still no news about 3ds Max 2017?

[Anonymous]

As you can read in my note at beginning of last year "Still no news about 3dsMax 2016" there are some important conclusions. One of them is possitive: Autodesk came with a new 3ds Max 2016 with important improvements...yes. Comparing to their previous releases is was impressionant. Comparing to Maya..comparing to 'free' Blender'? ..hmm. For 'psysics' sims, fluids, smoke etc..there was nothing included. So Max users had to wait for another year. Hopefully Autodesk decides to include Naiad in Max as they did in Maya and perhaps with some advancements. That's what I should do..the one year better for Maya the other year better for Max, so that all potential customers and existing users stay in the 'Autodesk' camp. If they don't...I garantee, not max will loose, not Maya will winn, but' s Autodesk who will loose the marketplace. As with most of Marketleaders they get arrogant as some points. They decides to kill some competences of people (Combustion, Edit, Max, Toxik, Composite e.a.) buy competitors and promote it as new products. Not saying it's wrong to buy in new technology to accelerate plug ins of an existing product. As long as your efforts in training are garanteed for a lifetime. In the nineties Discreet and even Autodesk where beloved companies. Not any more now. O contrary...So I can understand the users are aware now and begging for 'Bitfrost' or even better in Max2017, I can understand they never will move to Maya, I can understand If necesary the will rather move to competitors paid or free..Max need to be revamped asap including everything possible..kratatoa, thinkbox, bitfrost and other good FX tools. If not..goodbye Autodesk.

[Anonymous]

I agree with some of what you said JohnyRandom, especially about tracking software and some of the others,

However I believe the explanation in part to the core frustration and the core issue which feeds on the anger you see in these forums lies within the sentence you put forth "help make Max better". You see I don't think the community has any say in this matter because it constantly falls on the deaf ears of mega Autodesk machine (and please don't give me that 3ds max devs have families to feed and so on, because so do we, and I can assure you they are in far safer position of not going broke anytime soon with Autodesk's 100's of millions in net profit - the only thing that would scare Autodesk staff on their positions is how well is the mood and politics of the studio today which is why you wont see any rebellion anytime soon within that company from the devs or anyone else below to change any policy, policies they know are a mess. These days people worry about their own personal security not "revolutions" respectfully so, to each their own none of my business), and after a while you either get a deceptive marketing campaign full of false promises by the people in charge or the easiest attitude of them all: "you don't like it leave".

And this has nothing to do with Autodesk being a public company, that's NOT how things work if there's a strong and wise leader on that chair.

I'm sorry i'm not leaving anywhere not to Maya not to Houdini and neither are many users here and that's why they are here. I have invested too much of a lifetime to just "leave". While you do use many other software to get thngs done including maya as a max user in productions around the world and you must be versatile. But to simply switch altogether you need a pause. Switching software can be done in specialist positions maybe after months of training on location, but don't make the mistake you can switch to a new software in a small versatile studio while a pipeline is setup Deadlines approaching, let alone individual freelancers. Learning to be production ready on a given software takes many years, this is well known.

Can't speak of poor Softimage guys, they must've cursed the day Autodesk was born for doing such a thing to a software that was built to give us "Jurassic park", and no on in the world can convince me that Autodesk was going to go broke by keeping Softimage alive for whatever reason.

Lastly I agree without plugins max is more than dead in the water, but make no mistake you are paying bukloads for max alone and the core issue of all these discussions lies within the matter that max at this state does not deserve its pricetag especially now with rentals and no other options policy, simply put if max cost 1000$ perpetual today many wouldn't be here complainng about anything, because you can spend another 1200 on a vray license another 500 on a hair plugin 350 + 200 or so on bones pro and morphomatic, another 350 for hercules for muscles, 1200 on phoenix for fluids, 300 more worth of plugins similar to pulldownit for breaking things. Maybe Fumefx 800 if you dont feel phoenix for fumes...And this is getting you good and setup confident enough to take on that character job coupled with FX in max without feeling cheated. Now lets add those up again when max was costing 4K$ and now similar with subscription regardless if you want to change versions or not every 2 or 3 years and then consider how many team mebers you got on board and do the math again while thinking of your family.

Now you can get the issue of why people can complain and get very personal. And yes Autodesk does have monopoly in this particular matter for the reasons given above, Houdini and Cinema4d wont cut it or come close at this stage for most people using Maya or Max, those apps are more specialized than generlaized, (ex. Houdini cloth sim 10X slower than max cloth untouched since 2002 which is still production ready to this day regardless of the fact its single core for the obvious reasons with Autodesk. Ask Blur who are still using it in every cinematic you've seen them do - I can go on but lets not go into the details).

My hat goes off to the hard working max plugin devs who can have my money anytime just for their support and listening to the community alone.

[JohnnyRandom]

I have been in this forum since before it was a forum, I have been on a few others since their infancy. I have seen this year after year. I have seen people stop complaining, actually start do something about it, and I have seen the results of that, mostly positive. Time invested? 

Seriously if Max makes you that angry you need help. It is a tool, not an emotional tool, a tool that makes you money, far more than you pay out in maintenance. Hell yeah I wish it were cheaper! Fact is it isn't. Me complaining won't make it cheaper. In fact the time spent complaining costs more money. I have licenses to every fx plugin you mention and more, I know how expensive it is, I am a freelance VFX artist who also has a full time job in managing TV. I too have invested nearly 2 decades into learning and using Max.

What do you think I mean when I say help max become better? It is up to the users to help make Max better. It is absolutely ridiculous to think otherwise. Without users max doesn't exist, without feedback old issues do not get fixed, with "people" using new advancements in tech they don't get integrated. I have been on beta now for quite a few years, not nearly as long as some, I can tell you because of helpful users max is better. I have seen it. I don't care if you believe me or not, other users here know what I am talking about.

I can throw out examples even though I think it is silly. Alembic, is now in max, why? People asked. OpenEXR is in max, why? people asked. TextPlus is now in Max, again users asked, MCG, Node editors, new layer/scene manager, the list goes on, and on, and on. Hundreds and hundreds of other features and fixes are in Max because people asked for them.

If you have read any of my other posts throughout the years on numorous forums and outlets you would absolutely know that I am not happy with the licensing policies that have been put forth, nor am I happy about quite a few other things Autodesk as a whole does. Yes it is a huge behemouth, I don't agree with that either. It's to big for my bitching about it to make any change on that level either.

I do know that I can effect change with the tools that I do use and I have by taking a proactive stance with them. Just as others have, I won't mention names as it is not my place, a few are contributing in this very thread.

I mention devs have families because people seem to forget that or even fail realize that it is people like you and me that work on Max. Guess what yes they have an effect on its development. It is not at all the CEO, CFO blah blah blah, that are way to far up the chain for that, they look at the big picture.

As I said earlier the grass is always greener. Those same complainers will leave for elsewhere and just complain about whatever they are using, yep seen that too.

I don't know why I continually get dragged into this one sided lunacy year after year with forum members that are for one "anonymous" and two have only been members since I finished my morning coffee. (not speaking of you specifcally William19)

[Isaac_Zuniga]

"...with forum members that are for one "anonymous" and two have only been members since I finished my morning coffee."

While I have not been on this forum much myself, I have been a member for a few years, and I totally agree with that statement, more or less, I believe that's an understatement as I feel like some people just create accounts to post information that they really know "a very little amount" to "not much at all" to boot.

With the quantity of language and spelling/grammar issues (not a grammar nazi by the way...) in recent posts, it kind of makes me wonder what age group we're talking to anymore...

(It's easy to spot a non-english speaker by the way, but lazy/younger users, it's even easier...)

[Anonymous]

every Year the same tread. We can copy the tread from 2008 to now and it´s the same. 🙂

The most negativ feedback comes from the old users, and why? They must learn again. For young users or beginners it is not a problem. They learn the new stuff, and they are faster as the old users. 😉 Fact is, for commercial project must we wait of Service Pack II ( SP I is to Buggy 🙂 ), and than is the sun shining.

to Rendering...

I think 3dsmax2017 is a big change in Render technology and that is a must have for the future. The new Raytracer and physical Material based on MILA, and MILA is NVIDIA. MILA is container of MDL.

IRAY: works with MDL and MIA ( Arch&Design) but not with MILA, because MILA can use all mental ray Shaders and Iray not.

Autodesk Raytracer:  MILA ( container of MDL), The Problem is that Material work not in iray.

mental ray: MDL, MILA, MIA ( Arch&Design)

I don´t understand why is the physical Material not 100% MDL? If it MDL, can we use it in Iray too.

[Isaac_Zuniga]

I'd be careful with that generalization, as there are also those younger ones who gripe about everything because of their immaturity towards the subject and lack of knowledge thereof.

I am already aware of what 2017 has and does not have. What the "younger" users got wrong was the "Camera Sequencer". That's already been in 3ds Max 2016, and I know this as a fact because I rejoiced when that replaced the batch render solution, but they jumped to conclusions and so forth...

In 2017, all of Mental Ray is gone, as I did try it out myself (hypocrite moment), but I really couldn't care less about the absense of MR, as it was old, and was not getting much of an upgrade over the years, due to a multitude of reasons. ART is like Iray in almost every way, and I do not miss the other renderers in my opinion.

By the way, ART can be used as the activeshade renderer too. (The activeshade version of ART is solely gpu-based)

[Anonymous]

mental ray is over the last year updatet, but you have not all functions in 3dsmax. If you use Maya have you all what you need for special effect and it gives many options that have mental ray bevor the other render engine for example BSDF,  the new Material Layering Technic,  new Light Render methodes and and and. I love mental ray, because i can do what i want and it is very fast. I have not test the new ART Render, but i have see some images and that looks ok. 3dsmax is for Archviz and Industrial  and for that need you only iray or  ART. But i think, if you want create art, need you mental ray for the special effect to find your own styl.

[Anonymous]

if mental ray has "gone' then i see no point installing 3ds max 2017 as all of my client work uses mental ray.

it's may have been removed from the main installer but i believe t's still 'installable' as an option.

..time will tell.

[spacefrog_]

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@Anonymous wrote:

In 2017, all of Mental Ray is gone, as I did try it out myself (hypocrite moment),

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sounds like a failure on the user side...

i guess you did'nt extract or collect all 3ds max related stuff from the leaked suite trial you use on the edge of legality

[stephen.d.green]

I can't see mental ray being gone either.

It it was 'reactored' then presumably it would be gone from Maya as well.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't say such things about older users, If anything I have found older users respectfully to be more patient and forgiving with software, metaphorically speaking they would use Softimage 3d and would still be able to deliver without nagging about it.

I am midway through myself and already have what I need in my pipeline. But I'm here because Its something I believe I cannot stand when it comes to such large companies with endless resources and lack of any respect or innovation towards its community and to the software they control which so happens to be the bread and butter for many disappointed artists around the globe.

I don't wish to go on about all this, I too read every year in these forums about max and how it should've been. But that's the sad part, I don't see such attitude towards companies like Chaos, Ephere, Epic, and many others out there even with all the bugs coming in. This should tell you so much, that regardless of what anyone thinks, there is certainly something fundamentally wrong with Autodesk's approach which really pisses people off.

Lastly I think it is fair to say that people need to show that they are angry. That fire needs to keep on burning, so that Autodesk and other similar companies know that not everything is well accepted with their releases and policies, it is important to "protest" even if you have to burn a few tires sometimes, In many places (especially with dictators it may be the only way). 

But I am all for constructive critism, I hope some of the critics explain clearly their dissapointment and back them up with points more often.

I will leave this there, but before I do I want to point out a small note here to "hartmann" because I couldn't help it : ) :

"I think 3dsmax2017 is a big change in Render technology and that is a must have for the future."

You should clarify hartmann otherwise you would believe it : ). No render engine that comes out would be even halfway close to a production ready renderer like Vray. And by the time they polish this engine up for the future, Vray would be at version 12 and Corona at version 5 And that bridge with blender's cycles  would be so polished that you would have blender as second viewport in max for rendering : ).

But perhaps you mean it is "good enough" for some Archviz scenes and some other visualization, then yes maybe that would work there fine in some places perhaps.

I hope that didn't sound too bad, just take it with a pinch of salt.

[Anonymous]

That's the point.

1. We need a production ready software rather then half functional innovations.

2. Let's push AD more, untill they'll understood this simple thesis.

[Anonymous]

 @William19: Vray is a great Renderer, and i work sometime with vray too (because the data come from the client). But in result is mental ray faster. The Problem is, that 95% of 3dsmax User have not knowledge about Render Engines, and the 95% sad Vray is better, but it´s not. Vray have only better Default Values. 😉 Autodesk think it does not matter, because the most 3dsmax User create Archviz and Games.  Maya User have more knowledge about Render Enigne and need more flexibility. They use most mental ray or Arnold.

The Big new change is, that MDL work now correct. 😉 Converting from Revit to 3dsmax, or Maya or what ever, is not a Problem any more. The Rendering is faster, better look as A&D Material (glossy Reflection and Highlights). I love it.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Lastly I think it is fair to say that people need to show that they are angry. That fire needs to keep on burning, so that Autodesk and other similar companies know that not everything is well accepted with their releases and policies, it is important to "protest" even if you have to burn a few tires sometimes, In many places (especially with dictators it may be the only way). 

But I am all for constructive critism, I hope some of the critics explain clearly their dissapointment and back them up with points more often.

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But there`s this borderline where this angriness starts to look like the the rage of a kindergarden child that don`t know what it is doing and just throws around it`s toys to make as much damage as possible. No one will take such a behavoir serious.

And it`s not helping at all. Emitting common places, stupid one-liners and pseudo sarcastic nonsense often paired with ignorance and incompetence won`t make 3dsmax a better product.

There is simply no way around constructive critisism. Burn your tires elsewhere.

[amrsrour2015]

man you are amazing ,
you just say what i want to say
thankx

[Anonymous]

@hartmann lol good defalut values fo vray ???? u gotta be kidding 😄 vray has the worst default values since .497 version mental ray and vray arent artist friendy they r too much technical one has to tweak alot,and they r so sensitive . i have rendered a scene with different values that took me 45 mnts 24 mnts and 16m56sec and result is almost similer . so for newbies its bad even for pros its a though ask at times. i have asked same question to vray guy in a seminar and as expected no serious answer 😞  but if theres any production render availabe for max it has to be vray cus they r poular,good and syched well than any other rendering engine/s i ll always put my money on vray and max than mr and max . arnold for max is possible in year or so  so lets keep our fingers cross   

[Anonymous]

@ hartmann lol good defalut values fo vray ???? u gotta be kidding 😄 vray has the worst default values since .497 version mental ray and vray arent artist friendy they r too much technical one has to tweak alot,and they r so sensitive . i have rendered a scene with different values that took me 45 mnts 24 mnts and 16m56sec and result is almost similer . so for newbies its bad even for pros its a though ask at times. i have asked same question to vray guy in a seminar and as expected no serious answer 😞 but if theres any production render availabe for max it has to be vray cus they r poular,good and syched well than any other rendering engine/s i ll always put my money on vray and max than mr and max . arnold for max is possible in year or so so lets keep our fingers cross

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous

I think we can agree to disagree halfway you and I, I am all with what you said and I too stand with this phrase all the way " there is no way around constructive critisim". but I only stand with this phrase if the person I speak to has similar values and respect.

While there will always be your average hooligan who puts fuel over fire just to watch the world burn, I can't generalise this and not understand why other respectable people can be frustrated to the point where occasionally theres an outburst of anger in a non conventional manner and deservedly so sometimes. Lets not pretend the world is full of roses and peace and love will always prevail as much as we all want to see it happen. I was passing by the office to find a few of my colleagues cursing at Autodesk for the obvious reasons while working on max, these are good respectable people and I fully understand why they would say such a thing. Once again compare it when hair crashes for the 10th time using Ornatrix and the reaction is " Oh the bug is still there, I will send a mail to X and will get this through , meanwhile lets..." Attitude and in just a few hours  or just days there's a personal man to man discussion with the devs on how to move around the problem or a solution already available! And a big thank you for the hard work and support that follows.

@ hartmann

I think I understand now that you are an archviz person and would be satisfied with whatever ART or mental ray would give you, thats perfectly fine.

But you must put in mind that in my book and many others a renderer must tackle a few other things to be considered production ready:

I will back this up with a  few examples and points:

A few things off the bat make mental ray a nightmare for me or downright impossible task at this stage let alone any renderer Autodesk would churn out, which is why Vray is production ready in max today for the work at hand that is within my interest:

1 - Render hair full with hair shader plus 3d motion blur in one pass compatibility with Ornatrix.

2 - Tons of Render time displacements with 3d motion blur plus 3d DOF without killing the frame and your machine.

3 - Volume fog plus volume GI and clean render elements plus all the above mentioned including renderelements and othe flexibilities.

4 - Skin shader without lightmaps and compatible with all the above (I think at some point they were working on a new one without ligthmaps for Mental ray Mila and I'm not sure how that went).

5 - Compatibility with fluids and proper GI notably Phoenix.

6 - Far superior and faster GI engine (don't go into benchmarks Vray will win when you have the above rendered compared to mental ray in a production scene) in tune with animation and flicker free results.

7 - Last but not least. Rock solid render engine. I mean it as it is. I can't remeber the last time this thing crashed on me and these are heavy scenes. 

As I mentioned before I have used mental ray for years before switching to Vray with high end work, and I wish I could've stayed with it because I loved working with its shaders and its flexibility. As for Arnold I use it in production many times in studios and it's a great renderer it is actually less complicated to setup than Vray and I think it's on equal strength.

Maya has the addition of Renderman support which is great but lets not go there.

By the way an honorable mention would be Corona, thats an excellent renderer for max and especially for Archviz, (similar to arnold in many places) I think it can have a very bright future. Also very stable.

[Anonymous]

I know it is hard to understand. But one example. I create sometimes Outdoor Images and need Gras and a Forest. The most rendertime need the leafs (transluceny, shadow, and cutout). I wrote a Leaf Shader ( based on MILA) that looks great and render fast. I have optimized the Shadow and Transluceny rays. This it not so easy with Vray. Of course Vray is Artist friendly, fast and good result. And if you render Vray-Outdoor vs mentalray-outdoor ( by dault 😉 ) is vray faster, but vray is not faster, if you know the philosophy of mental ray. You can optimize your own shader. 😉 It give some Job in the last time, in wish a client come to me, very frutraded and need faster renderings because it´s cost to much render time with vray. I can than only say, we must convert it to mental ray. I translate it to mental ray and render without any problem a movie (flickering, color bug, lost object, etc.. alá Vray), i dont look at the frame because mental ray is very stable.

edit: @Anonymous 

1)  i use Pavel Puppet Hair Shader, very fast. I test the new MILA Hair Shader, but Pavel is the best. Faster as  Vray Hair, because i can more optimized the rays.

2) no Problem with displacement, i can render Real DOF and Motionblur, looks great.

3)  mental ray was the first render engine with PartiVolumen. I know the Atmosphere problem in framebuffer, but i render renderAtmosphere separately.

4) Yes that is great.  MILA SSS works without lightmaps. I use it in Ceramic, Plastic etc..

5) Phönix is Chaosgroup, you must use FumeFX

6) Mental ray Photon+FG is the best result. I have test it 😉 . No Chance, Vray looks only good in Bruteforce mode, and that is to slow. The Problem of Vray is, that is only a Raytracer! Mental ray is a Hybrid Render Engine and can Raytrace and Scanline at the same time. This give my very good optmizing functions.

7) this is a problem of your knowledge.

[Anonymous]

meanwhile:

https://mash.mainframe.co.uk/

be ready to see this demo'd in MAYA at NAB...

I purchased clovis gay's radius a while back to speed up the creation of specific sets of Motion Graphic sequences. I always liked the general concept behind the Cinema 4D MoGraph toolset, After Effects plugins Particular, Element 3D, Plexus, etc ... and hoped MCG would mature quick enough to allow this type of complexity and sequencing. In my view MCG is to archaic in it's current form for most mo-graph projects where I require a usable and refined tool-set.

As a 3d generalist Max has been my go-to tool for the last 23 years (since DOS R3), and C4D's mograph alone was just not a big enough insentive to jump ship. But sadly, max's toolset is not being actively developed once it is purchased from a 3rd party (same cloth tools I have been using since 2005, polymodelling-toolset no development since purchased, dynamics receiving no significant upgrades, etc.. ). I pesonally still do not like the C4D workflow, but realise I will have to make a decision on moving on and simply cannot put it of every year hoping AD will aggresively develop my favourite 3d App. 

I really want to see small additions and refinements making these tools more productive year after year.

Anyway - we will all know in a couple of days wether Max again has a mediocre release compared to competitors.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

However I believe the explanation in part to the core frustration and the core issue which feeds on the anger you see in these forums lies within the sentence you put forth "help make Max better". You see I don't think the community has any say in this matter because it constantly falls on the deaf ears of mega Autodesk machine

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I'll ask in general to those upset with the direction the last 5-6 years yet again - are you a Beta Tester?  If not, I'd highly suggest applying.  No, that doesn't mean the devs fall all over themselves to incorporate every desire you have for the software...but I think you would be suprised just how much they listen and interact with the testers.

I think the thing that bothers me most is this circular argument that repeats itself over and over:

- Complain that feature X, Y, Z is still missing

- Posit that the software is too old to correctly implement new features

- Complain that a lot of time is spent on "boring things" like bug fixes, and software improvements like increases in performance speeds, etc.

- Rinse, Repeat

As someone else I believe said previously, things like enhanced viewport performance is a building block to hopefully add other things later.  For all we know, certain features had to be put on hold because they couldn't be implemented without the existence of the Egg Spline (joke to lighten the mood).

Can't expect new features that require today's technology, without adding in today's technology first.  You lay the groundwork and continually build on it release after release - especially with some of the things people are complainging about that are "missing."

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@Anonymous wrote:

and please don't give me that 3ds max devs have families to feed and so on, because so do we, and I can assure you they are in far safer position of not going broke anytime soon with Autodesk's 100's of millions in net profit - the only thing that would scare Autodesk staff on their positions is how well is the mood and politics of the studio today 

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Really?

http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/03/autodesk-announces-929-layoffs-10-of-its-workforce-as-part-of-restructuring-plan/

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29494949/autodesk-layoffs-involve-hundreds-but-firm-skirts-specifics

It doesn't mention any development positions being cut, but that surely has to be worrisome.