3ds Max monster thread on Max Underground

[Josef Wienerroither]

I know that this an ArchViz oriented forum, but nevertheless i think this is an interesting thread for anybody related to Max in any way.

http://www.maxunderground.com/archives/19385_autodesk_siggraph_event_news___including_future_of_naiad.html

 

Essentially the thread developed out of frustration over the total lack of Autodesk covering for Max on the Siggraph 2013 shows and the news that NAIAD ( Particle/Fluid sim Autodesk bought a year ago or so) will be integrated into Maya and not Max.

That lead to general exposure of frustration about the lacking 3ds Max development over the last years. ( It was brought up that Max sells multitudes of seats of the other packages like Maya, but has a far smaller devteam and investement put in than Maya. BTW: this is in alignement with my knowledge )

 

Many big names and oldtimers posted in this thread, like Tom Hudson ( original Max developer and Greeble guy), Gary Yost ( formed the Yost group and 3ds Max developer, Yost group leader), previous Max PM Shane Griffith, Franke Delise who is supposed to be 3ds max Senior Product Manager still, but has a total new role inside Autodesk.... ( 3ds Max Senior Product Management seems to be in Limbo currently, no person attached to it )

 

A must read for anybody who is in some way more emotionally related to Max...

Edited July 31, 2013 by spacefrog

[Justin Hunt]

been following this one for the past couple of days, interesting read although not much new that hasn't been said a million times already.

 

Quite funny how arch-viz get bagged. It is interesting that Shane now at at the The Foundry working on Modo.

[beestee]

That was a lot to read, but worth it.

 

I have thought for a while now that if the right people were behind it, and the target was right, a crowd-funded DCC software could be super successful.

 

I saw mention in the thread from one of the thinkbox devs that he doesn't feel that he could convince 500 people to invest $1k in a theoretical DCC software. I would agree, that individual investment target is incorrect and probably impossible. But if he estimates it would take $500,000 total to develop the software then who is to say that 1,700 people wouldn't be interested at $300? Or 2,500 people at $200? I would think it would probably be fairly easy to get 5,000 interested at $100. You would probably get that in your first day if you had the right people behind it, and had a good way to market it to the maker crowd. If the goal is to make an all-purpose swiss army knife for anything 3d, then make it appealing to everyone that would have a use for it and then you wouldn't have to charge a professional price for it, making it available to hobbyists and enthusiasts as well as professionals.

[Justin Hunt]

As a good example look at the development of Modo. Its taken up time now with 701 to start making in-roads into the wider community and begin to look like a viable alternative to Max. its not there yet but is going in the right direction.

 

As for boycotting subscriptions, I'd like to be in the meeting where you try to convince my boss to stop paying subs for a couple of years in the hope that Max will get a bit of loving from Adesk. Especially when our whole pipeline is built around autodesk products. We just cant afford to jump ship.

 

I still say the most viable way to make them change is to be the squeeky wheel and keep an open dialogue. Now we just need them to come to the table for talks.

 

jhv

[Tommy L]

As a good example look at the development of Modo. Its taken up time now with 701 to start making in-roads into the wider community and begin to look like a viable alternative to Max. its not there yet but is going in the right direction.

 

As for boycotting subscriptions, I'd like to be in the meeting where you try to convince my boss to stop paying subs for a couple of years in the hope that Max will get a bit of loving from Adesk. Especially when our whole pipeline is built around autodesk products. We just cant afford to jump ship.

 

I still say the most viable way to make them change is to be the squeeky wheel and keep an open dialogue. Now we just need them to come to the table for talks.

 

jhv

 

Its not often Ill hear of a feature in another 3d program thats not in max. Max is THE swiss army knife of the 3d world. I hope I dont offend the arch-vis community by saying that if you do solely arch vis, you probably use about 5% of the Max toolset, max. Especially if you render with VRay.

Autodesk methodology of dev is not complicated. Buy companies that do stuff AD cant. Integrate.

What happens in reality is 3rd party developers make plugins that fill gaps in their pipeline and then they release those as commercial or free plugins.

Admittedly I didnt read the thread referenced. But really, Max does everything I need. If ever I come up against something I cant do right away its because of a gap in my knowledge, not a flaw in the software. My brain is the weak link.

 

So if Im missing something let me know. If they can buy Nuke, Krakatoa and Speedgrade and throw them all in Max Ill not say no. I am also not on subscription, so maybe Im biased. Or un-biased, someone say un-biased?

[Justin Hunt]

I agree that for 95% of my work Max is more than enough and does just what I need. Much of the workflow is a bit clunky but I suppose that after 15 years we have learnt a few workrounds or just got plain used to it. No one is saying that Max isn't good at what it does, more it could be a lot better and development would be much further than it is if they made a few fundamental changes to the way they operate.

 

I think that for much of the arguments in that thread have been said many many times in the past, which is where the frustration stems. For such an expensive package there are still a lot of things that should have been fixed by now, and what new features are introduced are often half baked. Just take a look at the latest SP for Max, only two documented fixes. What about all the other issues? Possible there is more in the fix and just not documented, possible not. http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/3dsMax2014_SP2_Readme.html

[Nic H]

what would be great is to reintroduce the steering wheel thing or 'caddies'

 

autodesk are clowns, those product managers guys are just muted puppets wheeled out to repeat the company line ' sorry we cant tell you anything ' or 'we bought it all'

[beestee]

...those product managers guys are just muted puppets wheeled out to repeat the company line ' sorry we cant tell you anything ' or 'we bought it all'

 

The best part is that these are usually individuals that could drive the change needed, but they are not the ultimate decision makers and are therefore relegated to the role of "puppet." It is probably why that position for Max is yet again open. They put someone in there capable of fixing the product but hamstring him by dictating what they will do.

 

I voted for the Tom Hudson item at uservoice, but in the back of my mind I think it is a bad idea to subject someone that is still a free thinker to such a position. Although it could be the bucking of the trend needed to turn things around.

[Scott Schroeder]

The problem is that Autodesk is trying to turn max into the easy button solution for all the the fools who post questions like, "How to learn vray plz?" The auto gamma in Max 2014 is a prime example of that. They are trying to improve the software for the 25 cents a render people. The are developing Max in all of the wrong areas.

[Brian Cassil]

I have not read the entire thread (maybe I'll have time for that when I retire), and I haven't been to Siggraph for several years, but I think I get the jist of things.

 

1. Autodesk aquires Naiad and announces integration into Maya.

2. Someones asks about plans to integrate Naiad into Max to which response is "don't get your hopes up".

3. That, (along with recent years of upheaval in the ranks of Max dev team) sends the max community into pandemonium over concerns they are going to kill off Max.

 

My question is what does this mean for the Arch Viz industry? I think the writing is clearly on the wall for Max in FX and games. If you are in one of those industries and are still using Max you are probably way behind the trend. However, for Arch Viz, the integration of Max with other ADSK tools (Revit of course, but also, Civil3D, AutoCAD, etc.) makes it very hard to imagine how they would, or even could, kill Max for OUR industry. I am left wondering if Max will survive as an ArchViz tool primarily, it's really been going that way for a while. Having said that, I do not like the idea of Maya getting all the juicy upgrades and Max left with improved interoperability upgrades. Even if the truth is, most arch viz pros do little with sophisticated fluid dynamics, we still want access to those tools. That's what we didn't like about the Max/Viz relationship, and I don't like the direction this is going either, but I don't think think Max will die... at least not for us.

[Scott Schroeder]

I think it has been a rotating cycle as far as Max and Maya getting attention. For a long time Maya's tools were stuck in a rut as far as development from Autodesk. You had to get user developed tools to make Maya at least half functional as far as poly modeling. If you ever had to model things in Maya in the past it was quite painful if you came over from the max way of doing things. I think just as of 2 years ago Autodesk finally integrated MJPoly tools into Maya.

 

Maya has, and always will be, the custom way of doing your pipeline. If you want to hire a team of TA's to create custom tools, maya was generally the way to go. Max has been, and will continue to be, the more out of the box ready for companies solution. If you want a team of artists, but don't want a bunch of TA's, then Max was the way to go. Think of it as Maya is the DIY furniture build. You get the raw materials and you have to do everything from scratch. Max was more like IKEA. You get the pre-made parts and some assembly may be required, though you might have a few pieces left out or possibly a few extra screws included.

 

Every year there is a fear that Max/Maya is going to go away. Plain and simple, they won't. However, I see a possible future that Brian alludes to where Max slowly gets turned into a visualization tool and Maya gets pushed more towards games/vfx/ high end scene creation. Quite honestly, it makes no sense from an Autodesk standpoint to keep Max and Max Design. Truthfully, I think Max Design will stay.

 

I'm not sure if you are in film/games/vfx that if you use max the writing is on the wall. High end studios still use Max such as Blur, Blizzard (for Warcraft), Ubisoft, EA, and the list goes on. Many places have both Max and Maya. The character folks are in Maya, the environment folks are in Max.