Autodesk 3ds max 2010: First Impressions

I have finally had a chance to start to use 3ds max 2010 in some of my project work, and I have to say that I am really enjoying it. This, as you already may know, was a pretty major release with some big functionality changes. I haven’t kicked down all of the new doors yet, but I do have some pretty nice things to say about what I have used thus far.

Do you ever really need to see the ocean?

I think that line comes from a Toyota commercial, but the idea of an appealing work environment applies to 3ds max as well. It doesn’t justify the cost of subscription, but I like the interface updates in 2010. Nothing revolutionary, they just feel fresh, which is something 3ds max really needed. Things look cleaner and and the icons for the dark interface are much nicer. The Graphite modeling panel (the ribbon) is still taking some getting used to, but I am already starting to miss it when I am in working in 2009. So if nothing else, the interface refresh is a positive.

Tupperware for 3D models

Containers are a new feature in 3ds max 2010, and I have been using them on some scenes that were fairly heavy in previous versions and it has been a big improvement. If you have large scene elements that can be compartmentalized (no animation, background elements, etc.) then you can save these out to containers that are stored as separate .maxc files and take the bulk out of your .max files. This actually let me enable autosave on some of my bigger files, which is a nice touch. Containers look to be huge for teams of modelers and animators, but they are of great benefit to anyone working with heavy scenes. I should also note that [knock on wood] I have had no trouble with the use of containers while network rendering with Backburner or even wrapping containers around objects that use third party plugins. Schwing!

Delicious Viewports

The Review viewport rendering, which really just means hardware shadows and ambient occlusion and exposure settings are all superb right out of the box, and I haven’t even started to play with the Mental Mill work yet, but that looks really promising, too. Just being able to see exposure settings in the viewport is a huge time saver for me. To a larger extent, I can now post rough animations that are client ready using “Make Preview”, to the point where I can export an OpenEXR image sequence and bring those viewport captures into After Effects. So my rough animations are being generated without rendering, allowing me to do more revisions and get work out faster.

So overall, this new version of 3ds max is looking to live up to all of the hype. I will be experimenting more as new projects are going to be done from scratch in the new version and will keep you posted here!