3ds Max 7 features

Did that guy say CS is going to revolutionise games? LOL...LOL...Heee...hhhaaaa, thats the funniest....LOL LOL...Complete human rig...LOL..Oh hes killing me.

Oooee, I'm crying.

I love modelling with Max, hell I learnt on Max, but they have a long road ahead of them before they win back some of those who jumped to Maya and Softimage etc, especially with regards to animation systems.

Max is still the best for poly pushing workflow in my books but since you can customise Maya to work just like it with Mel scripts they are losing hold of that too.

This better be an amazingly different version, not just addons, or they'll slip even further behind.

Meh!.... 7 already? 6 not good enough? seems like the last kicks of a dead man..
still be nice to see what they mean by 'integrated' character studio..
not that I'm a big fan of it...

I'll continue to use max exclusively for modelling.... can't beat the mesh and poly tools yet...

To the defense of Max (doesn't happen too often :) ), all the major graphical apps are starting to release upgrades every year. Even if the upgrades they have planned aren't really needed :/ Maya, XSI, Lightwave, Photoshop. It's a real pain in the arse, as it means that if you upgrade and you use any plugins, then you have to get those upgraded as well.

http://www.3dvf.com/modules/publish/_1231_1.html

The current Max 7 Feature list in more detail.

does it have sub division surfaces yet?

Do booleans work properly yet?

Stu

I have been betatesting this badboy, and its the best upgrade I have ever seen. Character artists should flock to this- its got the best polytools out (sorry but-screw hunting down and installing all those scripts for maya for a laugh, if I pay that sort of money I want out of the box juiciness) and the bomb of normal mapping tools (you can see the rays from the projected object AND project the uvs to the high res model). Also most of the tools I use all day are polished up and streamlined - you can see seams on UVunwrap, you can move mesh and the uvs stay put, you can airbrush on soft selections.... its just smart stuff. You can also make a hi res mesh skin to a low res mesh and get perfect deformation- I can skin a film res character and have all the muscles twitch morphing on a falloff curve in a day with this.

Now I hang out a lot with the Discreet guys I know, but this really is something to gawp at -If the competition started putting out releases this strong I would be tempted away. This is far removed from 6 which didnt really add much but vert paint to games guys like us.

(Booleans- get powerbooleans, its brilliant, outputting quad meshes from the operands (which means you can mesh smooth it))

Peter- subdivs? Max is full of them, whaddya talking about? Polymesh base smooth, turbosmooth, meshsmooth and selective subdivs. If you mean a new class of mesh that must be converted ala maya, then no-thank god.

So whats the price going to be then?

So to sum up we get:

- normal mapping tools, with max's history of large polycount slow down I'm wary.
- the already superior poly modelling is made even better.
- and of course the obligitory addition of things that were cool in Maya 6, visible UVunwrap seams, soft select airbrushing etc.
- and don't forget they intergrated Character Studio for some reason?!

Nice use of resources, make the things that already worked well better and leave the rest of Max's systems so behind the competition that people turn to Maya and Softimage in droves.

I hope I'm mistaken and Discreet have learnt some lessons but if not then Max 8 may as well be a poly modelling package and leave the rest out. Sigh [:(]