🧐 3ds Max user? Let's talk!

[dallas_poynter]

Hey 3ds Max folks,

I wanted to ask a pretty open question:
what parts of your animation or VFX workflow tend to feel the most repetitive or time-consuming?

One of our teammates at Autodesk explored this question and put together a short, anime-inspired film in just three days using 3ds Max, Arnold, and Flow Studio while working under some pretty tight time and resource constraints. 

A lot of people don’t realize just how friendly Flow Studio can be, or that it can be used right alongside tools like 3ds Max (and others) to help automate some of that less-than creative work, which got me curious where people here feel the most friction day to day.

If you want to learn how that workflow came together, check out the latest blog here!

Don't be shy, let’s talk 🤓

Cheers,
Dallas

[vardanhn]

hello
one annoying part is not be able clone layers with its content _ 
but I'm not assure how you can connect it with animation of VFX _ 
🙂

[joaquim.moral]

Hello @vardanhn thanks for participating in our group!
I'll ping our @Marko_ADSK here to see if he can offer you some guidance.

See you around!

[joaquim.moral]

Any comments @DidierRamirezDarjo?

I know you are a pro with 3Ds Max and maybe you can share your point of view here with @dallas_poynter 🙂

Thanks!

[DidierRamirezDarjo]

With great pleasure, @joaquim.moral and @dallas_poynter, thank you for inviting me to join the conversation!

From my perspective, there is a very interesting opportunity in the evolution of the Media & Entertainment ecosystem. Currently, Flow Studio works very well as a cloud-based tool for content generation and processing (VFX, mocap, USD-exportable scenes, etc.), and Autodesk Flow connects data and production at a broader level. However, within the day-to-day creative environment, we still rely heavily on external references, manual versioning, and additional management systems to coordinate teams.

In AEC, tools like Revit working with ACC have demonstrated the value of a central model and a Common Data Environment (CDE), enabling:

• Multi-user editing

• Structured synchronization

• Change traceability

• Integrated version control

Additionally, having a real-time collaborative environment like the one offered by Revit — where multiple users can work simultaneously on the same central model — has proven to be a structural shift in how teams coordinate.

By contrast, in 3ds Max and Maya, collaboration still primarily depends on external pipelines (Perforce, Flow Production Tracking, or other custom solutions), which introduces a considerable administrative overhead.

It would be very powerful to explore:

• Real-time collaborative capabilities within 3ds Max and/or Maya

• A workflow model closer to the “central model” concept

• A deeper integration of CDE-like capabilities within Flow Studio, beyond global production tracking

A significant portion of production friction is not creative, but administrative: version management, file conflicts, and asset coordination. Reducing that friction could have a major impact on efficiency and scalability, especially for distributed teams.

I’d be very interested to hear whether other teams feel the same need or have found effective ways to mitigate these challenges.

Best regards to the community!

[Marko_ADSK]

Hello @joaquim.moral, thank you for the invitation on this topic. This is an interesting workflow, and I'd gladly share my view here!

Flow Studio is a cloud-based solution that lets you transfer VFX elements from footage into 3D assets. What impresses me is that it relies very little on equipment, allowing artists and small teams to take advantage of it without the need for expensive gear; all you need is a single camera.

While Flow Studio does not offer direct 3ds Max support, it does have a USD Scene that combines all VFX elements into a 3D scene using USD as a foundation. This pairs naturally with 3ds Max (and other DCC's with USD support) for everything from simple CG animation to more advanced camera/lighting work derived from footage.

What Flow Studio offers for VFX:

• 3D motion from a single video: extract person motion into usable 3D motion data from a single plate.
• Camera track & point cloud: robust camera tracking data plus point clouds that make dynamic camera moves and correct reprojection practical.
• Scanned lighting + HDRI: lighting extracted from the footage (directional light data and HDRI map) that you can replace or tweak in 3ds Max.
• Clean plates & assets: generate clean plates and static meshes that import into 3ds Max for local rendering and compositing.

How is the USD scene prepared for editing and rendering:

• USD Layers: Through the use of USD’s layers, data is organized in the camera, lighting, characters, and other layers, allowing you to easily reference and edit components.
• Hydra delegates: Make your transition between Render engines easier with Hydra delegates in software like Arnold, Karma, Substance, Renderman, and more.

Overall, having a tool that drastically reduces the time for creating a previsualisation shot and gives you the VFX elements from a single footage in a matter of hours instead of weeks has a great impact on creative velocity and production efficiency.  It cuts prep time and cost, removes pipeline friction, and frees artists to iterate and tell better stories faster.

All the best!

[marketing2TFXG]

The most repetitive part is definitely rendering iterations — test renders, overnight renders, and re-rendering after small fixes. Especially with heavy scenes in 3ds Max + Arnold, it can eat up a lot of time that could be spent on actual creative work.

What's helped a lot is offloading those to a cloud render farm like Fox Renderfarm. Their desktop client works smoothly with 3ds Max and Arnold, and it frees me up to keep creating instead of waiting on local renders.