Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 Review

Autodesk Max 2008

Well, I haven�t talked to you all in quite a while. That doesn�t mean I haven�t had anything to say � quite the contrary � I always have quite a lot to say about Autodesk VIZ and 3ds Max. I�ve been doing a bit of traveling in the last few months, visiting all of our offices here in the Midwest and spreading the word about visualization in today�s competitive marketplace. In other words, I�ve been having a blast as a traveling evangelist for my favorite software, 3ds Max.

So what�s new? Quite a bit actually. If you haven�t heard yet, Autodesk Maya 2008 shipped September 17 and Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 will ship October 17. I just received my pre-release copy of 3ds Max 2008 and am still looking over all the new features. From what I have seen, this release is definitely worth the wait just for the improvements in SPEED! Here�s a quote from Autodesk:

"Significantly improved performance of large, complex scenes:

New technology for managing viewport performance (adaptive degradation) guarantees viewport interaction rates
Material assignment up to 10X faster for 10,000 nodes
Selection of thousands of objects now more than 10X faster
Transform objects up to 60X faster on 5,000 objects or more
Moving objects to hidden layers now 60X faster
Considerable performance improvements in grouping, cloning, and array functions"

All those large numbers make my heart go pitter patter. Even those of you who are fortunate enough to have a monster machine (yes, I�m talking about you, Brad) will be impressed.

Ok. What else? Well my next favorite thing would have to be Review for the ability to see shadows in a viewport. Review is a toolset that supports iterative rendering workflows by delivering interactive previewing of shadows, the 3ds Max sun/sky environment, and Architectural and Design material settings. Also, new Max/mental ray� software workflow features, including:

Viewport now supports real-time shadows -- including self-shadowing and up to 64 lights simultaneously
Interactive previewing of mental ray Sun/Sky shaded objects/scenes
New mental ray Sky Portal simplifies lighting indoor scenes using outdoor lighting and supports HDRI-based lighting effects
Camera-based interface for managing exposure settings (tone-mapping) greatly simplifies the processes of achieving a �photographic� rendering effect
Greater physical accuracy in the shadow details around objects -- the color of nearby objects affects the shadowing (i.e. realistic ambient occlusion

OK. One other thing I�m really liking is real neon lights. For real! I�m not kidding. A new self-illumination rollout has been added to the arch & design mr material. With this enabled, you can have the material physically cast light in your mental ray rendering (with fg enabled). Here�s a sample image with a glass (geometry) material. There are no lights in this scene other than the self-illuminating material. Isn't that cool! Here is a screenshot (below) of the scene that shows the material editor and also the new scene explorer dialog box � another new time-saving addition. (The scene explorer is a modeless dialog for viewing, sorting, filtering and selecting objects in 3ds Max, as well as additional functionality for renaming, deleting, hiding, and freezing objects, creating and modifying object hierarchies, and editing object properties all in one location. And each scene explorer can be saved (similar to track and schematic views).)

Well that�s it for now. Look for a new tutorial soon and some more info on the new releases. If you have anything you would like to see clarified in a tutorial, drop me a line.