3ds Max 2024 is now Available

[shawnolson]

We are excited to announce the release of 3ds Max 2024. This release includes a wide array of new features and enhancements that continue to push back limits on your creativity.

See What’s New in 2024 for more information and documentation.

Below are some key features.

Rendering

Color Management is a big one. We’ve added OCIO-based color management into 3ds Max as a tech preview. This new system is key to successful rendering in modern pipelines. While you can still utilize the classic gamma workflow, the new system is there to make sure your pipeline keeps colors consistent from beginning to end. This is available in the new Color Management tab of the Preferences. The features affect many areas of Max, including color pickers, material editor, viewport, frame buffer and more.

Compounds are a new node available in the Slate Material editor that allow you to wrap your complex shaders into single nodes. This is great for organization and packaging your shaders.

Another new goodie for Slate is the new Material Switcher. This material allows you to have multiple materials that might be relevant to your model, but gives you the ability to choose which of the sub-materials is being applied to the object. This allows you to create material variants.

Modeling

Model provided by: Fausto De Martini

Booleans have been a concept in Max for many years. But they’ve existed as compound objects that are often awkward to work with. We’ve now added a Boolean Modifier that makes using Booleans more natural in Max. Procedural modeling just got more fun with this modifier.

Improvements to the Array modifier keep pushing the capabilities of procedural modeling as well. New capabilities include a Pyhllotaxis mode that mimics several patterns in nature, progressive transforms that can transform elements incrementally more and more, and the ability to assign material IDs with your own rules.

USD for 3ds Max

Although you won’t see an entry for USD in the main What’s New section, the docs have an entire category for USD for 3ds Max. There you can find the release notes on USD for 3ds Max 0.4. USD (along with other Open-Source projects) is a major focus for us at Autodesk across our products. We’ve continued to enhance the USD SDK in Max to allow TDs and plugin developers to take control of our USD Exporter. With a USD Exporter that has improved constantly over the last couple of years, a highly performant USD Stage that previews right in the viewport, and growing support from 3^rd Party developers, Max’s USD support is progressing at a rapid pace.

(Note that USD for 3ds Max is not packaged with the main Max installer. You can get it from your Autodesk account downloads where you get the installer for 3ds Max.)

More...

There are many more new features including new enhancements to animation workflows, more OSL maps, a modifier list search, improvements to various modifiers, performance enhancements and much more.

We hope you are as excited as we are!

[drbnuty]

great! Iam during big projects and iam little affraid to update max2024. Question is, if i do that, all my recent projects will be with all modifiers OK ? 

[porca_paletta]

I noticed links have been removed from AVA (there is a placeholder pdf) : any  issues with installers?

Thanks

[DarrenP]

the 2024 downloads are being posted here: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/installation-licensing/2024-product-download-links/td-p/11835996

[JasonLuckett]

Just a quick question, what is the reason for a complete new install, so a whole new program, thus having to download the whole program, do the install and port all plugins and scripts over?

Thanks in advance,

Jason

[miauuuu]

Why the title bar says Untiteld - Autodesk 3ds Max Olympus?

[spacefrog_]

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@miauuuu wrote:

Why the title bar says Untiteld - Autodesk 3ds Max Olympus?

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AFAIK this is a known issue, but was not considered to be worth postboning the release...

[shawnolson]

I cannot give an authoritative answer, but the installation process was changed in recent years to complete installers rather than update patches because the system we had for patching was very slow as it did comparisons on large numbers of files. The new system installs faster, and means you can install the very latest version from scratch rather than having to install the main build then each update patches.

The installer does not port scripts and plugins, but I believe that in most cases the scripts and plugins should remain intact as I think that we only remove our own files during an uninstall process. Ideally, plugins and scripts are using the newer Plugin Package system and does not add files to the Max directories. We know this isn't the case for all plugins and scripts, however, and do not delete files that are not part of our installer based on my current understanding. I will confirm this info next week.

[shawnolson]

Sorry it took so long to respond. You can keep your old installation of Max on your system and have both installs running side-by-side. This allows you to test the new version to make sure it works with your project. We take great strides to make sure that each update improves your quality of life and capabilities, but there are times that updates can break things. So the most pragmatic way to proceed is to install the latest, test it, and if you find any problems, immediately let us know. We are dedicated to making Max the best it can be and rely on customer feedback.

[shawnolson]

That was an oversight. Every version of Max has a code name while being developed. The transition to release has steps to fix the name. Somehow that got missed this time. I'm looking at it now as a collector's edition! When working in that edition, you are stating to the world that you work in the city of the god! 🙂

[JasonLuckett]

Thanks for the answer, alas the main yearly install has always been a fresh install. What is so different from Max 24 from Max 23 to warrant a new install? That was my main question. Perhaps it's a license thing so forgive me if that's the main reason.

[ryannie.mac]

Unfortunately, the keyboard shortcut override is a terrible "update" because it turns even worth then before. It has to be pressed to make the shortcut work in SME, but when you want to do something in the viewport while editing the model with some modifier, this will be a big problem... I have no idea why to modify this... A shortcut, is a very sensitive function for users, seems like Autodesk do not quite aware of user experience.

[jamesarndt]

Why am I crashing when I use either the the Unwrap UVW -> Relax Unfold option or when I attempt to use Pack UVs. It's a daily and constant thing and a major pain now when working in 3ds Max.

[ninaCRNQ7]

Switched from max 2020 to 2024:
1. I definitely miss the max 2020 unwrap - why change something that performs brilliantly only to cripple it? With so many people compalining about the unwrap won't you switch back to one that actually works?
2. Is there a way to turn off the awful snapping when you cut geometry in Edit Poly mode? With no snapping turned on, it still tries to snap to the nearest verteces and I have to zoom in really close to be able to escape from that snapping. It's terrible.
3. I'm using Vray render engine. Maps of complex materials (and sometimes simple materials) are not showing in the viewport. Can you confirm if this is a Vray problem or a max problem? Never had it before.