3ds Max 2010 Takes Off
Well it’s been a while since my last post back in March. As you can imagine life has been pretty hectic over the past month with the launch of 3ds Max 2010 and 3ds Max Design 2010.
Both versions have been getting glowing reports from the press (3d world - 8/10 & 9/10, DigitalArts - 4/5), and deservedly so. In my personal opinion this is the best release of 3ds Max/Design we have ever had.
I have decided to dedicate the theme of this post to the mighty airport. Why you ask, well I have spent most of the past month sat in an airport of some description, waiting for delayed flights, drinking terrible coffee, eating soggy pre-packed sandwiches, and one occasion sat on the plane waiting for them to open a stuck door. Rock n’ Roll! And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Anyway let’s get on with the snippets of info - Please ensure your seat is in the upright position, your seatbelt is fastened, all baggage is stowed under your seat, and please remove all electronic equipment.
Me, Twit?
Autodesk (Northern Europe), now has a Twitter account which has recently taken-off from Farnborough. This is full of information as to what us Autodesk folks are up to. A quick and easy resource to find out what events us Demo-pilots will be at and where you can come say hi. (or similar words.)
If you already have a Twitter account, then collect your boarding card and proceed to twitter.com/ADSKNEurope. If not, go sign up now - it’s free.
To make life easier when following ‘tweets’ (as the kids call them) you can use the free Twhirl application, by clicking here.
In-Flight Entertainment
Those clever folks at Adobe have launched a adobe tv site which is packed full of technical resources. This site can be viewed by clicking here.
Optimising 3ds Max Design 2010
Below is some information from Pierre-Felix (mr mental ray and colour) at Autodesk. Before you try this, you might want to run some benchmarks to establish how fast things are without this tweak. Load a sample scene and render it with mr and measure the fps of the viewport. If you’re using 3ds Max 2010 - ignore this as you should already have these tweaks.
You’re going to change some ini settings:
1- locate the “Defaults” folder in your 3ds Max Design 2010 install (usually under Program Files) and copy the “DesignVIZ.MentalRay” folder to a new folder called “performancetest”
2- In the “performancetest” folder, there is a “FactoryDefaults” folder, open the “CurrentDefaults.ini” file in that folder.
3- locate the following strings:
DontRepeatRefMsg=0
InvalidateTMOptimization=0
and change them to
DontRepeatRefMsg=1
InvalidateTMOptimization=1
4- start 3ds Max Design 2010 and launch the Custom UI and Defaults Switcher from the Customize menu
5- pick the newly created “performancetest” folder and quit 3ds Max
6- relaunch 3ds Max Design: now, the mental ray translation of large scenes should be faster (at least, we can confirm that happens with Revit models containing many lights.)
Not only will this affect mental ray performance, but it will also affect general interactivity in large scenes. 3ds Max Design runs a lot better with complex scenes with this change.
Mile-high showreels
View the latest Games showreels by following this link. This showreels are ready for take-off. Please hurry up as your stopping the flight from leaving…...
Looks like my typical seating partner
See some great Mudbox quick start tutorials on Mudboxhub.com. These have been created by the talented Wayne Robson. Theres a lot to take in but form a great grounding in all you need to know about Mudbox. Topics covered include interop with Maya and 3ds Max. Enjoy by clicking here.
Landing Page
This Link takes you to the Autodesk Design Visualisation website. This is full of webcasts, testimonials and white papers. This site is full of important industry information, and has all the relevant links you need for your trip.
Lost in Transit
Ever lost a floating window in 3ds Max/Design and wanted to get it back? Well if you click on the relevant tool/floating dialogue box option, and then press ALT+spacebar, then press ‘M’ for ‘move.’ You will be able to use the arrow keys to move it back onto your screen. This normally happens when swopping from two monitors to one. This has been my life-jacket on numerous occasions.
Inflight safety demos
To download the service pack (sp) 2 for Mudbox, click here. This improves on the already amazing performance. What else can i say?
Engine Splutter
Splutterfish, the acclaimed makers of the Brazil render engine have a range of scripts and tools available for download on their website. Many of these links are Beta, so use with caution. The link can be found here.
Launched with a ribbon
The story of the Ribbon interface used in Most Microsoft applications can be found here. An interesting and long presentation that explains what the ribbon is and where it comes from.
The Ribbon is now implemented in 3ds Max 2010, and 3ds Max Design 2010. This is to hold the 100+ new Graphite modelling tools you should all hopefully be playing with. My favourite has to be the freeform spline/branch tools. Crazily powerful.
Streamlined
An interesting article on design form and the secret language it conveys. Not 3ds Max related, but interesting none-the-less - click here.
Free models
This site is aimed at interior designers to download free content for Autocad and 3d models. The site can be found here. I used to use this site in production and found it to be a great resource.
Airport weather files
Weather data files can be downloaded from the Ecotect website. Click through here. Use these in conjunction with 3ds Max Design’s independantly validated lighting analysis toolset.
This is also an interesting read on the concepts and principles involved. To view this click here.
Mental mill taking off
This download is for the mental images mental mill Artist Edition that allows you to create MetaSL shaders using a node-based interface that work with 3ds Max/Design 2010. Download here…
Ground crew support round up
Double-sided materials not displayed correctly in viewport - View article….
Marquee-select cropping tool is difficult to use on light-colored images - View article…
Running 3ds Max(r) 2009 with Backburner 2007.02 - View article…
User Reference not displayed when Material Editor is open - View article…
Hotfix - Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 - 2009.03.24 View article…
Hotfix - Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 - 2009.04.01 View article…
Xfrog freebies
3ds Max/Design 2010 users can download 100 production quality trees. The full details can be found here. To download the content then click here.
We are now at our final destination. Please ensure you have all your belongings.
See you aboard next time, and as always Happy Max’ing…
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