How well does Blender handle custom normals these days? I've had nothing but grief using them in Max; Nearly any action done to a mesh post custom normals being applied either breaks all the normals or causes max to crash.
^ Yeah, still waiting for someone to build a modifier for that. It's an annoying part of the workflow in Max. People more knowledgeable in these things say the new Datachannel modifier or MCG's won't be able to handle stuff such as auto-weighting normals just yet.
normals are always finicky in my experience. mainly because the toolsets for that seem like some bolted-on afterthought. indeed i recall plenty of crashes when modeling in max when the mesh had modified normals. as stated earlier in blender i do not run into crashes much and certainly haven't changed my modeling habits much.
however - regardless of what software i work with i prefer to set the normals the way i want on a copy of the asset and then transfer those over to the actual mesh. the copy can then serve as a source for future transfers and i don't have to care about breaking anything when tweaking. works pretty well unless you need to use hard edges/smoothing groups or change the mesh a lot after originally tweaking the vertex normals.
How well does Blender handle custom normals these days? I've had nothing but grief using them in Max; Nearly any action done to a mesh post custom normals being applied either breaks all the normals or causes max to crash.
handles it pretty well, I'm not having any problems with it. There's a bunch of plugins for custom normals, I use one called Y.A.V.N.E.
Just to leave that one to rest (not going into the details about how it's done because that's besides the point and would lead to further splitting of hairs) :
It's beside the point because it's a custom python script, hair splitting aside! You're implying the transition is as easy as mastering a programming language. Isn't that honestly a fallacious argument...?
I'm a technical animator working in AAA studio. We used to work with max and mobu combined. But as our new project started we sat down and started thinking where do we want do be in 3-4 years? Do we still want to be using max or look for something else... and after doing a few test and with the infos we got from autodesk rep we decided to drop max for animation and switch to maya.
The decision had nothing to do with max 2018 and to be honest it seemed like a very good version. But it seems like autodesk gave up on max for animation. Theres so many easy things they could do to improve the software but they just wont ( anymation wise) ... yes, Im looking at you mesh caching!!!
@Mant1k0re : It simply relies on an excellent add-on, that everyone would benefit from getting because it blows anything else out of the water in terms of macro recording, setting custom menus, toggle keys, and so on (Pie Menu Editor). Precisley because it allows anyone to setup custom interactions without any code/scripting
But as said, this is largely besides the point ... Focusing on that sort of thing is akin to someone not going on a trip abroad because they forgot to bring their favorite toothbrush
It doesn't take much time (about a few weeks to a month) to realize how fluid and powerful the program is, and after two years transitioning out of the AD ecosystem (and give or take 10 previous years fully depending on it) I am still amazed at how good the alternative actually is. I wish I had known about it sooner really, it would have saved me both time and money.
That's the mind blowing part : one could expect the development of a free/open source app it to be chaotic and lacking direction, but whoever is in charge of UX is really, really good at it. It's fascinating stuff, well worth diving into even just as a topic of study. I have no idea about Max's "demise", but there is no doubt that very solid alternatives are now available.
Actually it's nice that Autodesk's rivals develops so well. That's might give some momentum to 3ds Max development. (Who expected to see Bifrost in Max? Latest update was received positively, in contrast to past updates) Competition is always good for users.
@Mant1k0re : It simply relies on an excellent add-on, that everyone would benefit from getting because it blows anything else out of the water in terms of macro recording, setting custom menus, toggle keys, and so on (Pie Menu Editor). Precisley because it allows anyone to setup custom interactions without any code/scripting
That sounds interesting. But I still disagree about the toothbrush part, no offense. For example... Right now I'm making that scene with lots of debris and rubble piles. Without MassFX and Rayfire, that would take a lot of time. What kind of solution do you have in Blender for use case like this...? Max can do so much and when it doesn't in vanilla you have extremely powerful plugins that are maintained well overtime. Plugins for Blender in my experience tend to break after each major update and are not very well maintained. Has this changed at all? And again, Max spline modeling is, afaik, unparalleled. Those are not minor things in my eyes. Also the fact that Blender allows non-manifold geometry and doesn't provide easy ways to checks for errors as Max does with Xview (I think). You always commit the occasional mistake when working tired and in Blender I find that I notice it much later after the fact than in Max for this reason. I have no doubts Blender covers all your use cases but what irks me is that you sound like you are claiming it covers all of mine. One last thing I'd like to mention is that if you *do* make the effort to try and switch and ask question on how to do X on a place like Blender Artist the kind of answer you get is often not really of nature to bring the best out of you, although, for completeness sake, I am aware of your own transition thread that was pretty successful in this sense.
Very interesting replies! I also believe 3dsmax is still one of the best programs for 3d modeling, and I am glad that most users are positive about its future. I am also more positive about it's future than I was when I started this thread.
I caught a demo of 3ds Max Interactive at Autodesk University last week, and was frankly amazed.
They're integrating scene editing tools into VR, so you get synchronous editing in both VR and your regular viewport, plus collab editing with multiple users in VR.
I was impressed. Lots of effort underway in 3ds Max. Spent some time chatting with one of their senior software architects about Max's core and where things are headed. Lots more interop coming.
They also spent a decent chunk of dev time recently on bug fixing, stability, and speed. All three of which high on users' wishlists.
Very nice, it shows that Maya is definitely starting to catch up with regard to basic poly modelling tools.
i think i have heard this one since about the year 2005 ... every year. the big one in my opinion was simply that they took the shortcut and bought NEX. insta-poly-tool-upgrade. it all still feels so really slow to work with though, you can almost follow any input on it's journey from keystroke through layers of scripting until it spits out some warning in the log and finally your screen gets updated with the result.
it's like some poor overworked hamster in a wheel doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes. how people can build anything complex in it i do not comprehend. i lack the zen-like patience.
I'm working with Maya on a daily basis for rigging purposes, at home I'm using Max for personal modelling stuff. If there's one thing they should shove into Max, it's the selection behavior from Maya, as well as it's camera controls (yea you can change that already, but it conflicts with hardcoded hotkeys), also that node editor and outliner are pretty neat aaaaand UI performance. Or just put the modifier stack, Max's viewport performance and modeling tools into Maya and I'm kinda sold.
----- Thanks for sharing @Eric Chadwick Since Autodesk is stacking up the Max team again, I'm looking forward to Update 4 for Max 2018.
I wonder how you're doing some parts of this video, are your marking menu's or IVE's not showing up?
What display settings do you have for the grid that makes it show up like that? and what tool are you using to do the chamfer since in 2017 it just creates 4 polygons.
I could script Maya to make it work like that quite quickly but if it's out of the box then that'd be better.
Haven't posted in a while, figured I could briefly chip in while waiting for D:OS2 vendors to refresh.
The strip modeling discussion is a perfect example of how many are not even qualified to be comparing software. To make this easy; say you're deciding between dating two girls and one has long, well-formed fingernails while the other ones have stubby ones and on this basis you decide to stick with the former. Get my point?
You'll need to evaluate the landscape, future potential, resources, expandability, userbase and the like. Big picture.
Running an outsourcing operation and managing a host of artists means there's no way that I can subscribe to an isolated view. It's not even an option. For me the decision is easy - today you no longer deliver a polygon mesh. If you do, you're behind the times. Modifiers are an integral part of a delivery now, and no major studio to my knowledge runs off of Blender. It's Max or Maya. Maya is geared towards animation and more technical project management concerns, and Max is geared towards modeling. Max development has now for two years addressed the major concerns this community in general has raised issues with, and it has by far the largest base for support and extensions.
In my position I have to support Max and Maya. Maya is a joke modeling-wise, but pretty much all we have to worry about is imports from Max retaining instancing and vertex normals carrying across. Modo-based artists used to have to do more work though there might be updates I'm not aware of.
For pure modeling potential, without industry considerations, you'll want to use Blender, Max or Modo. Modo has Zbrush-esque weirdness and more specialization but is very viable. Bottom line: if you are using any of these three and struggling or frustrated to the point of wanting to change apps, chances you are the problem, not the app. If you are a long-time user of Modo and write frustrated posts about how you'll change to Max or Blender you likely just suck and you will suck at Max and you will suck at Blender.
That's why these software-war discussions are unfruitful and embarrassing. The people who participate in them are rarely anywhere close to potential for their chosen app, and their frustration should be limited to their own inability.
Autodesk Inc. (Max) is a mess of contraditions, but is forced to make healthy decisions due to its enormous userbase and history of 3rd party development. It will push on despite itself. As touched on previously, it's at the moment the only true next-gen delivery system for AAA development. They're hurting bad by competing with themselves. The Max VS Maya situation is ridiculous. Why not use the same code for chamfer, inset, extrude? Why not share, why not merge, or specialize, at least make a decision on synergy. It's a joke, an embarrassment, an amateurish mess.
Blender Foundation struggle with ego and vision issues at the top level as well as being niche-oriented, but is ridiculously customizable on the hard-core level and has the greatest potential though there's no safe bet how long it's going to take for it to solidify. Blender will only succeed as long as its competitors continue to screw up. That's worrying to me.
Modo has an incredible foundation, a nerd developer's dream, but perhaps they've taken it too far. Sometimes high concepts don't play out all that well in practice. It reminds me of ZBrush in many ways; so close to perfection but limited by their own weirdness and strict adherence to limited vision as opposed to sticking with established norms.
Either way, stop acting defensive on the part of a software, stop it with the fruitless software wars. You didn't even bother reading the manual for the software you're currently using so please give me a break about how you're so demanding of your app of choice. Pior is the exception here as the fellow carries through, does actual extensive testing and is fearless about it.
And lastly anyone talking about the demise of Max; I hear you can make decent money streaming PUBG. Real-estate is another option, or you could carry crates of shellfish. In other words you're either a child or too ignorant to even be in this game.
I wanted to chime in about this outlook that has been persistent for a long time - that only a bad artist blames his tools. I think this isn’t as applicable as it once was.
I recently switched to modo from max after using max for years, I’m purely a hobbyist. But learning modo has made modeling fun again and it’s been a very enjoyable process. It does things out of the box that I think max lacks in. Even if it’s just beveling, booleans, unwrapping, retopo - I find modo does it faster and has more significant updates than max. But Perna will probably forget more about max than I’ll ever know.
to me, you can drive to a destination or you can ride a bike - they’ll both get you there but one is a lot faster. What you see as the bike is dependent on your style of modeling. But I don’t think people should be discouraged from trying new packages. Learning modo has pushed me to a new level from where I was, and because I find it more enjoyable to model in I produce more models which in turn makes me better. All because I was frustrated with Max and picked up a modo trial.
I wanted to chime in about this outlook that has been persistent for a long time - that only a bad artist blames his tools. I think this isn’t as applicable as it once was.
I recently switched to modo from max after using max for years, I’m purely a hobbyist. But learning modo has made modeling fun again and it’s been a very enjoyable process. It does things out of the box that I think max lacks in. Even if it’s just beveling, booleans, unwrapping, retopo - I find modo does it faster and has more significant updates than max. But Perna will probably forget more about max than I’ll ever know.
to me, you can drive to a destination or you can ride a bike - they’ll both get you there but one is a lot faster. What you see as the bike is dependent on your style of modeling. But I don’t think people should be discouraged from trying new packages. Learning modo has pushed me to a new level from where I was, and because I find it more enjoyable to model in I produce more models which in turn makes me better. All because I was frustrated with Max and picked up a modo trial.
Trying newer packages is something that should always be encouraged.
I think that perna is targeting professional artists and not hobbyists with his reply ( @perna correct me if im wrong ! ) , and the thing is i agree with him.
In my professional experience people that bitch alot about modeling packages and the demise\not demise of either one rarely know how to use half the features on their own modeling packages, like live booleans for example, that everyone lost their shit that maya or modo had them now....wich was a feature in max2009....10 years ago. http://polycount.com/discussion/189044/3ds-max-is-dead-per-is-rant/p1
The bike analogy and "style" of modeling is pretty good analogy, but in work environment, if i use max i can have Perna send me a file, unclick the modifiers and apply feedback painlessly, while if it was maya or modo i would have to remove all control loops\creases\aditional vertex data that was used BEFORE applying feedback. Wich is a task before the task, removing alot of time for the feedback.
This is working on the assumption that everyone extensively uses modifiers, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that a lot of people and pipelines don't. Worth bearing in mind.
This is working on the assumption that everyone extensively uses modifiers, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that a lot of people and pipelines don't. Worth bearing in mind.
I never once in what i wrote claimed that... I was simply comparing the analogy to save time to my everyday work and how we go around swaping files\work between ourselves.
One thing a lot of modelers don't seem to understand is how fragile the modifier stack is.
When you use any modifiers that are vertex-order dependent (Edit Poly, UVW Unwrap, VertexPaint, etc.) and you add a new edge loop in the bottom modifier, those modifier edits are usually lost.
Gizmos also tend to be volume-dependent... FFD, Bend, Taper, Volume Select, etc, all rely on the mesh volume being consistent, so if you're passing up a sub-object selection it better not change or else the gizmo shape will change.
I've also seen a lot of modelers adding Edit Poly or Unwrap on top of a subdivision modifier (Turbo Smooth, OpenSubdiv, etc.). Which makes editing the model really tough.
Lots of modifier stack abuse. It's a powerful tool, but only with a careful knowledgeable hand. I personally love using modifiers, but Collapse To is my friend.
This is working on the assumption that everyone extensively uses modifiers, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that a lot of people and pipelines don't. Worth bearing in mind.
But... But... everything must be fully procedural... A lot of genius claims that's the future.
It's not the future, it's what you should have been doing for the last few years. It's been working very nicely for me..
Also... Any "tool is better than another tool" argument is basically moot unless the individual arguing knows how to use all the tools in question properly. Given that it's rare to find someone who can operate one tool correctly, let alone several, the percentage of opinions that have any real validity is pretty bloody small.
This is working on the assumption that everyone extensively uses modifiers, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that a lot of people and pipelines don't. Worth bearing in mind.
But... But... everything must be fully procedural... A lot of genius claims that's the future.
Know you're tools, so you can use them properly at the right time.
Don't pigeon hole yourself by being a workflow snob, you might end up in a situation where something could easily be done but because you've closed yourself off to that certain way of working, you're taking 10x longer with dozens more steps that aren't flexible and aren't open to quick iteration.
It's not the future, it's what you should have been doing for the last few years. It's been working very nicely for me..
Also... Any "tool is better than another tool" argument is basically moot unless the individual arguing knows how to use all the tools in question properly. Given that it's rare to find someone who can operate one tool correctly, let alone several, the percentage of opinions that have any real validity is pretty bloody small.
Well... then I wonder how Modo users would ever work. Do u really want to have every single modeling action as node for the sake of flexibility?
I love 3dsMax modifier stack because it is "practical procedualism". It is like half way between direct modeling and full procedualism.
Well... then I wonder how Modo users would ever work.
Modo has had a modifier stack since 10.1 (june 2016). Prior to that you could always keep duplicates of your meshes before major changes in case you have to go back and make adjustments, but that's obviously more limited. I will say that working without modifiers first seems to have been good training for knowing what benefits from being parametric and what you can keep simple... at some point you're going to have to make a final decision and lock changes in; the less you have to worry about this by virtue of cutting down on choices the better. Keeping critical things editable gives you the luxury of deffering those decisions until you've got more done and a better idea of what fits the final product.
I went to modo at the begining of the year and haven't looked back, the only thing I have found that falls short is modos spline tools equivelent and how you can use them in max with surf deform modifiers etc, so that is one loss but there is like 100 gains when you get used to it.
though I don't think it is by any means the death knell of of 3ds max, I went back last month to make a few objects just to shake off rust as I may of needed to use max for a job.
it is still a pretty industry standard set of software, but beyond that it is a powerful modeler and it is far from likely to die overnight or ever really, just for me the real question is is it the must optimal modeler for its price point, and I would say No
As someone who has experience in pretty much every other 3D package. What does Blender have going for it that Max, Maya, Modo or Houdini doesn't have? I'm curious about the uptick of usage and want to know what I'm missing.
On topic: Max is looking better than ever these days. I switched to other software 2 years ago, when Max doomday prophets were at their peak. I don't see as many people claiming it's demise anymore, which is good, I think the majority of the community is getting happier with the releases.
Other software is more competitive than ever though, and Autodesk have 2 pieces of software that tend to compete more against each other, than against other packages. It's worth keeping an eye on their business practices, but I haven't seen them do anything too bad lately, besides the subscription plan.
Talking of that subscription plan, its affected the business massively and Autodesk have cut its staff by 13% or about 1200 people. maybe another reason why release of new functionality?
As i said before, the archivz industry alone can hold max. But, i witness that the art community enthousiasm is now leaning towards Blender because people are making tools and scripts for Blender and not for Max anymore. Ofc it's free, open and more and more complete. Are people sick of Autodesk management ? Looks like.
Try it for yourself to see. Everyone who makes a video has a bias. Never forget that each video is a shortcut, a filter, details are left out, maybe important details.
yeah, i never had to ( luckily i guess ) deal with tricounts that insanely high, on my end, if that ever happened its because i fucked up something on my workflow hehe...
maybe not for you guys... But, if you are dealing with CAD, you will have a chance to deal with 100+mil model. At work(TV vfx), one of spaceship alone is 20mil. Then we have environments.
2018.4 seems stable and i'm impressed with all the additions since 2016. Looking at the 3Ds Max Ideas forum i'm excited about how many requests are "under review" which in recent times has meant it's getting implemented in some way. really looking forward to 2019.
The 3Ds Max 2018 release seems to have almost no new functionality and not even bug fixes. They did not upload videos to highlight new functions. The 'what's new in 3Ds Max 2018' is laughable. I had a little bit of hope with the great Nitrous performance of 2016-2017. But Autodesk seems to have laid off the entire Shanghai team who were responsible for Nitrous so bye bye :-(
I think Autodesk made a very bad decision. I know they want 3Ds Max to die and move users to Maya. Max could have been saved by implementing a shared code base with Maya so new featured could easily be implemented in both programs. Maybe they should have started a project to rewrite one common core for both programs, but keep the separate UI so users could retain their workflows.
I think I will slowly have to phase out 3Ds Max over the next 5-10 years. I use 100th of shortcuts, I have written about 50.000 lines of Maxscript code to streamline and automate all sorts of modeling tasks. 3Dsmax still has such a great community support with so many awesome plugins and script. I don't think it's even a good business decision.
Does anyone have any suggestions for the best applications that are complementary to 3Ds max. Modo seems the most suited since it has meshfusion. I need a program with the same modeling tools as 3dsmax, and I would really like to configure it with the same controls/hotkeys as 3dsmax. Blender seems ok, but also very alien to me. I can't say I want to learn Maya with users leaving that program for Houdini
I agree. I was very active on their suggestions page and it didn't really seem like they cared to listen to the community. I've seen people suggest great ideas on their suggestions forums and yet no ideas implemented nor seemingly considered. Personally, I wanted them to implement a new skinning feature, one more practical and less buggy. Overall, 3dsmax seems to be dying so I moved over to Blender. I'm also now teaching blender to other indie devs.
So.. I tried. I exported as obj and imported into Blender.
Blender maxed out my 32G ram. FYI, 3dsMax needed 10G for this.
But how is the viewport performance when importing a model that fits in memory?
And remember that even if the performances are slower than 3ds max, Blender 2.8 has already improved a lot the performances of the viewport and will go from OpenGL 2.1 to OpenGL 3.3 thanks to Mike Erwin so you should take another look at the end of 2018 with an heavy scene (+ will introduce collections to work on them more easily and probably save memory). And i am sure your scene can be optimized to take less memory with a decimation on every meshes.
So.. I tried. I exported as obj and imported into Blender.
Blender maxed out my 32G ram. FYI, 3dsMax needed 10G for this.
But how is the viewport performance when importing a model that fits in memory?
And remember that even if the performances are slower than 3ds max, Blender 2.8 has already improved a lot the performances of the viewport and will go from OpenGL 2.1 to OpenGL 3.3 thanks to Mike Erwin so you should take another look at the end of 2018 with an heavy scene (+ will introduce collections to work on them more easily and probably save memory). And i am sure your scene can be optimized to take less memory with a decimation on every meshes.
When/if Blender deliver those improvements we can talk again.
Isn't this one of the reasons people change packages? Because it does not have feature X or Y and you need it now? I acknowledge and hope Blender improves in this front, but it's also naive to think Max won't improve even further as well.
Regarding the ones saying "buy you don't need those heavy meshes" or "thanks what proxies are for", also sorry, this is being on the defensive. Sure, you *can* use proxies/references/decimation. But it misses the point of you being able to display more on your viewport without worry about it and work faster.
Also, let's not forget that displaying meshes is one thing. Editing them is another, and Max also has one of the (if not THE) best poly manipulation performance on the viewport. You literally can edit with soft selection or paint deform in real time heavy meshes in Max with easy - the performance improvement was notable in 2016 ->2017 and beyond.
Isn't this one of the reasons people change packages? Because it does not have feature X or Y and you need it now? I acknowledge and hope Blender improves in this front, but it's also naive to think Max won't improve even further as well.
His super heavy
scene is probably not optimized and the
performances in Blender 2.79 are already good, the simplify button set the max subdivision level in the viewport, he can decimate (and with a 4-5 lines script apply a 70 % decimation to every meshes). And he could maybe get more details and render faster by using the micropolygon displacement (it's per pixel) combined with a bump map texture for surface noise details. For reasonable scenes Blender is fine and allows to work faster (it relies heavily on hotkeys and mouse wheel instead of huge scrollable GUI like 3ds max with a lot of tools that does almost the same thing) and without any crash. Also having heavy scenes can slow down the compilation of the render engine and the render time, so the time saved not optimizing his scene will be converted to hours of additionnal render time for an animation.
And if later Eevee adds lightmap baking of indirect lighting with the generation of the texture atlas (Cycles can bake the indirect lighting via the GPU already it's more of an automated tool to create) with light probes for GI effect on moving objects (irradiance grid tool of the 2.8) this could allow for real time rendering by doing OpenGL snapshots. This technique is very popular for archiviz and starts to be used in the movie industry.
"Also I didn't really find a way to replicate the Max shift extrude edge workflow in Blender. Those are just two things that come to mind right off the bat."
That's the problem ... By merely looking to replicate a specific tool/feature, you'd miss out on much more powerful ways to do the same thing.
Sure, there's no shift extrude ... but the case could be made that there is no need for it when off-hand transformation (no need to grab a manipulator) along with the very clever interaction system (no held clicks needed during transformations + click to confirm the last action) makes the whole process not only more fluid, but also objectively faster.
This was of course way off topic, but the point here is that any discussion about what a software can or cannot do (and from there, whether it is "dying" or not) really ought to be taken with a grain of salt, since anecdotal evidence and individual user experience never really reflect the full story.
What software are you using to show onscreen key press, looks nice.
Replies
however - regardless of what software i work with i prefer to set the normals the way i want on a copy of the asset and then transfer those over to the actual mesh. the copy can then serve as a source for future transfers and i don't have to care about breaking anything when tweaking.
works pretty well unless you need to use hard edges/smoothing groups or change the mesh a lot after originally tweaking the vertex normals.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/VertexNormal#3ds_Max
The decision had nothing to do with max 2018 and to be honest it seemed like a very good version. But it seems like autodesk gave up on max for animation. Theres so many easy things they could do to improve the software but they just wont ( anymation wise) ... yes, Im looking at you mesh caching!!!
But as said, this is largely besides the point ... Focusing on that sort of thing is akin to someone not going on a trip abroad because they forgot to bring their favorite toothbrush
It doesn't take much time (about a few weeks to a month) to realize how fluid and powerful the program is, and after two years transitioning out of the AD ecosystem (and give or take 10 previous years fully depending on it) I am still amazed at how good the alternative actually is. I wish I had known about it sooner really, it would have saved me both time and money.
That's the mind blowing part : one could expect the development of a free/open source app it to be chaotic and lacking direction, but whoever is in charge of UX is really, really good at it. It's fascinating stuff, well worth diving into even just as a topic of study. I have no idea about Max's "demise", but there is no doubt that very solid alternatives are now available.
Competition is always good for users.
One last thing I'd like to mention is that if you *do* make the effort to try and switch and ask question on how to do X on a place like Blender Artist the kind of answer you get is often not really of nature to bring the best out of you, although, for completeness sake, I am aware of your own transition thread that was pretty successful in this sense.
Now all they have to do is solve all the rest of the polygon handling problems...
They're integrating scene editing tools into VR, so you get synchronous editing in both VR and your regular viewport, plus collab editing with multiple users in VR.
I was impressed. Lots of effort underway in 3ds Max. Spent some time chatting with one of their senior software architects about Max's core and where things are headed. Lots more interop coming.
They also spent a decent chunk of dev time recently on bug fixing, stability, and speed. All three of which high on users' wishlists.
the big one in my opinion was simply that they took the shortcut and bought NEX. insta-poly-tool-upgrade. it all still feels so really slow to work with though, you can almost follow any input on it's journey from keystroke through layers of scripting until it spits out some warning in the log and finally your screen gets updated with the result.
it's like some poor overworked hamster in a wheel doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes. how people can build anything complex in it i do not comprehend. i lack the zen-like patience.
If there's one thing they should shove into Max, it's the selection behavior from Maya, as well as it's camera controls (yea you can change that already, but it conflicts with hardcoded hotkeys), also that node editor and outliner are pretty neat aaaaand UI performance. Or just put the modifier stack, Max's viewport performance and modeling tools into Maya and I'm kinda sold.
-----
Thanks for sharing @Eric Chadwick
Since Autodesk is stacking up the Max team again, I'm looking forward to Update 4 for Max 2018.
Does any of you guys follow the ideas page for 3Ds max?
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-ideas/idb-p/164
Since the release of Max 2018 it's constantly reviewed and cared about, check out what's "accepted" for implementation
What display settings do you have for the grid that makes it show up like that? and what tool are you using to do the chamfer since in 2017 it just creates 4 polygons.
I could script Maya to make it work like that quite quickly but if it's out of the box then that'd be better.
I recently switched to modo from max after using max for years, I’m purely a hobbyist. But learning modo has made modeling fun again and it’s been a very enjoyable process. It does things out of the box that I think max lacks in. Even if it’s just beveling, booleans, unwrapping, retopo - I find modo does it faster and has more significant updates than max. But Perna will probably forget more about max than I’ll ever know.
to me, you can drive to a destination or you can ride a bike - they’ll both get you there but one is a lot faster. What you see as the bike is dependent on your style of modeling. But I don’t think people should be discouraged from trying new packages. Learning modo has pushed me to a new level from where I was, and because I find it more enjoyable to model in I produce more models which in turn makes me better. All because I was frustrated with Max and picked up a modo trial.
I think that perna is targeting professional artists and not hobbyists with his reply ( @perna correct me if im wrong ! ) , and the thing is i agree with him.
In my professional experience people that bitch alot about modeling packages and the demise\not demise of either one rarely know how to use half the features on their own modeling packages, like live booleans for example, that everyone lost their shit that maya or modo had them now....wich was a feature in max2009....10 years ago. http://polycount.com/discussion/189044/3ds-max-is-dead-per-is-rant/p1
The bike analogy and "style" of modeling is pretty good analogy, but in work environment, if i use max i can have Perna send me a file, unclick the modifiers and apply feedback painlessly, while if it was maya or modo i would have to remove all control loops\creases\aditional vertex data that was used BEFORE applying feedback. Wich is a task before the task, removing alot of time for the feedback.
Hope it made sense !
When you use any modifiers that are vertex-order dependent (Edit Poly, UVW Unwrap, VertexPaint, etc.) and you add a new edge loop in the bottom modifier, those modifier edits are usually lost.
Gizmos also tend to be volume-dependent... FFD, Bend, Taper, Volume Select, etc, all rely on the mesh volume being consistent, so if you're passing up a sub-object selection it better not change or else the gizmo shape will change.
I've also seen a lot of modelers adding Edit Poly or Unwrap on top of a subdivision modifier (Turbo Smooth, OpenSubdiv, etc.). Which makes editing the model really tough.
Lots of modifier stack abuse. It's a powerful tool, but only with a careful knowledgeable hand. I personally love using modifiers, but Collapse To is my friend.
But... But... everything must be fully procedural... A lot of genius claims that's the future.
Also...
Any "tool is better than another tool" argument is basically moot unless the individual arguing knows how to use all the tools in question properly.
Given that it's rare to find someone who can operate one tool correctly, let alone several, the percentage of opinions that have any real validity is pretty bloody small.
Don't pigeon hole yourself by being a workflow snob, you might end up in a situation where something could easily be done but because you've closed yourself off to that certain way of working, you're taking 10x longer with dozens more steps that aren't flexible and aren't open to quick iteration.
Do u really want to have every single modeling action as node for the sake of flexibility?
I love 3dsMax modifier stack because it is "practical procedualism". It is like half way between direct modeling and full procedualism.
Modo has had a modifier stack since 10.1 (june 2016). Prior to that you could always keep duplicates of your meshes before major changes in case you have to go back and make adjustments, but that's obviously more limited. I will say that working without modifiers first seems to have been good training for knowing what benefits from being parametric and what you can keep simple... at some point you're going to have to make a final decision and lock changes in; the less you have to worry about this by virtue of cutting down on choices the better. Keeping critical things editable gives you the luxury of deffering those decisions until you've got more done and a better idea of what fits the final product.
though I don't think it is by any means the death knell of of 3ds max, I went back last month to make a few objects just to shake off rust as I may of needed to use max for a job.
it is still a pretty industry standard set of software, but beyond that it is a powerful modeler and it is far from likely to die overnight or ever really, just for me the real question is is it the must optimal modeler for its price point, and I would say No
maybe another reason why release of new functionality?
But, i witness that the art community enthousiasm is now leaning towards Blender because people are making tools and scripts for Blender and not for Max anymore. Ofc it's free, open and more and more complete. Are people sick of Autodesk management ? Looks like.
Like this much?
Try it for yourself to see. Everyone who makes a video has a bias. Never forget that each video is a shortcut, a filter, details are left out, maybe important details.
Also in the description I gave all scene info.
Blender maxed out my 32G ram.
FYI, 3dsMax needed 10G for this.
maybe not for you guys...
But, if you are dealing with CAD, you will have a chance to deal with 100+mil model.
At work(TV vfx), one of spaceship alone is 20mil. Then we have environments.
For reasonable scenes Blender is fine and allows to work faster (it relies heavily on hotkeys and mouse wheel instead of huge scrollable GUI like 3ds max with a lot of tools that does almost the same thing) and without any crash. Also having heavy scenes can slow down the compilation of the render engine and the render time, so the time saved not optimizing his scene will be converted to hours of additionnal render time for an animation.
And if later Eevee adds lightmap baking of indirect lighting with the generation of the texture atlas (Cycles can bake the indirect lighting via the GPU already it's more of an automated tool to create) with light probes for GI effect on moving objects (irradiance grid tool of the 2.8) this could allow for real time rendering by doing OpenGL snapshots. This technique is very popular for archiviz and starts to be used in the movie industry.