3ds max - Tool Information - Wow Web Designs


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3ds max

Latest Version:
5

Developer:
Discreet

Category:
Graphics > 3D

Platform:
Windows 98, or NT4

License:
Commercial, List Price $3,495

Rating:
6.0 (1 vote)

Date added:
Nov 19th, 2000

Last updated:
Jul 29th, 2002

Review:
3ds max (aka 3d studio max) is the best selling 3D animation and modeling software for the PC. Feature highlights include support for NURBS, subdivision surfaces and patch modeling; material updates that do not require re-rendering, and multiple camera passes that can be used to create motion blur and depth-of-field effects. 3ds max's interface has never been the most usable, but it gets more and more streamlined in each new release, and the latest version is not an exception.

User reviews:

aquil (9) - Jun 2nd, 2002

Features
7

Usability
5

Performance
7

Documentation
3

Personal Slant
8

Overall 6.0

it's superb tool i have designed a lot of digital images & 3d web animations & other stuffs with the help of this tool....

by Slick Wilson (unregistered) - Mar 1st, 2002
3ds Max is one of the top 3d design tools in use today. It has been used for projects ranging from Max Payne to children's cartoons and deployed on cutting edge hardware such as the PS/2 and Xbox. Powerful - yes, but be prepared for a steep learning curve. There are hundreds of features with thousands of options that allow you to fine tune you simulation environment. Provide gravity to create realistic falling motions... Add wind to make the flag flutter or your characters hair wave... Add a flex modifier to make an object act like rubber or cloth or skin... Add a morph to make your characters smile or talk... and add realistic textures for the perfect look.

But don't stop there. Setup lights and cameras so that you get the exact view that's required for your scene. The lights can be customized for color, texture, size, strength, casting shadows, not-casting shadows and hundreds of other options to handle everything from a bright sun lit meadow to a stygian dark dungeon and everything in between. The cameras offer similar levels of control. Customize the camera lens, focal length, height, field of view, clipping and a boat load of others. In addition, you can animate the camera itself to create Matrix style pan effects, follow your characters as them move around your virtual environment, or zoom in for that tight shot of their face as a TRex lumbers into view. The options are virtually limitless.

On top of the built in functionality, 3ds max can be enhanced with a slew of feature rich plugins. There are plugins available to sculpt a characters face, create realistic water, help animate character movement, create and animate hair, and create fire and/or explosions just to name a few (see http://www.digimation.com for some popular plugins).

3ds Max is designed to support development in the team environment necessary to pull off large projects (movies, cartoons, video games, etc.). Users can import read-only copies of other team members work so that they can rough out their animations in the full environment, even as work is progressing. This means that one team member can build the background "sets" while another crates the actors, keeping in step the whole way. Also of interest in large installations is the network based renderer. This allows the rendering of big projects to be spread across many systems (for instance a dedicated rendering farm) so that the work is not bound by a single system. Without it, projects like a 30 minute cartoon or an hour and a half movie would be painfully slow to render.

When your done creating, you can export your finished product to various formats for publication. These include Adobe Illustrator, AutoCAD, Shockwave and VRML among others. Or, you can render directly to Flash and AVI among others. On top of the generic export formats, many companies release exporters that will create items that can be used in their runtime engine. This is especially prevalent in the video game industry where so many different (and often proprietary) runtime engines are in use. In fact, some games are now shipping the plugins with the software so that players can create custom content. A fine example of this is Auran Trainz which ships plugins to add new trains, cars or decorations to their train simulator.

3ds Max is targeted at the professional user and this is reflected in the price. The $3495 entry price will likely deter most casual users, and with a full suite of plugins, that price could easily top $10,000. The folks at discreet have heard the cry of many casual users, and have released a consumer version of 3ds Max called gmax. While gmax does not contain the full suite of capabilities found in the full product, it does allow users to create custom content for their favorite games. Right now this is available for a few games like Quake III and MS Flight Simulator, but others are coming soon. (Download it for free at http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/)

For the serious professional, who is looking for an environment to create complex animations, can't go wrong by choosing 3ds Max. It is a great product with a proven track record.