has anyone gotten the low down on max 7

[Munz]

Does it have enhanced features for architects or is it mostly for game design?

[MegaPixel]

Hey Munz,

 

The Discreet website has a list of new features and specifications for MAX 7 and from what I can tell after reading through them, it does NOT appear as if 3D Visualization enhancements was their primary goal. It looks like the focus was on character development & animation enhancement with the inclusion of Character Studio.

 

This doesn't mean that there arn't any new useful features for us however. Everyone uses MAX differently but here are some features I think could be useful to the Visualization Community:

 

*Mental Ray 3.3 - IES Lighting now Supported

*Pixel Based Camera Mapping

*First Person Camera Viewport Navigation

*Editable Poly Modifier (Now we can maintain a parametric tree)

*Snapping Improvements (Not sure what they did yet but might be nice)

[Jeff Mottle]

This is what one of the developers sent me detailing the Design/ArchViz features in MAX7. I'll leave it up to you to decide if they are applicable.

 

File Link:

 

File Link has been provided as a subscription drop (i.e. add on to R6) but its now rolled into R7.

 

Mental Ray Improvements:

 

GI computation of mental ray is now fully physically accurate. We get the same results that we get with radiosity. We reworked our internal algorithms to compute accurately IES distributions and bounce the appropriate amount of indirect lighting out of surfaces. Of course, advanced users can control indirect lighting independantly than direct lighting but by default, its geared to provide similar results than what you get with Radiosity. We also support the IES sun now, which was not supported in R6.

 

Clone and Align:

 

Clone and object over an arbitrary list of objects and align them to match their orientation. You can lyout a bunch of symbols in AutoCAD, File Link the drawing and Clone a real 3d chair on top of each symbol. The 3d chairs will inherit the orientation of the symbols. Note that you are not forced to use File Link with this feature, it works "natively" in 3ds max.

 

Snaps improvements:

 

Improvements to the general snapping engine allow for snapping of sub-object gizmo pivot points, includes a magnet feature that ensures objects and gizmos snap to intended targets more reliably, allows artists to assign hot keys to the various snapping options available, and also modelessly cycle through the snap types.

 

First Person Cam

 

Quake like Camera viewport, for flying through the scene interactively.

 

Flat shaded view

 

Too often, the OpenGL (or DX) lighting/shading is interfering with what the artists is working on, especially, when looking at tiny polygons that you try to flip on the right side or when looking at textures.

 

The most problematic polygons are the ones that are almost parallel to you view angle, theses faces turns very dark or almost black.

 

A new flat shaded view (unlit) allows you to see the raw color of polygons easily. It also allows you to see the result of a Render to Texture rendering more accurately.

 

Command Line Rendering Improvements:

Better messages, relative paths support, more hooks to Backburner. You can now create a "job" for backburner that will execute an arbitrary command line task (like a lightscape cmd job!!! Or else).

 

Normals Map

A technique used mainly for games but also good for rendering highly detailed information applied to low polygon count objects. In architecture, that can work for "embossing" a vine or a set of pipes on a brick wall for example.

 

It is also a tool that enable a lot in terms of Virtual Reality presentations.

Object Culling

A performance improvement tool that hides objects on the fly based on their relative importance in the screen (like distance). It allows you to orbit high object count scenes faster.

 

Camera Mapping

Allows people who want to do tweaks of their rendering in Photoshop and re-use theses images as "maps" over objects for further renderings. This is a technique that is used a lot in film but was used for example, by Stack-Studios to enhance renderings with effects such as fog ect (The following image http://www.stack-studios.com/immagini/antique_05_02.jpg was done using a similar technique)

 

Subsurface Scattering Shader

Mental Ray now has a SSS shader that allows you to render plastics, wax etc in a "fast" way or "physically accurate" way

 

Ambient Occlusion Shader

A shader that lets you create "dirt" effects in the corners (among others).

 

(and more ui enhancements, like a hotkey that hides all floaters temporarly etc.)

 

[MegaPixel]

Thanks for sharing that Jeff.

 

I'm sure I'll enjoy some of those features but for the most part, I don't feel as excited as I could be. Perhaps next year, a version 8 might do a better job of kissing up to the Visualization Community.

[Jeff Mottle]

Thanks for sharing that Jeff.

 

I'm sure I'll enjoy some of those features but for the most part, I don't feel as excited as I could be. Perhaps next year, a version 8 might do a better job of kissing up to the Visualization Community.

Yeah I can't really figure out what they are trying to do. Last year MAX was going to be the be all end all for Design/Arch Viz and VIZ was going to fade away. Then VIZ came back and Design/Arch VIZ is all but ignorned for MAX 7. Of course this is nothign new I guess. I just hope we can mantain file compatabilty between the 2. I'm sure in 2 years times it will be back to the cycle of scrapping VIZ again...round and round we go.