ...
It's important to keep in mind that Max 2018 has free network rendering removed ( Mental Ray ) which is a serious downgrade for people doing rendering work. The switch to Arnold on Max 2018 does'nt come without loss of functionality also ( no more texture baking etc..)

Ultimately- to respond to the original poster's question:
you can't get a earlier version anyways, you always rent ( = subscription ) to the highest released version. Officially you should be able to use 3 versions back then too ( this would be Max 2015 then )

gandhics

Yeah.. 2017 problem doesn't happen for everybody.
Our studio had to move to 2017 from 2016 because of some important fixes(TrackView, Obj poly export) and enhancement(alembic and python).
So far 2017 has been a lot stable than 2016.
We also install almost all commercial plugins FumeFX, VRay. All Thinkbox, Itoo.
Even then it is rock solid.

I always recommend to try it first,
If thing goes well, then it's good.
If you really have problem with certain bug, you can use 2017 for certain purpose and save as 2016 to finish.

One more reason to use 2017 is Scene Explorer.
2015 SE is really rough. 2016 is better. 2017 finally have all major things settled.
 

musashidan

gandhics said:

So far 2017 has been a lot stable than 2016.

 

Yes, for me it's the complete opposite. 2016 is solid/stable and 2017 was not.

2018 hasn't had a service pack yet and is great for me so far. Although I've only just start using the official release as I'm on beta (like you and spcefrog)

gandhics

Yes, a lot of core work and bug fix has been happening after 2017 release. 
- I heard 2018 has more than 250 bug fixes.
- New rendering API has been developed.
- MCG has been improved a lot under the hood.
- Qt conversion is still going on.
  We already got better and more docking in 2018.
  As more and more legacy UI converted to Qt. You will see more flexible and resizable UI.
- 3dsMax dev started to convert all legacy paramblock1 to paramblock2.