3DS Max or Max Design make a choice??

[kenpimentel]

I think part of the reason this thread has carried on so long is Ken's statement..."High-end visualization firms, like Neoscape (though there are many others) are expected to stick with the more Entertainment-oriented flavor."...when the general consensus being passed around on CGA over the last week is that we should all go Design. Just a thought but only time will tell.

 

I'm sorry if I confused things. I just meant that some people care more about being associated with the identity of "Entertainment" than the fact that 3ds Max Design might be better suited to them. Just like the clothes we wear, which flavor of max might be part of your identity. Since they are almost totally functionally equivalent, it becomes more of a branding choice.

 

I think that it is more than likely that 3ds Max Design will tend to be the better choice for high-end Design/Vis. Mainly because we'll be focused on making those workflows as slick and easy as possible (via defaults, UI choices, etc). Also, the materials we ship with the product (tutorials/docs) will be bent in that direction. Subscription users currently have access to materials for both flavors.

 

I appreciate you taking the time to hear me out. While I don't share your skills or capabilities with 3ds Max, I still share your passion.

[markf]

Thank you Ken. Just to be sure I understand correctly, I can choose up till February 26th via the subscription center. If I fail to choose by then I will have to choose at the time Max 2010 is released? This will not cost me anything but I will have to specify which I want with my re-seller when 2010 becomes available.

 

Also, I don' have the e-mail from Autodesk any more (inadvertently deleted). I cannot seem to find where, on the subscription site, I would make the choice.

 

Edit- I have tried using Firefox and Internet Explorer to use the subscription web site. I can log on ok but under the Contract Administration section I cannot get any of the links to display. I have disabled pop ups and tried all manner of things to get to this info. I can use 3D Studio Max but I cannot seem to get the subscription website to function. When I click the contact us for help link I also get the same cannot display page errors in Firefox and IE. Frustrating time sink.

 

Edit #2 - I went back to the subscription site and now it allows me to access the links in the Contract Administration. Perhaps the site was having problems. I notice a FAQ for this crossgrade issue. That will not display. I can't find any where to make the choice. I'm hoping someone who still has that e-mail from Autodesk could post the link for making the choice ?

 

Thank you.

Edited February 13, 2009 by markf

[Trick]

Although I slowly understand what's the reasoning behind the forced decision to choose between the flavors, I see a lot of people in the design viz field, that choose for regular Max, because they are afraid that the alternative Design variant will be limited in some way, even if that was in a very distant future. As a marketeer with honest intentions this would really worry me. Even if I feel tempted to choose for the Design flavor, I'm still hesitating, because it may be more directed towards the beginning user, by which the settings will get in the way with the fastest workflow. This may be complete BS looking at all the announcements that have been made in recent days, but there are still these historic events that may have influenced the general consensus regarding direction changes. Some examples:

 

- One of the most revolutionary applications in regard to lighting/rendering, LightScape, has been acquired, (very) partly integrated, and then removed out of the picture

- Motionbuilder, which (next to the expensive all inclusive version) was offered as a far cheaper payed PLE (Personal Learning Edition) by Kaydara, to offer less demanding users, the best in realtime character rigging and animation, was also removed from the scene

- The last dinosaur on the scene, XSI, acquired..for what users sake ?

 

If I were head of AD I would probably have done the same, but as a user the market becomes very narrow, and I only hope that in current times this market stays alive at all !!

[kenpimentel]

Thank you Ken. Just to be sure I understand correctly, I can choose up till February 26th via the subscription center. If I fail to choose by then I will have to choose at the time Max 2010 is released? This will not cost me anything but I will have to specify which I want with my re-seller when 2010 becomes available.

 

If you fail to choose on 2/26 you simply get whichever flavor of 3ds Max you are currently subscribed for. You only need to crossgrade if you want to change. We're not forcing people to change, just giving them a free opportunity to change. Unlike last year, you will not recieve both and then pick which to install. You'll get one or the other.

 

We're going to funnel other questions to Shane's blog on the subject now:

http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/blogs_shane/blog_detail/3ds_max_self_select_program/

 

Ask for further details there so that we can make sure everyone benefits from the answers.

[kenpimentel]

but there are still these historic events that may have influenced the general consensus regarding direction changes.

 

Yes, products do come and go. A good example is VIZ. It is no longer with us. Did we abandon all those thousands of users? No, we built 3ds Max Design for them and welcomed them into the 3ds Max community. We gave an incredible promotion to ensure this would happen (basically for the price of a VIZ subscription you could get 3ds Max). That was a great deal and thousands swept it up. My point is that while the future is unknowable, we do have the past to give us some guidance on how we tend to deal with situations. Since 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design are the same binary and built by a single dev team, it is not exposed to all the risks that all those other software products were. When we build one, we get the other. If it all turns out to be a collosally bad idea, we go back to one - and your data and plug-ins are preserved.

 

I think our recent actions speak well of our intent. If we were headed down the wrong path, we would have created more feature differences in the 2010 releases. There are zero.

[markf]

OK Ken. Thnaks for the clarification. I will refer my questions to the blog link you provided. I am going to take leap of faith and choose to switch to Design.

 

I still can't figure out how to do that on the subscription site.

[vizwhiz]

does xgrading mean That you LOSE your current version?

or is is This in ADDITION and That you can run BOTH versions?

 

which = 2x cost

 

what if, a new feature comes out in the OTHER version and we could

'download' or RENT That new Feature (if needed) on a per project or

 

for a certain amount of fixed TIME withOUT having To buy The complete OTHER package

 

????

 

been using autocad since '88 (and The new releases Tend To FU The previous releases, well at least The parts That worked correctly That did NOT need To be fixed) imho

 

if There is NO difference why have 2 versions?

unless This only = more ca$h for autodesk coffers

 

dazed & confuzed for so long That is now all True

[kenpimentel]

does xgrading mean That you LOSE your current version? or is is This in ADDITION and That you can run BOTH versions?

 

which = 2x cost

 

what if, a new feature comes out in the OTHER version and we could

'download' or RENT That new Feature (if needed) on a per project or

 

unless This only = more ca$h for autodesk coffers

 

dazed & confuzed for so long That is now all True

 

re: xgrade

Yes, you lose the right to use the version you xgraded from.

 

re: xgrade cost

Are you telling me that you want to pay 2X? That's a problem, we were only planning on making it a small maintenance fee. But if you insist it should be the full SRP of max, who am I to complain.

 

re: renting

Interesting idea. I think I'd prefer just to keep everything very simple for everyone and make sure there is nothing so different in each flavor that you feel you need the other one to be successful. That's easier than creating new programs just to fix a problem.

 

re: dazed and confused

I know how you feel. This is getting somewhat exhausting. Not the only forum I'm trying to cover - but it seems people are beginning to worry less about the situation. Certainly concern still exists out there. I'm not dismissing it or anyone.

[Justin Hunt]

what I find quite funny about the outcry across the forums is the gaming and FX guys complaining that you listen more to the architectural industry and vice versa for us vizers.

 

One common thing I have noticed across the boards is the sentiment of not wanting two flavors of the same thing. It must mean something.

 

jhv

[SandmanNinja]

As a former programmer and Systems Analyst, I feel splitting one program into two flavours is just making more work for yourself.

 

Two different sets of source code to maintain, etc.

 

It really only looks like a marketing decision.

 

Of course, you could easily put conditional compilation instructions in your source code, so that you set one variable at the top that says, "This is 3ds" and it ignores the Design bits and "this is design" and it ignores the non-design bits. It would be far easier to maintain and would ensure consistancy throughout both product lines.

[kenpimentel]

As a former programmer and Systems Analyst, I feel splitting one program into two flavours is just making more work for yourself.

 

That is an important point that you're making that I want to reinforce. It is a LOT of extra work to create feature differentiation that also ensures 100% data compatibility. This means that we have to have the code in both flavors so that data always round-trip cleanly between versions.

 

This is yet another good reason NOT to extend the feature differentiation beyond what we've done. I don't know how many different ways we can state it: increasing feature differentiation is hard to do, it has to be done carefully and with the consideration of both sets of affected users - anything else risks destroying what we've built.

[Tommy L]

The more I read, the more blatant it seems. If they are such similar products, using the same 'source code', there is no need to split other than to make more money even though it is not a decision the consumers are happy with. Simple.

[kenpimentel]

The more I read, the more blatant it seems. If they are such similar products, using the same 'source code', there is no need to split other than to make more money even though it is not a decision the consumers are happy with. Simple.

 

Oh, I didn't realize that making money was not a reasonable goal. I assume that you also do things to "make more money"? Yes, I've already stated that the split has driven 3ds Max to record revenues. It hasn't done it by taking anything away from anybody. It still doesn't take anything away from anybody. There are people like yourself that think this is a bad idea and are concerned about where this is going. OK. We get it. I think I've fully expressed our reasoning and why increasing the feature differential without very careful thought will stop us from "making more money". If you think that is all that drives us, then how on earth does increasing the feature difference and enraging customers "make us more money"? I don't get it. What company can succeed by enraging customers?

 

There is a certain segment of people that are simply convinced that our agenda is moving towards a cataclysmic future. There is nothing more that I can say to counter that. If you read my words and look at the actual facts of where we are today, I think most people will give us the benefit of the doubt. I guess we'll see who is right in the fullness of time.

[bluedogok]

I can see the "kernel" staying the same but the differentiation between the two packages being made up by the "plug-ins" that are bundled with each package by Autodesk. I worked on some Unix based programs in the past like Computervision (many years ago) that had a "modular" approach like that built on top of the core program.

 

The interesting thing would be if in the future as more things are added to each divergent program would Autodesk be willing to make the plug-ins available separately so they could be purchased and added to the other flavor. That would seem to alleviate some of the worries if the items were to be available. I know for us we will probably have a mix of licenses, out of our four network licenses we may do 3-Design/1-Max but we haven't made a decision as of yet. For a multi-license office I think that might be fairly common, the problem is for the solo-office and that is where a plug-in feature might work for everyone.

[casewolf]

You all know what?

 

After having read 12 pages of posts and getting extremely little information from Ken (although he wrote pages) I have to state the following:

 

Marketing, making money, thats all. I have not only a design, but also a business background and believe me this is pure marketing. And a poor one, by the way, as it irritates core users and makes entry-level first-timers make a choice they could regret later (by choosing MAX at all).

 

They want to establish a similar thing like Maya has with its different packages. Oh, ups, I forgot, it's now also Autodesk.

 

I simply would care more (rather then some new features) about getting rid of nasty and pain in the a.. crashes in this often very unstable software (in my typical Vray / Npower / RPC - Combination).

If MAX simply would stop creating constant headache because of errors, poor large file handling, display issues, getting a working object snap, blabla, you know all the rest (->fill in your "favorite feature that doesn't work"-problem here

 

AND: I would pay even DOUBLE the price for the software! You know why: It would soon pay off. Yes I'd pay 8000-10.000 Euros (That is 14.000$ currently!) for a reliable software. Think about that Autodesk!

 

P.S.: Many years ago, when I was a student and using an 'inofficial' 3DS-Version to learn I always thought: The bought version will be stable! It's just because of the 'ripping'. I woke up when I bought all the tools for many thousands of Euros and saw: It's all the same.

Edited February 15, 2009 by casewolf

[BrianKitts]

I think half of you are off your rockers and getting worked up just for the sake of taking it out on autodesk. Yes we'd all love a better program that is flawless, and they said it's only one team, so quit crying about it really being two software programs, there's one team building a better application.

 

Jeff put it quite clearly..... and Ken's answer should have reassured all of you that you would have what you need for your field. For those of you who have skipped this part of the thread, please revisit here.. http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/34552-3ds-max-max-design-make-choice-7.html#post241055

 

This should have ended this thread but you can't bring yourself to trust ken's word. For now, I'm satisfied when we get down the road and by chance it comes out false, autodesk will probably get crucified by the industry. But for now, they're safe in my opinion (yes I'm sticking with the Design option)

 

After having read 12 pages of posts and getting extremely little information from Ken (although he wrote pages)

 

I really don't think we should be attacking Ken, he's here trying to answer questions, I'm grateful we have any Autodesk involvement at all. And he has answered all your questions, you just don't accept the answers that are being given to you.

 

If max grew to be one giant huge do-all program it might be so daunting that anyone in the design industry might not be willing to ever pick it up. The answer to this would be a streamlined interface with the same interoperability that makes it easier for those in the design field to use. I think it isn't unreasonable if it grew too big for people to request that they just need the design tools to streamline the learning curve, thus would be the usage of the design package.

 

Not once has anyone said 2010 design will be a remake of the viz/3dsmax split where viz was a watered down version of the master program. Take their promise that the design side will always have anything that designers need and move on with the great program that we all love and get over it people you're starting to make the visualization industry look bad.

Edited February 15, 2009 by BrianKitts

[Nic H]

its easy - the sensible / simple choice is to go with the normal Max 2010, how many of you really need the light analysis tools?

 

saves you from getting burnt in the future as well.

[Nic H]

but if a client was serious about doing lighting analysis they would presumably get a dedicated consultant for that? someone who specialises in it.

 

its kind of like getting draftsmen to do visualizations, they can do a visualization, but it doenst really cut it at the end of the day when compared to a professional image.

 

of course it depends on what you are trying to do, if creating 'real world lighting' is important in your images then yes it may be useful, but i wouldnt imagine the majority of visualizers / clients find this important when compared to a producing aesthetically amazing images

 

the inclusion of polyboost into max 2010 is great news though, i also read that the mental mill material thing can be acessed and developed for vray.

 

anyways onwards with err..working.

[casewolf]

"you can't bring yourself to trust ken's word"

 

With all due respect to Ken and his bravery to stand here in our "inquiry" (Thank you Ken!!): Its not that I don't 'trust Ken'. I think Ken is a good guy and just doing his job and above that, a good one! Cheers!

But: I do not trust Autodesk. And how should I?

 

I am really sorry to say, but there are other companies having 'Fanboys' and being furiosly defended by users of their product. Why is that not the case with Autodesk or Microsoft??? Ask yourself this question.

 

Hint: Those 'other' companys treat their customers as precious input for new product development, care about a friendly and polite licencing (I don't want to repeat some mail-traffic I had recently with Autodesk after I had a hardware crash) and more often then not FIRST remove bugs and THEN add new features (which is not always the case with MS and AD).

 

I am nobody that would be 'cultish' (

 

I am also nobody who is a constant flamer and "Autodesk-Basher", but I made my experiences and it takes years to remove scars. I use MAX as a platform for rendering, as I found out that many other features thi software offers simply do not work reliably or precisely enough in my production workflow (ok, now you may complain about my workflow, do so if you wish).

Even as a rendering-platform 'tool' I often experience crashes due to poor texture support, material editor hangs, crashes, whatsoever. And I know I am not alone with this.

 

You can say: So shut the f*** up and change to another app. and be happy with it! Yes, I thought about it - but there is currently no 'real' alternative left, as the main competitors have been acquired by AD and the shine of mayas star is currently fading.

 

Don't get me wrong: I earn my money with MAX and therefore I AM trusting the software and Autodesk on an existential level, and this is why I think it could work better. Please Autodesk, this is my plea:

 

Don't waste time in conference meetings discussing for hours the 'future marketing direction' of MAX in relation to 'user group profiles'. Simply debug your software and add features wisely after intensive testing. Don't care about 'packages', or feature sets, make your software hassle-free instead. Get rid of relicts and make the App. "reliable", "lean" and "fast". You will gain happy customers and people recommending your products! We will pay happily for this! This is the best marketing and you know that.

[BrianKitts]

how many of you really need the light analysis tools?

 

Those of us that work in architecture firms building projects for LEED certification. If the lighting tools become easy and reliable, it would be great not to have to outsource lighting analysis to know for sure that we will be able to achieve the points for total % of day lighting throughout the space.

[kenpimentel]

Don't waste time in conference meetings discussing for hours the 'future marketing direction' of MAX in relation to 'user group profiles'. Simply debug your software and add features wisely after intensive testing. Don't care about 'packages', or feature sets, make your software hassle-free instead. Get rid of relicts and make the App. "reliable", "lean" and "fast". You will gain happy customers and people recommending your products! We will pay happily for this! This is the best marketing and you know that.

 

Not sure everyone is aware of how much impact a few things have on the perception of 3ds Max stability:

- other plug-ins, scripts can cause 3ds Max to crash

- video drivers can cause 3ds Max to crash (because we're very GPU centric these days)

- not enough RAM can cause 3ds Max to get unstable as you come up against your memory boundary without realizing it. Memory get's fragmented and unusable.

 

We fixed over 300 legacy bugs in 3ds Max 2010 - so we're doing what we can to balance bug-fixing and new features.

 

You can make sure you submit every CER and use CIP so that we can get useful insights into what is causing problems. Please use comments in the CER - we actually might contact you about a crash. We have strict corporate goals to fix a large percentage of CERs.

 

We also are working with partners when the CER identifies them as the responsible party.

 

Finally, 3ds Max 2010 introduces a "tiled" frame buffer for mental ray rendering. This means if you use mr, we manage memory very differently and more efficiently. This increases stability when rendering large resolution images.

[Neil_cg]

Ken, you said earlier that if a tool was made that is just for games, it would only go into the main 3dsmax.

 

Problem is, we're starting to a lot of work in real time visualisation - using exporters to game engines and very game specific tools.

But we started on visualisation and will continue to use that as our main thing, so the obvious choice is design.

 

 

Now a problem arises. If you do go through with the games/vis split, you are forcing a company to buy a second version of max to do what one version alone has been able to do for years. We will need both if we continue to do this.

 

 

So what do you propose we do, apart from buy a few people in the office a second copy of max and have both installed for when we do this? (not taking into account that we dont make enough from the real time stuff to justify that purchase - so if you force a split we simply cannot do it at all)

 

 

I didnt want to come in here and have a go, I was just trying to make a decision. But I thought the main max was for development, and with that comment you made me realise what we do is going to be cut out eventually, or at least we will have inferior tools to do it with.

How on earth you can claim this is tailoring to your users is beyond me. it's a joke and i'm glad it seems the entire industry is anti-autodesk at the moment. You've earnt this shitstorm.

Edited February 16, 2009 by Neil_cg

[kenpimentel]

I think you may be misquoting me. I said that very game-specific features - like a PSP exporter - where you must be a Sony PSP developer, would be something that *probably* exists just in 3ds Max and not 3ds Max Design.

 

Let's get back to facts again:

- 3ds Max has a bunch of very game-specific features today - so does 3ds Max Design. We didn't remove anything from 3ds Max Design that is specific to Games. We could have - but we didn't. So, we're either very inept at pursuing the differentiation that many of you insist we're doing - or we're just being extremely careful with touching any further differentiation.

 

I was simply trying to help the forum understand where differentiation *might* occur. I think the expectation that you would start paying licensing fees to Microsoft for XBOX titles or Sony for PSP, then you're probably not a Design customer anymore.

 

However, for Microsoft and the XNA platform, that has a more accesible mechanism for leveraging the XBOX by anybody, we'd certainly want that to be available for all our users because we're very well aware of the general interest in leveraging these efforts in visualizaiton.

 

So, perhaps I created this problem by trying to help you understand how things *might* differentiate. I think I also offered any of you to make your own suggestions on what we could possibly differentiate further without causing issues. Nothing what I suggested is intended to happen, I'm just speculating with the rest of you. It is very hard to find a simple, logical differentiation that won't involve me spending the rest of my life explaining it to users on forums like these.

[Neil_cg]

If what you are saying about the tools only ever being very specific and nothing general which may be wanted by both groups, then fair enough. But it raises the whole 'whats the point' question again, which I still dont see unfortunatly.

 

Either way, I get the impression that nobody who is allowed to speak about it actually knows autodesks real plans for the next 2 years so theres no way we can know whats going to happen. We're kicking off because we know something is going to happen, and absolutley none of this seems like a good idea for your end user.

(seriously, the 'catering for the user' argument can be solved with a checkbox on the install, if it really is as small of a deal as you're making out)

 

Something we're all going to have to sit on for a few years I think. Lets see what happens at the feature announcement for 2011/12.

(and hope that vray gets finished/up to the standard of max's for xsi asap)

 

 

Did whoever made the decision to force this choice and tell everyone they'd have to spend money to change not take into account the state of the market and that a lot of it's users small firms are struggling? This is the last thing a lot of people needed right now and will have contributed a huge amount to the amount of backlash you're getting.

Edited February 16, 2009 by Neil_cg

[Nic H]

I think I also offered any of you to make your own suggestions on what we could possibly differentiate further without causing issues. Nothing what I suggested is intended to happen, I'm just speculating with the rest of you. It is very hard to find a simple, logical differentiation that won't involve me spending the rest of my life explaining it to users on forums like these.

 

I think the overwhelming majority of customers (from what iv read on various forums do not want different products, its too late to comment when its allready been decided upon unfortunately.