3ds Max2011

[nomeradona]

(area.autodesk.com)

(area.autodesk.com)

slate material editor, quick silver hardware,

AND...

Google SketchUp Importer
Efficiently import Google SketchUp sketching software (SKP) version 6 and 7 files into 3ds Max.

[david_h]

this is great. As a Sketchup Lover and a MAX novice, this is gonna be great! Now I just got to get the office to buy it!

[JGA]

We've just had training on MAX 2010 at work with the SKUP importer which was available on subscription for the last few months.
It works pretty well, the materials are imported as Mental Ray ProMaterials.
However, it's nothing like as compatible with Sketchup as the likes of the Twilight renderer, or so easy to get a satisfactory image.
It's probably best that you model & render everything in MAX.
The modelling tools are fantastic, although your brain can melt trying to remember were all the options are!

[david_h]

Amen My brother. VRAy for Max and all those others are great . . .if you have a mad scientist size brain. ..but for us regular mortals . . .

[Pixero]

Finally a new material editor...and iRay.

[EarthMover]

Looks great. The tough part is if you use a lot of commercial plugins for Max. Every new release of Max means none of your plugins or external render engines will work until they slowly get updated to be compatible. I'm still drooling over the Graphite Tools in 2010 Max, but I will stick to '09 for another year or two probably as I'm finally starting to feel very comfortable with it.

[rv1974]

Are there any news about mental ray 2011?

[Pixero]

@rv1974 said:

Are there any news about mental ray 2011?

Well, the big news is iRay.

[nomeradona]

@rv1974 said:

Are there any news about mental ray 2011?

new mental ray will be with 3dsMAx2011

see the complete changes here

This is a more complete list of changes organized slightly differently. It's important to understand that the 2011 release delivers on some aspects of our XBR vision (as did 3ds Max 2010). XBR is being implemented in a series of phases, and with 3ds Max 2011, we can say that Phase 1 is complete. One down, two to go!

1. XBR Graphics
   • New Quicksilver hardware rendering using the GPU
   • Enhanced viewport material display (most 3ds Max legacy shaders were converted to metasl)
   • Improved MetaSL Shaders (performance and quality improvements in many areas)
2. XBR UI
   • New Slate Node-based Material Editor (with integrated metasl workflow)
   • Simplified material/map browsing
   • New Caddy UI for faster modeling
   • Fully customizable ribbon
   • New collapsible command panel
3. Workflow
   • New Local Edits to Containers
   • New object paint feature in Viewport Canvas
   • New layered texture painting features in Viewport Canvas
     • New 3ds Max Composite (based on Autodesk toxik technology)
     • New mental ray 2011
     • Better snapping
     • Shift clicking selects loops or rings intelligently
     • CTRL clicking only adds to the selection sets instead of toggling
     • Bitmap pager changes (user control of paging)
   • New CAT character-animation toolset (with bug fixes and stability improvements)
   • New FBX File Link for Revit files (with several import optimizations)
   • Dynamite VSP for civil visualization (3ds Max Design subscription customers only)
   • New Autodesk Materials library and workflow (over 1,200 presets)
   • Native import of Inventor IPT/IAM files as solids
   • SAT file import/export and solid-model support
   • Native SketchUp file import
   • Improved OpenEXR support
   • Enhanced SGI RGBA file support
4. Misc:
   • New “Save to 3ds Max/Design 2010”
   • 100% plug-in compatible with 3ds Max/Design 2010
   • Windows 7 Support
5. New Third-party tools:
   -Craft Animation free tools-
   - SoftMotionCam, ObserverCam, MultiStateCam, HumanizerCam, PreRigged Models (4)
   • Pixelactive Cityscape free tool for GIS import
6. New Content:
   • (10) Biped and (10) CAT rigged hires characters from aXYZ Design
   • (60) low-poly, mix of trees and palms from Marlin Studios
     -(25) high-quality vehicles from aXYZ Design
   • (50) low-poly, vehicles from Cacheforce
     -(70) pedestrian motion capture clips (male and female)
   • “The Dark” animation (and related files) from NMTrix (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUVMSZSvado)
7. Unsupported features (not documented to work):
   • Exposed mental ray string options for “under-the-hood” manipulation of mental ray
   • Native import of Alias Design files (.WIRE) as surfaces

[Pixero]

I just read somewhere that iRay WONT be part of this release.

[tomot]

Sometimes I get the feeling I'm getting left behind, "too much technology too little time" Any Ideas how this Nvidia GPU and new the new I7 MB's is all going to work, within the next year? It looks to me like the CAD GPU market, which is a lot, lot smaller than the Gaming GPU market, is going to pay a huge price for the privilege of real time rendering.