Autodesk 3DS Max 2010 – Review

Posted by JAsko in News | 14 comments

The newest version of Autodesk’s 3D suite contains some major interface changes. On opening 3DS Max 2010, you’ll immediately be aware of the new Graphite Modelling toolset. This allows you to directly select and manipulate polygon objects.

Initially displayed as a single Graphite tab, when a suitable model — such as an editable polygon – is selected, the Ribbon updates to display a full range of polygon-editing tools, as well as freeform and selection tools.

When each tool on the Ribbon is selected, a light green panel appears at the end, displaying the settings for the tool. Autodesk concedes that there is currently a bug in the system – the Graphite Tools and the Modify panel are not fully synchronised, so changes to some Modify panel settings do not update their equivalents in the Graphite user interface. We didn’t find this an insurmountable problem, though — using a button on the main toolbar, Menu bar, or the Graphite Modeling tools will update the user interface in any case.

The Ribbon greatly improves workflow. We were able to select a single vertex, and then click on the options under Grow in the Modify tab to interactively expand the selection to cover a section of an object in a couple of moves. Loop and Ring modes are available — choosing two or more adjacent segments and clicking the relevant selection tool swiftly selects a parallel loop or ring of polygons.

Another enhancement is the ability to set the selection to skip points, so it only selects alternate edges in a ring, for example. You can also add subsequent loops interactively using the rather nifty Swift Loop tool. Freeform tools are also available. All these tools are also available from the Command panel, but the Ribbon gives faster contextual access.

There are also other modelling enhancements, such as the ProOptimizer modifier. In common with other polygon-reduction tools — including the MultiRes modifier already in 3DS Max — this allows you to simplify models and thus reduce memory overheads when rendering. ProOptimizer has a more complex battery of settings, however, and the results were noticeably improved in comparison to the reduction offered by the older modifier.

There are other big changes to the viewports in this version, too. There’s a new clickable shortcut menu, and three labels that quickly control the viewport display, with options for point of view and shading of objects.

Unless you have a graphics card that doesn’t support hardware shading, you can also take advantage of Review 3, an impressive new preview rendering mode. This lets you work with objects in the viewport, displayed with real-time rendering effects such as soft-edged shadows, HDRI lighting and ambient occlusion. It also allows you to interactively adjust exposure control within the viewport.

Currently ambient occlusion isn’t supported in Orthographic views, but the Review 3 feature is clearly going to cut out time previously taken up by sample renderings to calibrate these effects. Version 2010 is also the first 3D application to take advantage of the new mental mill technology from mental ray. This provides a graphical platform to create and test complex shaders with interactive, real-time visual feedback.

Productivity also gets a boost from the new Material Explorer. This aims to simplify the way you interact with objects and materials, giving the ability to quickly browse and replace materials in the scene, as well as to view material properties and relationships. However, the main benefit of the Material Explorer is the ability to change material properties and settings, either globally or individually, from a central resource.

There’s no need to enter the Material Editor when you need to make quick changes: the Scene Explorer enhancements offer similar shortcuts for greater scene organisation. You can have several Scene Explorer dialogs open at one time, and this configuration will be saved along with your 3DS Max scene.

Containers are another new feature, and are highly useful for collaborative working in larger 3D, post or game design studios. You can collect large amounts of related objects (building in a city block, characters, props and buildings for a particular level in a game) as a Container. You can then place and manipulate them in a scene together by transforming a Container helper object. You can save time by updating all the objects in a container at once, or by instancing the container and then enable the instances to inherit the changes.

Containers can also be used to make scenes simpler, as although the contents are visible in the viewport as part of the container, they are in reality removed from the scene. You can unload the container, move it to a new location, and then load it again. An administrator can grant different levels of access to different users, for example by locking down the basic contents but let subordinates instance and reposition containers.

Collaborative working is also well served by fully expanded support for the OBJ file format, which among other things helps with importing exporting files from Mudbox. Texture coordinates and smoothing groups in OBJ files can be now previewed, while there are options for triangulating polygons on import and choosing how normals are imported.

Sound support in 3D applications rarely gets a mention, so the ProSound multitrack audio feature is welcome. It supports PCM and compressed audio in AVI and WAV formats (with up to six output channels), and there’s a substantial amount of customisation via the ProSound dialog box. Using the Dope Sheet, we could visually sync audio playback with an animation sequence running in the viewport.

There’s also a facility to render your track to match playback speed. Up to 100 audio tracks can be added to each scene, with individual volume controls for each track.

Some of the features in the 2010 release have already been made available via the Autodesk subscription programme – for example, the PflowAdvanced particle enhancements to Particle Flow. However, the shipping version of 3DS Max 2010 comes with a Sample Files DVD, featuring 100 samples for the PFlowElements library.

Now fitted out in understated black and white, Autodesk’s venerable 3D suite has received more than just a facelift. The workflow and tool enhancements are welcome, while the focus on audio and collaborative toolsets makes this a far more rounded package than before.

Features:

System Requirements: At a minimum, 3ds Max 2009 32-bit software requires a system with the following: Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP or higher processor, 512 MB RAM – 1 GB

What’s hot:

Graphite modelling toolset and ribbon interface, render-preview effects in the viewport, enhanced OBJ support, containers, Material Explorer, mental mill…

What’s not:

Some features already appeared in subscriber-only Creativity Extension for 3DS Max 2009, some known bugs and limitations, expensive…