3ds Max 2023
| | PRICE £246 / $225 monthly COMPANY Autodesk WEBSITE www.autodesk.co.uk
3 ds Max has had 26 years of development, updates, iterations and new features. Even though, as users, we’d love every update to include new and amazing ground-breaking upgrades, in reality this becomes increasingly unrealistic the more established a piece of software becomes. 3ds Max 2023 includes some really solid updates, but no major new features this time. Let’s dive into updated retopology tools, Physical Material, working pivot changes and support for the GITF file format.
RETOPOLOGY
The third iteration update of 3ds Max 2021 saw the introduction of the Retopology plugin. This provided users with a host of tools to make it easier to work with complex and unclean meshes. This update sees an important improvement to the existing modifier by providing the capabilities of pre-processing a mesh. This is an important addition as it makes it possible to not only derive simple and clean meshes from very complex data sets, but also eliminates the requirement to simplify meshes with a variety of other tools and modifiers such as Prooptimizer or Instant Meshes.
To make use of this, simply add the Retopology modifier, tick Preprocess Mesh and hit Compute. Right before your eyes you’ll see your simplified mesh appear. On top of this you can tick Auto Edge to transfer mesh data such as the Mesh Normals and UV mapping. This ensures the UVS from the more complex mesh get transferred perfectly across to the retopologised and simplified mesh. This really simplifies the whole process and as it’s just a modifier, you are able to turn it on and off at any time.
One of the benefits of this new technology would be how it makes working with increasingly complex scanned and photographic geometry not only easier, but also possible to work with.
PHYSICAL MATERIAL
The Physical Material is a layered material that focuses on slotting into a physically based workflow. 3ds Max have now introduced the Autodesk Standard Surface Compliant mode, which ensures these materials in 3ds Max will render identically in Maya and other packages/tools that support this Autodesk specification as well. This will be excellent news for those who work across these types of packages.
This compliance mode, when activated through the Material Mode drop-down menu, will also give artists access to some additional parameters including ‘Thin Film’ and ‘Sheen’.
WORKING PIVOTS
On the back of the previously released ‘Smart Extrude’ feature, Autodesk has gone further by providing a set of excellent working pivot updates. The working pivot can be placed easily on any part of the active mesh and then oriented to suit your exact requirements. A grid can also be created directly from a working pivot, which makes adding new meshes to existing faces of a model super easy – especially when it’s used in conjunction with Smart Extrude.
These features can be accessed through a dedicated toolbar, and will give artists who do a lot of modelling a small suite of super useful tools that will drastically improve workflows, and the speed with which meshes can be created and edited.
SUPPORT FOR GLTF FILES
Artists who make use of the gltf file format will be glad to see that it is now supported in 3ds Max 2023. This 3D file format is open source and royalty-free. It supports both static and animated models and is widely used in web applications and games.
This file format is gaining traction in the 3D world and so 3ds Max’s support of it couldn’t have come quickly enough. 3ds Max now also includes its own gltf material, which then works seamlessly with the exporter.
This support opens the door for artists to deliver their 3D models to a world of people who don’t own 3ds Max but do have access to the web. This will be useful for artists who want to show their progress to clients, or for companies that want to provide online interactive displays of their products.