Autodesk
3ds Max 2009 is an award-winning 3D modelling
solution designed for game developers, the film
industry and television. The software provides 3D
modelling, animation, rendering and effects. 3ds
Max has become an industry leader, providing an
extensive feature set. In addition to superb
modelling and animation tools, 3ds Max includes
built-in tools for easy-to-use hair/fur, cloth
dynamics and environmental simulations.
When you first open 3ds Max you are presented with four viewports, top, front, side and perspective. Initially these are of equal size but you can change to one of fourteen preset layouts, or you can enlarge or reduce the viewports by moving the dividers around. Images can be imported to be used as a background, for use as a reference when building a model, and the views have options to display everything from wireframe to textured objects.
The user interface can be customized, including shortcuts, menus, toolbars, and colours. You can also add commands and macro scripts to the toolbar. However, you'll save much time if you use the keyboard shortcuts. A useful cardboard cube is supplied which has the commonly used keyboard shortcuts. These are all editable, as are toolbars and right-click menus.
To get started, there are the standard primitive elements like spheres and cubes which you can then turn into an editable poly. Each modification is applied to what 3ds Max calls the modifier stack. The modifier stack and its editing dialog are the keys to managing all aspects of modification. You use these tools to find a particular modifier and adjust its parameters. You can also copy, cut, and paste modifiers between objects, or sets of objects. With the stack feature, no modification has to be permanent. By clicking an entry in the stack, you can go back to the point where you made that modification. You can then rework your decisions, temporarily turn off the modifier, or discard the modifier entirely by deleting it. You can also insert a new modifier, and the changes you make will ripple upward through the stack, changing the current state of the object.
Navigating within a viewport is made easier with the new ViewCube, allowing you to use the mouse to jump quickly to a standard view such as Left or Top. The ViewCube is a cube-shaped widget placed in a corner of each viewport. When acting as an orientation indicator, the ViewCube turns to reflect the current view direction as you re-orient the scene using other tools. When used as an orientation controller, the ViewCube can be dragged, or the faces, edges, or corners can be clicked on, to easily orient the scene to the corresponding view. An alternative way to navigate within a viewport is using Autodesk's SteeringWheels. These save time by combining many of the common navigation tools into a single interface. The SteeringWheels give handy mouse-tip controls for zooming, panning, orbiting, and rewinding through a series of view changes. Both of these features will become standard across Autodesk's 3D products, providing users with consistent navigation tools.
Hair is integrated into 3ds Max, enabling artists to create and manipulate hair directly without having to use a third party plug-in. Hair can be copied and pasted from one object to another and can respond to the dynamic parameters of gravity, stiffness, root holding, and dampening.
For users new to 3ds Max, Autodesk have added 'Learning Movies'. These six videos are just over two minutes each and cover the basics that a more experienced 3D modelling user would need to get going with 3ds Max, such as the user interface, creating and modifying objects, assigning materials and animation.
However, for the absolute beginner there are a number of very clear and informative tutorials that will teach you, step-by-step, how to create and animate in three dimensions. Taking you from basic modelling through to animating characters and creating special effects, each tutorial specifies which aspects of 3D modelling it will teach, how long it should take and what level of user it is aimed at.
For those more familiar with 3ds Max there are a number of other new features, that are well worth considering, many of them aimed at speeding up workflow.
One new feature is Reveal rendering. To check on how a small change looks, rather than having to wait for a lengthy render of an entire scene to complete, Reveal gives more control over what is rendered. Animators can switch from high to low-quality settings and include or exclude features, thus speeding up what might previously have been a lengthy render time.
New with this release is the ProMaterials library, which contains a collection of impressively realistic materials. These are based on manufacturing-supplied data and include professional quality materials such as glossy and matt paints, glass and concrete.
Another new feature speeds up the design of quadrapeds, having a Biped character's hands behave like feet with regards to the ground plane. This dramatically simplifies the number of steps needed to create quadruped animations. The centre of mass can now be animated using the working pivot, as well as the pick pivot. This facilitates the creation of more realistic body movements and certain kinds of dramatic character movements such as falling to the ground.
The new InfoCenter toolbar is an effective way of searching for help, giving faster access to information. It's a bit like using the search index function on a standard help page, but far more powerful. When you enter key words or a phrase in the InfoCenter box, you search the contents of multiple help resources as well as any additional documents and web locations that you have specified. You can use InfoCenter to search multiple sources or search a single file or location. The results are displayed as links on a drop down list. You can click any of these links to display the topic, article, or document required.
An application with as much to offer as 3ds Max is well beyond the scope of this review. It really does excel with it's help and tutorials. With Autodesk's offering of short-term licenses for students this makes it a tempting package for those studying 3d modelling. This really is an industry leader and produces the sort of results you would expect with a product of this calibre. With Autodesk's 3ds Max 2009 it is possible to model anything you want, the only limit is your imagination.
When you first open 3ds Max you are presented with four viewports, top, front, side and perspective. Initially these are of equal size but you can change to one of fourteen preset layouts, or you can enlarge or reduce the viewports by moving the dividers around. Images can be imported to be used as a background, for use as a reference when building a model, and the views have options to display everything from wireframe to textured objects.
The user interface can be customized, including shortcuts, menus, toolbars, and colours. You can also add commands and macro scripts to the toolbar. However, you'll save much time if you use the keyboard shortcuts. A useful cardboard cube is supplied which has the commonly used keyboard shortcuts. These are all editable, as are toolbars and right-click menus.
To get started, there are the standard primitive elements like spheres and cubes which you can then turn into an editable poly. Each modification is applied to what 3ds Max calls the modifier stack. The modifier stack and its editing dialog are the keys to managing all aspects of modification. You use these tools to find a particular modifier and adjust its parameters. You can also copy, cut, and paste modifiers between objects, or sets of objects. With the stack feature, no modification has to be permanent. By clicking an entry in the stack, you can go back to the point where you made that modification. You can then rework your decisions, temporarily turn off the modifier, or discard the modifier entirely by deleting it. You can also insert a new modifier, and the changes you make will ripple upward through the stack, changing the current state of the object.
Navigating within a viewport is made easier with the new ViewCube, allowing you to use the mouse to jump quickly to a standard view such as Left or Top. The ViewCube is a cube-shaped widget placed in a corner of each viewport. When acting as an orientation indicator, the ViewCube turns to reflect the current view direction as you re-orient the scene using other tools. When used as an orientation controller, the ViewCube can be dragged, or the faces, edges, or corners can be clicked on, to easily orient the scene to the corresponding view. An alternative way to navigate within a viewport is using Autodesk's SteeringWheels. These save time by combining many of the common navigation tools into a single interface. The SteeringWheels give handy mouse-tip controls for zooming, panning, orbiting, and rewinding through a series of view changes. Both of these features will become standard across Autodesk's 3D products, providing users with consistent navigation tools.
Hair is integrated into 3ds Max, enabling artists to create and manipulate hair directly without having to use a third party plug-in. Hair can be copied and pasted from one object to another and can respond to the dynamic parameters of gravity, stiffness, root holding, and dampening.
For users new to 3ds Max, Autodesk have added 'Learning Movies'. These six videos are just over two minutes each and cover the basics that a more experienced 3D modelling user would need to get going with 3ds Max, such as the user interface, creating and modifying objects, assigning materials and animation.
However, for the absolute beginner there are a number of very clear and informative tutorials that will teach you, step-by-step, how to create and animate in three dimensions. Taking you from basic modelling through to animating characters and creating special effects, each tutorial specifies which aspects of 3D modelling it will teach, how long it should take and what level of user it is aimed at.
For those more familiar with 3ds Max there are a number of other new features, that are well worth considering, many of them aimed at speeding up workflow.
One new feature is Reveal rendering. To check on how a small change looks, rather than having to wait for a lengthy render of an entire scene to complete, Reveal gives more control over what is rendered. Animators can switch from high to low-quality settings and include or exclude features, thus speeding up what might previously have been a lengthy render time.
New with this release is the ProMaterials library, which contains a collection of impressively realistic materials. These are based on manufacturing-supplied data and include professional quality materials such as glossy and matt paints, glass and concrete.
Another new feature speeds up the design of quadrapeds, having a Biped character's hands behave like feet with regards to the ground plane. This dramatically simplifies the number of steps needed to create quadruped animations. The centre of mass can now be animated using the working pivot, as well as the pick pivot. This facilitates the creation of more realistic body movements and certain kinds of dramatic character movements such as falling to the ground.
The new InfoCenter toolbar is an effective way of searching for help, giving faster access to information. It's a bit like using the search index function on a standard help page, but far more powerful. When you enter key words or a phrase in the InfoCenter box, you search the contents of multiple help resources as well as any additional documents and web locations that you have specified. You can use InfoCenter to search multiple sources or search a single file or location. The results are displayed as links on a drop down list. You can click any of these links to display the topic, article, or document required.
An application with as much to offer as 3ds Max is well beyond the scope of this review. It really does excel with it's help and tutorials. With Autodesk's offering of short-term licenses for students this makes it a tempting package for those studying 3d modelling. This really is an industry leader and produces the sort of results you would expect with a product of this calibre. With Autodesk's 3ds Max 2009 it is possible to model anything you want, the only limit is your imagination.
AutoDesk 3DS Max 2009 Review