Is 3DS Max for Hard-Surface modeling drastically different than Maya?

3D4Eva

I'm going to be moving over to another project soon they only use 3DS Max but I haven't used Max is a long long time.... As a Maya user primarily I'm not sure what key differences I need to worry about when moving over to Max for hard-surface modeling. I understand majority of everything is transferable knowledge wise, but I've heard that Max makes things a lot simpler in terms of the tools available for poly modeling.

Are there any real key differences I need to look out for? How does Max work with NURBS as well?

Eric Chadwick

NURBS in Max isn't as deep as Maya, IIRC. It's been a long time since I've looked though so things may get have changed.

Hard surface is usually done with OoenSubdiv these days. Lots of advances in Max to check out, especially the new Chamfer modifier workflow.

Max's biggest strength over Maya is the modifier stack. It has pitfalls though, don't fall into the trap of treating it like an Undo history, stacking modifiers like working steps. Gets really slow, and fragile.

What version of Max will you be working with?

3D4Eva

Eric Chadwick said:

NURBS in Max isn't as deep as Maya, IIRC. It's been a long time since I've looked though so things may get have changed.

Hard surface is usually done with OoenSubdiv these days. Lots of advances in Max to check out, especially the new Chamfer modifier workflow.

Max's biggest strength over Maya is the modifier stack. It has pitfalls though, don't fall into the trap of treating it like an Undo history, stacking modifiers like working steps. Gets really slow, and fragile.

What version of Max will you be working with?

We will be using the 2021 version.  So I assume whatever the latest update is for that one.

I assume the stacks would be like with Maya where after awhile you need to delete history to remove the nodes as it gets very slow over time.

I've also used Blender which uses a modifier list, just not sure how similar it is to Max as it has been a long time since I used Max.

Eric Chadwick

Short stacks can be kept live. Editable Poly base modifier is very usable (check out the Graphite tools), then you can add a Chamfer, and an OpenSubdiv on top. Edit simplified basemesh down in EP, easily hotkey up and down for editing Chamfer settings, and toggle subdiv on/off.

Very fast and workable.

gandhics

3D4Eva said:

Eric Chadwick said:

NURBS in Max isn't as deep as Maya, IIRC. It's been a long time since I've looked though so things may get have changed.

Hard surface is usually done with OoenSubdiv these days. Lots of advances in Max to check out, especially the new Chamfer modifier workflow.

Max's biggest strength over Maya is the modifier stack. It has pitfalls though, don't fall into the trap of treating it like an Undo history, stacking modifiers like working steps. Gets really slow, and fragile.

What version of Max will you be working with?

We will be using the 2021 version.  So I assume whatever the latest update is for that one.

I assume the stacks would be like with Maya where after awhile you need to delete history to remove the nodes as it gets very slow over time.

I've also used Blender which uses a modifier list, just not sure how similar it is to Max as it has been a long time since I used Max.

You don't have to collapse stack frequently. Most model I have seen always have a few modifiers on the stack. You can go pretty crazy. But, usually you don't need to.since Edit Poly could hold enough operations in a modifier.

Also performance wise Max is far better than Maya for most operation.

Ghogiel

The whole point of the stack is to use it. While you might collapse modifiers because it makes sense to, you don't want it cluttered for things that have served their purpose and can be safely collapsed, like UVWUnrap or reset Xform, and when you are using tricks with the stack to quickly do something (like auto boolean cleanups with turn to poly etc), once done, just "collapse to".

But others you don't need to, you leave them at the top of the stack. Things you want leave are mostly proceedural that you want applied to the "end result" and can never break no matter what you do in the stack under them, because they take an arbitrary vert index and do a function on that> like opensubdiv/turbosmooth/chamfer/weighted normals/turn to poly/symetry etc you might just leave on the stack pretty much forever. If you do need to collapse the stack, a lot of the time you can just collapse modifiers that are under the top 2-3 that you are leaving up there for the bulk of the modelling process. (rclick on the modifier collapse to)

Things that you don't want to mess up with is stacking a load of edit poly and accidently moving up the stack with a subobject selection from the modifier under it or actually modifying the topololgy at the bottom of the stack when you have some edit poly modifiers further up.

Smoothing groups and setting edge weights with chamfer modifier is uber quick way to proceedurally have the chamfer modifier do its thing. (there a ton of settings to figure out)

Max sucks without hotkeys imo. (people in Maya for some reason rely on the all the rclick or space bar menus and buttons and less on hotkeys so it might be worth mentioning) probably lame advice but I'd recomend setting up all your hotkeys to how you like pretty early on because digging through menus and clicking buttons is not fun.

Max also tracks the models triangulation, unlike Maya which it does by an algorithm. Just be aware of "turn" and "edit triangulation" in editable poly edge and face subobject mode, so you can modify the invis edges there when needed. There is now a modifier that will do shortest edge which I think is what Maya does, so you can get the same triangulation result in max if you ever wanted to as well.

live boolean and retopolgy is definitely a workflow worth looking into.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKEu2Gs3G_U

tenabrae

MAX also has real measurement tools, which are useful if you’re modelling a real world object or to a scale and it has functional mirroring tools. It’s great for hard surface. It’s no MODO but it’s also not the price of a small car.

i usually use a combination of MAX and Maya depending on how complex the model is, the more technical, the more I use MAX (e.g making a mech where parts need to line up 

3D4Eva

Thank you for all the replies!