Detailed Features

Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2010 software is a powerful, integrated 3D modeling, 3D animation, and rendering application. Its accessible tools enable artists to quickly ramp up for production. Autodesk 3ds Max software is popular with film and video artists, game developers, and 3D enthusiasts who want to achieve stunning results in less time.

(Note: Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 software is available for the Microsoft® Windows® operating system.)

3ds Max User Interface
Data and Scene Management
Modeling
Polygon Modeling and Texturing
Spline/Extended Spline Modeling
General Animation
Character Animation
Modifiers
Space Warps
Dynamics
Cloth
Particles
Multiple Rendering Options
Rendering Controls and Effects
Hair and Fur
ProSound
MAXScript
3ds Max API/SDK
Connectivity and Integration

3ds Max User Interface

Maximize your productivity.

Gain unmatched productivity through a combination of performance and workflow features, including a fast, high-quality viewport environment, schematic view, multiple coordinate systems, interactive axis constraints, customizable menus and buttons, viewport grips/manipulators, and modeless keyboard entry. Achieve efficiency through streamlined workflows, custom hotkeys and cross-application navigation tools like ViewCube® and SteeringWheels® functionality.
Use the unique modifier stack for a visual, parametric workflow; any change made in the modifier stack is automatically propagated to the end result. Work nonlinearly on a completed high-resolution character model; revert to the original low-resolution geometry at the bottom of the stack and add details, such as buttons on a shirt or tweaks to the nose. Those changes pass through finishing modifiers (such as smoothing, mapping, and skinning) to appear in the completed character.
Use a mouse or tablet-based paintbrush interface for object selection and deformation, vertex color, and radiosity touch-up.

Data and Scene Management

Boost productivity and workflow flexibility with external and internal data and scene management features.

Facilitate the use and transfer of 3ds Max data among file iterations, users, and locations with file management utilities, including project folders, relative paths, repathing tools, asset tracking, Containers, increment on save, auto-backup, resource collector, dynamic texture reloading, and log files.
Use the Scene Explorer Panel to sort, filter, and search a scene by any object type or property (including metadata) with stackable filtering, sorting, and searching criteria. Save and store multiple explorer instances and link, unlink, rename, hide, freeze, and delete objects regardless of the objects currently selected in the scene. Configure columns to display and edit any object property—a feature that can be extended using MAXScript.
Manage complex scenes and animations with an intelligent external file-referencing feature for scenes, objects, or materials.
Work in layers using the Layer Manager to quickly isolate related scene elements.
Manage source controls for in-use assets with Asset Tracker, a feature tightly integrated with Autodesk® Vault data-management software and compatible with most third-party data-management solutions.
Transfer building information models from Autodesk® Revit® Architecture building design software into 3ds Max with the Recognize™ scene-loading technology. Use Material Explorer to navigate and manage all rendering-related assets in a scene.
The addition of the Containers toolset to 3ds Max facilitates collaboration and flexible workflows by enabling users to collect multiple objects into a single container when dealing with complex scenes.

Modeling

Efficiently create parametric and organic shapes and objects to begin modeling quickly.

Choose from ready-to-use geometry, including standard and extended primitives; 2D shapes; and architectural elements, such as doors, windows, and stairs.
Create models quickly and efficiently with the new Graphite modeling toolset. Graphite takes 3ds Max polygon modeling to a new level by delivering over 100 tools for advanced polygonal modeling and freeform design.
Create compound objects using the Scatter, Connect, Booleans, ShapeMerge, Morph, BlobMesh, Terrain, and Loft operations.
Convert parametric and compound objects to base geometric types―editable mesh, editable poly, editable patch, or NURBS objects―for more detailed editing.
Use 2D shapes as a starting point for creating editable splines and spline cages to convert to any 3D geometry type.

Polygon Modeling and Texturing

Use the polygon/tri-mesh architecture to create, edit, and texture mesh models. These models can contain color-per-vertex, mapping, and selection channels and explicit normals, all of which can be animated in the modifier stack.

Polygon Modeling Tools

Employ creation and editing tools, including create, collapse, attach, bridge, flip, hinge from edge, turn, cut, split, slice, quick slice, wedge, bevel, extrude, chamfer vertex, extrude along a curve, mirror, edge loop, and edge ring.
Use ProBooleans to reevaluate and optimize the topology of meshes. Quickly fracture geometry into smaller, individual chunks with the ProCutter tool.
Choose from workflow features, including the Graphite modeling toolset; Preserve UVs, which separate texture coordinates from the polygon vertices to edit the mesh without destroying UV data; subobject selection sets (vertices, edges, and faces), which intelligently convert between different types of selections (edges to vertices); interactive previewing of edits and animated edits; and the ability to change modeling hotkeys and pivots to temporary overrides.
Use a large range of modeling modifiers to work with geometry and subobject geometry in the modifier stack, including Projection, Edit Normals, Vertex Paint, and those that let you bend, bevel, cap holes, cross section, displace, extrude, and subdivide polygons.

Subdivision Surfaces and Polygon Smoothing
Subdivision methods include NURMS Subdivision, which produces an object similar to a NURBS object; classic, which like MeshSmooth produces three- and four-sided facets; and quad output, which produces only four-sided facets.

Use MeshSmooth on polygon objects to control the polygon count of the final mesh for render optimization or level of detail.
Use subdivision surface and polygon smoothing tools―a hierarchical subdivisions surface modifier, MeshSmooth, and TurboSmooth―when modeling with the modifier stack.

Optimization Tools

Geometry cleanup and level-of-detail tools enable scene optimization for interactive display.
ProOptimizer lets the user precisely control the number of faces or points in a scene or model. Useful faces are removed last so that a selection can be reduced up to 75 percent without loss of detail.

Texture Assignment/Editing
Autodesk 3ds Max software offers a wide range of operations for creative texture and planar mapping, including tiling, mirroring, decals, angle, rotate, blur, spline mapping, UV stretching, and relaxation, Remove Distortion, Preserve UV, and UV template image export.

Paint directly on 3D models in the viewport to create new maps or extend existing ones using brushes, blend modes, fill, clone, and erase.
Access the streamlined texture workflow for a material/map browser with support for drag-and-drop assignment and hierarchies with thumbnails, and to combine an unlimited number of textures.
Use UV workflow features including Pelt mapping, which defines custom seams and enables users to unfold UVs according to those seams; copy and paste (of materials, maps, and colors); and quick-mapping (box, cylindrical, and spherical).
Use up to 99 UV sets for texture layering.
Use extensive UVW mapping tools to directly manipulate texture mapping coordinates.
Work in the modifier stack with texture modifiers, including Camera Map, Material Modifier, UVW mapping modifiers, UV Xform, Map Scaler, and Surface Mapper.
Use the xView Mesh Analyzer to test or query for flipped or overlapping faces, unwelded vertices, missing maps, and object and Material IDs.
Navigate and manage all rendering-related assets in a scene with the Material Editor.
See Rendering for more about Shaders/Materials.

Spline/Extended Spline Modeling

Precise spline-based curve and surface construction tools include loft, one- and two-rail sweep, beveling, extrude, filet, cap, offset, lathe, ruled, mirror, and multisided blend.

Attach, detach, align, stitch together, extend, fillet, or rebuild surfaces with a high degree of control over parameterization and continuity.
Deform, lathe, normalize spline, set spline render properties, sweep, and trim/extend with spline modifiers when modeling with the modifier stack.
Choose from a range of modifiers for direct manipulation of subobject geometry, such as Curve CV, Surface CV, and surface.

General Animation

Benefit from a broad range of tools for keyframe and procedural animation that can be used for almost any parameter in your scene.

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 can be viewed and edited directly in the viewport.

Animation Controllers

A wide range of controllers, both key-based and parametric, may be used to animate the full transform or the position, rotation, or scale of objects.
Key-based controllers, such as Bézier and TCB, store values and interpolation methods in each key, which can be edited with those controls.

Constrained Animation

Animate objects 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.
Constrain objects 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.
Collapse all resulting constrained animation into standard keyframes for further editing.

Procedural Animation

Parametric controllers unique to each controller type store values that affect the animation throughout.
Users can create procedural animation based on numerous built-in controllers including noise, expressions, waveform, spring, and audio. All resulting procedural animation can be collapsed into standard keyframes for further editing.

Script and Expression Controllers

Use custom controllers as scripts and expressions.
Control the animation by any math function as well as by any MAXScript using expressions.
Control the animation by any relationship describable using MAXScript with scripted controllers.
Collapse all resulting script or expression-based animation into standard keyframes for further editing.

List Controllers

Blend multiple animation tracks into a single result using a hierarchy of controllers in a list.
Use list controllers to store different poses and versions of animation on the same object or objects.
Weight and animate the influence of each controller in the list over time.

Reaction Controllers

Set up reactions to make objects respond to the animation of other objects.
Set up and trigger states for reactions with desired values so the reacting object will be controlled without having to be keyed by hand.

Parameter Wiring

Wire together one- and two-way relationships between controllers to offer a more custom method of keying animation.
Implement custom animation controls by wiring UI elements such as sliders and spinners to an object’s animatable tracks.
Control multiple attributes with a single slider.

Track View: Curve Editor and Dope Sheet

Edit keyframe animation track by track using curves along the timeline to more easily visualize the components of the interpolation. Tools for editing curves include limiting, curve drawing, and curve modifiers.
Use the Dope Sheet to edit keys individually or in groups and ranges.
Slide, move, and scale keys or sets of keys in both time and value.
Edit animation track by track by copying, pasting, and instancing controllers.
Use Track Sets to organize complex animation into discrete entities for easier editing.
Precisely control dense animation using soft selection falloff and Reduced Keys that maintain the integrity of the original animation.
Load sound tracks into Track View for easy synchronization with target animation.
View animation before and after the current frame to evaluate object motion.

Modifier Animation
The modifier stack offers animators another procedural approach to animation with the ability to key all modifier parameters.

Use the Point Cache modifier to save and load surface deformations for easy swapping and fast playback.
Use the Morpher modifier as an interface for organizing and animating morphing targets and for progressive morphing support.

Skinning

Use either the Skin or Physique modifier to achieve precise, smooth control of skeletal deformation as joints are moved, even in challenging areas, such as shoulders.
Control skin deformation using direct vertex weights, volumes of vertices defined by envelopes, or both.
Use capabilities such as weight tables, paintable weights, and saving and loading of weights for easy editing and proximity-based transfer between models, providing the accuracy and flexibility needed for complicated characters.
Apply the rigid bind skinning option to animate low-polygon models or as a diagnostic tool for regular skeleton animation.
Use additional modifiers, such as Skin Wrap and Skin Morph, to drive meshes with other meshes and make targeted weighting adjustments in tricky areas.

Character Animation

Get the tools you need to animate sophisticated digital characters.

Biped Overview
Integrated Biped toolset provides fast, intelligent biped, physique, and crowd- animation functionality.

Automate the creation of bipedal and quadrupedal character skeletons to allow animation before the biped skeleton has been determined and retarget onto bipeds/quadrupeds of differing structures.
Use state-of-the-art, intuitive FK/IK blending and powerful IK pivot animation that lets hands and feet roll and rotate around points other than their base pivots.
Use Xtras to create and animate extraneous biped features via FK chains that can be attached to any point and that are parentable to any biped object and animatable in rotation and position. Apply high-level tools for asset sharing, animation layering, and nonlinear editing.
Control the physical forces acting on a character with biped spline dynamics tools; use these tools to calculate biped airborne trajectory, knee bend on landing, and overall balance.
Use Physique to attach skin geometry automatically to a biped or bones hierarchy.
Use the integrated crowd system to control biped characters or any 3ds Max object using intelligent behavioral interactions, like goal seeking and avoidance.
Script or write behaviors as C++ plug-ins; move between behaviors based on any scriptable or programmable criteria using cognitive controllers.

Skeletons and Inverse Kinematics (IK)

Rig characters with custom skeletons using 3ds Max bones, IK solvers, and rigging tools.
Use all animation tools—including expressions, scripts, list controllers, and wiring—with a set of utilities specific to bones to build rigs of any structure and with custom controls, so users see only the UI necessary to animate their characters.
Reduce animation time with four powerful plug-in IK solvers: history-independent, which delivers smooth blending between IK and FK animation and uses preferred angles for more control over the positioning of affected bones; history-dependent, for solving within joint limits and creating machine-like animation; limb, for a lightweight two-bone solver optimized for real-time interactivity and ideal for working with character arm or leg; and spline, a flexible animation system with moveable nodes, efficient animation of skeletal chains (such as spines or tails), and easy-to-use twist and roll controls.

Animation Assets
Both biped and 3ds Max objects have systems for storing, loading, and retargeting animation assets, enabling artists to reuse content and expand the usefulness of each clip. Though the Biped file format is specific to itself and thereby offers unparalleled power and ease of restructuring and retargeting, it can also contain 3ds Max animation that a biped may depend on.

Export animation data from any object or character to an XML file and then reimport with track-to-track mapping, or, in the case of a character, object-by-object control for retargeting onto characters with different proportions from the original.

Motion Mixer
Both biped and 3ds Max objects are supported by the nonlinear animation mixer. Store libraries of motions for use with the mixer; apply and retarget motions to single objects, entire characters, or specific sets of objects and tracks within characters.

Motion Mixer lets users move intelligently between motion clips based on the clip patterns for ultimate smoothness.
Muting and soloing capabilities provide control over each animation sequence in isolation or in the context of other animations.

Animation Layers
Animate both biped and 3ds Max objects in layers, allowing for targeted tweaks on even the densest of animation data without compromising the underlying keyframes.

Parameter Collector
Use this intuitive interface for collecting, managing, and sharing specific sets of animation controls.

Biped Motion Flow

Use the Biped clip network interface for setting up transitions between motions and defining a sequence of movements.
Use Motion Flow with the crowd system to determine the animation behaviors the crowd-driven biped has to choose from.

Biped Copy/Paste
A powerful copy-and-paste system for storing, sharing, and retrieving poses, postures, and tracks on whole bipeds or sets of objects therein, facilitating animation blocking and hand posing.

Biped Workbench
A specialized version of the track view is available for editing, analyzing, and modifying biped animation based on high-level criteria such as acceleration, spikes, and noise.

Biped Footsteps
Animate bipedal characters with footstep gizmos that represent and control the placement of IK constraints for locomotion.

Motion Capture

Easily import and retarget motion capture data—both hierarchical and marker—onto both biped and 3ds Max objects.
Support 3ds Max objects using the HTR and TRC import formats, which can be converted into XML or Biped formats for reuse and retargeting on any character.
Biped supports BVH and CSM data and has tools for extracting IK constraints, reducing keys on any body part within set tolerances, and defining offsets within the character figure.

Modifiers

Select, model, map, and animate objects and subobjects using the modifier stack.

Selection
Move subobject selections up the stack to other modifiers using Mesh Select, Poly Select, Patch Select, and Volume Select.

Animated Deformations

Animated deformers add life to creatures, simulate fluidic effects, and work on all geometry types, including particles.
Modifiers for creating animated deformations include free form, ripple, wave, squeeze, twist, bend, stretch, spherify, noise, displace, skew, and relax.
World Space modifiers operate at the top of the modifier stack and bind objects to animated world conditions, such as surfaces, forces, fields, and deflections.

Modeling and Mapping

Edit mesh, poly, patch, and spline modifiers provide base-level geometry editing tools on parametric objects.
MeshSmooth, TurboSmooth, Subdivide, Tessellate, and HSDS modifiers increase the resolution of objects or subobjects and offer controls specific to each technology.
Optimize and MultiRes reduce the resolution of objects while maintaining important characteristics.
UV Map and UV Unwrap add texture coordinate manipulation tools into any object stack.
Other parametric processes—such as adding custom attributes, capping holes in geometry, painting vertex colors, overriding material IDs, and adjusting surface normals—benefit from modifier stack flexibility.

Space Warps

Add world-space conditions to control the behavior and interactions of all scene objects.

Space Warps—objects that can be bound to geometry and particles—introduce world-space animation effects.
Force-based Space Warps, such as wind and gravity, add natural behavior to selections of objects.
Deflectors contain the animation of objects and particles to enable parametric bouncing and friction.
Modifier-based Space Warps deform many objects in relation to each other.
Space Warps included in dynamics simulations enhance physical realism.

Dynamics

Create effects through the dynamic interaction of geometry, including collisions between rigid and soft bodies.

Create a full range of rigid- and soft-body dynamics simulations with the integrated reactor plug-in, based on the Havok 3.2 solver, and compatible with the 3ds Max Space Warp modifiers.
Use multiple constraints to create intricate and accurate physical relationships between objects.
Use simple constraints, such as springs and dashpots, to create realistic dynamic connections between two objects.
Generate more complex and accurate multiobject simulations with cooperative constraints, such as hinge, car wheel, point-to-point, and rag-doll.
Facilitate trial-and-error iteration using a real-time simulation window facilitates.
Write simulation results into 3ds Max PRS keys and opt to add to list controllers or Biped layers to avoid overwriting existing animation.

Rigid-Body Dynamics (Reactor)

Realistic, high-speed simulations of multiple rigid objects are easy to set up and iterate upon using reactor object collections.
Detailed control over mass, friction, and elasticity lets the user determine each object’s physical characteristics.

Soft-Body Dynamics (Reactor)

Deformable objects and surfaces can interact with rigid bodies and add secondary motion effects, such as clothing, jiggling fat, and floppy ears.

Cloth

Use powerful cloth simulation tools to create realistic fabric simulations and tailor-made clothing for characters with the Integrated Cloth Solver.

Use the integrated cloth-simulation engine to turn almost any 3D object into clothing, or build garments from scratch.
Use local simulation to drape cloth in real time and initiate a clothing state before setting animation keys.
Use cloth simulations in conjunction with other 3ds Max dynamic forces, such as Space Warps.
Animate multiple independent cloth systems with their own objects and forces.
Cache cloth deformation data to the hard drive to allow for nondestructive iterations and to improve playback performance.

Fashion Design
Choose from several preset cloth types and mix fabric types and weights on one garment.

Supports intuitive stitching of flat clothing patterns similar to traditional garment assembly methods.
Use real-world patterns, including jackets with collars, vents, and lapels, and pants with cuffs and pockets, as well as loose or tight-fitting clothing styles. Quickly define and stitch seams to construct garments on characters.
Tailor and customize clothing in the stack—shorten hems, pinch darts, and tighten sleeves—using standard modeling techniques. The cloth-pinching solution addresses the challenge of pinching cloth between two objects, such as under the arm.

Animation

Animate any cloth object to create sails, skins, tents, drapery, and bedding effects.
Clothing moves, folds, and gathers whenever characters move.
Use texture maps to create wrinkles, deforming the cloth.
Apply a variety of cloth constraints for greater control of realistic clothing behavior effects, such as slippery or wet and clingy cloth.
Tear cloth with variable strength and timing.
Set collision objects to cut cloth when they collide.
Create a smooth transition for staged simulations with Inherit Velocity, a tool for blending a new Cloth simulation with one from previous frames.

Cloth-Based Visual Effects
Create inflated, enclosed cloth and cloth-like surfaces, such as cushions or balloons.

View, Edit, and Blend Between Caches
Use multiple cloth caches; blend and interpolate among them.

Particles

Control fully integrated particle effects by forces based on real-world physics or by deformers.

Extensible Integrated Particle System

Seven different particle emitters give artists a wide range of event-driven and non-event-driven particle behaviors, including spray, snow, blizzard, and super spray.
Particle Flow provides a sophisticated, event-driven particle toolset for designing the behavior of a particle based on a series of defined events.
Workflow features include script and expression-based control over particle attributes, motion, and dynamics; direct manipulators for interactive control of particles, fields, and emitters; and the ability to have particles controlled by texture values.
Users can use geometry instancing to place individual objects, or a sequence of objects, onto any particle.
Intuitive control of particles via geometric shapes makes it easier to precisely place particles.
Standard 3ds Max deformer modifiers—such as bend, twist, and taper—can be applied and layered for nonphysically based particle effects.
Collision events can trigger multiple procedural animation effects.

Operators and Tests

Build particle systems using operators that control particle characteristics, such as emission, speed, geometry, and materials.
Build particle event systems using tests—which trigger changes in behavior—and spawning based on characteristics such as age, speed, and collision.
Customize operators and tests using scripts or the particle flow API.

Forces

Bind Space Warps—such as wind, gravity, and vortex—to particle systems and operators to generate world-space conditions.
Add custom forces via the extensive dynamics API.

PFlowAdvanced
PFlowAdanced adds 12 operators to the particle toolkit in the following categories: painting tools, for precise particle placement; Shape Plus, for defining the shape of particles; and Grouping tools, for creating subsets of particles. PFlowAdvanced builds on the previous PFlow functionality while reducing UI complexity.

Multiple Rendering Options

Use multiple renderers, tightly integrated through a consistent rendering interface, to create any 3D modeling effect.

3ds Max Production Renderer

Fast scanline rendering provides production-quality software renders.
Raytrace materials and maps create realistic reflections and refractions.
A full range of effects offer depth of field, motion blur, film grain, hair, fur, and lens-based effects.
Photometric lighting support allows the use of real-world lighting profiles.
Plug-ins for volumetric light and fog, as well as for fire, create atomospheric effects.
Advanced software shader types include anisotropic, metal, and ink ‘n paint (for cartoon looks).
High-quality software particle rendering provides fine control over the assignment of materials to particles.
mental ray® renderer shading is available for use with conventional 3ds Max materials.

Integrated mental ray Renderer

Realize significantly shorter render setup times and improved overall usability with the high-level of integration with mental ray; 3ds Max physical Sun/Sky workflow is also available via mental ray.
Use advanced photorealistic lighting features, such as Global Illumination, caustics, blurry reflections and refractions, ambient occlusion, and motion-blurred particles and contours shading.
Create custom mental ray shaders.
Convert light baking of shadows and lights, including Global Illumination and Final Gather, to file textures or to color-per-vertex data.
Use real-world lighting profiles for rendering or lighting analysis with photometric lighting.
Directly render fur and hair.
Use architectural and car-paint shaders for rich, easy-to-use rendering.
Simplify the lighting of indoor scenes with outdoor lighting and re-creating the lighting of windows, skylights, open doors, and more with Sky Portal.
Use the ProMaterials™ library for a wide variety of physically based mental ray materials based on manufacturing-supplied data and professional images. Materials include wall paint with glossy or matte finishes, solid glass, and concrete.
Save memory with support for Proxy Objects.

mental ray Satellite Software

Contains the same functionality as the integrated mental ray renderer.
Assists in distributing render jobs over processors located across a network.
Includes eight licenses with each 3ds Max license, at no additional charge.

VUE File Renderer

Create VUE files in an editable ASCII format.

Rendering Controls and Effects

Set up and evaluate your scene or create popular effects.

Viewport Renderer

The multithreaded viewport maximizes productivity and creativity; adaptive degradation technology automatically simplifies the scene display to meet user-defined target frame rates.
DirectX® application programming interface viewport shading displays materials as they would appear in other real-time applications.
Provides support for all shader types via MAXScript—including HLSL and Cg shaders—along with shader performance enhancements; works with CgFX files alongside .fx files in the viewport.
mental images’ mental mill® shader language fully integrates with 3ds Max software, vastly simplifying the process of creating hardware-agnostic shaders.
Get immediate feedback on various render settings using Review. Features include
- Graphical processing unit (GPU)-based, real-time shadow support, including support for self-shadowing and up to 64 lights simultaneously.
- Sun/Sky workflow support with interactive previewing of objects/scenes using the 3ds Max Sun/Sky system.
- Support for mental ray architectural and design material settings.
- Full photometric light support, including support for IES files.
- Support for ambient occlusion, HDRI-based lighting, hardware antialiasing, soft shadows, interactive exposure control, and mental mill shaders.

Reveal
Reveal™ functionality lets users visualize and manipulate a given region in both the Viewport and the Framebuffer. The rendered image Framebuffer contains a toolset to quickly validate changes by optionally filtering out objects, regions and/or processes to temporarily balance quality versus speed versus completeness.

Autogenerate regions around selections.
Reuse temporary Final Gather maps at any time.

ActiveShade
Preview window lets the user evaluate lighting and material changes to a scene.

Render Elements

Output multiple components from any software renderer simultaneously for reassembly in a compositor; output elements include diffuse color, lighting, alpha, reflection, refraction, and shadow. Separately store Z-depth and motion vector data for use in post processes.
Use a mental ray render element for extracting HDR data from architecture and design materials, and another element to extract user-defined data from a shader tree.

Render to Texture

Bake each object’s material and lighting into new texture maps.
Supports output per element to allow generation of specific characteristics, such as diffuse color, height, normal, lighting, and mental ray ambient occlusion.

Material Design Workflow

Use the Material Editor to design and edit simple-to-complex shading hierarchies.
Material/Map Navigator displays libraries of textures and images or image swatches for easy management and selection.
Extensive library of 3D procedural maps includes cellular, dent, falloff, marble, noise, particle age, particle motion blur, planet, smoke, stucco, wood, and waves.

Render Management

Use Autodesk® Backburner™ render-management software on an unlimited number of networked machines running the same operating system (mental ray excepted).
Load and save Render Presets that contain settings for active renderers, lighting schemes, and overall render quality; enables studios to share render settings between users, reducing scene setup times and helping maintain consistency across the entire production for most rendering parameters.

Hair and Fur

Easily create hair, fur, and other strand-derived effects with the Hair and Fur modifier.

Creation Tools

Manipulate hair directly in the viewports using Hair selection and styling tools.
Copy and paste hair from one object to another.
Derive hair from splines and convert it to splines or meshes.
Instance any source object as hair strands.
Use Spline Deform to add splines to a set of hairs that can act as control guides so hairs can be posed, keyed, or assigned a dynamic target, with the hair following.

Styling

Deliver a brush-based interface for the creation of hair and fur styles: directly manipulate control hairs along the contours of an object—individually, in groups, or globally—into any number of styles using traditional transformations (move, rotate, and scale) as well as tools for cutting, brushing, and clumping.
Add kinks and frizz to hair and animate frequency and speed.
Save and load more than 10 preset styles.

Rendering
Render hair directly in the 3ds Max scanline renderer or mental ray.

Dynamics and Collisions

Hair can collide with polygons or implicit spheres.
Hair can respond to the dynamic parameters of gravity, stiffness, root holding, and dampening.
Hair and fur systems can be connected to existing dynamic forces such as Space Warps.

ProSound

Add up to 100 audio tracks per animated scene.
Synchronize audio with the viewport play rate, render to match playback speed, or play backwards and forwards (Ping Pong mode).
PCM and compressed audio in AVI and WAV format with up to six output channels.

MAXScript

Use an open interface for customizing and scripting 3ds Max.

Access most features in 3ds Max through scripting.
Easily extend the user interface and automate operations to perform batch processing.
Establish live interfaces to external systems through OLE Automation.
Use the MAXScript ProEditor intelligent interface for working with MAXScript and streamlining the scripting workflow.
The MaxScript debugger supports the display of line numbers.

3ds Max API/SDK

Unlock the power of the 3ds Max 3D modeling, 3D animation, and rendering software architecture for programmers.

Direct Access to Functionality

Extend 3ds Max software with direct access to functionality.
Create any type of geometry, including triangle-based meshes, splines, NURBS, and other geometric forms; create procedural geometry and parameter controls in the command panel.
Develop new object modifiers that alter entire objects, or aspects of objects, such as texture coordinates and material assignments; implement Edit Modifiers to enable editing of specific object types.
Implement Space Warps—object modifiers that affect objects in world space.
Create controllers for animation data of various types.
Create new systems that combine items such as procedural objects, controllers, modifiers, and Space Warps.
Develop new materials, shaders, and textures.
Write image-processing plug-ins that implement different types of filters.
Increase the software’s file-type support with file import/export and image loading/saving plug-ins; develop plug-in renderers, antialiasing filters, and rendering effects plug-ins.
Implement modal utilities, such as 3D paint.
Access mental ray data via the mental ray for 3ds Max SDK.
Access Biped and Particle Flow through separate interfaces.
Use 3ds Max Data Exchange Interface (3DXI)—a streamlined interface fine-tuned for game developers—to efficiently transfer 3ds Max data into a game engine.

Development Resources
Autodesk 3ds Max SDK Help, available with Visual Studio integration, includes the following:

3ds Max Programmer’s Guide and SDK Reference 3DXI Programming Guide
Particle Flow Reference
mental ray Programmer’s Guide
Biped Programmer’s Guide and Reference
MAXScript Programmer’s Guide
Sample source code with project files and a Visual Studio wizard for generating plug-in projects from templates.

Connectivity and Integration

Implement tools for integrating 3ds Max content into production pipelines.

Facilitate team management of complex scenes and animations with xref―an intelligent, external file-referencing feature for scenes, objects, or materials.
Manage absolute and relative file paths (for all asset types, including xrefs), or assign new paths, to keep external references intact when artists share files.
Utilize source control management for in-use assets through Asset Tracker, a feature closely integrated with Autodesk Vault data-management software.

FBX Plug-In

The Autodesk® FBX® software platform-independent 3D authoring and interchange format provides access to 3D content from most 3D vendors and platforms. The FBX file format supports all major 3D data elements, as well as 2D, audio, and video media elements.
Use the free*, downloadable FBX plug-in to integrate 3ds Max into production pipelines—with data integrity safeguarded.
Ongoing plug-in updates make it easy to transfer files between 3ds Max and applications such as Autodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® MotionBuilder® software.

Integration with Autodesk Mudbox

Extensive support for the OBJ file format supports pipelines that rely on both 3ds Max and Autodesk® Mudbox™ software. This support includes

Display of texture coordinates and smoothing groups
Options for triangulating polygons on import, choosing how normals are imported, and saving presets for normal and polygon import

Integration with Revit Architecture

Quickly and accurately import building information models into 3ds Max and then rapidly manipulate in the viewport.
Quickly and accurately transfer Revit® Architecture software scene data―geometry, cameras, lights and materials―into 3ds Max with the FBX-based Recognize scene-loading technology.

Integration with Autodesk Vault

The Autodesk Vault plug-in, which ships with 3ds Max, consolidates 3ds Max assets in a single location, enabling you to automatically track files and manage work in progress.
Easily and safely share, find, and reuse 3ds Max assets in a large-scale production or visualization environment.

Autodesk Combustion Integration

Live integration with Autodesk® Combustion® compositing software via the Material Editor enables you to use in-progress composites as texture maps.
The RPF bitmap format contains channels for 3D data—such as Z-depth, material IDs, UV coordinates, and velocity—that Combustion software uses to better delineate data for compositing.

Autodesk Toxik Integration

Integration with the Autodesk® Toxik™ compositing software lets you quickly composite scene elements, including HDR-rendered elements, in a collaborative setting.
Support for a streamlined content creation/compositing workflow eliminates the need to rerender scenes if lighting intensity is incorrect or a layer needs a perspective change.

Adobe Photoshop Integration
Import Adobe® Photoshop® software PSD files as texture maps using the entire composited image or individual layers. The Viewport Canvas offers support for Photoshop blending modes and quick updating of textures on 3ds Max models.

Adobe Illustrator Object Nodes
Import Adobe® Illustrator® software vector elements as either curves or groups.

Web Integration
The embedded Asset Browser lets the user view web pages and quickly drag supported geometry and bitmap texture files into a scene.

Supported Scene Import Formats
3DS, AI, DDF, DEM, DWG, DXF™ file format, HTR, IAM, IGES, IPT, FLT, LP, LS, MTL, OBJ, PRJ, SHP, STL, TRC, VW, WRL, WRZ.

Supported Scene Export Formats
3DS, AI, ASE, ATR, BLK, DF, DWF™ file format, DWG, DXF, HTR, IGES, LAY, LP, M3G, MTL, OBJ, STL, VW, WRL.

Supported Texture Import Formats
AVI, BMP, CIN, CWS, DDS, EXR, GIF, HDR, ICB, IFL, JPEG, MPEG, MOV, PIC, PNG, PSD, RGB, RLA, RPF, SGI, TGA, TIF, VDA, VST, YUV.

Supported Bitmap Output Formats
AVI, BMP, CIN, DDS, EPS, EXR, HDR, ICB, JPEG, MOV, PIC, PNG, PS, RGB, RLA, RPF, SGI, TGS, TIF, VDA, VST, VUE. Some formats applicable to certain renderers only.

Plug-ins

Visit the Autodesk Developer Network (ADN) Sparks site for an extensive list of third-party plug-ins for 3ds Max software.

*Free software is subject to the terms and conditions of the end-user license agreement that accompanies download of the software.

mental ray is a registered trademark of mental images GmbH licensed for use by Autodesk, Inc.