3DS Max 2010

mLichy

Wtf... already a trial out....

I tried it out... it's wierd.. They've added/changed quite a bit of the UI. Also added new tools.


http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=7658360

Joshua Stubbles

jesus, I hope you can condense that graphite toolbar! haha. That's like 30% of your screen space gone!

Some of the stuff looks awesome, some is meh. As always. I just want the damn crashing to stop. And for them to kill maxscript and use Python or something equally useful.

HellMark

That UI is a mess. The new tools look cool but WTH looks like they just threw that UI in with duct tape.

Keg

I thought microsoft's new ribbon stuff was meant to replace the toolbar and menu not be thrown down below it. Also, why is OBJ importing a "new feature" ?

|Buddy|

Just ignore this one tbh

Andreas

Well I actually think this is the first release since about 8 that isnt worth ignoring, buddy. Before this full point releases had stuff like three new mental ray shaders and that was it (only a slight exaggeration). Whereas these new modelling tools look great!

Slum

integrated mental mill and new pflow operators... sounds awesome ! I heard a couple years ago that 2010 was going to have full integrated python support. I guess that didn't happen

Rick Stirling

The containers could be a very useful feature for world builder artists.

thomasp

what a interface mess. and no node-based mateditor? looks like a release worth skipping

from the looks of it, they could do with a demo-artist or two who'd feed back on usability, consistency and all that.

ScoobyDoofus

Looks like much of the new modeling tools are just taken wholesale from Polyboost.

Jeremy Lindstrom

polyboost was part of 2009 creativity pack, and are part of 2010 by design, I've heard tons of people that beta'd it love the new UI after taking a couple of weeks to get used to it, we'll see though.

Mark Dygert

I'm glad that, PolyBoost, PolyCruncher, SoundTrax and Pflow box1 are all standard now. The last three where rolled into 2009 as part of the creative extensions, which was nice for people on subscription. I don't remember polyboost being part of the creative extensions for 2009... if its there, I totally missed it. I could have really made use of it work, since I only have polyboost at home =/

I'm not too sure about the ribbon, it might grow on me. Hopefully that's not the only way you can access polyboost?

Any word on them including Clay Studio, or Spray Master? I've always wanted those but the price always kept them in the want category. But I'd settle for FumeFX. Come on Autodesk you know you wanna bite off some of that action. No one can resist making their own smoke monster!

Woa there's a hotfix already for 2010...

low odor

can you not customize the ui anymore..it seemes if the ui sucks,then change it to your regular setup...or make a new one...

09 is a big piece of clunky garbage that I use everyday...I have a feeling that 10 is the same clunkmaster with new clunktackular features...I guess I should try it

mLichy

I played around with it a little the other night, took fucking forever to install... The new modeling tools are cool, but the UI takes up a ton of space, like others said. But I'm sure you can get rid of it and use shortcuts.

The viewport performance seems to be better, but I have to do more testing.

Jesse Moody

Going from 9 recently to 2009 and playing around with the beta for this one I can say there was a huge jump for me. The new lighting, ao in viewport is very sexy and the integration of polyboost is a huge plus.

Andreas

There really needs to be some updated video tutorials for Max 2010...so many changes since 8, and yet I have only seen a few videos that glance over the new features.

Mark Dygert

You mean like those videos that pop up when you first install it?
There are even more tutorials available if you click the "Learning Path" link.



The core features haven't changed that much since R4 that old tutorials would cease to be relevant?

I really wish everyone would watch them and not assume they know everything and ignore them. Most of them are 2min so its no big deal if they actually do cover everything you already knew.

killingpeople

"Innovative Graphite Modeling Toolset" ... Innovative? How is that not Maya's tool bar?

killingpeople

Essential Skills Movies... Like Maya. I don't recall Max ever do this before? I has a theory.

claydough

The flow connect werks similar to gesture tools. ( insertEdgeGesture )
http://rogerklado.web.officelive.com/Documents/insertGestureEdge.zip

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?p=929343#post929343

Mark Dygert

killingpeople wrote: »

Essential Skills Movies... Like Maya. I don't recall Max ever do this before? I has a theory.

Yea, they started adding them about the time they acquired Maya... humm
And the ribbon would be 10x more useful if it actually worked like the Maya tool bar. But as it is, its like when they replaced the compass with the viewcube.

Jeremy Wright

I guess the thing that gets me the most with Autodesk's new penchant for Ribbons is the fact that most professionals want to go through the least amount of menus to get something done (i.e. using shortcut keys instead).

They put the ribbon on AutoCAD (we dl'ed the new demo), and I'm thinking to myself, "who the fuck uses buttons in AutoCAD?" We were taught in school to learn the shortcut keys and use the command line. Is there some dumbass out there clicking on a fucking 'line' button instead of typing 'L, enter'?

ElysiumGX

And they're attempting to finally support OBJ files properly. Glad to see Max is finally getting useful edge loop tools standard. I also heard we landed on the moon.

I'm guessing they have the XSI guys working on Python support, so they can kill Maxscript.

IronHawk

Did they improve the sub d workflow? Can i click on the mesh and not on a cage?

SHEPEIRO

Rick Stirling wrote: »

The containers could be a very useful feature for world builder artists.

damn right.

michi.be

I'm still using max9 but beside the funky UI it seems to be a worthy update as soon as all my game plugins are updated.

MRico

All I wanted for 3ds max was a retopo feature!

neolith

Rick Stirling wrote: »

The containers could be a very useful feature for world builder artists.

I don't see where the difference between a container and a group is - could anyone explain this feature, please?

Mechadus

I only want 2 things out of a new max (aside all the crashing and ram hogging).

1. Make it select the (&*^ing mesh Im clicking on, not the one on the other end of the scene

2. Mini Games and unlockable modifiers. Every 2 hours or so a Mario Party style minigame pops up, and the better you do, the more modifiers you get. Probably wouldnt do much for production, but it sure would make my day better.

-N

Andreas

Mechadus wrote: »

2. Mini Games and unlockable modifiers. Every 2 hours or so a Mario Party style minigame pops up, and the better you do, the more modifiers you get. Probably wouldnt do much for production, but it sure would make my day better.

Haha! +1

Ryno

Neolith, I was wondering the same thing. What is the difference between a container and a group? Or a layer for that matter?

Agree about the UI. Shortcuts please! Or at least quad menu functionality.

Some of the tools do look pretty slick though. The flow loop tools look great. The much needed maya-esque interactive insert loop tool is way overdue.

I'm also really intrigued by the new shader creation tools.

vik

Mechadus wrote: »

...
1. Make it select the (&*^ing mesh Im clicking on, not the one on the other end of the scene
...
-N

hehe agree 100%

SHEPEIRO

neolith wrote: »

I don't see where the difference between a container and a group is - could anyone explain this feature, please?

a container is really powerfull, it references other scenes (.cmax or something) basically splitting your scene into lots of small parts that can be loaded and un-loaded from max from within your main scene, if you close a container it unloads it from memory if you open it you see the scene, that can be write protected so that other s=can have parts of your scene in their scene for reference or they could load it in and make changes across the two scenes if unprotected. large scenes that need to be exported as one can be split up into small parts allowing many people to work on them while one is used to export..... etc etc.... very good for large scene management esp as max tends to leak memory like theres no tommorow

edit- and objects can be in different layers from containers, so you could have hallway1 and room2 containers open errrrr containing the objects from those two rooms, then hide all the layers but floors for example and just see the floors from those two rooms.

anyway thats my understanding of them from the little tinker ive had

Ryno

So it's kind of an advance X-Ref?

SHEPEIRO

um very kind-of

Mark Dygert

Hopefully a FIXED and improved XRef system... Hopefully its a exact copy of how Maya works with the same concept.

Can you edit objects in other containers without having to open the original file?
For example can you touch up UV's or apply skin and bones to something inside a container?

SHEPEIRO

i think so, but not tested it, ie didnt see it working between two or more machines, they are basically mini max files, so i guess users could lock the container file and edit it then when the person who needs to export that file updates and opens the container the fixes would be there, and containers can be in more than one scene, but can be locked to the parent scene to prevent changes in anything other than that scene, in which case its pretty much like referece scene

Ryno

Vig, I'm not terribly impressed with Maya's system either. It's much less flakey than Max's, but once you've got several hundred object referenced in, display issues are a huge deal without just calling proxies. Yah, I know that Maya (or Max) isn't supposed to be a level editor, but we've worked with a number of clients who do try to use it as such.

Maya really seems to like to choke when there's too many textures in the scene. PLus if several objects (different X-Refs) are calling the same set of textures, these nodes are duplicated in Hypershade. Very annoying.

Actually, if anyone had more tips on dealing with X-refs in Maya, please PM me. I'd really appreciate it, and don't want to derail this thread.

Mark Dygert

Yea I agree with all those points. I favor the Maya system because it mostly works like it should, as opposed to Xref that nearly derailed one of our games because it refused to work as designed 80% of the time. Using the Xref menu to open a Xref'ed object should not crash 3dsmax... Also updating the source should not turn the Xref into a little x that needs its path refreshed 80% of the time.

Jaded hate for Xref aside...

There is a great set of scripts out there for Maya called Level Tools (search TheArea.com for a download, need to log in). It makes great use of the referencing system. Builds a handy little library of parts and pieces and has a ton of options for placing them.

You can do something similar in 3dsmax using a few scripts.
Here's a post I wrote up about it.
http://boards.polycount.net/showpost.php?p=904177&postcount=18

SHEPEIRO

apparently to work in a container that someone else has authored you have to hack the file name, and who knows what kind of un-stability that would bring down on your head, so maybe not quite as good as i hoped

Junkie_XL

So does Graphite = PolyBoost 5 or just 4.1 with a new coat of paint? Are there any new features? Also do the PB ctrl-shift-alt shortcut combinations remain? i.e...Watching the guy having to hit "set flow" after every loop added instead of just holding in shift & clicking worried me.

I'm still running 2008 x64. Having PB & polygon cruncher has been enough for me. I'd like to try 2010 but that UI is ass if I can't break it off and put it on the left/right side. Having that at the top is not ideal for widescreen monitors.

neolith

SHEPEIRO wrote: »

a container is really powerfull, it references other scenes (.cmax or something) basically splitting your scene into lots of small parts that can be loaded and un-loaded from max from within your main scene, if you close a container it unloads it from memory if you open it you see the scene, that can be write protected so that other s=can have parts of your scene in their scene for reference or they could load it in and make changes across the two scenes if unprotected. large scenes that need to be exported as one can be split up into small parts allowing many people to work on them while one is used to export..... etc etc.... very good for large scene management esp as max tends to leak memory like theres no tommorow

edit- and objects can be in different layers from containers, so you could have hallway1 and room2 containers open errrrr containing the objects from those two rooms, then hide all the layers but floors for example and just see the floors from those two rooms.

anyway thats my understanding of them from the little tinker ive had

Aaah, I see - thanks.

Cheesestraws

Referencing in Maya became a lot more manageable in 2009 with the introduction of Assets. Assets are basically container nodes with customised AE interfaces where changes made within them don't break the referencing as long as the published attributes on the container stay the same.

My explanation was poorly worded but for an in depth explanation of Assets look here.