Saturday, May 12, 2012
3ds Max release history
The original 3D Studio product was created for the DOS platform by the Yost Group and published by Autodesk. After 3D Studio Release 4, the product was rewritten for the Windows NT platform, and originally named "3D Studio MAX."
This version was also originally created by the Yost Group. It was
released by Kinetix, which was at that time Autodesk's division of
media and entertainment. Autodesk purchased the product at the second
release mark of the 3D Studio MAX version and internalized development entirely over the next two releases. Later, the product name was changed to "3ds max"
(all lower case) to better comply with the naming conventions of
Discreet, a Montreal-based software company which Autodesk had
purchased. At release 8, the product was again branded with the
Autodesk logo, and the name was again changed to "3ds Max" (upper and lower case). At release 2009, product name changed to "Autodesk 3ds Max".
3ds Max Rendering
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Scanline rendering
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The default rendering method in 3DS Max is scanline rendering. Several advanced features have been added to the scanliner over the years, such as global illumination, radiosity, and ray tracing.
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mental ray
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mental ray is a production quality renderer integrated into the later versions of MAX, and is a powerful rendering tool, with bucket rendering, a technique that distributes the rendering burden between several computers efficiently. The 3ds Max version of mental ray also comes with a set of tools that allow a myriad of effects to be created with relative ease.
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RenderMan
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A third party connection tool to RenderMan pipelines is also available for those that need to integrate Max into Renderman render farms.
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V-Ray
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A third-party render engine plug-in for 3D Studio MAX. It is widely used, frequently substituting the standard and mental ray renderers which are included bundled with 3ds Max. V-Ray continues to be compatible with older versions of 3ds Max.
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Brazil R/S
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A third-party high-quality photorealistic rendering system created by SplutterFish, LLC capable of fast ray tracing and global illumination.
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FinalRender
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Another third-party raytracing render engine created by Cebas. Capable of simulating a wide range of real-world physical phenomena.
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Maxwell Render
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A third-party photorealistic rendering system created by Next Limit Technologies providing robust materials and highly accurate unbiased rendering.
3Ds Max Features
- MAX Script
- MAXScript is a built-in scripting language, and can be used to automate repetitive tasks, combine existing functionality in new ways, develop new tools and user interfaces and much more. Plugin modules can be created entirely in MAXscript.
- Character Studio
- Character Studio was a plugin which since version 4 of Max is now integrated in 3D Studio Max helping user to animate virtual characters. The system works using a character rig or "Biped" which is pre-made and allows the user to adjust the rig to fit the character they will be animating. Dedicated curve editors and motion capture data import tools make Character Studio ideal for character animation. "Biped" objects have other useful features that automated the production of walk cycles and movement paths, as well as secondary motion.
- Scene Explorer
- Scene Explorer, a tool that provides a hierarchical view of scene data and analysis, facilitates working with more complex scenes. Scene Explorer has the ability to sort, filter, and search a scene by any object type or property (including metadata). Added in 3ds Max 2008, it was the first component to facilitate .NET managed code in 3ds Max outside of MAXScript.
- DWG Import
- 3ds Max supports both import and linking of DWG files. Improved memory management in 3ds Max 2008 enables larger scenes to be imported with multiple objects.
- Texture Assignment/Editing
- 3ds Max offers operations for creative texture and planar mapping, including tiling, mirroring, decals, angle, rotate, blur, UV stretching, and relaxation; Remove Distortion; Preserve UV; and UV template image export. The texture workflow includes the ability to combine an unlimited number of textures, a material/map browser with support for drag-and-drop assignment, and hierarchies with thumbnails. UV workflow features include Pelt mapping, which defines custom seams and enables users to unfold UVs according to those seams; copy/paste materials, maps and colors; and access to quick mapping types (box, cylindrical, spherical).
- General Keyframing
- Two keying modes—set key and auto key—offer support for different keyframing workflows.
- Fast and intuitive controls for keyframing—including cut, copy, and paste—let the user create animations with ease. Animation trajectories may be viewed and edited directly in the viewport.
- Constrained Animation
- Objects can be animated along curves with controls for alignment, banking, velocity, smoothness, and looping, and along surfaces with controls for alignment. Weight path-controlled animation between multiple curves, and animate the weight. Objects can be constrained to animate with other objects in many ways—including look at, orientation in different coordinate spaces, and linking at different points in time. These constraints also support animated weighting between more than one target.
- All resulting constrained animation can be collapsed into standard keyframes for further editing.
- Skinning
- Either the Skin or Physique modifier may be used to achieve precise control of skeletal deformation, so the character deforms smoothly as joints are moved, even in the most challenging areas, such as shoulders. Skin deformation can be controlled using direct vertex weights, volumes of vertices defined by envelopes, or both.
- Capabilities such as weight tables, paintable weights, and saving and loading of weights offer easy editing and proximity-based transfer between models, providing the accuracy and flexibility needed for complicated characters.
- The rigid bind skinning option is useful for animating low-polygon models or as a diagnostic tool for regular skeleton animation.
- Additional modifiers, such as Skin Wrap and Skin Morph, can be used to drive meshes with other meshes and make targeted weighting adjustments in tricky areas.
- Skeletons and Inverse Kinematics (IK)
- Characters can be rigged with custom skeletons using 3ds Max bones, IK solvers, and rigging tools.
- All animation tools—including expressions, scripts, list controllers, and wiring—can be used along with a set of utilities specific to bones to build rigs of any structure and with custom controls, so animators see only the UI necessary to get their characters animated.
- Four plug-in IK solvers ship with 3ds Max: history-independent solver, history-dependent solver, limb solver, and spline IK solver. These powerful solvers reduce the time it takes to create high-quality character animation. The history-independent solver delivers smooth blending between IK and FK animation and uses preferred angles to give animators more control over the positioning of affected bones.
- The history-dependent solver can solve within joint limits and is used for machine-like animation. IK limb is a lightweight two-bone solver, optimized for real-time interactivity, ideal for working with a character arm or leg. Spline IK solver provides a flexible animation system with nodes that can be moved anywhere in 3D space. It allows for efficient animation of skeletal chains, such as a character’s spine or tail, and includes easy-to-use twist and roll controls.
- Integrated Cloth Solver
- In addition to reactor’s cloth modifier, 3ds Max software has an integrated cloth-simulation engine that enables the user to turn almost any 3D object into clothing, or build garments from scratch. Collision solving is fast and accurate even in complex simulations.
- Local simulation lets artists drape cloth in real time to set up an initial clothing state before setting animation keys.
- Cloth simulations can be used in conjunction with other 3ds Max dynamic forces, such as Space Warps. Multiple independent cloth systems can be animated with their own objects and forces. Cloth deformation data can be cached to the hard drive to allow for nondestructive iterations and to improve playback performance.
- Integration with Autodesk Vault
- Autodesk Vault plug-in, which ships with 3ds Max, consolidates users’ 3ds Max assets in a single location, enabling them to automatically track files and manage work in progress. Users can easily and safely share, find, and reuse 3ds Max (and design) assets in a large-scale production or visualization environment
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