3dsMax 2020 full list

gandhics

3dsMax 2020 What's new - Full list

Modeling

+Enhanced Chamfer modifier
* The new Fixed Weight Chamfer keeps a consistent chamfer width.
* Weighted chamfer allow chamfer to be controlled on a per-edge basis with crease weights.
* New presets allow to save favorite or set default settings.
* Added Inset adds edge rings to chamfers for users who cannot use smoothing
* groups, such as models for game engines.
* End Point Bias: Edges that don’t end at a corner terminate on the next parallel edge can
* bias between the near and far vertex.
* Added Depth allows the profile of the chamfer to go from a depth of 1 (a sharp edge) to 0 (a straight edge), to -0.5 (an inverted curve)

+Expanded PointCould format support for PointCould object
* .las / laz / e57 / .ply

Vertex Paint - display colors values in the viewport with numeric labels - PU3
Vertex Paint - new selection tools to perform ring and loop selections - PU3

Rendering

+New OSL shaders
* Color Key
* Math/Color/ColorSpace (convert colors between, rgb, hsv, YIQ etc.)
* Falloff
* Halftone (screen space dot pattern)
* UVW/UVW MatCap (get MatCap mapping UV coordinates)
* Scene/Normal (get the normal vector)
* Switchers/Random Index by Number/Color
* Simple Gradient
* Simple Tiles
* Tri-tone
* Threads
* Toon Width
* Waveform (Animated)
* Weave

+Adjusted / Updated shaders
* Bitmap Lookup / UberBitmap : Support UDIM lookup
* Composite: Add "Blending Mode"
* Tweak renamed to *Tweak/Levels* and added a *Midtones* setting to better match Photoshop "Levels"

+OSL map improvement
* OSL updated to 1.10.2 / OpenImageIO updated to 1.8.16
* OSL to HLSL viewport shader auot-conversion supports most shipping/3rd party OSL shader display in viewport
* OSL animated map performance improvement
* OSL APT for 3rd party renderer dev include OSL trace() function call.

+StateSet
*Arnold AOV support

Interactive ActiveShade Viewport - PU3
OSL improved bump map support - PU3
OSL Editor colors configurable in the Customize UI dialog - PU3
OSL Editor improved bracket highlighting, syntax highlighting, and better docking ability - PU3
OSL Editor highlights matching bracket, line number - PU2
OSL Editor improvement - font customization, Bracket Matching , indentation - PU1
OSL performance improvement especially with Scanline renderer - PU1

Performance

* Overall around 20% performance improvement.
* Validity Intervals - up to 500% faster rig evaluation.
* Some Mesh conversion optimizations
* Skin/SkinWrap Optimizations
* SetNormals MXS function acceleration (~10x)
* Some speedups with interactions (click, selection, zoom, etc) when scenes have lots of groups
* Fixed the displayed FPS
* ParamBlock2 id to index mapping - The performance of looking up a parameter index based on its id has been improved
* Flatten mapping is an order of magnitude faster when working with many uv islands and pixel snap settings now save and reload.

Collapse Utility performance improvement - up to x200 times faster - PU1

General

+Improved Make Preview
* Much faster. 1.5 - 3x faster creation on local drives
* Capture size greater than viewport dimensions supported
* "Quality" setting accessible from Preview UI (Nitrous only)
* Default preview filename based on current scene filename
* 100% output resolution on by default
* MXS snippet can be executed per frame for custom strings
* Filename and MXS snippet values can be specified from MXS command line of CreatePreview()
* After executing the preview, the time slider is returned to the original starting frame
* "Play when done" accessible from Preview UI
* If running from MXS command line, avoid dialog boxes, output to listener instead

+ Copy+Pasted modifiers maintain their custom names

3ds Max security tools - PU2
Scene file compression now supports large data sets (greater than 2GB) - PU1
Vault integration now supports the check-in and checkout of large files, and auto-login - PU1

Revit Import

* Combine By options allows you to combine by material more selectively by choosing:
* Combine by Revit Category and Revit Material
* Combine by Revit Family Type and Revit Material
* Filter dialogue now displays the number of nodes that will be created in the scene’s category or family type.
* Import Revit 2017, 2018, and 2019 files into 2020 without the need to upgrade
* Revit Compatibility pack (for each supported version) needs to be installed on your machine for functionality.
IES lights imported from Revit are converted more accurately.
* Daylight System Update; We removed reliance on Mental Ray, resulting in a better translation. We now leverage the physical sun and sky, where the translation is done automatically without interruption.

Importing Autodesk Revit files is now twice as fast as before - PU3
Proper lights import(via FBX/RVT) - PU3
Improved Import dialog - PU3

Alembic

* custom attributes on non-geometry such as locators and dummies are exported
* improved triangulation on concave ngons
* Performance mode fix

Custom Attribute per object support via .userProperties and .arbGeomParam - PU3
Alembic Transform controller performance improvement more than 2x faster - PU3
Maya Multi UV and Vertex Color supprot - PU3
Relative path fix - PU3
Alembic Performance mode caches only animation range - PU3
Instance support - PU2
Alembic library 1.7.5 - PU2
Unicode support - PU2
Fix high speed rotation warps objects - PU2
3ds Max Object Properties and Custom Attributes support - PU1
Alembic Inspector - PU1
Re-sizable Alembic Container Icon - PU1
Duplicate name handling - PU1
Proper NURBS support - PU1

Fluid

Enable/Disable checkbox for all object list - PU2
Rendering fluids data channels such as Vorticity, Density, Age, etc. with Arnold - PU2
Alow to copy display and render settings - PU2
Fluid Loader - PU1
Channel Field - PU1

UI

Editable Poly UI speed improvement - PU3
Windowed TrackView/Scene Explorer/State Sets - PU2

FileIO

FBX animation only export - PU1

Project

New Project toolbar - PU1
Enable/disable the project automated swtiching - PU1

Shared View

Export Autodesk materials and V-Ray Materials with textures - PU2
Support all butmap types - PU1
Render and upload most procedural textures - PU1
the ability to resize textures on upload - PU1
Support for Shell material and arbitrary UV channels (limited to 1) - PU1

Maxscript

* MaxScript method maxops.CollapseNodeTo() ignores quiet mode with Xref Object
* Change color of MAXScript listener window

Methods for listing callbacks registered by registertimecallback - PU3
registerredrawviewscallback
Alembic inspector - PU2
LayerManager option to add multiple nodes - PU2
Expose 'owner' property for custom attribute container - PU2
MaxScript operations on the Skin Modifier no longer require objects to be selected - PU2
Archive support - PU1
Improve behavior of setUserProp/getUserProp - PU1

Python

PySide2 missing module support QtConcurrent, QtMuluseredia, QtMuluserediaW, QtOpenGL, QtScriptTools, QtWinExtras
Python dictionaries using Maxscript values as keys - PU1
Converting a large object set from MaxScript (pymxs.runtime.objects) to a Python list is now instantaneous - PU1

Arnold

* GPU rendering (BETA): you can now switch between CPU and GPU render devices interactively and expect visually similar results. NVIDIA® GPUs from Turing™ to Maxwell™ architectures are supported, and Arnold will take advantage of multiple GPUs, NVLink™ and NVIDIA® RTX™ hardware accelerated raytracing if available. Note that due to beta status of GPU rendering, a number of features are missing, performance is not final, and use in production is not advised. We plan to gradually improve this in subsequent releases and would appreciate your feedback. For a complete description of requirements, features and caveats, see Getting Started With Arnold GPU.
* Improved adaptive sampling
* Improved skydome sampling
* Visible lights
* Microfacet multiple scattering
* Improved random-walk SSS
* Anisotropy controls forcoat in standard_surface
* Smart opaque
* Operator connection on procedurals
* New include_graph operator
* Improved ramp_rgb shader
* New uv_projection shader
* Faster .ass file writing
* Autobump visibility now exposed in the Arnold Properties
* MaterialX export
* Operators can now be grouped together in the Operator Graph
* The Merge and Switch operators are now exposing the input ports
* Improved UI for the Set Parameter operator
* ParticleFlow Instancer

RTT texture baking support - PU2
Cell Noise shader - PU2
Sheen function in the Standard Surface - PU2
Edge detection can be controlled in Toon Shader using the STRING type user data, toon_id - PU2
OptiX Denoiser - reduced memory consumption - PU2
Noice Denoiser - stability improvement - PU2
Adaptive sampling - PU1
OptiX Denoiser - PU1
Noice Denoiser - PU1
Toon shader - PU1
Ramp shader - PU1
Native Alembic procedural - PU1

LaurentiuN

Short list, nothing wow, so many nice stuff are posted on their forum ideas but nothing gets implemented after years of " under review ".
2020 is a joke.

Justo

Super interested in how far they go with the RTT/BTT overhaul. This, coupled with Arnold's rounded edge-shader could be a big change in my workflow.

musashidan

s1dK said:

Short list, nothing wow, so many nice stuff are posted on their forum ideas but nothing gets implemented after years of " under review ".
2020 is a joke.

Well, that's just untrue. The ideas certainly are being implemented. 2 of mine are in the works, but I've fought for them on the beta. Are you on the beta?

Also, a lot of work has gone into 2020 and there have been some great all round performance improvements.

Believe it or not, the work being done by the devs this last year is about as exciting as I've seen it in many, many years for Max. 

LaurentiuN

Well, all of this could be just an service pack for 3ds max 2019. My idea got some attention, but still after 2 years it`s under review.
https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-ideas/hard-mesh-for-3ds-max-real-time-boolean-operations-with-chamfers/idi-p/6914928
What do they need to review? Lots of people wants this feature and other features as well. Do I need to wait 10 years for a single feature?
I forgot when was the last time I was happy for a max release. Nothing cool added in the last years.

musashidan

Well, you have to understand that Max has more seats than any other DCC and Arch-Vis/VFX are the majority of studios/artists. People were screaming for fluids in Max for years. It got the votes on the idea board. Max got fluids.

Max is a beast in terms of what's involved for the devs. I didn't really appreciate what they do until I joined the beta, and with a much smaller team than Maya.

There is a serious focus on completely modernising the entire modeling workflow. Believe me when I say that, there are people like Fausto deMartini pushing for it over there.

And the devs are well aware of the waves that free Blender 2.80 is making and realise that Max needs to be broughtup to speed in a lot of areas.

Look at the amount of ideas on that board with new ones added every day. They have to prioritise and keep many users from every single corner of every industry happy, and with limited resources. Don't confuse the corporate entity that is Adesk with the dedicated and passionate team of devs we have steering Max at the moment.

zachagreg

musashidan said:

Well, you have to understand that Max has more seats than any other DCC and Arch-Vis/VFX are the majority of studios/artists. People were screaming for fluids in Max for years. It got the votes on the idea board. Max got fluids.

Do you have any numbers on the ratios for fields of work for Max? I would just like to see them because as I was looking through the list last night I did feel that there were a number of things that game artists just wouldn't care about as a general feature. 

That's not saying that there aren't some welcome improvements on that list that I'm looking forward to.

musashidan

I don't have numbers, but there are some great workflow tools and improvements coming that didn't quite make tbis release, but Adesk don't do the big annual releases anymore.  It's been quarterly so as features are ready they get dropped into the next cycle.

The good news is that Arch-Vis industry has finally realised the power of real-time and it has led to a big interest in it from Max devs. There are a few of us from the games industry on the beta, but it can be hard work getting some of the Arch-Vis gang up to speed on real-time basics like the importance of mikkt for baking.

Adesk have partnered with Unity so look for solid interop in the future (pisses me off that they didn't go with Epic, but great news if you use Unity)

oglu

They are also partnered with Epic and the nvidia Omniverse Project. There is a lot in the pipe.

musashidan

oglu said:

They are also partnered with Epic and the nvidia Omniverse Project. There is a lot in the pipe.

I think the epic partnership might be more to do with the Datasmith connection. Hopefully ist's a full pipeline.

I'll have to check out Omniverse. First I've heard of it.

Steppenwolf

I just can't get excited about Max anymore. These tiny updates don't convince me that things are looking up. And even if they suddenly manage to completely modernize and start innovating the price point is way too high. If they are aware of the waves Blender 2.80 is making they should also be aware that they need reasonable and attractive pricing for small and mid tier people.

Blaizer

Blender 2.8, that's it. Simple, yet powerful and innovative. 

The unique thing i liked about Max 2020 was the chamfer update, with quad bevels. But you know.. i had that with modo more than a decade ago LOL.

gnoop

Chamfer update is cool indeed and Modo  IMO while having lots of hidden treasures  is a champion of  "You see nothing at all  because of some god forgotten checkbox you haven't checked in somewhere or wrong order in shading tree"   

Using it for a decade sporadically, mostly for baking and it never stops to puzzle me.

Being a paying Max subscriber I see not enough yet to bring me back  and actually make me doing my models in Max again and not in  beloved Blender.   Except for a few very special cases.        

miauu

What about "every viewport on different monitor"(detached viewports)?

musashidan

Blaizer said:

The unique thing i liked about Max 2020 was the chamfer update, with quad bevels. But you know.. i had that with modo more than a decade ago LOL.

Quad chamfer has been in Max donkeys as well. The new Chamfer mod is a whole other beast, almost CAD-like filleting. No other DCC comes close to its features at this point.

Don't even get me started on Modo. What a f**king mess that is.

reanimate

musashidan said:

Max is a beast in terms of what's involved for the devs. I didn't really appreciate what they do until I joined the beta, and with a much smaller team than Maya.

This part make me curious, how many team member that working on 3ds actually ??

musashidan

I'm not sure, exactly, but I have heard from a few people over there that the team is a lot smaller than Maya's.

oglu

In the past the bifrost team was part of the maya team but now they are a separat team working with both, max and maya. The maya team is also working on materialx wich is also groundwork for max. There is a lot of teamwork. 

gandhics

musashidan said:

I'm not sure, exactly, but I have heard from a few people over there that the team is a lot smaller than Maya's.

"was"

jRocket

The chamfer is cool, but they should fix basic stuff before working on new features. Like the lack of ability to turn off viewport texture filtering, and losing custom vertex normals all the time. The UI is also a huge mess. You have some modeling tools in the modifier tab on the right and others in the top ribbon? Why would anyone do it like that? It makes no sense. Why not just have the modeling tools all in one convenient place?

I'm also curious as to where people are getting this info about number of licenses and the size of the dev team- numbers which I'm pretty sure Autodesk does not publish. Do you guys have some inside information or just making stuff up?